The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP #150 (Other Notable Stories) - Mortgage Scams, Wages Up, Credit Card Debt Spiral

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES Join us for some QUALITY Bitcoin and economics talk, with a Canadian focus, every Monday at 7 PM EST. This week: -a record sale of 10-year notes -Seattle rugs Doordash and Uber Eats drivers -credit card debt spiking -New York Community Bancorp lawsuit -wages are going up? -fake China money flowing into Toronto real estate -BCE job cuts and so much more From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com ⁠Discord: ⁠ ⁠https://discord.gg/ESRCZWpb⁠ A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetwork This show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠https://easydns.com/⁠⁠ EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠ The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. With their new kyc-free options, there's never been a quicker, simpler, more private and (most importantly) cheaper way to acquire private Bitcoin. Use the link above for $20 bones, and take advantage of all Bull Bitcoin has to offer. ______________ Check out the other podcasts on the network: The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/c/CanadianBitcoiners) The NHL 94 Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/@NHL94Podcast) Two Whites and a Blue (https://www.youtube.com/@twowhitesandabluepodcast2788) Bitcoin and Barbells (https://www.youtube.com/@JoeyBBandBTC)

The Canadian Bitcoiners podcast is just two guys and maybe a guest or two discussing Bitcoin, Bitcoin equities, and the related macroeconomic space. It's not meant to be financial advice, so please, if you're doing any investing, after listening to our program, do your own research, do your own due diligence, and understand that any money you invest can be lost. The show is meant for entertainment purposes only, and we hope you enjoy the program. One hour and three minutes and 18 seconds. That's pretty good. That was a good rip there. Okay.

Time for the Canadian Bitcoiners podcast favorite, other notable stories. So what are we talking about tonight on ONS? what are we talking about tonight on ons what are we talking about so yeah the us they went out this past week and they sold a record amount of 10 year debt and the treasury department man they made a fucking killing so it was 42 billion dollars of 10 year notes were sold last wednesday and those who bought them got or are going to be getting a cool 4.1% yield, or in other words, 1.5 trading days worth of NVIDIA, if you look at the grand scheme of things. Previous record, now, I just want to bring this up because they're talking about this being a record number of the sales. it's not entirely true because the previous record

was 41 billion dollars that was back in november of 2020 adjusting this for inflation the sale that they did this past week is much less in terms of dollar value like value itself than it was in november 2020 november 2020 i'll take the the justice for inflation that is the record we have to be just like the price of bitcoin whenever it is we could say 69 xxx is is the the justice for inflation that is the record we have to be just like the price of bitcoin whenever it is we could say 69 xxx is is the the all-time high no no with injustice for inflation as well but don't want to go too much into the weeds here all this really shows this quote-unquote record sale of 10-year notes shows you that there's a thirst out there for more debt there's no way that the that the united states of america can continue without going further and further into debt and at the front of the show

you know we were talking and you wasn't behind the scenes or in front of the scenes we're talking about 32 trillion dollars i forget now uh the debt the public that you just said yeah it's on the air i think it was on the air okay yeah so that's another one so like we're laughing at the fact that it's 34 and changed trillion dollars this is so much fucking debt and they are going to just continually sell more and more of these notes moving forward because they have no other way to deal with what they have simply through taxation and unfortunately this is how it's going to be done it has been done for the past little while. It will continue to be done for the next little while, and it's just going to accelerate. They're going to sell more and more of this

because, let's be honest, the value of the dollar gets less. They need more and more money coming in to pay for whatever because now the dollars are worth far less. It's accelerating, man. It's accelerating. Who bought the 10-year notes do you know not me i'm gonna look right now the problem with the note thing okay so for people who don't know it's actually an auction so you bid on 10-year treasuries let's see recent auction results on treasury direct this was it today it was wednesday last. They did a few tranches of different durations.

The 10-year was done on Wednesday last week. Okay, let me see if I can find it here. This is some security term. 2-6. It would be 2-6, right? 2-7. Okay, let's see. It's not here.

I don't see it here. Yeah, I don't see it here. yeah i don't see it here so whatever i can't i can't pin it down but the point that i would make oh no here it is never mind here let me go 10 year notes 10 year so quality cbp this is good audio for sure. Yeah. Even better videos. But people watch. I'll share. I'll share my screen. I'll share my screen. So people who are still here. Unbelievably.

Thank you for staying all 30. The number of people tuning in. It's just. This is it. Okay. So what. What am I to make of this here? Like this is your.

