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Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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When the financial crisis hit in 2008, I was living in the United States. At that time I remember developers and other people saying that it was going to take at least 20 years before the country would build another commercial office building. It felt that bad.
Job opportunities had certainly dried up -- especially for Canadians like me who were focused on real estate development. But of course, things eventually got better. New office buildings got built well inside of two decades, and the US went on to see its longest ever economic expansion.
This past Monday we saw the financial markets suffer one of, if not the, biggest selloffs since the financial crisis. If you haven't yet checked your portfolio and/or retirement savings, I suggest you hold off until the Fed "prints" some more money. The time to sell is not right now. (Not actual financial advice.)
Now is, of course, the time to remain rational and disciplined, and focus on the relationship between price and value. Fred Wilson's recent blog post on "market meltdowns" is a good reminder of this. So here are a couple of excerpts that I really liked:
I’ve seen this movie before. I had just started working in the venture capital business in 1987 when the stock market crashed 23% on “black monday.” There was the Internet stock meltdown in 2000 when the internet sector went down something like 80% over that bear market. And then there was the financial crisis in 2008.
Capital markets sometimes put out the for sale sign and if you are patient and wait for bargains to emerge, they will do that.
But I do know that good companies with resilient businesses and strong balance sheets will survive these occasional crises and that they can be bought with confidence at the right time.
👊
When the financial crisis hit in 2008, I was living in the United States. At that time I remember developers and other people saying that it was going to take at least 20 years before the country would build another commercial office building. It felt that bad.
Job opportunities had certainly dried up -- especially for Canadians like me who were focused on real estate development. But of course, things eventually got better. New office buildings got built well inside of two decades, and the US went on to see its longest ever economic expansion.
This past Monday we saw the financial markets suffer one of, if not the, biggest selloffs since the financial crisis. If you haven't yet checked your portfolio and/or retirement savings, I suggest you hold off until the Fed "prints" some more money. The time to sell is not right now. (Not actual financial advice.)
Now is, of course, the time to remain rational and disciplined, and focus on the relationship between price and value. Fred Wilson's recent blog post on "market meltdowns" is a good reminder of this. So here are a couple of excerpts that I really liked:
I’ve seen this movie before. I had just started working in the venture capital business in 1987 when the stock market crashed 23% on “black monday.” There was the Internet stock meltdown in 2000 when the internet sector went down something like 80% over that bear market. And then there was the financial crisis in 2008.
Capital markets sometimes put out the for sale sign and if you are patient and wait for bargains to emerge, they will do that.
But I do know that good companies with resilient businesses and strong balance sheets will survive these occasional crises and that they can be bought with confidence at the right time.
👊
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