The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A Consumer's Guide to Fighting Inflation

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Preet Banerjee is in the house today.  One of the country's leading personal financial advisors drops by to help demystify living in a period of rising inflation.  From housing to gas to food, what's the best way to handle the situation -- Preet offers some suggestions.  Plus some interesting new stats on trust in the media.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. How to fight inflation. A consumer's guide. Preet Banerjee is in the house. Coming up. And hello there, welcome to yet another week of The Bridge. And this is a special week because it's the last week before the summer hiatus. We're still going to be around, there will be best-of editions of The Bridge, there will also be special editions of Good Talk live. So we're not disappearing, but it is summer and we are going to take advantage of that. And I hope you can too. All right, let's get to it for the opening day, the Monday of this week on the bridge. You've heard a lot in the last, well, first of all, you've seen a lot. You don't have to go far to the pumps, to the grocery store, to anywhere to know that inflation has hit.

What you don't know is how long is this going to last and what can you do about it? I mean, you hear big talk from governments, whether it's the governor of the central bank in Canada or the United States or Britain. You hear that. You hear economists talking all the time about how to fight inflation, and it's all big macro stuff. How about you? How about me? How do we fight inflation?

What can we do about it? How can we adjust our own styles to deal with a world in which numbers the numbers on prices just keep going up well that's why we've invited Preet Banerjee in the house Preet is an old friend worked in together. He's very successful on sort of the personal financial advice circuit, whether that's on television or in person at speeches or what have you. But Preet, as I said, is a friend. I called Preet up on the weekend and said, let's talk. Preet was at the F1 race in Montreal.

He's a big Formula One fan. So he was there over the weekend enjoying the race. And he said, absolutely, let's do it. So that's what we're going to do today. But before we start, let me just make this little Monday note. And we've got some Monday notes later in the program as well today, dealing with the media. But this Monday note is kind of a sidebar to our life right now.

Do you think democracy is under threat? Well, a lot of people do. And that it's under threat in a lot of places, in different parts of the world. We see it south of the border. We've seen it inside our own borders. You know, you can say what you want about the trucker's convoy or the freedom convoy or whatever you want to call it that happened at the beginning of this year but part of the manifesto that the lead protesters had was an overthrow of the government that was a threat to democracy so are we taking it seriously enough in terms of the way we cover this story,

the democracy story? Well, a couple of interesting appointments last week in the world of the media. You know, the media has and always have had certain beats for certain journalists. You know, there's a political beat, and there's the chief political correspondent, or whatever. Networks have different names for that. There's the legal correspondent.

There's the consumer correspondent. There's the justice correspondent. There's the environment correspondent. There's all kinds of them. Well, a new name was added to the list last week, or it started to anyway, and that was in Washington when the Associated Press named a fellow by the name of Tom Verdon to the newly created post of democracy news editor.

At the same time, both the Washington Post and the Associated Press have been staffing in such a way that they're able to cover threats to democracy. That's an interesting move on the part of some of the leading news organizations in the United States. We'll see how that works out in Canada as well. The democracy beat.

Who would have thunk it? Well, they're thinking it now the democracy beat our democracy reporter Harvey Wheelwright has this report from Moose Jaw well you never know, do you? Speaking of Moose Jaw, the pride of Moose Jaw, Adam Hadwin, Canadian golfer, was in the top ten at the end of the U.S. Open. He had a great four days of golf. He was extremely consistent. Not quite enough to win it, but very close. And he didn't have one bad day. He played well the whole weekend

and good for him. Congratulations to Adam Hadwin. He lives in BC now, but I believe he was born in Moose Jaw. Alright. Let's move it to this issue of inflation and how to fight it. As promised, Preet Banerjee is with us. So let's hear that conversation. So, Preet, we've heard governments try to explain how this is going to be difficult for us

