October 7th Episode 01:18:19

Welcome to Money Talks. My name is Mike Campbell. I'm really glad you're with me on this Thanksgiving Day weekend, and so will you, at least if you like to have provocative things, things to think about, because I've got Alex Epstein. He's been brave enough to take on the climate lobby, well, I think it's for 10 years. He's got two best-selling books, and simply put, he's been a great man.

He thinks that the conversation should not be so one-sided, should not always be about the negatives of fossil fuels, and should be pros and cons. Much like you would evaluate any other thing you're doing. If you're buying a machine, maybe you're taking a pill when they're doing testing on it, you say, okay, what are the benefits? What are the costs?

Alex has been my guest. Looking forward to it. Also, I've got Ozzy on the latest example of why when politicians say, hey, I care about affordable housing. Well, the evidence suggests very much the opposite. And he's got a new example here that is just mind blowing. At least if you think that adding another 10 or 20 thousand dollars to the cost of a new home, apartment or single detached is a problem. I've also got Victor Dare with me cleaning up the week here. I've got Mike Levy on with me.

So much coming your way. But first, I want to know, at what age were you, you know, your parents used to say, do this because I said so. What age were you when it stopped working for you? Were you nine or 10 or a teenager? Because that's the government's approach on major issues of the day. So the response to COVID, to climate change. I think it's rooted in a deep disrespect for the public. Maybe best illustrated by Hillary Clinton, who was the keynote speaker at the recent Liberal Party convention.

who called those that disagreed with her deplorable. Well, I think it's pretty safe that her goal wasn't to build bridges. Now, I'm not going to bother listing the myriad of other examples that have fueled anti-establishment sentiments.

What's amazing, as Glenn Greenwald states, is that institutions of authority, including corporate media, recognize that they've lost the faith and trust of millions of people who no longer believe anything they say. But they never, ever examine whether their own conduct and mindset is a cause of that. Look, I'm not trying to challenge you on anything you think or the people who think like you. So relax.

You can forget the hate mail. But I am saying that disrespecting people, de facto saying no questions allowed, or government putting pressure on Twitter and Facebook to censor points of view that challenge the government narrative is an ineffective way to bring people on board. It's going to be a failure. There's not even a chance to get people to go, hey, let's agree to disagree. And instead, what it does is it angers and infuriates many while creating distrust in government and its institutions. And I'm going to do more on that

in the quote of the week. But right now, I'm going to focus on the government's fallback when they actually fail to bring people on board, fall back miserably to bring millions of Canadians on board. They've increasingly resorted to some form of restriction on free speech, even censorship, under the guise of stopping the flow of misinformation in order to protect us.

They can increasingly have introduced measures that restrict the criticism. And this week, we added podcasts to that list of content that's going to be subject to government oversight. The question is, do you really think it's going to stop there? Is that the end? Especially given there is a big number of people who also support censorship. Now, I'm proud to say that on Money Talks, I've been chronicling the increasing attacks on free speech for over a decade.

I mean, come on, remember when university speakers were cancelled or the danger of the increasing financial relationship, I think, between government and mainstream media? Or the chill in academia for questioning whatever the official narrative is? I talk about it because free speech is a fundamental freedom. Questioning the status quo is also, though, important to note, it's the foundation of progress. That's how you get innovation, with people asking questions.

But it's important to understand progress, innovation, individual freedom are not the goal. Controlling the public discussion is. With the end that government will control much of the actions of the population. Come on, we saw that in spades during COVID. And it's going to become even more pronounced with the government approved actions on climate change. The right to question the establishment, no. Question the government and its policies. It's the pivotal difference between democratic and totalitarian states. I want you to think about this.

politicians, academics, media commentators, teachers, and other individuals who push for some degree of censorship, come on, in effect, they're pushing for a system that has proven inferior in every measure in terms of quality of life.

inviting critical evaluation, questioning government is our most effective weapon in things like winning the global competition with China, other totalitarian states. As I said, I've been talking about the assault and free speech for over a decade, but the point I want you to understand is it continues to gain momentum. We've got in Europe, the EU has just introduced the digital services act. Well,

Well, in the UK, they just introduced their own online safety bill, which will heavily penalize online platforms for what the government determines is misinformation and harmful. In Canada, the Liberal NDP government pushed Bill C-10, which then, he was the Heritage Minister at the time, Stephen Guilbeault, stated would give the government unprecedented power over what we can and cannot be put on social media.

Now, the legislation didn't pass. Well, at least it didn't go through the Senate. So they introduced Bill C-11. It's referred to as the online censorship bill, and it's been introduced and passed. The Liberal NDP government then introduced Bill C-36. This is the Ontario Civil Liberties calling it, in quotes, a law that grossly violates the fundamental human right of freedom of expression in all cases.

The government is the ultimate judge as to what constitutes misinformation. What should scare the heck out of us, by the way, given that the government and its institutions are a major source of misinformation. Certainly were during COVID, during the truckers convoy, whatever your position was, they put out misinformation on them. They think they're going to be the adjudication. As I posted this week, it's time to choose your side between those favoring restrictions on free speech. And as I said, there are many.

increasing levels of censorship, and that would include Prime Minister Trudeau, the Liberal Party, the NDP, members of the self-described progressive, like, I was looking at one this past couple of weeks, Georgetown's Kennedy Institute of Ethics, who questions whether climate change, so-called denial, should be considered a crime.

So that's on one side. But on the other, you've got those who favor free speech, believing it's the most effective way to expose misinformation. On that side, we have Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jonathan Rauch, Martin Luther King, Salman Rushdie, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, Anne Rand, Noam Chomsky, Barack Obama,

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., John Stuart Mill, Chief Joseph, John Milton, and I'll bet JFK was part of that group too, and I'll bet all members of the armed forces who fought tyranny in World War I and World War II. You can choose which group, but I say don't wait. Choose your side before it's too late.

Alex Epstein is the author of two bestsellers, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and Fossil Future, Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal and Natural Gas, Not Less. He's also the president of the Center for Industrial Progress. He's a widely appreciated speaker throughout North America. Alex, thank you for finding time for us today. Thank you, Mike.

I was wondering, what did it feel like to have such a big target on your back when you dared, you know, going back, I guess, six, seven years and saying, wait a second, there's a moral case for fossil fuels and more, you know, the fossil fuel future that, you know, that I take that the big crime you committed was you said, let's have a fuller discussion of fossil fuels. Let's have a fuller discussion that talks about those cons that we're worried about, but also talks about the benefits.

Well, the target on my back has never really been an issue for me. I mean, in my view, if somebody has a criticism of me and it doesn't make any sense, then it's like a four-year-old criticizing me for not believing in Santa Claus. And if they have a criticism of me that makes sense, then I take that seriously and learn from it. But the target thing hasn't been an issue. Actually, the thing that's been more of an issue is I've been at this for 16 years, and it's taken a long time for people to really be interested in this issue.

And by this issue, I mean fossil fuels as a whole. The whole focus has been, hey, what are the negatives of fossil fuels? Let's get rid of them as quickly as possible and not talking about the positives. I think finally now in the past few years, people are waking up and saying, wait, as you said,

Let's have a fuller picture discussion. If we're talking about potentially getting rid of fossil fuels, let's factor in the benefits. And when you do that, you realize getting rid of fossil fuels is the last thing you want to do. We actually need more of them for the foreseeable future.

Well, did the energy crisis last year in Europe, you know, that obviously produced these record high prices and fears about freezing in the winter, you know, all the other ramifications of that. Has that changed the debate? I mean, because you sort of think you didn't have to explain you kind of need energy now, guys. You know, I just wondered if that had any kind of fundamental shift.

