So TBS was playing "The Shawshank Redemption".

 

Again.

 

For the 6th time in 3 weeks.

 

You know, when I was a somewhat younger man, it was possible to turn on the television and say "Wow, I haven't seen this program in a while." Not that I was a particularly avid watcher, even in my youth. At this point, though, it's just getting rediculous.

 

It isn't even worth looking at anything below channel 30 any more, because it's all infomercials and fucking Leno on 12 different channels. Anything over 30, on the other hand, has a dedicated channel, and they just show the same goddamn programs.

 

Over...and over...and over...and over...

 

I actually monitored TBS one day, and they aired "V.I.P." for 4 hours straight, then followed it up with 2 hours of "Deep Space 9", then 3 episodes of "Star Trek TNG", then those EXACT SAME EPISODES of TNG again, before ending the day with 2 episodes of CSI twice.

And who's left? Ironically, it's the right.

 

For the first time in 13 years, Canada has elected a conservative government. All I can say is "At least it's a minority government." If 12 years of liberal corruption, and 8 years of conservative corruption before that have taught us, it's that majority governments have too much power.

 

So now, as I brace myself for the inevitable announcements for:

 

a) military action in Iraq

b) diversion of our fresh water to the states

c) renegotiation of NAFTA to increase our energy transfers to the states from 10% to 20%

d) increased prison terms for criminals, yet not a dime to address the underlying causes of crime

 

I sleep comfotable in the knowledge that the NDP and Liberals will unite to protect gay marriage.

 

Thanks guys, I'm glad to see we have our prioreties straight. Now fuck you all.

Well, the housing numbers are in for Q4 of 2005, and it's not pretty.

 

All residential properties were up between 7-9% in Q4. But that's a good thing, right?

 

Well sure, if you actually *own* a house, you are dancing in the streets right about now. The problem is, 33% of the people in the country, or roughly 9.6 million people will NEVER be able to afford their own home. The prices are rising too fast, and most of those people are already living below the poverty line.

 

But that's only part of the problem.

 

As energy prices continue their unstoppable spiral upwards, investors are losing faith in currencies, favouring tangible assets like gold and...you guessed it...real estate.

 

Now, I'm no economist, but it seems to me that a fiat currency (that's a currency that is not backed by gold or silver, or really anything except investor confidence) might face serious problems if the investors were to lose faith in that currency. Eventually, all of that money that's floating around "out there" is going to find it's way back into the local economy. When that happens, we will face inflation akin to what happened in Argentina. When investors lost confidence in the Argentine Peso, it inflated so fast that people at the end of the line at the supermarket were finding an additional "0" tacked on to the end of the price of everything. People were literally buying loaves of bread with wheelbarrows full of the equivelant of $100 bills.

 

What does this mean for us? It means that a whole lot of people, whose salaries are unable to keep pace with triple-digit inflation,  are about to default on their mortgages. When that happens, they will all get dumped back into the renter's market, and the banks are going to find themselves inundated with property.

 

Then the question becomes "Where do those 9.6 million people go when hyper-inflation forces them onto the streets?"

 

Now you know why CFB Alert is still in operation, and why it has a rail terminus. It's going to be Auschwitz all over again.