and how they're going to come up with whatever solutions they think are going to work to to help us deal with inflation i'm not sure anybody believes any of that yet but although i think they do believe that we're in for into it for a while so i want to go through some specifics but tell me in general terms what's the way we should be preparing ourselves for the bulk of the inflationary months or years that we're going to face now? Well, I think if we go back almost over a decade now, there have been calls by various governors of the Bank of Canada who have said persistently, one of the biggest dangers of the economy is the level of household indebtedness. And that has only gotten worse over the last 10, 15 years. We've

seen all the measures of people's debt to income ratios climbing, climbing, climbing. And now we've gone from sort of a chronic level of higher prices over the last couple of years. And now it's become very acute. And for people who are very stretched with a high cost of putting a roof over their heads, who are paying lots in terms of student loans for younger Canadians, and even now middle-aged Canadians who are still saddled with paying off their student debt loads, this level of debt, the high cost of getting into housing or even paying for rent has people very stretched. There hasn't been a lot of buffer for a long time to begin with.

And so now with the specter of inflation being around for a while and interest rates on the debt loads that people are already carrying, this should be cause for concern for a number of people. There's really no way to sugarcoat that too much. This is something that people need to pay attention to because people have been stretched for so long. And a lot of that has been their debt loads and the cost of servicing that debt is going up and the price of things around us are going up. It's going to be very stressful and anxiety inducing for a lot of people yeah i guess so um in terms of the the debt load uh we got so accustomed to you know one two two and a half percent interest rates um and the sense that that was never going to change.

And, you know, some of the older people in the room, like myself, you know, remember what it was like in the, you know, late 70s, early 80s, especially when interest rates just took off, and it changed everything for the average family. And now suddenly there's, you know, it certainly seems like we're headed in that direction. There's already interest rates have gone up. They're nowhere near like they were in that early 80s period.

But who knows where this is going to end. So let's try to deal with a couple of these things. The housing situation, for starters, I mean, what should you be thinking about if you have a mortgage and you got yourself an attractive rate, at least it was attractive at the time, and you wish you could get it again,

but you're unlikely to get it again. What should you be thinking? What should you do? How do you handle those situations? Yeah, I think that's a big question for a lot of people, those who are potentially first-time homebuyers, but also people who already have mortgages. And there's an entire generation who have never really experienced high interest rates on mortgage. So all of this is going to be relatively new. We're seeing some situations where people are going to see the cost of carrying

their mortgages increased by four, five, $600 per month. Now, of course, you want to take a look at whether or not you're in a variable rate mortgage versus a fixed rate mortgage, but it looks like no matter which of those categories you fall into, at some point in time, it's going to affect you. Now, I think one thing that sometimes people may find interesting is that when it comes to a variable rate mortgage, where the interest rate is tied to the overnight rate that is set by the Bank of Canada, there's two types of variable rate mortgages, really. One is called an adjustable rate mortgage. And this is where your payment will fluctuate just as interest rates change. So as interest rates get announced by the Bank of Canada and

they go up, your payment will go up almost immediately. But there are other variable rate mortgages where your payment actually stays the same. So in terms of your cash flow right now, there may not be very much of a change, but the amortization, the length of how long it will take to pay off that mortgage actually increases. So you do feel the effect in terms of how long that mortgage is going to be, but in terms of your cashflow right now, there may not be a change. Now, for people who have a fixed rate mortgage, they know that the bargain that they made is, you know, they pay a fixed amount for the term of their mortgage. And so they're worried about, well, what happens when that term ends and they have to renew? And really, the only advice I can give is that you really should shop around. I do find that

there are a lot of people who maybe don't shop around as much as they could. And your existing mortgage provider may provide a letter of renewal that says, hey, your mortgage is coming up for renewal in six months, a year, or what have you. If you do nothing, we'll renew at this rate. And maybe some people take that rate not knowing that there might be a potential to negotiate or to shop around for a better rate. And if you don't like to negotiate, it makes you feel uncomfortable, consider talking to a mortgage broker who can do that for you,

maybe explore some other options for you. Maybe if you need to restructure or refinance because things are getting tight, they're going to be able to give you some options to look at. So don't just blindly accept that renewal offer. I think it's more imperative than ever to shop around and look at what your options are.