I don't know if it's at the level of a fundamental shift, but it's definitely a shift. So I don't believe that crises by themselves educate the public and move them in the right direction, in part because the people who cause the crisis often have a distorted interpretation of it. So even if you look at what happened in Europe,

It's pretty obvious that when you restrict the supply of fossil fuels, you restrict transportation, you restrict relationships with free countries who could give you fossil fuels, including us. You ban fracking, all this stuff. But you still need fossil fuels because unreliable solar and wind can't actually replace them. Then you become dangerously dependent on unfree regimes such as Russia. This is, I think, clearly what happened. But the kind of solar and wind crowd said, no, no, no, no. We should have just done more solar and wind.

That would have somehow saved us. There's no foundation to this at all because when solar and wind are in short supply, you need nearly 100% backup. And so you need a lot of natural gas, no matter how much solar and wind you have. And so if you cut off your supply of natural gas, you're just going to have problems. But I do think...

It's enough common sense that the anti-fossil fuel movement caused the disastrous shortage of fossil fuels, that people are more open to the truth than ever. And it's more urgent because people are suffering the consequences of lack of energy. And that's where I felt like there's a great opportunity for people who've been right about this issue to educate the public. So I've certainly seen a big uptake in my own ideas and my own thinking. Fossil Future came out in May of last year, and that was good timing in the sense of people are really...

aware of, hey, we have shortages of fossil fuels. Maybe we're trying to move off them too quickly. And then I point out, well, we haven't even moved off of them at all. We've just slowed the growth. And that's been a disaster. So maybe it would be, as I've said, the apocalypse if you actually tried to eliminate them by 2050.

Well, I look at the about face in Germany also, you know, I mean, it's one of those, we have a big file called, you can't make this stuff up. And one has to be that the Germans, you know, turn about face and all of a sudden become the major coal importer, you know, and there's many other examples, but, you know, Germany was sort of the poster child for the green revolution. They spent so much money on it, et cetera, and then end up having to import coal because of,

such fundamental things as you've just outlined. But for me, it was always, you didn't know the sun didn't shine every day. You didn't know. In Germany. Yeah. In Germany, no less. I'm in California and we have problems with solar, but in Germany. Yeah. Without any preparation though. I mean, while they still scale out the nuclear plants, you know, at some fundamental level though. And as you said, just forced reliance on Russia as an example.

So I just one thing that might put this into perspective for people is my analysis of the whole kind of energy transition movement and green energy movement is not that it's actually an attempt to produce a superior type of energy.

I think there are many reasons not to think that it is. And one is it hasn't embraced nuclear. It's rejected nuclear. It's stunted the development of nuclear. It also has a lot of hostility toward hydro and very revealing. There's a lot of hostility toward mining, which in enormous quantities, we might talk about unprecedented quantities is necessary for even these hypothetical solar and wind and battery.

So my view is this is actually, I talk about this in chapter three of Fossil Future, it's an anti-human impact movement. It's a movement driven by the belief that it's wrong for us to impact nature. And today, above all, it's wrong for us to impact the climate in any way. And we should just eliminate our impact at all costs.

And they don't really care about energy. And in fact, there's a hostility toward energy because if you think of what energy does, it powers machines that allow us to have a lot of impact. So the leaders of the green movement actually don't like energy and are on the record saying we don't want infinite energy because that would, quote, ruin the planet, even though it would make human life amazing. And when you look at it as it's not a cleaner energy movement, right?

It is an anti-human impact movement. It makes sense of all their positions. And it also makes sense of why their energy ideas are retarded.

Right. Because they don't they're they're not real energy ideas that they want to compete in the market. It's that they are energy. They're just fake rationalizations for let us get rid of fossil fuels. It's basically if you let us get rid of fossil fuels, if you shut down the coal plants and the gas plants and even the nuclear plants, again, is absurd. And you shut down the pipelines, you don't build anything. Everything will be fine because we can magically make it work with solar and wind.

But it's just a stupid, fake reassurance. It's not a real attempt. If they were really interested in energy, they'd embrace nuclear hydro and they would actually want to compete. They'd actually have real ideas they were willing to compete and test with, not get rid of what works and then have this fake solution that we're totally dependent on.

Let's stay on nuclear for a moment there because, as you say, I think it expresses well the fundamental difference that you've approached this issue. What's the purpose of energy? Why are we doing all of this stuff? And I think you're absolutely right. It certainly exposes that it's not about clean energy. It's not about emissions because obviously you choose nuclear. I mean, I know you go down in the books about look at the different sources we're choosing. And is this the first time in history we've chosen a source

that is less reliable, more expensive, and far more just problematic. It's not the most effective, efficient source of energy.

Well, so yeah, with solar and wind versus nuclear. And generally you have this very strong tendency throughout history to go to more dense forms of energy versus less dense and then more naturally stored forms of energy. This is something that gets overlooked, but all the major forms of energy we use today that are cost effective. So, uh, fossil fuels and nuclear and hydro, they have this characteristic of nature stores the energy for you and then you refine it and release it. Uh,

That saves you the trouble of storing the energy yourself, which turns out to be incredibly expensive. I've run the numbers on Elon Musk's best battery prices. To back up one day's worth of world energy is $190 trillion. So that's twice global GDP. So...

Storing energy ourselves, we are not very good at doing cheaply. So natural storage is a huge issue. So you look at nuclear is naturally stored, naturally concentrated, even much more so than fossil fuels. That was the logical direction to go in once we started to harness it. But instead, the green movement, because it's deeply hostile to all human impact,

including new forms of impact like splitting the atom. Plus, they didn't like the prospect of cheap energy for everyone. They basically criminalized nuclear. And nuclear has been stagnating for decades and decades and decades. That's something I'm trying to reverse. But it does, because nuclear has not reached its potential at all,

We cannot at all replace fossil fuels with it in significant quantities for a long time. So I'm doing my best to liberate nuclear. But the idea that if you think nuclear is going to replace fossil fuels very soon, that is a disconnect from reality.

And let's come back to your approach and the structure that you've used, the framework you've used. And let's talk a little bit about the obviously a very opposite view when you talk about the goal is to have humanity flourish. Because, again, we've seen many examples that's not the case.

I'm still getting over, and it's what, how many years later, three years later, the Glasgow Agreement that basically said Western nations wouldn't finance fossil fuels in Africa, which basically then said, hey, you guys stay in poverty, energy poverty and poverty are the same thing, your lifestyle, your life, living conditions. So let's talk more about human flourishing and what you mean by that and where fossil fuels fit into that scenario.

Sure. And the context of talking about human flourishing is when we're talking about energy or anything else, there's a question of what is our goal? What goal does a good policy achieve versus a bad policy does the opposite? And when we're talking about energy in particular and global energy, what's the ultimate thing we're after? And

I think what it is, is it's if you're talking about global issues, it's human flourishing or advancing human flourishing. So as many people as possible have the opportunity to flourish, which means long, healthy, opportunity filled lives. And that may sound like common sense. Doesn't everyone want that? But in practice, everyone doesn't want that because the goal we have with energy today is mainly it being non-carbon.

or non-CO2. That's the leading goal in energy is net zero. It's even the leading goal in global politics, not just energy. But notice the focus is not on how do we have global empowerment? How do we give low cost, reliable energy to as many people as possible or make it available to as many people as possible? It's how can we eliminate our impact on climate?