Your bond. They sold. They sold a bunch. There you go. And. What do you make of this? So this is bonds, 30-year, 20-year. Here's your 10-year notes.

There's one from the 15th, and then the most recent one after that is the 16th. This one I remember hearing about. This one, let's see. We welcome your feedback here at Treasury Direct. So you can't see you bought them. I'd be curious because I think the problem with that market is that at some point, central banks are buying all the debt, in which case, it's just Peter paying Paul, right? So what are we talking about here? It's just like fake funny money everywhere you look. The rates are all made up because they only buy their own

debt so they're setting the rates at a level they like i like shell shock with this even my wife did you ever read the fiat standard by the way no i have it but i haven't read it i don't read books i gotta start reading books i'm copying that right now the fiat standard it's a awesome like one of the first chapters talks about england and they were funding the war world war one and initially they tried to sell bonds in order to fund it and unfortunately there wasn't enough demand to meet whatever money they needed so what they did they hid it that the central bank bought bond bought these bonds so they issued them and sold it so it's the first qe that was ever done it was done classic 120 years ago almost 110 years ago so since then it's just been done and they did it in such a way they hit it they had somebody do it on behalf of the bank so it

wasn't the bank directly just been scamming for a century unbelievable and this information wasn't known until almost 100 years later which time the information was made public and then at that point they realized oh fuck they were lying all this time so that's this is the shell game we're dealing with the information is held for a century we don't know shit until well after the fact and you fucking issued the debt and bought it from yourself what the fuck is this completely insane man i don't i don't even know what to say about that. People don't... Not that I'm saying everyone needs to know the inner workings, the plumbing of the financial system, because I don't know it either.

Me and Len have been doing this show for three years, been in Bitcoin for about twice that long. And still, I look at some of this stuff. Even just now, I'm on the Treasury Direct website. I've never been there before. I don't know anything about treasury note auctions, except that I know there are auctions and they don't always go well recently. People who are even less informed than we are, and you guys are, you guys and girls are,

what do they think about stuff like this? The problem is they don't think anything about it. It's completely off the table for them. So when you say stuff to them like, oh, the interest rate is set by XYZ or treasury auctions went XYZ this month, it's foreign. And you lose people when you're discussing things that are on the fringes of things that affect every aspect of their life. And they just have no idea. And shit, we don't have any idea either.

We're out here talking about these auctions like we're pros. One of the reasons I've enjoyed writing stuff for the website land is because number one, it gives me a chance to use my mechanical keyboard, which I'm addicted to. Talk about ASMR feedback loops. But number two, because I see something interesting like this, and I'm like, man, I got to write about this. Maybe the next one I'll write, I'll write about auctions and see how it goes and learn a bit about them. And then we can talk about it because it is it's important and no one knows about it. And it's like this thing that's underpinning the entire financial Ponzi, I mean, system all over the world. So there you go.

It's a fiat tool. So really, what the fuck is it? It's nothing. Acceleration data. I got some of that for credit cards. Sure. And, you know, it's not just the Treasury Department that's piling on debt. Well, consumers are doing the same thing.

And the Federal Reserve stated that the total household debt climbed another $212 billion in the fourth quarter. So in one quarter alone, the total household debt increased $212 billion. And it now sits at $17.5 trillion. That's the total household debt, $17.5 trillion. Not only that, delinquency rates are increasing and there's an uptick in the outstanding debt that is in some way, some type, it's in a form of delinquency.

Credit card debts and car loans are leading the charge here. So people are going behind on both credit card and car payments. In fact, 8.5% of credit card loans and 7.7% of auto loans are in some sort of trouble. That's a sizable number. And here's where it gets even more crazy. Total credit card debt in the US sits at $1.13 trillion. I did some quick LendMath here. So we have $1.13 trillion. We have about 260 million adults in the United States.

This equates to around $4,300 for every adult person in credit card debt, $4,300. Some people are carrying $0 in balance. So it's conceivable that there are a lot of people out there that have five digits balance on their credit card, carrying this month to month, making minimum or not even making minimum payments on this. And this is at a time when rates are higher than they were in previous years. 5% may not seem a lot in 1980s, but past 15 years, it's certainly higher. So all this to say is that there's going to be something happening here.

