Alright folks, I was going to take a week off because I am technically on vacation (for Valentine’s Day?) but I couldn’t resist doing a blog because I have really exciting news to share.

 

The “book” is published! I am super-excited to say that I am officially a (self) published author which I think is neat. I expect I will be as rich as most authors are before too long. Ah, who am I kidding. Richer!

 

All kidding aside, the book is done and for that reason I am shamed into doing a blog today. But don’t expect too much effort because I am, as mentioned just a few sentences ago, on vacation. For at least a short while.

 

Note – for all my faithful readers, if you actually want a copy of said book, let me know. I think I know a dude who can hook you up.

 

Meanwhile, it’s Friday the 13^th and I can’t let that pass without a bit of recycling of irrational fears.

 

Friday the 13^th, a day renowned for bringing the best of luck to everyone around, because as we all know nothing bad ever happens on a Friday the 13^th, just ask all those people who spent some time with their good friend Jason.

 

I know for a fact that there is nothing to be afraid of on Friday the 13^th, much like I know that our building doesn’t play into the whole superstition thing and doesn’t avoid calling the 13^th floor the 13^th floor. Alright, that’s a lie, I don’t know what our building manager would do. And since we only have 8 floors I guess we will never know.

 

But I digress as I usually do.

 

As mentioned above, as (bad) luck would have it, today is Friday the 13^th, a day for goalie masks and slasher films, but also sober reflection on those things that frighten us. A day to confront and conquer our fears. To give them sunshine and let the world see and judge. Including my own super weird phobias.

 

And while I do for sure have a full range of bizarre, permanent fears (more on those later), I also do find myself being regularly frightened by what is going on in the world around me – what I like to call “serious stuff”. Accordingly, I will do the real-world stuff first and then get into the more quirky and endearing terrors I harbour, to lighten the mood.

 

And let’s face it, the current market and political environment should be enough to make anyone run into their lair hiding! So here you go, in no particular order, some serious fears and some … not so serious.

 

I am afraid of tariffs

 

I mean who isn’t? They are numbers. Quite often expressed as percentages. They raise the price of goods. They are regressive. They are retaliatory and they serve no useful purpose.

 

Since Donald Trump first dropped the tariff hammer on an unsuspecting world, the global economy has been lurching and in crisis. The largest and most productive peaceful trading relationship in the world has been upended and speeches are being delivered. We even had the Elbows Up Bridge threatened!

 

But that aside, tariffs have taken what should be a decent year for the global economy and chucked it into the dumpster.

 

And they are being implemented and controlled at the behest of one man, who I am quite convinced didn’t actually pass economics at university.

 

Of course it’s not just the tariffs that are frightening. It’s the escalation they bring. The tit for tat brinksmanship. The erosion of trust between trading partners. The lowering of living standards across the board. The lost jobs and opportunities. The lost investment. The hardening of attitudes. The time to recover once cooler heads prevail.

 

I am afraid of Liberals in Conservative Clothes.

 

Who’s with me on this? Look. If it hasn’t struck you yet because your Liberal blinders are to tight or you are too much of a right wing ideologue to even listen to what the government is saying, I don’t know what to tell you.

 

But, it has become increasingly clear that this new Mark Carney led Liberal Party of Canada minority government is nothing more or less than a Mark Carney led Progressive Conservative government. Just look at the policies. Theoretically fast tracking regulatory processes. Tax cuts. Increased defense spending. Removing interprovincial trade barriers. Being grown-up enough to put the economy first and not force an ideological agenda down the throats of Canadians. MOU’s with Alberta. Exercising a little muscle on the foreign policy front. It’s basically all stuff pulled from Joe Clark’s tickle trunk.

 

I’m not saying I’m happy with Mark Carney, there are many things he should still be doing and maybe he gets there.

 

But unless you are just a 100% dialled in Alberta Wexit person or just can’t live with a Liberal government in any shape or form, this blue version of whatever abomination existed under Justin Trudeau and orangey-red dumpster fire hasn’t been so bad.

 

Yet.

 

And this is where my fear comes from.

 

Is it all smoke and mirrors? Will Mark Carney get subsumed by the fact that the Liberals seem to be able to do what they want in a minority position with no effective opposition so all the pet projects will come out. And we all know that the Liberal Party (the Natural Governing Party) craves nothing more than absolute power and spending, so when the opportunity presents itself, they go for it. You have to admire their ruthlessness.

 

The Liberals achilles heel running up to the last election was their utter disdain for and lack of ideas on the economy and their slavish devotion to climate change. The former needs to be a priority over the latter. It must be. But will Carney park his environmental advocacy long enough to set the ship in the right direction? Can he adapt to new on the ground realities where governments around the world are slow-footing their commitments and the behemoth to the south is celebrating King Coal?