And if that's your goal, then you're not going to have much energy given energy economics. And so my view is you factor in the climate issue insofar as there's an issue, but it's an aspect of human flourishing. So you want the policy that's best for human flourishing. And then insofar as we have negative climate impacts, we can factor that in. But you also have to factor in all the benefits you get from fossil fuels, including, I talk about a lot, your ability to neutralize any climate negatives with things like irrigation and sturdy buildings and heating and air conditioning.

etc. And when you do that, it's really clear we need more fossil fuels. But I just want to point out most people are not thinking about unwittingly, I think, but they're not thinking about energy in pro-human terms. And just to give an example, most people don't think at all about the 3 billion people who use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. They think a lot more about whether a polar bear has to move from one piece of ice to another.

Like that shows that we're not focused on advancing human flourishing. We're focused on eliminating our climate impact at all costs. Right.

I think that sums up well, though, this distinction, because as you say, we look at policies and in Canada, I say we're the leading virtue signalers in the world, you know, when it comes to climate. But we do, we assess all policy as or activity, I should say, activity of humans as what's the impact on the climate as opposed to the impact on humanity. I think that's important.

A key distinction, of course, you pioneered, but one that is so important to bring to our attention is which is it? Is the climate more important than human welfare? And obviously, some people have chosen the climate. Well, and the way you put it is important because notice they're putting it as the climate.

So I would put it as climate livability as an aspect of human flourishing, right? We want a relationship with our atmospheric surroundings where we can derive as many benefits from it and have as few harms from it. But when they talk about the climate,

It has a religious quality of it's this superior thing that we should sacrifice to. And that's the way it's discussed. Like we need to preserve the climate. You just think concretely, the climate is just, you know, our atmospheric surroundings and it can be very deadly. And why would we think of it as we want to keep it exactly the same? Ideally, I was just in, I live in California, but I was just in Austin, Texas.

which is always hot this time of year. It's October. And the people in Austin would love to be able to make it cooler in October. And I think in the future, right now we do it through air conditioning, which is pretty good. But I think in the future, people will want to do and be able to do more macro things like, hey, can we cool it down? We shouldn't be worshiping the climate.

as this perfect thing that we inherited, we should think of it as this is something we want to have as good as possible, have as good a relationship with as possible. And number one thing is you cannot be safe from climate without a whole lot of energy. That's why as we've used much more energy, the rate of death from climate disasters like storms and floods and drought has gone down by a factor of 50 because

If you have a lot of energy, you can take the naturally dangerous climate and any hypothetical climate and make it safe. If you don't have energy, then any climate is going to kill you. And Canadians should know this. The obsession in Canada with global warming, when Canada would be one of the most direct beneficiaries of warming, really shows it's this religious opposition to impact. It's not at all a concern about human life.

Well, and again, for our context is 1.5% of the emissions, global emissions are coming out of Canada. And again, I'm just, I can't get over in reading actually the moral case for fossil fuels and then fossil future. Just,

Again, you really start to appreciate that the focus has not been on people or well-being. I'm sensitive to what happened. I lived in India for quite a while, and I'm sensitive to how they're ignored. And Prime Minister Modi said that himself.

you know, when you go to, it was in Glasgow, you know, said, I'm not signing this thing, you know, and you see that they appreciate this direct link between fossil, sorry, energy availability to their population and standard of living. And they're not going to let that go, but,

in opposition to the West, where that's not a primary concern in any way. It has never shown any indication it's a primary concern. And again, that comes back to the premise and the structure that you use. Let me talk a little bit about the cons of using energy. So you're not saying there's no

climate change or global warming, whatever way the latest phrase is. If we were talking, whatever, 40 years ago, we said climate cooling, you know, but you're not in opposition to that. You're just saying, let's weigh the measure of tackling that with, you know, the benefits. Well, and also, yeah, I mean, for sure, anything, you should always be looking at benefits and side effects and weighing them carefully. But there are two crucial considerations beyond what I've already said and what you just said, which is you need to obviously look at the benefits of

You need to, when you're looking at climate side effects in particular, you need to be open to negative and positive ones, which is quite rare. It's usually assumed that they can only be negative. That's a religious view. That's just the belief that all our impact is bad. You have to be clinical. No, no, no. If we make it warmer in a given region, sometimes that'll be net good. Sometimes it'll be net bad. And if you look at it, far more people die from cold than from heat. Even in India, more people die of cold than of heat.

And then warming in all the models and in history tends to be more in colder places. So there's actually a lot of things to think that warming has some benefits. Greening has very significant benefits from more CO2. And then you also look at adverse things like more heat waves in certain regions and sea level rises and how significant are those and does it affect storms? So I'm just saying one thing is you need to be very clinical and not have this anti-human bias that everything is bad, let alone catastrophic.

The other thing you need to factor in is that one of the key benefits of fossil fuels is what I call climate mastery, the ability to neutralize climate danger. This is very important because if we add any additional climate danger to nature through our impacts, like more heat waves or sea level rises, we have to recognize the same fossil fuels that hypothetically add that danger also add a huge measure of safety.

Because they allow us to neutralize climate danger. So drought is a really good example of fossil fuels increase the incidence of drought in some region. They also dramatically increase the incidence of irrigation and the incidence of crop transport. And that phenomenon is a big reason why drought related deaths are down by a factor of 100.

over the past 100 years. So fossil fuels, you think of them like a prescription drug, you weigh benefits and side effects, except fossil fuels have this magical thing where their benefits can actually cure their side effects. And that is very unusual among technologies.

Let me come back to the sources of information because that's another one. I'll read some, uh, the media has certainly been one sided in this and that's been a huge problem for me from the get go, uh, that it's just presented the one side and that's where you came in and it was a lonely voice for sure. You know, at first. And, uh,

The public is under the gun here. Where do you get quality sources? Because I know that you present a ton of research, which I appreciated in the book. That was a real highlight for me. I want to be able to check it out. I'll think for myself, etc. What do we do with the problem of, I think, a lot of erroneous sources out there? Well...

The easiest thing I can say is look at our stuff because we go through a lot of effort. I mean, hell, arguably to be accurate. So I have a website in particular called energytalkingpoints.com that is designed to give you very succinct points on every imaginable issue. And all of that is referenced just like everything in Fossil Future is referenced.

And a lot of books have just fake references. They'll just reference, hey, here's a PDF where somebody who agrees with me said the same thing that I do. We never do that, right? I mean, this is primary source stuff, very, very careful references. So I'd say we do that. It's hard. I have a team, fortunately, and one researcher in particular whom I have check out everything. It's really hard, even with sources that I tend to agree with,

to trust them because so much of presenting quote unquote research today is really just to persuade people of a preexisting narrative that you have. So sometimes I'll see people say like, oh, you know, they'll spread something on, oh, volcanoes have had just as much impact on climate as humans. And that's not true.

Or humans haven't, you know, we only contribute a tiny percent of the CO2 to the atmosphere. That's misleading. We've contributed, you know, it's gone from 0.03% to 0.04%. So we've increased it about 50%. And let alone the other side, which is just a total train wreck of just total distortions. And then they call it, and then of course, then they censor things or suppress things that they don't like.

So it's really hard to do. I would just say in general, look at how they source things. Do they actually use primary sources? Check out people's sources once in a while.

And then one thing is at least check out people's thinking. So are they actually being even handed? Are they actually looking at positives and negatives of things? Or do they just only talk about one or the other? That's an easy way to... I have a lot of ways of discrediting sources that I talk about in Fossil Future. It's hard to find ones that are credible.