Who is going to be holding the bag? Banks, then the Federal Reserve, and then it's going to be everybody. So ultimately, everybody's going to be holding the bag banks then the federal reserve and then it's going to be everybody so ultimately everybody's going to be feeling the pain here once they are the buyer of last resort and they're the ones bailing out all these credit card payments that just need to be paid off so 1.1 trillion dollars in credit card debt that is a fuckload and that too just like the federal debt will never be repaid. Okay. I got a good supplementary stat for you here coming from our friends at Fred. You're going to love this. The delinquency rate on credit card loans across all commercial banks,

okay, is 2.98%, just a little shy of 3%. Okay. Pretty low. Give you some context there. In 2009, at the peak, last 30-year peak, it was 6.77. So you're at 3%-ish now. It was 6.77, almost 7% in 2009. If we look at banks that are not among the 100 largest in size by assets, AKA the banks that have been having trouble anyway and are about to run out of BTFP and all this other stuff, do you know what that delinquency rate jumps to? 8%. 7.5, higher than it was in 08 for the big ones. How's that stat? So what you got there is the little banks who are already teetering, they have a lot more problems with delinquent loans, with a lot more people. That's on credit cards cards what do you think it is on houses cars i bet you it's pretty high and so when people say

btfp is going to expire and roll over maybe but do you think they're not going to replace with something else or they're just going to let these guys burn because i really think there's some burning to be done when i see a stat like that i don't know man to me that's like a dangerous dangerous game to play because they already had a problem with confidence, right? You're checking a couple of boxes here, as I like to say. You got the BTFP running out. You got Jerome Powell doing 60 minutes.

None of these things are good if you think that the banks in the US are sound, resilient, solvent, whatever the word was they were using two years ago, a ago interesting stuff the credit card debt and the other two that you mentioned for mortgages and car loans yeah with the car loans and the mortgages they could repossess the asset it may be far less than what the initial loan was but they still have that with credit cards yeah typically they can't repossess the problem with repossessing the asset is they'd have to realize the loss. You know what I mean? Like they're in a hole there.

The whole point of the BTFP was, you know, not realizing losses on your bonds. If you have to realize it on your real estate, specifically commercial, like if you have commercial, you're in a world that hurts. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. I'm on the Fred website, which by the way, like if you ever want to just kill some time with a cup of coffee, the Fred website is great. Just type in the search results there,

type in the search bar, whatever you want to find. And they got it. Now, how good is the data? I don't know, but it's, it's as good as there is out there. And, uh, that's right. Yeah. They're the ones giving away anyways, New York bank, sorry, New York community bank corps.

Since we're talking about commercial real estate, since we're talking about these smaller slash regional banks, let's talk about them. We mentioned in previous episodes, I think last week, how their stock doubled significantly because they reported some losses that were surprised to investors. Well, shareholders, they have since filed a lawsuit against them because the stock price of this

particular company reached a 27 year low and also dividends are being slashed so it's being cut in two different ways so you're really taking it up the ass and everywhere else if you're a stockholder here so this lawsuit is based on the company allegedly failing to disclose that it needed to earmark more money for credit losses. And as a result, there was a 71% dividend cut 71%. That's significant. They posted the $260 million fourth quarter loss.

And as I mentioned, this number was unexpected and it caused the stock to absolutely fucking tank. Now these losses, they're tied to loans for offices and apartment buildings. And they are heavily tied to real estate in New York, this company, this bank is. And with apartments being their biggest exposure, and I took a little bit, took a deep dive into this. And according to Yahoooo finance these properties could end up being worth a lot less as than they used to be because of the high interest rates

and the new limits in new york on rent increases almost half the new york city apartments are rent subsidized and if you look at what happened in 2019 the state put on a limit on how much rent could be increased, and that made it harder for landlords to make profits from buildings. Also, as a result of that, there's less appetite for the landlords to fix up the properties. So as a result, you're making less profit. The building hasn't been getting as much upkeep. So the overall value comes down to toss in some high interest rates and inflation well you have the perfect storm now for the new york community bank corp that is absolutely getting wrecked due to their exposure in the real estate market in

new york city so there you go that sort of ties into what you were saying earlier as uh what's going on with uh well this is pretty sad stuff and this is not the only bank that's going to go tits up soon there's going to be other ones to mark my words but this is the one that's i guess is getting all the highlights these days i'm not going to anything i i think you're right isn't the question now like you mentioned earlier just when and what the response will be the response can't be just let all these regionals crash it cannot be the response you had guys like calcanis in the all-in crowd talking about all the financial system will fall apart if we allow this. Confidence is the only thing that

matters. You're throwing it out the window, blah, blah, blah. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. But I can't imagine they do nothing after the coordinated, quick, Sunday night, you will recall, response that they had for SVB. So are they going to do it again? I don't know. What are they going to do?ome powell come on the podcast let's talk about it i know i'm not scott pelly but uh you know i got 60 minutes for you if you actually want to talk for that long i think that they're just gonna let these bigger banks gobble them up for pennies on the whole so that that would be nuts that would be nuts but you might be right it's on it yeah it's on the table for sure, right?