 

Will we keep Carney the Blue or will be he become Mark the Red.

 

I am afraid that Danielle’s newest movie “Dances with Separatists” isn’t going to end well.

 

Nothing earth-shattering about this or particularly new. But Danielle has spent quite a bit of time lately pandering to the super fringe minority that wants Alberta to become its own country because Ottawa is terrible.

 

I’m not going to argue against separatism here, because it’s an objectively bad and stupid idea that will never happen. And I will reserve my criticism of the magic bean grifter separatists for a future blog.

 

Instead, I’m going to underline the biggest fear I have about this weird little dance. It scares money. And scared money is money that isn’t invested in the place that manifests that fear.

 

I work in the world of money and I know how fickle it can be. Why are pipeline projects so hard to get proponents for? Because the money is afraid of regulatory inertia.

 

It’s the same thing here. Want to move a manufacturing plant to Canada to get around tariffs? You’re not building it in a place that is threatening to separate. That’s just dumb. Want to geta  private proponent for a pipeline project under an MOU? Noyt gonna happen in a province that has a separatist movement.

 

So, all Danielle is doing with this dance is empowering a fringe movement that wants to do its best to wreck our economy.

 

I know there is all this discussion about the party potentially splitting over this, but it’s nonsense. Call their bluff. Put the 98% of Albertans who don’t actually want to separate from Canada’s interests first and move on.

 

Concentrate on getting realistic concessions from the Federal government and Mark Carney on the energy file.

 

Take it from someone who grew up in Quebec in the 1970s and 1980s. Separatism isn’t leverage, it’s economic suicide.

 

I am Afraid that the Conservatives Have Lost the Leadership Plot

 

I guess it doesn’t really mater because the Liberals will likely hold onto government unless they vote themselves out, but I don’t think the CPC can win an election with Pierre Poilievre as leader. They need to figure that out. I think Pierre has grown as a party leader but his time has passed. His politics aren’t of the moment and his personal popularity in the CPC party isn’t enough to lead to an electoral win. The numbers don’t lie.

 

We are going to have at least a few years of serious, grown-up, economist in charge leadership of what appears to be a PC party so the actual Conservatives, if they want to win, will need a better alternative than Pierre Poilievre, the freedom-loving, crypto fanning, shawarma-buying, central bank bashing, money-printer hating, elite poking, gatekeeper abhorring, Justinflation excoriating, basic finance misunderstanding, banker threatening, real estate grifting, Jordan Peterson-reading dilettante populist.

 

To win they need to pass the torch. To the middle, not further right.

 

I am afraid that this next/last oil and gas boom may pass us by

 

This seems like a weird one to say for an industry participant. We are actually in the midst of a significant upturn in the Canadian energy sector, driven by the building out of actual infrastructure to move product, the knock-on effects of the OPEC+ supply issues, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iran!!!, lack of global upstream investment and our unique position as a massive supplier of oil and gas.

 

All the pieces are lined up for a big run.

 

So why am I afraid?

 

If we have a CUSMA election in May, the very real possibility of an unopposed Liberal majority government led by one of the original Necromancers of the climate movement and an unapologetically pro-industry (certain parts), stuck in the past provincial government constantly at each others’ throats and unwilling to work together to milk every last iota of rent and profit out of the molecules we are producing suggests that we may never realize our potential because neither side can get out of their own way.

 

In the meantime, the global economy seems to keeling over, no small thanks to the destabilizing impact of tariffs and the trade war mentioned above.

 

And of course my undying faith in mankind.

 

 

I’m afraid of interest rates, inflation and asset bubbles

 

Who isn’t right? Interest rates are so high on credit cards… Wait, no. That’s not what I am talking about.

 

I am afraid that the years of central banks printing money like there is no tomorrow and pouring so much vodka in the punch bowl has given us all alcohol poisoning.

 

We are addicted to low interest rates. So much so that globally we are in withdrawal. But the largest economy in the world can’t score its fix because of the uncertainty and inflationary effects of tariffs and that is taking the rest of us down.

 

So, instead we have higher interest rates, slowing growth, rising inflation and growing unemployment.

 

Stagflation. And no, that’s not a guy’s only inflation party. It’s bad.

 

How do we fix it? Easy. Get rid of tariffs and trade wars. Build a million houses. Pump as much cheap energy out of the ground as you can, slap up as many solar panels as you can and build some nuclear reactors.

 

Easy. Right?

 

Hence I am scared.