Yeah. Tell me the website again. We're going to put it up on the energy talking points.com. Yeah. Energy talking points.com. We'll put it up on our sites too. And our social media, because I think I found it a very effective in the way you say, it's just a bullet point, but I love the references. As I say, I loved it in the book. I just think, you know, give me, show some respect,

show some respect to me in the broader audience by giving me some facts, letting me do some thinking also. So I thought that was a huge strong point in a world that's sort of awash with all sorts of, as you say, the conclusion's already drawn. Now I'll give you some evidence, you know, or even fudge the evidence a little bit. It's really tough. You know, I wish...

it's self-serving to say, but I wish we had energy talking points and that kind of level of thing in other fields. Cause I just, I tend to not trust things that I hear in any kind of, even with news cause it's distorted and,

It's just, yeah, people have this idea that the goal is to just, it's often political. And I don't have a political party, but their party to win. We need to win. Versus my view is my views should come from the facts and from values that I can clearly state and thinking methods I can clearly state. And then those will change.

If facts change or if somebody refutes me. So, for example, if somebody in five years comes up with a form of nuclear energy that I just thought was impossible to scale as quickly as they've been able to do it, and they've been able to do it such that they can really quickly scale.

You know, they could somehow really quickly replace fossil fuels around the world. I mean, to my knowledge, this is impossible. But if that happens, then you can believe I will be on that bandwagon and doing as much as I can to promote that versus just trying to shoot holes in it because I'm pro fossil fuels. I don't fossil fuels are just a means to an end. Right. Fossil fuels are a means to an end of human beings being empowered. Right.

And then flourishing and my own work and reputation is just based on, I think, being truthful and thinking about things in a rational and pro-human way. So I think the more you have that attitude that your job is to convey the truth, given your values, then you can actually be accurate versus my goal is for Republicans to win or something like this or for the fossil fuel industry.

When I've told them straight up, like, I love the fossil fuel industry, but somebody asked, like, what's going to happen to our jobs? And my view is, well, if somebody comes up with a better product, I absolutely want you to lose your job. But that's not happening. So we actually need more of them. But it's not out of sentiment. It's just that's the fact.

Now, I know I want to respect your time because I know you've got another appointment. So let me just finish with this. If you could sort of wave your magic wand and you've been alluding to many of this. But what are the biggest what when I say what's the biggest myth out there in this whole sort of challenge, the climate debate? What does something come to mind or one or two things come to mind? Well, I guess I would say from the books, I mean, I don't want to hear from the books. It's we can live without fossil fuels immediately. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would.

I would just have to do it at the highest level. And by the way, on energytalkingpoints.com, this should be up. If not, it's up on my sub stack, which is alexepstein.substack.com. We have a set of messages about net zero, but it's sort of a comprehensive thing. I highly recommend that because that sort of gives everyone

every myth, but at the highest level, I think that the myth is that fossil fuels are making the world a worse and worse place to live above all by causing climate catastrophe. And the truth is they're making the world a better and better place to live, including through climate mastery. So people just have a totally distorted view of the world as a whole and fossil fuels role in it, including their role in the state of, of climate change.

And ultimately, I think it's because the leaders of the anti-fossil fuel movement don't evaluate the earth, to go back to our recurring theme, in human terms. They're not looking at the earth really from the perspective of how good an environment is this for human flourishing and what a fossil fuel has done there. Because if you look at it from that perspective, fossil fuels have made the world a much better place for human flourishing, including for climate livability. They look at it from the perspective of,

how much impact have we had? And impact is bad. And so they see a world where we've had a lot of impact, including some climate impact. And they say that's a terrible world because their standard isn't human flourishing. It's eliminating human impact. But my standard is advancing human flourishing. So I say, hey, the world has been made great by fossil fuels. It's getting better and better. And let's keep doing that until and unless we have a better way of getting the energy because the energy is the most important thing.

Just quickly, the other side, because you mentioned net zero, it's fascinating to see the British prime minister sort of back off that now because finally someone's talking about the cost of it. You realize how much it's going to cost you. And I think that's the first crack, you know,

I'm sure every one of them had to come to that conclusion, but it's the first public crack in that sort of net zero. It's a little bit of a – I mean my view is net zero should not be discussed by civilized people. If you look at those talking points on alexupstandout and substack.com, because it really – as I said, reducing even the growth of fossil fuels.

has caused global energy crisis, and you're talking about eliminating them in 27 years, that is, I believe, net zero if implemented fully, which will not happen. But if implemented fully, which everyone is saying it should happen, would be the most destructive act in human history in terms of number of lives ended prematurely and amount

of suffering. I mean, 8 billion people depend on fertilizer from natural gas and diesel fueled agriculture. We have no near term replacement for either one. So you're talking about starving the world literally.

It's good that Rishi is backtracking a little bit, but they shouldn't even be discussing net zero. In that article, I give the alternative of energy freedom, including the only way to address emissions rationally and humanely and practically is by innovating truly cost-competitive alternatives. That should be all the focus in terms of emissions.

So how to get nuclear cheaper, how to liberate it, how to get geothermal cheaper. Is there a way to combine solar and wind cheaply with other things? Those are the kinds of things to do, not make a commitment to get rid of the fossil fuels that 8 billion people need to live.

You know, and plus the 6,000 other products that are made, you know, with a petroleum base and all of these things haven't been addressed, which I think is, you know, a huge shortcoming. But the book is called Fossil Future, Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal and Natural Gas, Not Less, alexepstein.substack.com. And as I say...

The work you do, I think, is fascinating. And I think it's so, you know, it's been a lonely job. I'm hoping there's going to be, you know, there's room for practicality and your distinctions that you make within the research, I think, are absolutely essential. And I appreciate that you take time to share them with us. And thank you. And I'll just say it's a little lonely, but it's a fun job. So I encourage everyone else to join me in doing the job. And there's a lot of rewards to it, even though you'll get some criticism. Thanks, Alex. Thank you.

The Western Canada Monthly Income Fund is starting pre-sales on its new project called Portal. This waterfront development in Maple Ridge is expected to sell out quickly. The fund is making limited amounts of investment available. If you're looking for a secure investment in real estate and relatively quick turnaround, what would be better than using your RRSP and TFSA to help build much-needed homes for Canadians? It's common sense investing. The

Established in 2018, the fund pays a monthly fixed target interest plus a generous participating profit share. Request your investor package today at easy-invest.ca. That's easy-invest.ca. Conditions apply. Past results are no guarantee for future results. Check the website for details. Time now for the quote of the week.

You know, I think upon reflection, the most important money talks theme that I can bring to your attention is that the major trend impacting every investment market, the financial system, I mean politics, but social cohesion versus discord is confidence and trust in government.

I should add that this view is not shared by many political commentators. Actually, I can't think of one. But I'll tell you, it's a valuable understanding. It's why, by the way, on Money Talks, we were virtually alone in predicting Trump's victory in 2016 and the Brexit vote would go through. Why? Because we recognized the anti-establishment trend that was gripping us. And there's still more to come. And the rise in distrust of government.

That's why I look at every political action, every policy, every scandal, every misleading statement, every consequence of government action on its impact on public confidence and trust in government and institutions. See, what's undeniable is that poll after poll finds that trust in government and its institutions have been falling. Well, we could say crashing in some cases. That's why I say the stakes in politics

And the implication and consequences of the latest scandal or misleading statement is far more important than the petty politics of the day.

And allow me to reiterate, it's what drives investment markets, most notably bond yields, and in turn, other investments. I'm not going to go any further than to say, look at what happened when confidence took a sharp drop in 2008, or when confidence dropped in the overnight credit market, September 16, 2019. Overnight rates rose 500% in just a few hours.

Falling confidence is why, what, there's 164 recognized global currencies. Well, what are they? About 155 of them are in sharp decline and push their country's inflation into double digits. I should say sharp decline in terms of purchasing power against hard commodities and against the U.S. dollar at this point.