Yeah, so let these banks of America, JP Morgan and so forth, just get them, you know, not at the value of which they should be sold, but a lesser value to entice them to take them on and business will continue and customers will still be served. But some customers who won't be served are going to be those in Seattle. And this is a story about unintended consequences, Joey.

And there is a new ordinance from the city of Seattle. And this ordinance is adding $5 to all DoorDash and Uber Eats orders. And the rationale for this was simply supposedly to help those making the deliveries of these things earn a livable wage. And, well, unfortunately, this may have backfired. And the reason being is that fewer people now are making orders, whereas the delivery people used to have a full day worth of deliveries are now sitting around waiting for orders to appear on their phones. Go figure.

One driver even shared he made last week, he made $464 as opposed to previous year, $931. So less than half what he earned in the previous year. Oh my God, man. And this is all because people are deleting these apps because there's a $5 added surcharge. What can we say about this, Len? Like, what do you say about this? How do you put this in perspective for people who are making these decisions? It's not like this is the first time. We've seen this a million times over the years. You add fees and costs and living wage this, and people just don't order anymore. And then

the whole thing falls apart. What are you going to do? Are you going to mandate that people order Uber Eats to help a buddy have a decent life? I'm not saying it's a great situation, but this is not the answer, is it? We've seen this a million times. This story is one that's as old as fiat economics, right? The invisible hand, not so invisible. And when you see it, it's already too late. It uh it's already too late i don't know man as a seattle like among the worst places in the world right now right like worst first world cities to live in gotta be it was so good to live some 30 years ago it's gone ever since this ever since the supersonics left and frazier stopped taping seattle went down the drain

that was where the that was the high point. That was the top tick. Potentially, yeah. When did the Supersonics leave? Got to be the mid-aughts, maybe, before 2010. A few years before then, it was top, because that's when the Mariners were kicking ass. Kevin Durant got drafted by the Sonics,

and I think he was in the 05 draft. So probably 05 well before that so anyways yeah let's talk about the border bill very quick and uh the name the donald trump impeachment bill slash omnibus ukraine bill slash it's it's it like and they break they call the border bill and this is why i i am bringing this up because it's the name that's being bantied around. I'm not making this shit up. This is what's in the media. And just looking at this, you think of the border bill.

Oh, there must be something that's trying to shore up what's happening down south because you have the flow of migrants and so forth. Well, it's not the case. It's $118 billion that's allocated towards this border bill, which 20 billion of the 118 is for border security 20 billion is given so 16 of the bill nice quote you know named after by the media is going to be sent for border security 60 billion to support ukraine 14 billion in security assistance for israel 4.8 billion to support u.s partners in indo-pacific facing aggression in china okay an additional 10 billion dollars would provide humanitarian assistance for civilians in conflict zones including ukraine gaza and the west bank right and 2 billion for nvidia puts for pa Paul Pelosi. They made bank on that.

I don't know how many billions since they put that in November. Look at that. They foresaw something. The fuck they saw, I don't know. On the bus bill should be illegal, right? I think. Isn't that fair to say? I saw Vivek, I should say, that's how you say his name,

Sachs, Trump, and a few others today doing a space before the show started and the space was about how there's also like an impeachment thing baked into that bill did you hear that yeah that's and so they're going after trump now it was they're just throwing it in there i guess 535 a little segment there yeah something in there about the gaza strip something there about the border Something in there about the Gaza strip, something in there about the border and something in there about impeaching Trump. Like what, what are we talking about?

Like what is going on around here? This is why we, you know, this is why other notable stories has become such a favorite in the CBP ecosystem here. It just never stops. You know, the stories become more notable every week it feels like let's move on joe and there's nothing i gotta say about that because i want to say we have admission from janet yellen that high prices are here for good i love this one too this is great

this is an all-timer good a strong modern economic theory here go ahead i mean seriously it took all this time to finally come to this conclusion. But she says that wages are rising, so this could offset the higher prices that we're experiencing. The problem is, though, wages, it's a lag. They don't go up right away. There's going to be a period of time before prices of shit go up and wages follow suit and during that period of time there's financial hardship that is being borne by the people that are just living and plus the wages they may not go up as high as the real cost of living is so that's another thing to consider

but she says and we don't have to get the cost sorry we don't have to get the prices down because wages are going up and she's noting that the medium worker in the u.s can buy the same basket basket of goods they did in 2019 that they did in 2019 yeah so americans are so americans on average are better off in spite of the fact that the levels of prices are higher so she's saying that people are better off now than they were in 2019 and um yeah so another thing to consider too is when you increase the wages of individuals, of the employers, sorry, employees, the employers may want to then start cutting back because they're also dealing with higher prices. And one way to do it is to reduce the staff.

