It should be obvious by reading my blog entries over the last few months that I’ve become interesting in aspects of economics. In an effort to understand the current financial crisis, I’ve been trying to read as many different viewpoints on the meltdown as well as general economic theories. To that end, I wanted to point out some of the books I’ve read recently. I’ll also give a rating based on what I thought of it. Too Big To Fail – 4/5 This book discusses the meltdown from the viewpoint of the big financial institutions such as AIG and Lehman Brothers. Aftershock – Protect Yourself and Profit ...

You know, I remember being in a pub in Yaletown with my friend Dave the night Obama was elected. The place was absolutely packed, and other than the people who were seated there early, it was standing room only for everyone else. There were TVs all over the place showing what was going on in the states, and everyone was glued to the TV, waiting to see the results. I’m not at all joking when I say this next part — people cried in the Yaletown Brew Pub when Obama was elected. In Vancouver, Canada, in the heart of one of the most pretentious areas in North America, people cried when the new president ...

Within the United States, there is a strange entity, neither completely public or completely private, that manages the monetary policies of the United States. This entity, The Federal Reserve, has the task of adjusting interest rates, and also attempting to stimulate the economy using various mechanisms such as Quantitative Easing. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, had this to say about a government influenced monetary system: I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy ...

It’s no secret that over the last few decades the economies of North America have changed from ones that favour saving to ones that favour spending. When interest rates were 10%, you could simply leave your money in the bank and watch it grow. Now with inflation rates of around 3% per year (which is typically caused by the government printing more fiat money), your purchasing power will decrease if you leave your money in the bank. That means that most of us are forced to put our savings into the Stock Market Casino and hope that black comes up more often than red. With interest rates hovering ...

When I posted about the iPhone 4 a few weeks ago, a few people thought I might be smoking crack to think that people buying unlocked phones would have any impact on the cell phone industry in Canada. While that still remains to be seen, Rogers just announced that they’re willing to sweeten a 3 year contract by $100, which in my mind is a direct result of the lack of people signing up (or extending their current contract) to a 3 year contract compared to previous iPhone launches. Obviously that’s just my gut feeling, but it’s in line with my previous thinking regarding people wanting to jump from ...

If you do the math, that’s January 2nd, 2010 2011. If all goes according to plan, that’s the day I’ll head out (with only a single backpack in tow) on a little adventure. While I still have a lot to plan for and get ready before then, I’ve set a date to hopefully give me the motivation to finally follow through on it. I don’t really know why, but I’m always a bit hesitant to travel. Maybe it’s all the time I’ve spent living out of suitcases in hotel rooms, or all the trips I went on that were work related (that usually involved 60 hour weeks, and then nights by myself in a hotel). Other than a ...

I’ve been trying to find out ways to get myself out of the apartment in the evenings and get a bit more exercise. I’ve actually being going to the gym quite a bit over the last three months. That’s fine and all, but hitting the elliptical trainer and lifting weights gets a little boring after a while, especially if you don’t have a gym buddy. So, based on some recommendations from some friends, I thought that I’d try out a few yoga classes. Vinyasa Yoga I decided to start with a Vinyasa Yoga drop in class at my gym last Tuesday. The class was pretty small – it had about four girls and two guys ...

The last time I was down in the Caribbean, I took a real shine to eating guacamole. Truthfully, I had always sort of stayed away from it because I thought I wouldn’t like the avocados in it. But really good guacamole is addictive, and I was eating it like it was going out of style in the Caribbean. In fact, I was putting it on hamburgers, hot dogs, chips — you name it. I’ve made about ten batches of guacamole in the last year, each time refining it a bit. It’s actually getting to be pretty good, as evidenced by the number of people who want me to keep making it. So, I thought I’d do up a little ...

I’ve started making small plans for a possible working vacation for a few months. I originally was going to go sometime this fall, but I was starting to feel more and more like it was a bit too rushed. I also wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with Christmas: spending $1,500 on a plane ticket to get somewhere doesn’t make a lot of sense if you’re just going to get on a plane and head back home again a month or so later for Christmas. With that in mind, I’m now targeting January as the month when I’d leave. Over the next few months I’m going to be slowly selling off the things I don’t really need ...

I spent the majority of the day yesterday waiting in a huge line-up at Vancouver’s Pacific Centre Apple store. Doors opened at 7am, but thanks to a late night wine-filled game of Cranium, yours truly wasn’t quite up to snuff at 7am. I strolled down at around 9:15am or so, only to be greeted with a line that not only snaked all the way down the halls inside the mall, but had spilled out onto the streets, wrapping down Granville for about 3/4 of a block. I ran into my friend Dave at the store. Despite a level 4 hangover, Dave managed to get there around 7am and secure a pretty nice spot in line. ...