But I look at the changing attitude toward government as another measure of falling confidence, which brings me to the quote of the week by Gad Saad. He's an evolutionary behavioral scientist, lectures at Concordia, but he's author of the bestseller, The Parasitic Mind, who stated in quotes,

I'm an optimistic person by nature, but I've never felt more disillusioned by the abject debauchery of corruption that has now infected every Western institution that was once considered impervious to such a possibility. Well, the point, confidence and trust are falling. It's gripping more and more people. And that's what's driving so much in our people's reaction, by the way. But it's driving social upheaval. It's going to intensify, is my message to you,

And I'm worried that civil violence is going to be increased through this.

Isn't the old Chinese proverb, may we live in interesting times? Well, just look at the stock market, look at the bond market. Man, these are interesting times. But it's a fascinating sort of shift what we've seen. The aggressive trading, for example, and it seems a different age group is involved in our market, and it's really moving things. I'll let Tyler Bullhorn explain that a lot better than I just did. But StockScores.com, Tyler is one of the preeminent trainers. But I

of how to play the market, how to invest and how to trade the market with straightforward systems that have really helped really thousands of Canadians. That's why I'm so pleased to have him with me here today. Tyler, first of all, appreciate you taking time with us. Hey, great to be with you.

And I've been thinking about this, you know, I I'm an old guy I've been around, you know, and sometimes I think, haven't I been in this movie before? And I'm talking about the aggressiveness and the speculation that we've seen. I mean, I won't forget the.com bubble and then presto for about 10 years, everybody remembered those losses, you know, and, and of course, then we get into, what was it? 2021 that we had sort of that game stop, uh, you know, move and Blackberry and all of that stuff. Uh,

And that just continues. You see these ups, these downs, these all arounds. And I'm just wondering, is it a different market or is there different people playing? Well, they say that history repeats itself. And, you know, you're right. Back in the dotcom bubble and the years before, it was a very different market than we had pre-COVID. You will, I'm sure, recall the mining stocks and the tech stocks that were running in the late 90s.

And it was a lot of fun back then. And I think what was different then is the baby boomers were of an age where they wanted to speculate. They were trying to grow their capital. As they aged, they were no longer interested in growing their capital, but instead preserving their capital. And so you saw the rise of exchange traded funds, market volatility diminished, and it became a bit more of a boring market.

Well, we went back to that speculative, exciting type of stock market when COVID arrived because smaller retail investors suddenly had a lot of time on their hands. They had technology that allowed them to trade stocks from their phone. And you saw people buying, you know, $2,000, $500, $3,000 positions and

in the stocks that were hyped on these online chat rooms and discussion threads like the Wall Street Bets forum on Reddit. I went and watched the movie Dumb Money earlier this week. And Dumb Money is the story of GameStop and the people that traded the stock and the phenomenal rise of

that the stock had back in 2021, where it went from, I think like $4 to $480, just a massive run. And it made a lot of small retail traders a lot of money. It also put a very large hedge fund out of business. Melbourne Capital went out of business because they were betting against GameStop, shorting the stock. And so the dynamic really changed. You had this almost like uprising of the little guy

who overcame Wall Street, the big guy. And that's one of the hero stories in the movie, Dumb Money. And I recommend everyone go watch it because it really brought to light a lot of the things that came alive in the market then. But at the same time,

It also highlights the things that have never changed in the stock market. You know, I've been trading for over 30 years. It's always been about fear and greed and human psychology. And those things haven't changed. But what did change with GameStop is the return of the retail trader, which even today is still something that's very much in control of the market.

Yeah, I think the other side of that whole story is that, as you say, it brought – it was social media. Somebody makes a lot of money, even on a really – like,

like we're talking about some people made tens of millions of dollars, but I'm talking even on a smaller thing. Somebody posts, Hey, I bought this at X, sold it at Y and I made $2,700. And that momentum was incredible, you know, and it was also a cautionary tale, you know, that this wasn't being rising on fundamentals, but that's, it's interesting where you come in. I mean, your work teaches people entry points and exit points, uh,

You know, which, of course, people didn't have exit points. And we have a lot of other examples of that. But yeah, it's fascinating because I still feel that's out there in the market and maybe because younger people are the ones trading it. Like I'm an old guy. I'm cautious all the time.

Yeah, and certainly young people are thinking about the upside, not necessarily the downside. And there has always been this phenomenon that drives markets called FOMO, the fear of missing out. And you didn't see that any greater than during GameStop and AMC and BlackBerry and all these other meme stocks.

You were watching these people post online where they were showing their profit for these trades. And you watch a guy like the hero in the movie, Keith Gill, who had his account go from $50,000 to $50 million in less than six months.

And along the way, that really brought in the FOMO. But you had people that really didn't know anything about the market. They knew very little about risk management. And they certainly didn't know when to sell based on the message that the market gives. And I think that it was the same for me. When I started trading, it was all about what to buy. And I learned very quickly that knowing, even being good at what to buy,

didn't mean that you were a good investor or a good trader because you had to know how to manage risk. You had to know when to exit and you have to know when to take a loss. There are times when we're just not right and you got to take that loss and move on. And the best traders are those that are good losers. They take small losses, never big ones. And a lot of people in the GameStop story had massive losses that wiped them out.

Well, I just wish that message that you've just shared with us was sort of tattooed on everybody because that's the biggest problem. It's not a problem not to make even more money. The problem is when you lose money. And that's what I think Stotscore has done such a great job. And as I say, you've done literally tens of thousands of people training a straightforward system.

And the key word there is system, having an approach to get in, having an approach to get out. And I was going to ask you, can you train people to do that? And I already knew the answer, but I just want to jump in here for a second and say, you know, there's an opportunity after today's show at 11 at 10.

15 a.m. Pacific time, obviously, then you can do the math, 11, 15 a.m. Mountain time. But you're also doing those seminars coming up this Saturday right now, but also October 11th on Wednesday, Thursday, October 12th, Saturday, October 14th. And my point being in that, take advantage of that because there are, as you say, these lessons that are timeless. The mistakes are even more timeless, it feels like that.

if I aren't mangling the language too much there. But, you know, as you say, the fear of missing out, the FOMO, but also the having no exit point, all of those things you've seen for a 30-year career of training people, but it just never seems to end.

Yeah, the market is simple, but it is not easy. And the thing that gets in our way is emotion a lot of the time, but also not having an approach. And I've tried to develop a very mechanical process oriented approach that takes the emotion out of it. We buy when these things happen. We take our positions based on this. We sell when these things happen. And it's just logic. And honestly, I could write down the rules on a back of a napkin.

And I will teach a lot of those rules during the webinars this week. It's free information. I mean, I don't know what more people want. I'll even give them a free copy of my book, electronic copy of my book. So all of these things I want people to know because nobody taught me those things. It took me eight years to figure it out.

And then once you learn the basics of risk management, why stocks go up, how to avoid losing stocks, all of these simple rules that we'll touch on over the next week, you're going to be a better investor, a better trader. And it's really an exciting time in the market because you have stocks that are moving double digit, 100% or more sometimes in just days. And there's some every single day. And that's the GameStop effect. We have all of these

emotional retail traders that are pushing, pushing these stocks up, they go right back down again. I don't want to kid anyone. They go up, they go down. But if you have a methodology for when to get out before the down, then you just roll over into the next one. And it's a lot of fun right now.

Well, I was just thinking of you saying it took you eight years to learn these lessons. I'm thinking, oh, I'm not going to do my time frame because these are timeless approaches. But it's the psychology of the individual, the emotional makeup of those of individuals. And, you know, as you say, your safety net against the risk in the market.

And there are unexpected events. There's all sorts of things that come into play. But the safety net is having a proper approach, having it well established in your mind. What am I entering? What am I looking for? As you just said, then I'm going to enter. What am I looking for? And then I'm going to exit. And the number of people who've come to me over the years and said, well, nobody ever tells me when to sell. And in this kind of volatility, that's obviously a key component.

