There are many reasons why one might want to host the Olympics. Brand building is certainly one. Making some kind of profit is another. But the direct economic benefits aren’t always clear. Embedded above are two recent charts from the WSJ outlining 1) the cost… Read More
Here are some interesting figures from a recent Statistics Canada article about Canada’s national net worth. In the first quarter of this year, Canada’s national net worth increased by over $1 trillion or 7.7% to reach nearly $15 trillion. This is, as I understand it,… Read More
Benjamin Tal — CIBC’s Deputy Chief Economist — is seemingly everywhere. And earlier today, he was delivering an annual economic update at an online event hosted by Brattys LLP (our condo lawyers) in partnership with CIBC. Below are a handful of slides that I found… Read More
Inclusionary zoning has been on my mind this week and so I thought I would revisit some of my old posts on the topic. I wrote about it here, here, here, here, here, and probably in a bunch of other places that I am forgetting… Read More
Prior to COVID, many projections had the world’s population plateauing sometime in the second half of the 21st century. This is expected to happen because about half of the world’s population now lives in a country where the fertility rate is less than the replacement… Read More
Back in the old days, and by the old days I mean the 1980s, there were a handful of ways in which you were likely to get rich. You either inherited it, or you made it in oil or real estate. The Forbes list of… Read More
The latest (15th) edition of Knight Frank’s annual The Wealth Report was published last month. I find these interesting because they give you a global view of how and where capital is flowing into real estate (specifically prime real estate). London, for example, did rather… Read More
Scarcity. FOMO. Scott Galloway is right. In this recent post, he talks about why humans are programmed to chase scarcity and why blockchains (specifically NFTs) could represent something incredibly meaningful for not just the art world but for many other asset classes. Here’s an excerpt… Read More
I just discovered the work and writing of Dror Poleg. Initially trained as an economic historian and media theorist, Dror went on to work in advertising, tech, and real estate private equity, among probably a bunch of other things. Today he mostly writes. He’s the… Read More
Life will feel a lot more normal by spring/summer (Q2). By this time, the various vaccines should be broadly available (at least in the developed world). This is something that never happened during the Spanish Flu. From what I have read, the Spanish Flu lasted… Read More
