Category Archives: Video Clips

Foreboding part III.

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In Foreboding part I I said that I felt a big wave may be coming towards the financial markets.

In Foreboding part II I explained a few ways that I am rebalancing my portfolio and taking a more conservative approach right now.

After the last two articles, I thought the question on many readers mind might be why I feel there is trouble ahead for the economy.

What worries me.

Canadian real estate is now the third most overvalued in the world. Seventy percent of Canadians own real estate, are deep in debt and have little or no other savings. If the real estate bubble bursts here, our economy is in big trouble.

OECD2

I am currently reading a book called “The End Of Growth” by Jeff Rubin who was the former chief economist at CIBC World Markets. In the book he explains how cheap oil drives economies.

“Guess what oil prices were doing in 2008 when the world fell into the deepest recession since the 1930s? From trading around $30 a barrel in 2004, oil prices marched steadily higher before hitting a peak of $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008.”

“When oil prices go up, so does inflation.”

“A fivefold bump in interest rates was the last straw for the massively leveraged US housing market. Higher rates popped the speculative housing bubble, which brought down not only several prominent Wall Street investment banks but also the entire global economy.”

There is no reason to expect we will have cheap oil in the future.

But what really keeps me up at night…

Stop investing. Zombies are taking over the world!

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In BC where I live, the savings rate is negative 8%. The average Canadian household’s debt to disposable income is 165%. We owe $477 billion in consumer credit debt (up 5.5% on an annual basis).

65% of Canadians have an RRSP and only 47% have opened a TFSA (even though you could currently shelter $25,500 worth of investments from taxes by opening one). Of the people who have opened a TFSA, 80% of the holdings are in a savings account of some kind (which actually lose money since the interest rate they pay is less than inflation).

So why is it that people aren’t saving and investing for the future? Well, if you believe pop culture, there is no future. Here is the plot of the latest offerings from Hollywood…

Oblivion – Tom Cruise is sent back to earth to extract vital resources after it’s surface is devastated after decades of war.

After Earth – One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape from Earth, Will Smith crash-lands on the now unfamiliar and dangerous planet.

Pacific Rim - When legions of monstrous creatures started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources.

World War Z – Brad Pitt is in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to decimate humanity itself.

And my person favourite is the movie Elysium that I was lucky enough to work on when they shot in Vancouver. This one should be a favourite with the Occupy Wall Street crowd. In the movie the rich one percenters live on a pristine man-made space station and the rest live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth.

I find it ironic that Matt Damon plays the poor everyman who is a victim of “the privileged”. Matt Damon went to Harvard University, reportedly earns $24 million a year and lives in a 8,890 square foot mansion worth a reported $15 million. The film was shot in Canada and Mexico to avoid paying taxes.

 

 

 

Money News

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  1. TD Bank abruptly closed the accounts of several Iranian-Canadians saying it had to comply with federal economic sanctions against Iran. In May it started sending out letters saying, ”A recent review has identified you as a person TD is restricted from providing financial services to, from, or for the benefit of under these new regulations.” Glad I’m invested in Scotiabank…
  2. San Bernadino is the third California city to claim bankruptcy in less than two weeks (the other 2 were Stockton and Mammoth Lakes). One reader thought worrying about the future of the Vancouver film industry was “ridiculous”, but when 99% of our work comes from America… and California is the centre of the film industry… and it’s going bankrupt… 
  3. CTV News is reporting that economic troubles in the U.S. are driving Americans North. In 2011 Ottawa approved 34,185 visas for U.S residents (the all-time record was 35,060 approved visas in 2010). In the past 2 years only 20,000 Canadians have moved to the U.S. (the lowest number in nearly a decade).
  4. The markets ended a 6-day losing streak on Friday with the Dow Jones up 1.6% in the States and the Canadian S&P/TSX Index up 0.8%.
  5. BNN is calling the LIBOR rate scandal “the largest scam in world history” that affects “literally hundreds of trillions (that’s right, trillions with a ‘T’) of financial instruments”. If you care to understand what it means, click the video below.

Bell Media

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Yesterday I was talking about my recent investment in Bell Canada (BCE Inc.). In the comment section I was asked by Canadian MD Investor why I didn’t invest in Telus or Rogers instead. The answer is that as someone who works in TV and Film I am very interested in Bell’s acquisition of TV and Radio stations.

Check out Canadian MD Investor’s excellent blog.

I found this video detailing Bell Media’s recent acquisition of Astral Media.

Bell Media also owns CTV and CTV Two. Check out this promo featuring music by Rob Base and DJ E Z Rock!

Auditioning sucks!

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One of the bad things about being an actor is that in order to get a job and get paid, you must first attend an audition.

With all the modern advances in computers and communication, the casting directors still prefer that you drive across town, sit in a waiting room with a bunch of other nervous strangers and wait for your chance to read for them.

Sometimes the casting director will allow you to submit your audition on tape which I think is a much more sane way to proceed. This way the actor is able to work with his coach in a relaxed setting, record the audition a few times and send in the best take. I think casting gets a much better idea of what that actor is capable of this way.

Rachel McAdams auditions for “The Notebook”

This is an example of a near perfect audition. There is a reason this talented actress went on to become a big star. And she’s from St. Thomas, Ontario!

She is 100% focused and connected to the person she is reading with. She brings in a simple prop and makes it work for her. The scene has structure and she is clear on the beat changes and when she is going to turn away and when she is going to come at the reader. And the main thing is she is emotionally full and trying hard to cap those emotions (but fails beautifully).

More celebrity auditions: Continue reading →

A powerful tool

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I heard from a couple of actors this week who took my advice and picked up a copy of Derek Foster’s book “The Lazy Investor”. Not only did they say they enjoyed the book, but they liked the feeling of being productive and learning something new while sitting around on set for 12 hours a day.

I have read a lot of financial books, but the reason I like Derek’s book so much is because it gave you homework. I have read many books that say, “spend less, save more, diversify, pay off your credit cards, bla bla bla…”, but once I finished the book, I didn’t have anything I could do right there, right then to take action and make more money!

Today, I’m giving you homework!

In How to pick a winner we talked about how to narrow down a list of companies that you might want to start investing in. But once we had narrowed that list down to 8 companies, in 4 different industries, we were still left with the task of picking the best company in each sector.

Today I am going to tell you how to set up a free online tool that I use every day to not only research companies, but track in real-time the value of the investments you already own.

Continue reading →

Funny

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I spent the weekend doing the comedy intensive at the Actor’s Foundry here in Vancouver. It was a great learning experience and reminded me just how skilled one needs to be to do comedy scripts well.

We study many video clips of different performers, but ended the weekend with this clip and I wanted to share it with you.

Some Examples

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I just finished a 3 part series on how actors can use the internet and social media to their advantage. Below are a few examples of people I know and how they are marketing themselves on the internet.

Chris Boyd and Pierre Wolff are a couple of actors producing their own work. They started a YouTube channel called The First Game Plan where they post short demo videos of projects they are working on. When they submit a pitch package to a network or production company, they can then include a link showcasing their ideas.

Michael Rowe is a gifted dramatic actor who I have the pleasure of working with at The Actor’s Foundry. He is also part of Wild Driver a comedy sketch channel on YouTube that his brother Andrew started three years ago.

Mac Faoro is a 17-year-old high school kid from North Vancouver. He wrote and produced this song which he plays guitar, keyboard and sings on. He has his promotion totally synched up with YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, and MySpace.

What are you working on? Do you have a website? A YouTube channel?

Send me a link and I will post it on here, so we can all continue to network and support each other!