And that's going to be an expense. So obviously, that's one thing they could consider. So there is no easy solution. Higher wages. It's always lagged. I can't believe she's saying this stuff, but you know what? I don't think she's got much time left in terms of in that position. She's dying.

Oh, she's going to lose. No, no, no. I hope she lives for another 50, 100 years. No, no. She looks healthy enough. I hope she lives for another 50, 100 years. No, no. She looks healthy enough. I hope she lives for a very long time. But in terms of doing it, I don't think so. I don't think she's going to be in there for very much longer.

She's saying some crazy stuff. Suggesting that prices don't have to come down because wages are high. I mean, where are wages high exactly? We talk every week about how people are making less money. UPS. UPS is doing well, yeah, unless you're a guy who got laid off, temp or otherwise. I mean, Janet, you know this is not how things work, I think. You're an educated economist. Maybe that's the reason you don't know. Who's the message for? Why would she say that?

Is she trying to kill two birds with one stone there, remind people that their wages are quote unquote up in nominal terms, even if not in real terms, while also saying that inflation has been crushed? Also, by the way, Biden not really doing a great job, like I mentioned earlier, in the same breath that he's talking about inflation being under control. Producers are shrinking everything. And then you have this comment on top of that. They're not even talking to each other, it feels like, doesn't it? To add to the chaos of the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris, or Kamala Harris today today saying she's ready to serve in the event that Joe Biden's age becomes a problem. Public statement.

But I think that was always the case. The vice president is always going to be. It's always the case, but you don't say it. Why? Why would you say it? You know, come on. Come on. What are we talking about?

It's crazy over there. We need KJP to settle this down. We got to get her on the podium. I like that. That video that Biden sent out about shrinkflation. Now, initially, I thought it was deepfake, but it came right from his Twitter account. So this can't be the movie. Most people today watching the big game, just like me, surrounded by snacks in a room where

there's 30 velvet chairs and armed guards like bro come on read the room you know what are we talking about here but i like that he still he took a few seconds there to talk about his uh beloved ice cream he didn't gloss over that you know what i mean since we're kind of on this topic like uh you saw the putin interview yeah with uh yeah you know what i found to be very funny about that by the way that interview with um carson um it's just that putin like from the gecko was talking about history right and he was rhyming off dates confidently rhyming off dates and events that happened hundreds and hundreds of years even you

know a thousand years a thousand years ago and he was just rhyming them off and events that happened hundreds and hundreds of years, even, you know, a thousand years, a thousand years ago. And he was just rhyming them off like that. And even when questioned, he was able to answer them. But as soon as he was asked, what is the last time you talked to Joe Biden? I don't remember.

So in his head, it was more important to document and remember these dates than the last time he talked to the president of the United States. That is, to me, I found to be fucking funny. Talking to the United States president is just not as important as remembering what happened in 1647.

Did you like the interview? Did you watch the whole thing? I watched it almost two times. I was really good. Almost two times. It was very interesting. I wish I knew more about Russian history and how much of that almost two times. I was really good. Almost. Yeah. It was very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I wish I knew more about like Russian history and how much of that border dispute history is true, but the contrast between the two leaders. Yeah. Is the timing of that. It's dark. It's dark. On the same,

on the same night, you know, geez, man, I, I, I'm not sure who's in charge of deciding when Biden does public appearances, but that one didn't do him any favors. I mean, I don't want to say it's weird because like whether he's in decline or not, I know like my own grandparents, you know, when I talk to them in the evening, they're tired. I can tell that they're tired, right? I only have one grandparent left, but no, looking back, you can tell they're them in the evening, they are, they're tired. I can tell that they're tired, right? I only have one grandparent left,

but no, looking back, you can tell they're tired in the evening. Why, why put them out there at eight o'clock? You know, like what, to what end you,

you won that case. I, I, I, I, something like, you're good to go for it. You know,

that are six, seven hours. Just, just so communication strategy, just so poor. I don't understand that at all. Anyway, we hours. Brutal. I don't know. Just so, communication strategy is just so poor. I don't understand that at all. Anyway, we're not talking about that. It looked good on paper,

but once they executed it, it was pathetic. Yeah, exactly. Let's go to some interesting Canadian stories that we should talk about. And Benjamin Felix, not sure if you saw this guy, he is a previous no-coiner.

