Blessed by the Potato

A fairly exciting few weeks. My last lecture at UWO (at least until I get invited back), yet my first as a full-fledged PhD. It was not as polished as the version I gave last year, which is a shame since the students this year seemed a little more bright eyed and bushy tailed; that may have been helped by the fact that it was a decent day in an unbelievably mild winter, and not… ugh, I don’t even want to think of last winter.

Then I found out I won tickets to the Book Lover’s Ball, via a contest to write an attention-catching opening line to a novel. The ball is a fundraiser for the Toronto Public Library, so I entered hoping to win since it would be the perfect gift for Wayfare: a lover of both fancy parties and libraries!

The Ball was very much not what I had expected. I know of basically two definitions for ball: a fancy dance party, and a round thing you kick, bat at, or throw. The key part to the first definition being the dancing, and Wikipedia backs me up on that. There was no dancing. There were black ties and ballgowns and an excellent dinner, but no dancing. Which is just as well, because Wayfare is progressing from very pregnant to extremely pregnant, which would have made dancing awkward and painful. While I can see the poetic symmetry between Book and Ball, I think perhaps some more descriptive titles could have been chosen, such as: the Author’s Affair; Book Lover’s Banquet; the Knowledge Feast [which I particularly like since it could also apply to the library itself]; the Library Soiree; the Book Lover’s Benefit; or the Public Library Gala.

We met some famous authors, as well as a number we were assured were famous, though we had to take the organizers’ word for that (certainly more famous than me, anyway, which counts). We were asked to adopt a branch or implored to bid on the charity auctions several times, had some drinks, chatted, had dinner, and then the lights came on and we were asked to leave since people had to get up for work the next day. It was a fun night, and in support of a cause I can easily get behind.

We had a last chance to get dressed up in our finery and have a fancy night out to ourselves before having to worry about babysitters, which was fun. Please, take that as the take-home message before I get into the painful financial blogger OCD part below (in fact, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs, look for the bold text to start the link summary).

The tickets, won in a contest, were free. Given the face value (which granted is in large part a charitable donation), it was quite the contest win and a fantastic gift. Yet we spent hundreds of dollars on a tux and gown to go. Then hundreds more on a hotel room for the night. Then a surprisingly large amount on overnight parking downtown: I figured it would be expensive: $20 or maybe $30 for less than 24 hours near Front St.; I was shocked and angered to find it was $66 for 21 hours. Even though it was the least consequential cost of the evening, it really burned me up. Partly because I didn’t take a few minutes to research my parking options and to know in advance what to expect, and partly because I blindly followed the hotel’s instructions on where to park, and they should have warned me or had some kind of reasonably-priced option (a voucher or something if they don’t have their own lot). All told, the event ended up costing a majority of the vacation budget for the year, though I don’t think we had big vacation plans this year since we’ll have a newborn and I’ll have a new job which may not allow for a vacation this first summer anyway. The whole experience reminded me of the story of Diderot’s dressing gown (which is in recent memory thanks to reading The Wealthy Barber Returns — review to follow).

And speaking of Diderot’s dressing gown and creating new obligations, I now have a winning opening line to a novel, so there is some expectation that I follow that up with, if not a novel, at least a story of some kind. The thing is, I had no inkling of a story to go with that line: I was just reaching for something humourous and attention-catching that would fit within the strict character limit of the twitter contest. But if I’m unemployed anyway, no harm in trying to write a story, I guess (as long as I keep up the job applications)…

Links: The notion of housing risk goes mainstream.

A slew of articles recently on the risks associated with sky-high housing prices, like most everyone is waking up to the reality at once, including: the Globe’s connect-the-dots, Canadian Business’ prediction that the market will crash, and several others.

Macleans is surprisingly straightforward: “Yes, we’re in a bubble, and it will probably pop soon.” which was bolded in the text. I wasn’t happy to see “A whopping 75 per cent of mortgages in Canada are fully insured by Ottawa, according to the Financial Stability Board.” put forward as a reason not to worry.

The Financial Post reports that banks are dumping their exposure to even “prime” mortgages on the CMHC or securitization market. “Financial institutions are required to have mortgage-default insurance when a consumer has less than 20% equity. However, the banks have been seeking insurance on loans with even high downpayments — something not required by law — so they can securitize those bulk lending loans, thereby getting them off their balance sheets and reducing their capital requirements.” This is bringing the CMHC close to its limit for providing coverage, and it’s asking the banks to slow it down.

Just a few weeks ago, the news was dominated by the rush to the bottom in medium-term fixed-rate offerings by the banks. Now, those special offers are coming to an end.

A neat new hedge fund opportunity. Have a read, and no matter what you end up thinking of it, trust me and click on the “invest now” link to have a look at what comes next.

A very short post over at Divestor about selling Rogers Sugar after appreciating so much. I’ve had many such dilemmas this last year or so: with prices on things like Rogers Sugar, REITs, or other low/no-growth dividend payers hitting all time highs, am I being paid to take on equity risk? Sure, they’re towards the less risky, less volatile end of the equity spectrum, but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable locking in at 6%, especially when many preferreds are in the 5% range.

An article about behavioural economics.

Stats Canada is apparently going to refine the CPI calculation, which if it lead to a lowered CPI figure could lead to savings for the government (as many payments are inflation-adjusted). The article indicates that CPI is currently overstated, and I find that a bit odd, as I’ve long thought that CPI was understating inflation. Given the current government’s philosophy on stats, I wouldn’t be surprised if the revision was more about cost savings than data accuracy.

Canadian Capitalist talks about a “barbell” investment strategy. This is perhaps a good example of where combining two extremes doesn’t really give the same result as having a bunch of average stuff, or where increasing risk does not mean increasing returns.

Michael James says his MERQ measure is too extreme to be believable. But it’s really showing the impact of high fees. I still think it should be in dollars (and whenever I get off my butt will do short post on exactly that), but either way the important part of the message is that fees build up and cost an investor dearly.

Warren Buffett chimes in on investing in gold, bonds, or stocks, businesses, and other things. The summary widely picked up is that he isn’t keen on gold, but there’s also this gem: “Bonds promoted as offering risk-free returns are now priced to deliver return-free risk.” John Hempton adds some colour to that notion of investing in stocks rather than gold or bonds.

And after a few posts in a row cheerleading hybrids, news comes out that the Prius is going to get cheaper and better equipped for 2012. I’m kind of torn on that news: on the one hand it’s good for future hybrid owners, as it makes the financial decision even easier (though the Matrix also got stability control standard, so you don’t need to move up as many feature packages on the comparison car), which will be good for helping to get more on the road. On the other hand, reducing the MSRP of future vehicles means mine will now depreciate faster (not that I entertain plans to sell any time soon — I kept the last car until it was ~14 years old).

The teaser page for the Prius C (for compact) is also up, indicating it will get a fuel consumption rating of 3.7 L/100 km and a price tag under $21,000. Just a bit bigger than a $17k Yaris, that could be a tough choice for those that need a cheap, efficient commuter vehicle.