The thing to remember, I guess, about that option where stretching out the amortization period could keep your payment around the same amount that you're paying now. The thing to keep in mind about that is over time, you're going to end up spending a lot more right for your for what you're borrowing a lot more right and i think there are some people who say i'm happy to take that trade off because i have no more money to spend on my mortgage payment so there's going to be a cost at some point um how that cost materializes there may be there may be options um what about if you're you're you're you're buying your first home is this just like the time that you should say, you know what, I'm going to rent for a little while longer before I do this until we figure out what's going on with these rates? Yeah, I think a lot of people are resigned to the fact that they can only rent.

So obviously there's a lot of people who've been completely frozen out of the housing market whatsoever. But for the people who are in a position to buy and for whatever reason, they've got, you know, a cosigner or a parent. They've got a big gifted down payment. And the last time we were on, we talked about the size of down payments required to even become a first time home buyer. It's six figures in many cases so if you do have the means and you are looking at buying you know um some economists uh housing forecasters are suggesting that because so many people have extended themselves so much because of low interest rates the flip side is as interest rates go up prices may actually start to come down a little bit. So I think we do have a large percentage of people who think in terms of monthly payments. They just say, OK, I've got $3,000 a month that I can put towards housing. And if the ratio that's going to principal versus interest changes because of the changing interest rate environment, which has an impact on housing prices, maybe bringing them down, they still see what can I afford to pay on a monthly basis to get into

homeownership. I don't know how much people will seriously consider renting versus buying if they have the option of making a choice. Again, there's a lot of people who are just, they're just stuck with renting because they cannot get onto the homeownership ladder. But generally speaking, I find that people who are considering first time, you know, buying a house, they've already decided they're going to be a homeowner and they're just waiting for the opportunity to strike. And they may not look necessarily at the rent versus buy comparison. And I'll tell you, you know, there are models out there, calculators you can look at that show you the difference between a rent payment versus the cost of carrying a mortgage, maintenance, and what have you. And if there's a big difference in the mortgage payment and all the associated homeownership costs and the rent payment, If that difference is big, you have to do something with that difference. You have to put it into some kind of asset, invest into the stock market.

And a lot of people can be more likely to forego that voluntary monthly contribution because a cost comes up related to maybe new furnishings for the new home and what have you. And so those comparisons, mathematically, they can make sense. But behaviorally speaking, most people do side with the home ownership route because they know there's a forced savings component. So again, I'm not saying don't do the comparison. I'm a renter. I've been a renter for a long time.

It's worked out for me fairly well. But I do find that a lot of people, it's so much more of an emotional decision than it is a mathematical one. Let's move away from housing and talk a little bit of the normal day-to-day cost of living issues that you're facing, whether it's gas, whether it's the price of eggs, bread, beef, chicken, you name it. What can you do? Is there anything you can do? I mean, do you consider perhaps buying in bulk more than you used to because you're not sure what the prices are going to be next week? I mean, it's not like you can do that with gas, but you can do a lot of other things, especially with big box that they go for exactly that kind of thing well you say you you

guess that you can't do that with gas but i don't know if you've seen some of the videos i've seen on you know tiktok and instagram with people with pickup trucks lining it with plastic and filling it with gas it's basically a swimming pool on the back of their pickup truck. And you're thinking, what are you thinking? You're going to lose half of it on the drive home anyways. But what you're suggesting is actually a consideration. And that is when there is the expectation that inflation is going to remain persistently high,

some people start to think maybe i should put pull forward some planned purchases now before the price starts to keep on going up and becomes even more unaffordable which is inflationary because you're you're buying more now right and so that that is increasing uh demand for some of things. So that is actually a consideration. Now, some people suggest that the cure for high prices is high prices because all other things being equal, if people have run out of money to spend, they're gonna buy less stuff. And then hopefully that will turn into sellers

