Decline of the Loon

On 2014-01-15 Canada’s currency was the worst performing of all countries relative to the US dollar. Why? The aggregate investors of the world are taking into account factors Prime Minister Stephen Harper refuses to see. Harper has bet the farm on the tar sands and has ignored every other aspect of the economy. There are two major problems with this strategy of putting all our eggs in the tar sands basket:

  1. It will take quite a while before the infrastructure and pipelines are built. Political and legal pressures in Canada or the USA could stall or derail plans. They won’t generate revenue until the infrastructure is built. In the meantime, they are just a huge money sink.
  2. Fossil fuels are destroying the earth with climate change. We will stop using them the instant alternative energy gets cheap enough, perhaps earlier. This could happen any day. The long term financial plans for this infrastructure are thus hopelessly optimistic. The infrastructure may be obsolete even before it is built.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)