Yeah. And it's hardest to sell when the stock is about to crash because it always feels the best. It always looks the best. You know, going back to the GameStop movie, you see the psychology of the investors in that stock when the stock was at $200, $300. And then it crashed all of a sudden. And it gave clues before that happened. It started to break down before that happened. And that's what I'll teach is show you just

basic things. If you can draw a straight line with a ruler, a lot of our selling techniques are based on that. What are trend lines? What are falling tops? I'll show you that because visually it's a lot easier to show than during our podcast today. But if you learn some basic simple things, not only can you know what stocks are worth trading, but also when you're in them, when to get out.

Well, I also can't say, I mean, come on, is there a better idea this, you know, to come and it's free, you know, people just have to go to StockScores.com to register or Mike'sMoneyTalks.ca to register. And I just, as you can tell, the desperation in my voice to have people take advantage comes from my own losses.

It comes from one of the great lines I ever heard. I'm trying to think of his name off the top of my head. He wrote The Peaceful Warrior. But I loved his line in which he says, you know, there's only about seven great lessons in the universe. The question is, how often do you have to learn them? And I applied that immediately to the markets. You know, wait a second. Haven't I been down that road before? And that comes from emotion, but a lack of clarity.

You know, and that's what you develop over time. You know, and Victor Adair would be talking about this nonstop. I mean, that's what he's always talking about. Can you manage your risk? And do you have a methodology? And as you say, the markets seem to be particularly interesting. Let's use that word. But punishing is another. I mean, the list of stocks that have had these massive run-ups and massive waterfall declines. And, you know, you can recover if you didn't make as much as you could have. But recovering from a big loss is...

you know, really, really difficult. So that's why you hear that desperation in my voice. Yeah, and all these lessons that I've learned and I share, it's because I've made all those mistakes. I've paid lots of tuition to the College of Trading.

And, you know, it's not really that complicated. I'm just going to highlight things that we probably all know. But I'm going to give you some logical rules for, you know, how to manage your risk, how to know when to exit, and also what stocks just to avoid. Most stocks right now should be avoided. You know, the market's in a downward trend. Most stocks should be avoided. There are some sectors that are doing okay, like energy. But then there's these things called alpha stocks.

Alpha stocks don't care what the market's doing. And they're generally lower price stocks, generally very actively traded. And there's only a handful of them that are hot at any one moment. But these are the stocks that go from a dollar to $5 or I've seen, you know, $2 to $30 in a week.

And so the alpha stocks, leaf footprints, they are very easy to spot if you know what to look for. And so one of the things that I'll do Saturday and Wednesday and Thursday, those webinars, is I'm going to show you what alpha stocks look like. And for some it'll be for day trading and swing trading. And then I'll also show on Thursday more what it looks like for the investor, for the longer term person that only wants to do 10 trades a year.

The concepts are the same, whether you're a short-term trader or a long-term investor, focus on alpha stocks. Those are the ones that can beat the market. And in this market, it's super essential to trade those because the market's in a downward trend. So you have to break free from that correlation that most stocks have to the market.

Well, as I say, I hope people take advantage of it because it's right after this show at 1015, 1015 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. You know, and as I say, 1115 Mountain. Also on Wednesday, though, and on Thursday and the following Saturday, a week today, you can take advantage. And I certainly hope people do. And as I say, I love that price, by the way, Tyler, free. Yeah.

Plus the opportunity to get a copy of The Mindless Investor, which, as I say, helps you put things in perspective, automatic pilot, guidelines, you know, to quit making these mistakes that have been made

you know, countless time over the years, I guess is what I'm saying. It's just non-stop. And again, to get information, just go to, or to sign up, I'd rather, I want you to sign up, go to mikesmoneytalks.ca or stockscores.com. Tyler, let's finish with this. What's the biggest message you want to give? Is it just the use of having that methodology? Otherwise, you're just playing Russian roulette if you don't.

Yeah, you got to take emotion out of your decision making. We humans are predisposed to fail in the stock market. And it's because we're emotional. Now, that emotion can serve us well when a stock is really hot and it's moving up like people made millions of dollars on GameStop on the way up.

But a lot of them didn't lock in those profits. A lot of them lost everything that they had made, but also, you know, whatever they had put into it. And it's all about emotion. And if you have to take that out of it. Now, how do you take emotion out? One, don't take more risk than you're comfortable with. We'll talk about that in the webinars as well.

And number two, have a mechanical process so that you don't go into the fight or flight mode so that you're just thinking clearly based on logic and rules. And if you have a plan and I'll help everyone make a plan, then you can really take that emotion away as much as possible and be a lot better in the long term.

And in the meantime, maybe check out dumb money and just say, that's never going to be me. Tyler, thanks so much for finding time. Look forward to the webinars. Great, and have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

Well, happy Thanksgiving weekend here, Michael Levy. Mike, we were both sitting there waiting with bated breath what was going to happen with those employment numbers because, of course, that's what the central banks are looking at. That's going to determine, you know, have a big influence, let's say, on interest rates. So presto, both sides of the border way above expectations.

way above expectations. And Mike, that just says one thing and one thing only to me, and we can expand on it. If these were the employment numbers and they're going to have an impact, the

the cost of money is going to go up once again. And we saw that immediately with the bond market's reaction. You know, we saw, you know, both again, both sides of the border, because the bond market is sort of assuming, hey, this is at least something to keep upward pressure on rates. Doesn't guarantee them. I don't want to say that, you know, but there certainly isn't any, hey, rates are going down out of those numbers. So it's flat or upward. And the bond market immediately said, hey, maybe a bit upward. Right.

And we don't need the Bank of Canada or the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mike, to tell us that because all you had to do on Friday was go to the bond market. The benchmark U.S. 10-year yield was up 15 basis points to 4.86%, new 16-year high. Not to be outdone, the Bank of Canada also had a new 6.

16-year high on the 10-year bonds. Yield rose another 16 basis points, 4.30%. So that's telegraphing right away out of the gate what's going to happen. Yeah, and of course, as usual in economics, there's disagreement. There's still people saying, well, this will be the last blowout number. You know, this is going to be it. You know, Canada, 64,000 new jobs when we thought there'd be 20,000. You know, the state's blowing away their numbers too. And again, it's

It starts the interest rate debate again, but as you say, already reflected in the bonds, which are already in an uptrend in terms of yield. Wow, that's it. And I guess the bottom line is, Mike, if you make money more expensive, something happens. Well, all we have to do, and we've been listening to Ozzy for weeks and weeks, if not months on end, you make mortgage rates more expensive. The housing market just goes...

goes nowhere and actually gets depressed because people cannot afford to get into the market with mortgage rates where they are. Well, let's just extrapolate that into the day-to-day cost of living for people. You make money more expensive. People are not going to spend as much. And that is

exactly what the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve want in order to put a lid on inflation. I know, I'm just smiling. It's so weird. They want slower economics. They want some job layoffs. They didn't get them. That's why so many are saying, well, they're going to keep on monitoring the data before the next meeting. Mike, you and I will both be doing that because we don't have a life, but thanks for this. Have a good weekend, Mike. Time now for this week's shocking stat.

And just a little bit of background, in 2008, the Canadian National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy was announced. $26 billion was planned for the construction of 15 vessels of the single-class surface combatant project. And the first ships were slated to come in 2026. Now, the Canadian surface combat program was pitched as a relatively low-cost, off-the-shelf replacement for the Halifax class of warships.