responding by reducing prices. It is worth noting that there have been some quarterly reports from large publicly traded companies, I believe Target was one of them, that have said, you know, we actually have a glut of inventory on some home appliances now. And they're starting to offer some sales on these items because they've got so many sitting in warehouses. So, you know, if you're trying to play the game, should I pull forward my spending and buy things in bulk or make pre big pre-planned purchase and pull them forward now? You may want to take a look at, you know, the supply chain issue, because this has been one of the things that economists

have highlighted. And they've said, you know, one of the big reasons that we've had this what we initially thought was transitory higher inflation was supply chain issue related so march 2020 you know the butterfly effect of the world coming to a halt you had factories shutting down um we had supply chain issues with computer chips, which go into a lot more things than I think we all realized. The number of computer chips that go into a car. You had restrictions preventing breakouts of COVID-19 by having people not come into work. So we had all these supply chain issue disruptions and the thought was as everything starts to come back online then this should help with bringing back up the levels of supply one of the challenges as the world opens up in different patterns in different timings and the world being

a global economy sometimes these supply chains may open up in one space, but the bottleneck may exist somewhere down the road. So there's a lot of people who have suggested we're turning the peak now. But again, some of these people are saying it was transitory just a year ago. So it's hard to predict what is going to happen with inflation. In terms of buying in bulk and coupon cutting i think people's preferences are changing so instead of going to whole foods people switch to no frills or what have you when people get into survival mode with their budgets they start to make some pretty serious changes in their spending patterns what about if you're you're lucky enough to be one of

those people who is not having a problem with their personal budgets and they actually are okay on the financial side? How do you almost feel guilty asking this question? Because I know most people who are, you know, are facing real difficulties here right now but for some who are not facing difficulty how do you deal with inflation that actually works for you well i mean there's a number of people who would suggest that you know if you have investments you can try and find uh inflation sensitive assets to to try and purchase those if if you have investments, you can try and find inflation sensitive assets to try and purchase those if you want. What I would say to that is, you know, if you've identified something that should go up because of, you know, high inflation, that may already be priced into the

price of that asset already. Some people would suggest it's kind of like, you know, buying fire insurance when your house is already on fire. I don't know if there's a lot that you can do. the price of that asset already. Some people would suggest it's kind of like buying fire insurance when your house was already on fire. I don't know if there's a lot that you can do to take advantage now, now that everyone else is sort of seeing the same thing. You're basically trying to figure out, are you smarter than the next person? Or are you smarter than the collective wisdom of everyone participating in those markets? Historically, that's always been a tough thing to do. Had you come up with that 24 months ago and you know i think that there's going to be a lot of inflation that no one else is seeing that would have been a different story but that you know

that's what investors are always trying to do and the research seems to suggest that everyone's expectations of what's going to happen tends to be baked into the current prices already so those assets that may already that may be inflation sensitive and do well in high inflation that may have already been priced into those assets so i don't know if there's a lot you can do on that front now that being said there are some things that um even people who maybe not be super well off at this environment can do to take advantage or do differently to lessen the impact. And this has to do with cars. So we've seen historically cars are depreciating assets, but we've seen the price of used cars have gone up through the roof. New cars have gone up by

10 to 15% used cars. The index in the US was, I think, up 30% to 35%. So you can potentially sell a car that you bought years ago for the same price that you bought it at originally. But here's where the opportunity is, because if you sell that car, you have to replace it with a higher price car. For people who are near the end of a lease, this is something to be really aware of. If you're near the end of a lease on your car when you first got that lease the lease includes the residual value which basically says here's what we think the value of the car is going to be at the end of this three or four year lease or whatever it is and and that price that they determined three or four years ago is probably