Boomer is probably going to talk about it in the chat and you know what i'm going to just mention what's going on here this is a i would say a fairly prominent track i know this guy yes yes yes he gets hints but not financial advice on what's the best thing you should do with your money and he was tweeting out this fucking shanghai was tweeting out that the cpp i'm going to just read this exactly cpp is one of the best investments available to canadians it is the best inflation hedged asset most canadians can buy it hedges longevity risk it spreads investment risks across a massive base of pensioners anyone who tells you it's a scam that investment is wrong i don't know man like this is no-coiner

talk if you ask me it might be this guy's a you know two-time no-coiner you've mentioned it many times uh one time there was seven workers for pensioners that are drawing from cpp and now it's 3.5 workers per pensioner yeah and longevity of people living this much longer now. So there's going to be more people drawing upon it just by medical advances and so forth. So looking at this, the CPP,

you know, you can't tell somebody in their twenties, thirties, or maybe in their forties, that a CPP is a great investment because there is somebody can make a very strong argument that it may not be available at the time when they have to retire so nominal is important too don't forget about that sorry nominal versus real you know your contributions will be given back to you at

some level but what's that going to be worth i don't know yeah yeah so i mean i don't know if you want to go and talk about this i'm done talking about this i don't want to give ben felix any airtime i'll just mention one thing if it was such a good idea they wouldn't have to force you to do it that's all but you are forced to do it and uh they seem to be bringing people in to prop it up you know by their own admission it's not just the current liberal government but other governments have done the same thing it doesn't seem like that good an idea to me personally, but to each their own, I guess. Good luck with the pension, I suppose. There's also no precedent for a bunch of people who don't really have any education in how to produce hard assets

or do service technical work propping up an economy. Certainly no precedent for an entire generation of kids who went through a school system with no merit-based grading, addicted to SSRIs from an early age, supporting a pension system or a healthcare system that's at the very least overburdened, in the worst case, crumbling. Good good luck i wish you all the best i hope it works len if it works maybe we won't need bitcoin if it doesn't work though i'm uh i'm gonna be all set so you know good luck to ben and all uh all the people listening to and watching his show i guess what else can i say 50 100 the people are speaking with their pocketbook and we're rolling man you know people don't want that currency they want something harder something that's going to last and boomer saying as greg foss says too smart by a half and

i just want to throw it out there anybody know what happened to mr foss he's disappeared on twitter right huh i do oh i thought i told you didn't i tell you this no i'll tell you after but i'm not gonna say it on the air but i'm not gonna say it on the air yeah i'm not gonna say it on the air okay because yeah if you go look at his twitter it's the last one he had was decemberish yeah and it just seems odd that he just disappeared yeah like i miss greg i mean yeah whatever so we have a fake report alleged fake report we're doing stories on fake reports now. So it's a report about fake Chinese income that is being used to get

mortgages. This is all alleged information, nothing confirmed yet, but I think, I think it's confirmed. Coop, Sam Cooper's reporting it. I think it's pretty close to confirm.

He's posting video. So pictures too. Like it looks good, but again, I can't say for certain and for a liability i don't want to say it is that's why i'm using it's all alleged but anyways hsbc this is all data that was leaked from them and this is all coming from a whistleblower and somebody that is right now in a business grad school in canada and he was noticing when he was employed for hsbc at one of

the branches in the gta noticing a few strange things that were going on. And namely, there were suspicious loans that he discovered in 2022. And it wasn't just 2022 is the years leading up to that as well. And he noticed that the Chinese migrants living all over Toronto were getting mortgages from HSBC. But the salaries that they were reporting raised his concerns. And for and for example remember this is all alleged by the way an ontario casino worker who owned three homes also claimed to have earned 345 000 dollars and so this is by analyzing the data and he was working for a remote also working for a remote beijing company so he was

pretending to work over there but also working here as an ontario casino worker and he says that since 2015 several gta hsbc branches issued at least 500 million in home loans to these inflated income people claiming fake jobs in china and to give context one branch he worked for had an average of before all this happened 23 million was given out in home loans each year leading up to all this but once all this came to be they were issuing 50 million a year 88 million a year that's a huge jump from 23 and it's all because he suspects that fake income statements from china are being used to pump stuff up and you know these are potentially alleged scams and also money laundering. And I've mentioned money laundering in real estate many, many moons ago.