 

I’m afraid of a hard landing and global recession

 

This is a follow up to the last fear. Rates stay up too long or the impact on markets is too severe and suddenly you are in hard landing territory. Drop rates too  fast and you inflate the asset bubble. Destroy Fed independence and the US dollar craters. It’s a delicate balancing act and political interference is a problem for the market. The Fed and the Bank of Canada do not have a lot of room for error and the policy tools are limited.

 

If the implosion of the crypto world and the run-up in commodity prices (aside from oil) is anything to go by, we should be worried about where things are heading.

 

There are warning lights flashing all over the place, from emerging economies getting crushed by high energy prices to potential food shortages to global conflicts to looney tunes trade wars and the Russia-Ukraine conflict to market selloffs and their impacts on consumer confidence and purchasing decisions to consumer credit failures… it’s a rogues gallery of warning.

 

But at least the fake meme-coin market is robust as heck.

 

My recession-likelihood indicator gauge is currently running at 50%. It “could go either way”, but my spidey-senses are all on super high alert.

 

Sorry.

 

 

I’m afraid of Putin’s Paranoia

 

This one is stating the obvious of course, but Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war against Ukraine is a threat to the post Cold War way of life and runs a serious risk of escalating into a much broader conflict. While the Ukrainian forces continue to outperform any and all expectations, the reality is that Darth Putin, the Sith Lord of Moscow and his dastardly minions have access to tactical nuclear weapons that I fear they would be tempted to use if the humiliation of their forces went too far. And this would drag NATO further into the conflict in ways that could lead to many adverse outcomes with devastating results. Unless Trump pulls out of NATO or some other massively destabilizing thing happens. Ukraine isn’t going to give up.

 

Will it happen? Well, certainly not as likely as a recession, but it’s just anther vegetable in the soup pot of doom.

 

I’m Afraid of World War 3

 

Russia – Ukraine. Israel – Iran. China – Taiwan. USA – Greenland. We should all be.

 

I’m afraid I’ve just torpedoed my reputation as Captain Happy

 

Yes, lots of doom and gloom here.

 

Fortunately, I’m not afraid that all of this crap is all going to come to a head at the same time, because that would make me the most paranoid person around. And of course, there are degrees of fear – some of the preceding items are really more of a passing fear as opposed to a paralyzing terror. Tariffs and recession are actually my biggest real world fear.

 

Random, crazy fears? I have those too. Consider the following.

 

I am terrified of wasps.

 

Not, not that kind. The flying insect ones. Oh, and bees too. You can ask my wife. A bee or wasp flies by and I turn into a frantic, arm-waving lunatic. Which of course just triggers the flying hypodermic needle to come back at me with renewed furour, whereupon I will throw anyone I happen to be with to the proverbial wolves and seek shelter until the offending yellow-jacketed evil swine has moved on. It is often suggested that these fears come from some deep-seated repressed memory, but let me assure you that the memory I have that started this fear is crystal clear. It was a bee. I was a kid. It somehow crawled in my pants overnight. I put said pants on in the morning. The rest is paranoid history.

 

I have a pathological fear of mustard and mayonnaise.

 

Yes. It’s true. I sometimes pretend it’s an allergy. It’s not. It’s an embarrassing aversion. And I know it’s weird. Don’t try and convert me. Or hide it. I’ll know. It’s a thing. Sue me.

 

I am afraid of turbulence

 

Not flying. Not taking off and landing. Not helicopters. Not planes. Not heights. Just turbulence. The aeronautic equivalent of a bumpy country road. Yup. Turbulence. Speaking of roads, here’s a recent one.

 

I am afraid for my kids.

 

This is kind of the generic joe of fears, but really, what kind of a world have we created that our kids will more than likely be the first generation to have a lower quality of life than their parents.

 

I am afraid that my suddenly energy heavy portfolio won’t perform as expected

 

This is a perennial fear. From the gas stocks I’ve been sitting on since 2014 to newly selected investments, I am always struck by the energy sectors ability to defy expectations – in either direction. That said, I also have about 20% of my portfolio allocated to AI and crypto investments. What could go wrong?!?

 

 

Bonus extra fears:

 

I am afraid the Leafs will win a Stanley Cup before my favourite team does….

 

Who am I kidding? This is absolutely not a fear. Especially since my favourite team every year (aside from Montreal and Calgary) is the team that wins the Stanley Cup and isn’t Toronto. I’m not fussy. Edmonton will do in a pinch.

 

I am afraid that within ten years Murray Edwards will own the balance of the Canadian oilpatch he doesn’t already and we will all be working for him.

 

Admit it, aren’t we all a little afraid of this?