a lot lower than the price would be right now for that car that is three or four years old. So instead of just returning your car at the end of a lease, because there may be some dealerships who may not make you aware of the fact that you're sitting on something that's worth a lot more than what they're contracted to pay you for it, you can either buy out that lease, and that might be the best deal you'll get in this current environment. And if you don't want that car, you can probably still buy it out and sell it in the open market for a lot more than what that lease contract value would be worth. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Some dealerships are really good and they might even call you up and say,

hey, I don't know if you know this, but we've got a lot of people who are looking for used cars and we'll buy it from you for more than what it says in the contract. But not all dealerships do that. So something to be aware of because that could be worth thousands of dollars. Yeah, that's good advice. Here's the last question. Why did so many people who are supposed to know what's going to happen on the big picture of financial situations like, you know, governors of national banks, why did they miss this one? If I can answer that question. You know, I do think it's a confluence of a number of factors. One being we're not used to getting hit with, you know, a global pandemic. No one really had a modern day playbook for how this would play out.

So there's certainly something to be said for that. Again, if we go back to March 2020, it seems much clearer in hindsight, but at the time, there's so many things that were just otherworldly in terms of our comprehension of what was going on. I mean, there was that week there where you almost felt like a criminal if you stepped out your front door. The world was absolutely quiet, frozen, stay home. We're going to throw all this money at you so you are more likely to stay home. Business is going to completely shut down. And we saw these unbelievable unemployment prints, the job losses in that month. I think in the States was like 20 million or something like that, jobs lost. We saw one month the S&P 500 dropped. It was, I think, around 34.8% in one month.

And at the time, with everything grinding to a halt, there was, like, I was scared. Everyone was scared, not only for our health, but also the impacts on the economy. And that bounced back really quick. There was a pretty big global response by governments to, yes, have those lockdowns and also put a lot of money into people's hands in the form of stimulus checks and support programs, CERB, the Q's and so on. on record savings. And then we were scratching our heads. How is it possible during a pandemic when everything's shot that people are sitting on so much extra cash? And so, you know, just how our spending patterns changed, partly because we just couldn't do certain things like travel,

which is a big chunk of people's budgets, the shift in consumer spending from services, which you couldn't really access to goods, because if we're spending a lot of time at home let's you know upgrade the home either be an office or just a place here you know it's more pleasant to spend time in and that put a strain on on supply chains because these are the supply chains that were you know shut down because factors are shut down people wanted more of the stuff that they're producing so we saw these huge shifts that all happened and in retrospect we can connect the dots really a lot more easily than we could at the time and so um i think just the confluence of all these absolute outlier variables that all came into play you know around the same time it was just uh i think foolhardy to ever think that anyone could

could figure this out precisely we're gonna autopsy the responses for years to come and it'll become more clear and hopefully it makes us better prepared for the next pandemic hopefully that doesn't happen in our lifetime or anyone's lifetime but yeah i'll say uh preet as always uh given us lots to think about and uh and some guidance, too, on how we might consider acting in this next while. It's always good to talk to you. Thanks so much. Thank you, Peter. Preet Banerjee with us.

And Preet, as I mentioned, had just got back yesterday from Montreal where he'd been at the F1 races, the Formula 1 races, and watched Max Verstappen win yet another race. And, you know, one thing Preet said about this weekend was that there were more people he goes to. He's been going to the Montreal races, F1 races, for quite some time. And he's been to a few others in different parts of the world as well. One thing he mentioned last night is he'd never seen as many people at the Montreal race as he saw this past weekend.

And looking for the answers as to why, so many people said, I never used to like F1. I was not a Formula One fan until I started watching the F1 series on Netflix. It's like a three or four season series that's on there. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I just started watching it on Friday night. I haven't been an F1 fan. I mean, when I was a little kid, you know, I used to follow it sort of. But it was depressing because there were a lot of accidents, serious accidents, fatalities.