I'll bring it up again. If one were to get cash in Canada, whatever means necessary, if you have a home, one way to clean this, and I'm saying you should do this, but this is the reality, this is what happens, is you renovate your house you use that cash pay the workers cash work is done the home is improved sell the house it's clean the money you then had that was initially dirty is now clean and i'm just talking about the money laundering but for this in terms of all this like fake stuff the fake chinese income these people were with the fake income over there were bidding up against

people that had real income over here driving up the prices even more even more so all this this has been going on for several years from 2015 up until 2022 and yeah even says it's the story highlights that 66 percent of buyers in several affluent neighborhoods were recently Chinese migrants. And most mortgages went to buyers with little or no income to Canada. So they had very little income here. They were claiming a lot of income there in China. With that, they were able to buy up a lot of homes in several affluent areas. Probably in Northeast Toronto and just even outside northeast gta

considering over yeah well yeah uh he because he was based in aurora i'm thinking this is more just oh sure this particular guy yeah yeah so yeah then it's just it's this is okay the most the most damning thing the most damning thing is that cooper and guys like uh alder lane eggs i can't remember his actual name is alder lane eggs is his twitter handle those guys say the same thing and again this is an allegation so you know don't sue me but the thing is that the banks know and just don't dig into it because that's where they're buttering their bread on these loans right on these mortgages and they don't dig into it because that's where they're buttering their bread on these loans, right? On these mortgages. And they don't care if the income is illegitimate or overseas or fudged or whatever. The bigger problem, Len, is at some point there's going to be legislation that

the CRA and the bank are going to link their books and everything's going to be transparent which is great for a lot of reasons but it's just the you know continued creep into your personal data by both government and private institution in the in the bank's case um in the name of safety and in this case uh you know a very sensitive topic like housing and shelter it's like it's just there's no good outcomes here the the foreign buyers ban leaves a lot of holes actually seretsky wrote about that i think it was today or last week i forget about some of the gaps in the foreign buyers ban if you look it up it doesn't really ban any foreign buyers like if you're a student you can buy if you're a pr you can buy if you

you know come over here to buy yeah whatever right but like but like you should be you should be for like five years something like that like there should be you should be for like five years something like that like there should be like there should be rules i mean look you're talking about uh some of the ways you can exploit this certainly there are other people who are exploiting it in similar ways it's not like i have to guess i live in university town we've talked about the stuff that goes on near mac by columbia college conestogaoma, you name it, right? All these colleges have been rinsing people vis-a-vis these means, bringing international students and having these kids buy a property. They shouldn't be allowed to do it if we're serious about it. Now, if we're not serious

about it, then let it be a free-for-all, let the market dictate, and these guys can be part of the market too. But this idea that the foreign buyers ban does anything, I think, is difficult for me to understand exactly where the roadblocks are for people who are coming from other countries, because, you know, if a student land come over and buy a house, then,

you know, how are we defining student? Maybe that's where we should start. If a PR come over and buy a house, whatever, and we're on a work visa, I don't know. It's dicey.

The point is that there's clearly regions where this type of behavior from banks, income statements, whatever, is more prevalent than others. And something's got to be done about it. I don't know what, but according to Cooper and others, no one really has any interest in figuring out what the problem is, it seems like. That's a big issue. Good politics.

And I don't know if it's good or not policy. I guess we could make a decision on that. But in terms of permanent residents, PRs, you're mentioning, maybe I'm not sure if you're misidentifying what they are. So permanent resident is somebody that is living here in canada that has almost every right that a canadian citizen does except for the right to carry a passport and vote they could stay here they could work here they could do whatever they want they're essentially living here as a foreign national but just with the only thing they can't that's why i said that's what i said maybe not an outright ban but like can we time lock it? Can we do, you know what I mean? You have to prevent property speculation.