I’ve been writing about obesity and something called hyper-insulinemia for about as long as I can remember. For those of you who don’t know, many people nowadays have something called metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of symptoms including obesity, high blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, and high cholesterol. The main component of all of these is something called hyper-insulinemia (which is also called insulin resistance). What I just wrote is pretty much accepted as fact nowadays. What is still up for debate is a) whether insulin resistance is the cause or the effect of obesity and ...

I’ve been thinking lately about starting to go to Yoga. I really know nothing about it, other than people go and bend in various directions for an hour or so at a time. I had a few friends in Vancouver who went religiously, guys too, and they always seemed pretty pumped about going. I’ve been trying to come up with more things to do when I’m not working, and things that involve exercise or being healthy are at the top of the list these days. The gym is great and all, but treadmills and dumbbells get a bit boring after a while. I’m also hoping I can meet a few more people in the class and get to ...

Yes sports fans, it’s almost that time. On Friday the highly anticipated successor to the iPhone 3GS is released. My experience so far with Rogers wireless this last week, as well as on launch days in the past, seems to indicate that Friday is going to be a complete gong show for everyone involved. Unlike the previous launches, we now have an interesting option in Canada: we can purchase an unlocked phone from the Apple store. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t believe we’ve ever had that luxury in Canada, at least not with Rogers. I remember getting my first Motorola phone back in 2000 – the guy at ...

Despite having a relatively positive outlook about the economy previously, the Fed today just downgraded all its forecasts and even mentioned the taboo “D” word, deflation. I thought it would be fun to post a few of the more educated comments from CNN here. Keynesian versus Austrian economic theory. Keynes 0, Austrians 1. Now pull up a lawn chair, pop a cold one, and kick back to the soothing hissing sound of every asset class deflating… ~ Jim Koutras I got my beer chilling in the fridge. You do realize that the only reason we’re in this mess is because the Fed flooded the economy with ever ...

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since the HST kicked in, and I thought I’d summarize some of the benefits: camping fees went up from $24 to $30 at Cultus Lake Gas went up about 5 cents per litre in Chilliwack Carbon tax on fuel went up 1.12 cents/litre the local Pharmacy started charging for all bags on July 1st a can of soda went from $1.05 to $1.15 at my favourite coffee shop BC Hydro’s Rate Rider was silently raised from one to four percent Clearly this tax is on its way to causing prices to drop on consumer goods in BC. ...

Today I was up at the lake with my iPad, reading a book in the sun and listening to the sound of the little lake surf. Truthfully, it felt a lot like being in the Caribbean, sipping a beer by a pool in Punta Cana, and it made me miss traveling. While I was enjoying myself reading, my iPad decided to cut my experience short by shutting itself off due to overheating. So, I decided to head back to town and do a bit of thinking. At this point in time, I’m about 50/50 with the possibility of doing some traveling this fall. I can think of a lot of reasons why I should go, but really not many reasons ...

Tim Ferris would most likely classify me as one of The New Rich, those of us who have somehow managed free ourselves from the shackles of the cubicle, and from the typical 9-5 workday. Strangely enough, I don’t much remember what it’s like to work in an office anymore. It’s been nearly one and a half years since I left a 9-5 office job (which had really been a 9-9 job for most of my adult life), and I’ve spend most of that time working from home and from coffee shops. I even managed to spend a few days last summer working shirtless from the comfort of a picnic table up at the lake. I had lunch ...

Down the Drain If Chicken Little were here, he might be staring up at the sky, wondering just how much longer it would be until he could tell everyone he told them so. Without a doubt, the last few weeks in the stock market have been pretty brutal. While the markets have made small gains over the last year, the last few weeks have seen the destruction of most of that value. In fact, the TSX had its worst quarter since the 2008 meltdown. I know most of my investments are down about 6 or 7% in the last month, which is something I’ve gotten used to over the last few years. Thankfully I’m a buy and ...

About six months ago, Dale and I started laying the foundation for the successor to our popular WordPress plugin, WPtouch. We released WPtouch about two years ago, and it’s approaching around one million downloads in the WordPress repository. Aspects of it were also integrated into WordPress.com — it is the default theme on WordPress.com for iPod/iPhone mobile visitors, and represents around 60 million page views a month for mobile visitors. WPtouch 2.0 is a fairly big upgrade to WPtouch, adding approximately 100 new features. First, we redid the entire infrastructure to make the creation of mobile ...

My background obviously isn’t in finance – I’m actually some weird hybrid between an electrical engineer and a physicist. While I understand a lot of the basics in finance, there are still quite a few gaps in my knowledge, and I’m slowly working towards filling those in. Last night I was pretty beat, so I crawled into bed and purchased a book about capitalism and the economy. I actually managed to read most of that in a few hours, and decided I’d grab another book as well. Wouldn’t you know it, I finished that one as well sometime around midnight, and passed out on the couch. Both books gave pretty ...