But the way they make the cars today, they go so so much faster but they're so much better built that fatalities do occur but they're rare and you'll see serious accidents serious crashes and you go my gosh how could anybody get out of that and then the next thing you see is the guy walking away from it so it's quite uh it's become suddenly quite popular as a result of the documentary series, which is totally based on access. They have great access to the Formula One races. And I don't know whether you're at all interested, but you might have a look. It's pretty interesting. And some of these guys are real characters.

And some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on is quite gripping. And as a result, of course, then you tend to watch these things because you've got hooked to this. It's just like watching a drama. You get hooked to certain personalities and certain characters, and the same thing happens with this. Anyway, that's a long way from inflation. I hope you enjoyed that and give you some thoughts, some ideas, about how to deal with your own personal financial situation over these,

what is going to be not just a few months, but quite possibly a few years. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, there's some new, some new, a new look at the way people look at media and trust in media. We've dealt with this quite a few times over the last, well, a couple of years, ever since the bridge started.

It is a recurring theme, not only on the program, but in your letters. So you'll be interested in this latest update. And also, do you like hot dogs? On our Monday notes section today, we have something about hot dogs. That you just might find interesting. In the meantime, as I said, quick break, and we'll be right back. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario.

Preet, by the way, was in Toronto for that interview. I'm in Stratford here listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM Canada, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. All right. Our Monday notes section now. Something we started last week. Great to start some new idea just before you go on hiatus for the summer. Anyway, there's a new report out by Reuters and Oxford University

who get together to study media and look at media on a number of different ways. And they've been trying to get to the bottom of this whole issue of trust in media, because there's no question, trust in media, just like trust in a lot of national institutions, has dropped over the past few years. To me, it's much more important that it's dropped in terms of the media, because if you believe that the media is one of the pillars of democracy, then you need a stable, trustworthy media. If you don't have that, things

start to crumble, which reminds us of our first story today about media organizations starting beats on Democracy Watch. Sort of where are we in terms of saving democracy? Anyway, part of this study, and it's been completed over the last five or six years. One of the first questions is trying to determine where people get their news. What's the source of their news? Who's going up in terms of a source?

Who's going down in terms of a source? And these are in general, you know, like TV, print, online, social media. So the major source of news these days, according to the study by Reuters and Oxford University, and it's a worldwide study, and it's broken down country by country, and so I'm just looking at the Canadian numbers here now. In Canada,

here's the primary source of news, online. And that includes social media, but all things online. 77% of respondents say that's their source of news, online. Next up, television. But it's down, 58 percent as a major source of news and to give you some sense of how things have changed over the last i don't know 20 25 years that number used to be and i can recall it because i used to talk about it was between 75 and 80 percent said their major source of news was television and i used to say

you need more than television if you want to understand news you should watch television but it is like walter cronk i used to say television television is kind of the headlines. You've got to go deeper to get the full understanding of news stories. Anyway, now 58%. Next up is just social media. So like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, that kind of situation. 55% say that's where they get their news, so almost as much as television. What's at the bottom? Well, not surprisingly, print is at the bottom, and it's way down,

16%. It was close to 40% when this surveying started only five or six years ago. It's dropped considerably, down now to 16%. Where do you get your news in terms of devices? I don't think any of this will come as a shock. 61% of respondents say, I get it from my phone. I agree. Nobody would be surprised at that. 48% say they get it from their computer,

like their laptop or their desktop computer. And 25% say they get it from their tablet. How many people pay for online news? So you actually go beyond the paywall. You pay money to get news from different news agencies. 15% say they do that. How many people listen to a podcast in the last month? Well, obviously, all of you do,

at least if you're listening on a podcast that you've downloaded of The Bridge. 36% of respondents say, I listen to podcasts. And that number, it doesn't have the breakout here over the last five years, but my guess is that number has gone up consistently over the last five years and will keep going up. More and more people listen to podcasts.