And if the vehicle that speculators are using are PR tickets, then what do you do, right? It's a hard thing to figure out. There's no easy solution to the problem. And these are sensitive topics, right? Because a lot of people are legitimate buyers. They come over and work and they want to live here. Great. Some are not. And if we really think that this is what's causing home prices to go up, I personally don't. I think that it's a lot of

other things, but if this is what, you know, the powers that be believe is causing home prices to go up, you got to get serious about it. You got to put things in place, right? I think you and I both probably agree that this is not you know a top 10 cause of the home prices going up in canada but you know that's um a story for another time it's just it's all cumulative and yeah and just like the straw that broke the camel's back and i i don't want to keep harping on it if somebody comes to canada as a permanent resident they go through the process they essentially they uprooted their life to come here yeah personally in my opinion they should have every right if

they wanted to buy a home just like anybody else they could what if they want what if they want to live in here what if they want to buy two and part of the paycheck comes from overseas that's something that i it's got there's got to be there's got to be some limit right like i think that's i think we both agree on that there's got to be some limit i don't know where the line is but it's somewhere yeah it's and it's difficult to validate some of these foreign documents they could issue it and you know it's let's be honest it could come from anybody and it may look legitimate and they could call and say yeah is this legit yeah it's true but it's really just your family member yeah exactly so it's it's hard to to verify stuff and that's what creates a problem and if they're able then to circumvent the system to then get

homes and then immediately they just rent the fucking thing to you know every room gets rented out and that's a way that they could pay the mortgage even though they don't have much of an income here in canada or no income even in their home country they're just using the rental income to pay for everything that's one unit that's taken away from everybody else that's one home that nobody else could buy and then you do that multiply it many times as you say it's it's maybe not the reason why things are going up we should we should talk about this right like like floyd marinescu is going to come, I think, to my house in March to do a show.

He's big on the land or the, what is it? It's not property tax. It is the land value tax, right? And I don't know how I feel about that. I disagree with him on some things, but I may agree with him on some of his other ideas. I'd be curious to hear what, you know, in any case, I'd be curious to hear what he thinks is driving the cost of homes up.

Cause he's obviously done a lot of work on it. He comes at it from a different angle than you and me. Let's, let's see where we align. I bet you, we align on a lot of things. Is there any other main reason that you could think of that's not M2? No, it's not. I mean, is that really the primary reason? Well, the thing is like, it's, I said, I've said this on our show before. I've said it's not really the primary reason. Well, the thing is like it's,

I said, I've said this on our show before. I've said it on Tom and Nick show. Every time we've been on there, everyone knows what the problem is, even if they articulate it differently or can't articulate it at all. They know, they know they can't be in cash. Boomers don't necessarily want to buy Nvidia and Apple. They like real estate. They like gold. They like, and so they buy it. Right. And real estate is a friendly investment for someone in their 50s, 60s, and 70s because they know how to maintain a house. They know how to do basic stuff like plumbing and electrical. I don't know how to do that. So real estate for me is not an appealing investment vehicle. I have my primary residence and that's it. It's all I'm planning to have for the time being.

It is a liability in a lot of ways but for a boomer you know you may you may feel differently it's we've monetized different assets we've monetized the s&p monetized housing monetized whatever right there's a lot to this because the wages haven't if you look at the price of homes over the past 30 40 50, and you graph it out and you look at the wages, the value or price of the home, it vastly exceeds the wages. Yeah. So at a time, you know, decades ago, it was much easier to qualify for a mortgage and pay for a mortgage if it's your second home, third home and so forth.

So at a different time, that's why, I mean, you may say boomers, but they were able to take advantage of the situation that way. You're right, Len. Yeah, you're right. Fortunately here, we just, it's very difficult now to buy a second home without a lot of that incredible income or some other secondary stream of income. You should ask Tom and Nick what their client base is doing, right? Because they were at some, I mean, I don't know if they're specifically and explicitly and exclusively recommending the BRRRR method, but it seems to me that that's like the way everyone was doing that, right? You buy, you rent, you re-leverage and you just roll it again, right?

Like that was the whole thing. And maybe they're still doing that. Maybe they're not. I don't know, right? I'd be curious. Maybe they're not. I don't know. Right. I'd be curious. Uh, you can, you should ask him that when you go see, anyway, we're, we're coming up on time here. Do you want to do another two and a half hour episode?

Oh my fucking God. Are you kidding me? Let's end it here. Let's end it here. That's, that's a great show. Thanks everyone for hanging out in the chat. Strong as always. Um, I will tweet out when I know, uh, exactly what time and day Chris QTR is going to

come on the show and you guys can come for that or watch it after I post it. And so to confirm, there's no love line, no love line. We're not going to do it. No, too bad. I know it sucks.

Anyway, take care everybody. Yeah. Until next time. We'll be here in a row. Like last minute. So anyways, yeah,

take care and don't be a cock don't forget everybody lots of other stuff on cbp media network including two whites and a blue me joey my brother-in-law mike and our friend will talk about all the problems millennials are having with finance romance and just getting by. If you like CBP, if you like the NHL 94 podcast, I guarantee you'll like that one. Search for it. Two whites and a blue anywhere you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you.