Jeff Weniger is Investment Strategist and Portfolio Manager at BMO Private Bank in Chicago. His talk was called "Game Changers: The Coming Social and Demographic Trends That Will Change the Way you View the World and Your Investments".
We have been in an economic funk for the past 14 years. We feel it will always be this way. Isaac Asimov said in 1964 that future communications will be all sight and sound. Carlos Sims, the world's second riches person, called for a global three-day working week in July 2014. With a 3 day work weeks we would have more time to relax.
Friday seems to be a new Saturday (at the time when people worked half days on Saturday). Now it is hard to get anyone at work on Friday afternoon. Work week has gone from 39 hours to 33 hours, but we need two people to work.
Could we be seeing the end of the rat race? Could we be seeing a recession when really the life of leisure is unfolding? Work is on a downward trend line. A larger proportion of the US population took a vacation while Lehman's reeled than during the benign "Peace Dividend" of the early to mid-1990.
Travel has gone from foot to horse to car/train/bus and now perhaps to a self-driving car. Cooking has gone from manual cooking over a flame to an oven and now to a Microwave.
A child born today may see 18 years of deflation in the cost of higher education. The cost of raising children is about to collapse. College tuition is at an expense apex. For child care you cannot extrapolate to out to eternity. If you look at Day Care inflation vs income, in Texas it went from 26% of income to 58% of income. This cannot go on. When things cannot go on, they stop.
In 15 to 20 years, crude oil will be gone. The price of crude oil will collapse. The Price of solar power is collapsing. It will make crude oil obsolete. When solar becomes a force then energy and utility stocks will be hammered.
In regards to Russian Stability, only a few brave souls predicted the fall of the USSR. The Putin regime is not immune. Russia depends on crude oil to balance its budget. It will not be able to when the price of crude collapses. Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE-XOM) will be hit. Oil companies are in the dino business. Alberta has a 30% dependence on oil and Russian has a 50% dependence on oil.
Real Estate is going to be a problem in Canada. With the fall of the Canadian Dollar to $0.88 US, prices in Canada and US are equal on a PPP basis. Currently in the US, full time jobs are coming back.
On my other blog I am today writing about Canadian Oil Sands (TSX-COS, OTC-COSWF) ... continue. ...
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