Trust in news overall 42% say they trust the news they hear or see or read trust in the news that you personally use is only slightly higher it's 48% now what does that trust score mean over time? In the five or six years they've been doing this survey, the trust in news has gone from 55% in 2016

to 42% this year. That's a big drop. Drop of 13 points. Overall, that's a drop of, you know, what? More than 20%, not quite 25%. That's a significant drop. They do surveys in Canada about what are the most trusted news sources. Brand trust scores, they call them.

And they're very similar in terms of the top. CTV is actually at the top at 62%. Just edges out local or regional newspapers. Global News is third at 60%. And CBC is at 59%. So really, that's within the margin of error between the top four. The BBC comes next at 55%. The Globe and Mail, 53%. City News, 52%.

CNN, 50%. New York Times, 49%. National Post, 48%. CP24, 46%. Toronto Star, 45. MSNBC, 37. Yahoo News, 33%. And holding camp in the basement, right down there at the bottom,

you couldn't go any further down, Fox, 29%. No comment necessary. And the last one. The top social media and messaging. Where do you get it in Canada? Number one, Facebook for news, 40%. YouTube is second at 32%. And that's up five points.

Facebook's actually down, but only one point. Margin of error stuff. Facebook Messenger is 18%. Instagram, 12%. Twitter, 11%. And WhatsApp, 9%. So that's a combination of using this for not only, you know, reading social media posts, but for messaging.

Anyway, some interesting stuff there, right? I find it interesting. Maybe it's just me. Here's something we're all going to find interesting. We have in Stratford, as most communities have, well, not most communities, but a lot of communities have, you have a favorite place you want to go for hot dogs. And it's usually only open for the summer.

It's kind of like a sign of spring and summer when you see the footlong hot dog stand, because there really isn't much more than a stand here in Stratford, but they're great hot dogs. I mean, I've always liked hot dogs. I've always been partial to hot dogs. I love a hot dog at a baseball game or a hockey game or a football game. And, you know, you don't want to know what's in them,

but nevertheless, they taste great, at least to me. But if there's one thing that has always upset shoppers about hot dogs, is that you can go and buy a pack of wieners and those packs come usually in 10, right? They're stacked five on five, 10 wieners. How many buns are in a pack? Usually eight. Now, this is a big problem and there have been a lot of complaints about this.

You know, this is kind of like a first world problem, but it's a problem. If you like hot dogs. So what are you going to do with those other two? You know, it doesn't really work when you try and put it in a piece of bread. And you're not going to buy another pack so you have 16 buns and only 10 wieners. Because those buns really are not good for making anything else. Well, Heinz has decided to deal with this. Heinz, in a press release, says, just in time for National Hot Dog Month,

I bet you didn't know that, that it was National Hot Dog Month, Heinz and Wonder unveiled 10 packs of buns at select grocers in Ontario, available starting June 23rd. This epic resolution comes on the heels of the Heinz Hot Dog Pact that launched the last National Hot Dog Month, urging bun and wiener companies to take action. One year and over 33,000 signatures later. Come on, don't tell me this has been, you know, something people aren't interested in.

33,000 people signed this petition. Hot dog fans, please, we're finally heard. And now they have this out. Okay, enough. This press release goes on for pages. They've already got more publicity for me than they probably should have got. But nevertheless,

that's a major move on the part of the hot dog world. Yeah, I know. I know some of you are going, Mansbridge, seriously. You're doing something on hot dog buns? It is definitely time for a holiday. That's your Monday show. We're back tomorrow. Brian Stewart will be with us with his last before the summer break

sense of where we are on the Ukraine story. Looking forward to hearing that. Want you to know that my good friend Wendy Mesley starts her new podcast today. I promised I'd plug it, and I have. And we're wishing Wendy great luck. I mean, you can find it easily.

Just look up Wendy Mesley in the podcast list, and you will get a chance to listen to her first entry into the podcast world. It's fun. I know what that first one is like, but here we are hundreds of episodes later, just past the 4 million download mark over the weekend. And I know that's the same path and track that Wendy will be on.

So good luck to Wendy Mesley in the world of podcasting. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again tomorrow