And it had a, you know, promised a high level of Canadian industrial content to help rationalize some of the costs. But here's the thing. It didn't turn out that way. As the National Post John Iverson reports, the Canadian Navy started to ask for changes that frequently replaced the Canadian built components with U.S. technology. And that created big cost overruns, hundreds of millions of dollars and lost opportunity also for the Canadian industry.

Changes to design have added tens of millions, hundreds of millions. As Mr. Iverson reports, Irving Shipbuilding has received an additional $463 million to adapt its shipyard to build a frigate whose final weight is, in the words of the Department of National Defense, still evolving as the design matures. Uh-oh. Which brings me to the shocking stat of the week. Hey, it's a simple comparison.

The U.S. paid a fixed price, similar ship, $1.66 billion. Parliamentary Budget Office's latest estimate says, are you ready? Canada is going to pay $5.6 billion for ship. I better repeat that. So the U.S. is getting the ship at $1.66 billion. We're getting it at $5.6 billion. And guess who's on the hook for it? Of course, we are as taxpayers. We're footing the bill.

And now, by the way, this comes very shortly after the Liberal government asked the military to reduce its spending by $900 million over the next four years in an organization that has 16,000 positions unfulfilled, which would have been another shocking stat. And of course, in light of our failure to meet our NATO agreements, the thing is just amazing. When I read that, that was truly in the realm of shocking.

By the way, stay with me. I've got a goofy award coming up. We're going to be talking about one of the great about faces in American policy. Plus, I've got Victor. I've got Ozzie. All of that coming your way. Stay with us.

The Western Canada Monthly Income Fund is starting pre-sales on its new project called Portal. This waterfront development in Maple Ridge is expected to sell out quickly. The fund is making limited amounts of investment available. If you're looking for a secure investment in real estate and relatively quick turnaround, what would be better than using your RRSP and TFSA to help build much-needed homes for Canadians? It's common sense investing. A

Established in 2018, the fund pays a monthly fixed target interest plus a generous participating profit share. Request your investor package today at easy-invest.ca. That's easy-invest.ca. Conditions apply. Past results are no guarantee for future results. Check the website for details.

You know, if you're new to the show, anybody who's been listening for a while knows it just drives me crazy when I don't mind people having different points of view and I don't mind politicians having different policies than I would necessarily implement myself. But I do mind when they treat me like I'm an idiot. And is there a subject? Well, there's many. But the subject that jumps to mind for me is how many times have we heard politicians talk to us about how much they care about affordable housing?

And then they turn around and we've got so many examples over the years. Well, wait a second. You're the people who are adding to the cost. That measure adds to the affordability or the ongoing costs of owning a home. And it just drives me nuts that they treat us with such disrespect that they spew that nonsense. That's why I was pleased to ask Ozzy to come on with me today and talk a little bit more about this. And you can find Ozzy at OzBuzz.ca online.

Ozzy, let me start with this. I mean, how many times if we could each have a dollar for the time we said solutions will be found when you get three levels of government, we'd be on easy street for the rest of our lives. And again, we've got a brilliant example of how that's not happening right now. Well, we said put all three levels of government in one room, give them absolute power and don't let them come out until they come up with a decision they all support. Because here we have the federal government announces we're going to help cities and municipalities.

And then the local government has its problems because they want to build water plants and all sorts of things that they need to do, but they don't want to pay the taxes or tax the taxpayer rather. So here the federal government wanted to announce a new funding for Surrey and Burnaby, which, you know, the second and third largest cities in BC by population, they had applied to the housing accelerator funds.

But then the federal government says, hey, just wait a minute. Didn't you just increase? What is this increase in development cost charges? And that is sort of a real eye opener because both cities had costs of tripling the water development cost charge, the quadrupling of liquid waste development cost charges, the creation of a new development cost charge for parks. And that would add on a single family lot between $18,500 and $24,000 a lot.

Well, let's just hold on there for a sec. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's the bottom line there. So again, give me what it is for apartment, new unit, and what for a single family again. I just want people to go through. I don't want to ruin their Thanksgiving weekend, but I want them to go through and really understand when we say they're the problem, this is the kind of thing I'm alluding to.

Well, the increased fee would be $11,400 to close to $15,000 for every apartment unit and $18,500 to $24,500 for every single family lot.

Now, the thing is, the city says, well, you know, we've got to build these plants, you know, but according to John Stoll from Alliance Properties, he says, well, it's a cynical and inefficient way to do capital project because it's politically motivated not to put the burden onto the taxpayer. So here we have two levels of government.

both purporting to do a good thing, but the end result is let's zap the real estate industry or let's zap the developer and make developments unaffordable. And again, that's got to create a disincentive for developers to, you know, we all, I think it's a pretty much universally agreed, we need more supply. Well, this discourages, it's just yet another approach that discourages supply when you're throwing on these costs.

Well, yeah, you take the new fees of more than $10,000 an apartment, you'd think that's going to incentivize as a builder. No, they're going to say, I should be building fewer, larger units rather than more smaller units because if I build a 12-sweeter, it costs me $10,000 per suite more. Maybe I should buy a builder 9-sweeter. So it's the opposite effect than what the government says it wants to achieve.

Well, I don't want to throw a curveball at you just off the top of your head. I mean, I was looking at some of the numbers out of Toronto and it was sit down before you read them kind of thing. They're so much higher. Yeah, you always want to embrace Vancouver and Burnaby because Toronto, are you sitting down, is almost 50% higher in its development cost charges. And the average price or development cost charge to build a detached house is

has $137,000. That's up, by the way, Mike, almost $43,000 over the $93,900 it already cost. Yeah, I mean, it's just head-shaking. And again, I'm back to it, just the insult of the politicians saying we care about affordable housing, and then you start digging into the numbers. And by the way, it's the same for gasoline. If you want to look, when they complain about high gas prices, look at the government component. On

Ozzy, let me just shift gears for a sec because we've also got some early numbers I know in a couple of places. Just wondering, are they telling you anything? The early sales numbers, sorry. Well, you and I talked all last year how much lower sales were over any of the previous years. And so right now we are getting the reports that sales are higher. And it's true. We sold 578 single-family homes in Vancouver versus last year's 533. We're

But in 2020, we sold 1,319. So I mean, more than almost double. And in terms of condos, yes, we sold 989 condos, and that's up 11% over last year. But over 2021, they were 1,600. In 2020, 1,500. So when you look at all that, and you add to that, that new listings in Surrey,

up 40% and in Vancouver 24%. You see there's a shift underway in the housing market when the headlines say it's up well, yeah, up over the very crummy 2022. Yeah, so that's the message is, yeah, these are the preliminary numbers when we get them that look back on 2020 pre-pandemic, that kind of thing. But I think it is noteworthy though that we're finally seeing this increase in listings.

Yeah, and I think it's, you know, look, it's hurting. We hear now that some mortgages take 47 years to pay back because, you know, in order to make the payments fit,

They're longer and longer and longer to the point where there's absolutely nothing reduced. Like in one particular case, $23 comes into the mortgage reduction. That's why it takes 47 years or longer. Well, and I've been reading and some stats coming out now from the banks about the increased percentage of people who now have mortgages that are beyond the 25-year amortization.

And, you know, so that's clearly a trend that's happening. People trying to, you know, figure out any way they can, though. I mean, I did some examples this past week of just looking and I took the lows on purpose because I wanted to show the abrupt change, you know, from let's say, well, this time in 2020 or, you know, go into March 2020, whatever it was, you know, these lows. I think the November trend.

2020 numbers, 2019 numbers are sort of like the lows was like 0.85% for a five year, you know, and now you're looking at 5.95 or something. So this is a, you know, everybody's chronicling it finally. But man, that is a huge change when you come to Renew.

Well, and that really is the message to everybody that has a purchase pending or that's a pre-sale. Get yourself pre-approved. It is more and more difficult to get a mortgage. Yes. The rental mortgage that we set last year as an investor, close to 8%. Likely, on the 25th, the interest rates are going to go up. The whole world is going bananas on real estate, I mean, interest rates. And you've been pointing out the...

possible liquidity crisis, all of the crisis that we have going on in the world, paying a billion dollars in interest in the US and so on.

The odds are, in my view, and it's a personal opinion and what do I know, but rates will be higher or at least not come down and almost a certainty. That's certainly what the long-term bonds are showing, the five-year, the 10-year, the 20-year, all of that. My last point is they have to see the abruptness of the rise because I remember when I was writing about stuff like that, people say, oh, that can't happen. Wait till you see what can happen.

You know, we're in an unusual situation. You have to at least be aware of it. Ozzy, thanks for taking the time on the Thanksgiving weekend. From two turkeys to all of our listening audience, happy Thanksgiving. So, Ozzy, you too.

Yeah, well, thank you very much, Mike, and all the best to all the listeners from me, too. There was, I just saw on the Farmer's Almanac, since we're talking about tax, it says, if Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, you should see how bad it is with representation. I'm kidding. And I hope people are paying attention to that. Ozzy Jurek, thank you.

I want to go live to the trading desk now and bring Victor Adair in. You know, Vic, earlier in the show, I was talking to Mike Levy about there really is disagreement about when we get employment numbers. I mean, we're not disagreeing that they may be important or the central banks are watching them closely, but the conclusion can be very different. So I want to start with just what was your take when you hear these, you know, strong employment compared to the forecast numbers?

Well, we had all kinds of employment data come out this week. That's just for starters. But the key part was the data that came out on Friday, both in Canada and the United States. They call it the non-farm payroll in the United States. The number in the States and in Canada was like off the charts strong.

at first blush. And the markets just really tanked. Bond yields rose, the stock market fell, the U.S. dollar rose, and so on. As the day went along, that reversed. And as I was digging into it, I was remembering a chart that I'd looked at some time ago, earlier in the week, that was showing that in the United States, the amount of money that the government had taken in from payroll deductions

was actually at about an 18-month low. It's been trending lower since spring of this year. And that just didn't fit with this idea that employment is strong. So I started to look at the employment data, and I'm not pretending I'm an economist here, but this is how the market saw it as well.

It looks like we're getting a lot of part-time work replacing full-time work, and that would mesh with the notion that we're getting this weaker payroll taxes. How do you translate that when it comes to interest rates? Because that's what people are really... Most people who never cared about an employment number as long as they had a job now look and say, yeah, but what does it mean for... Because the immediate reaction was higher yields. What does it mean?

We've got two kinds of interest rates. We've got long-term rates. We've got short-term rates. Short-term rates here for the past three months have really done nothing, kind of gone sideways, while long-term rates have been rising sharply. I think we're at 16-, 17-year highs on the 10-year.

At the end of the week here, the bond market tried to rally a bit. It was still down at the end of the week. But the short rates here, I believe, are taking the view that the central banks are done raising rates and that the next thing, they probably may stay at these levels for a while, but then the next move that they make will probably be to cut rates. That's what we're seeing in the forward markets anyway.

Well, that's what we'll keep an eye on. I'm just going to change gears just for a second, Vic, and go to oil. We saw, you know, after the big run up for whatever it was, how many weeks we ran up with, it had a big drop, especially on a couple of days this past week.

Yeah, middle of August, we were at $95 on WTI and we're at $81 on the low this week. The more dramatic drop, honestly, was in gasoline. I think gasoline prices, this is wholesale gasoline in the United States. Prices this week touched, they were down about 25% from where they were in the height of the summer. I think you're going to see that come through and show up in Canada as well. To me, Mike, honestly, that drop,

The reason gasoline is down is because the demand for gasoline in the States has fallen off the charts here since early September. That goes more to this idea about consumers, because of the employment picture, are actually starting to rein in their spending, let's say that.

Well, good place to stop on Thanksgiving weekend because people would give a lot of thanks if we got some lower gasoline numbers out there. And I want to invite people to go to victoradair.ca, victoradair.ca. Vic, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thanks, Mike. You too, and all your family. Stay with us for the Goofy Award. This is a beauty. Is this the biggest about face I've heard in years? Well, we'll see. Stay with us. Time now for this week's Goofy Award.

The Biden administration is scrambling with the announcement that it will waive 26 federal laws in order to allow the construction of nearly 20 miles of unfinished border wall in South Texas. When I heard that, that was a say what? It's along the Mexican-U.S. border where Border Patrol agents have encountered, think about this, 245,000 people in that one section alone this fiscal year.

Encountered is the right word, by the way, because that's who they encountered. That doesn't measure everyone who they didn't encounter. I'm saying it's scrambling, of course, because the wall was President Donald Trump's most prominent policy in dealing with undocumented migrants on the U.S. southern border. Remember the chance of build that wall during the 2020 campaign while President Biden said that the wall was ineffective and would immediately stop construction.

Well, since that time, there's been a record number of undocumented migrants crossing the border, which has put a huge strain on border states and communities. Think about this one, though. In the first half of September alone, border authorities again encountered 142,000 migrants at that U.S.-Mexican border. And just this Tuesday, we had Eagle Pass, Texas declaring a state of emergency due to severe undocumented immigrant surge.

The crisis spread to other parts of the U.S. We've been talking about it a bit. You know, when border state governors started to bus migrants to sanctuary cities like New York and San Francisco. I mean, this week, while the Biden administration continues to say that the wall is ineffective, we had Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas state in quotes, there is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers.

Now, the Biden administration is sort of trotting out sort of budget-related rationales for this seeming about-face, saying that the money for the wall isn't that administration because it was okay during Trump's. But I think it's a tough sell, given one of President Biden's first actions after he took office. January 221 was to issue a proclamation stating, in quotes, no more American tax dollars will be diverted to construct a border wall.

I think it's even a tougher sell because by any measure, the administration's efforts to stem the tide of undocumented migrants into the U.S. has been an unmitigated disaster. It's been a failure. For example, asylum seekers can be released into the U.S. and they make their claim in immigration court about being in asylum. But according to the U.S. Department of Justice, there are now 2 million cases pending and it takes years to resolve.

I mean, the bottom line is it's a mess, which has forced President Biden to reinstate another Trump and Obama era policy of resuming deportation of flights to Venezuela to deal with the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan who are fleeing the socialist paradise of Nicolas Maduro and entering the U.S.

Maybe I should repeat that because you've got an awful lot of apologists for the Maduro regime, that they have to resume those flights because there are hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the last couple of years escaping that regime.

Maybe we should just chalk this up to another victory for reality over political posturing and ideology. But in the meantime, this is a serious issue that I think is probably going to have a big impact on the next presidential election, you know, down in the U.S. And that's one of those to be continued.

Hey, that's all the time we have today. I just want to remind you, of course, we've got the World Outlook Conference. I just want to continue to answer those emails. And I'll get you the roster of who's speaking. So many good people coming up. And what an environment to be discussing it in. So, again, all the information is on Mike's MoneyTalks.ca. And I hope you also join us on MoneyTalks Tweets.

Join us on Michael Campbell's Facebook, Money Talks Facebook. And a reminder of the seminar, the webinar rather, that starts immediately after the show here, Saturday, 10.15 Pacific time. Also, though, the Tyler Bullhorn webinar is going to be on Wednesday, Thursday, and week today on Saturday. So check out all the information, Stockscores.com or Mike's Money Talks.ca. In the meantime, I hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend.

Bye.