Tony Lepage

A quick thanks to all those who attended the UTChinese Magazine Entrepreneur Conference. If you wanted to ask me a question if didn't get a chance, or exchange contacts, you can send me an email using this account: lepage AT gmail DOT com.

I look forward to hearing from you and best of luck in all your endeavours!

Cheers,
Tony

Wondering if I should switch my gmail to autopilot!

Hahaha... check it out from google labs: Gmail Autopilot by CADIE

Mark your calendars. The below statement is enough to scare the crap out of me if it weren't for the fact we were given a warning it might happen by Ben Bernanke himself a few months ago. I have been waiting for this day as it signals the demise of the USD as a world reserve currency. Inevitably, it will guarantee that it's value is less than toilet paper--yet not even as useful.

This will be likely the last few minutes we see the gold price stay under $1000 an ounce. And, considering we're so close to $1K right now, we probably won't stay anywhere near this gold price for long.

Inflation is now guaranteed at a rate of $1000 per US citizen. We'll see prices go up and buying power go down.

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion. Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

Taken from yesterday's Federal Reserve press release.

Honestly now, do I need to say it again?

Buy Gold Now!

An excellent little article to motivate against the false claims of how free markets are to blame.

Those who profess the virtues of capitalism when it is politically expedient, only to abandon such principles in practice, must be held accountable. Anyone who understands capitalist theory has an obligation to refute the claims made by those who falsely profess free-market principles.

Enjoy it here.

I've recently designed and launched a new website for the third annual Terroir Hospitality Symposium. You can see the website at terroirhospitality.com.



If you're involved in the hospitality business, you should consider attending Terroir III to be held on Tuesday March 3rd 2009.

Terroir brings together influential chefs, food writers, sommeliers, cheese makers, service experts and business leaders who are sure inspire anyone linked to the business of hospitality.

The event is planned and executed by some of the biggest names of Toronto's hospitality and tourism community. Hopefully my travel schedule allows me to be in Toronto for the event and hopefully I see you there! If you're considering the event, take the jump because it's well worth it. Further, tickets are drastically discounted if purchased before February 18th.

So you want to buy gold or silver?

I hope this article is able to guide you in your quest to buy gold or silver. Herein, I will outline several things you need to keep in mind when making gold and silver investments.

Read more

Ron Paul is starting to get a lot of respect in the House. It is good to hear Dr. Paul talking about nationalisation and the $8 trillion in bailouts. He makes the point that we need to understand the true cost of a $15 billion bailout. If you provide $15 billion to a failing business, who are you preventing from having that $15 billion?

I say let the big three fail. There are many intelligent people who saw this coming and have invested for it. Those car factories will not remain empty and idle for long. Those car factories just won't be run by GM anymore. Sure, the transition will hurt but the other option is more painful. As Ron Paul points out, attention needs to be paid to the collapse of the US dollar.

I am certain we will soon see a drop in the value of the US Dollar that is so swift and fast, everyone will understand that it's because of the bailouts and government spending.

Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke duke out on November 11th about plans for a new reserve currency. The only logical and proven alternative to this broken system is a gold backed currency. And so, Bernanke tries his best to attack gold with one sentence.

With all this market *noise* you'll be glad to know my story hasn't changed.

Here is a great show from Bloomberg that features Peter Schiff. Check it out if you're interested in an economic outlook. It also contains heavy criticism of current Washington policies.

It's refreshing to see economists taking action against the Harper rhetoric machine:

Open Letter from Canadian Economists on the Current Economic Crisis and the Appropriate Government Response

Even more reading can be found below. I need to state, for the record, that I could never support Stephen Harper because of his right-wing fundamentalism. No matter how attractive his economic platform could have been--it proves to be nothing to be proud of--he, nor any of his supporters, will ever get my support.

The Harper Record

Thanks to my friend Peter for sharing with me these articles.

"My own belief is that if we were going to have some type of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now."
                                                                --the ever insightful Stephen Harper

x = 928.40
t = x * 30%

You can see some of my latest freelance work in tomorrow's issue of NOW Magazine. The ad was commissioned for Ontario Greenbelt to promote a partnership between Greenbelt and top restaurants throughout Toronto. The participating restaurants, which normally use locally grown foods, will further promote local foods by featuring strawberries grown in the greenbelt and area. The event, First Fruits of Spring: Strawberry Festival, takes place throughout June. You can find more information at Edible Toronto.

UBS shareholders approved a $12 billion bailout from Singapore and the Middle East today. The bailout comes as UBS has stacked up over $13 billion in losses. The CEO, Marcel Ospel, described the current financial crisis as possibly the most difficult since the stock market crash of 1929.

It's becoming clearer to the public that we're entering a recession but I wonder how many will realize that a depression is likely on its way as well. It's time that preparations for a depression are made by us all.

Canada's finance minister, Jim Flaherty, might also see the writing on the wall. Canada is the only country in the G8 nations with a surplus and in 2007 we posted a trade surplus of over $11 billion. In October, Mr. Flaherty estimated that surplus would drop to $4.4 billion. The Harper government must see problems because this number was revised to $3 billion during the past week. Flaherty stated that we need to be careful to protect our surplus from turing into a deficit--the first time in a decade.

Our surplus isn't the only thing to start dropping either. The Canadian housing market is starting to slow and will likely mirror that of our southern neighbor. Prices have begun to decelerate in Calgary and I'm betting the over abundance of housing, as well as rising property taxes, will do the same to Toronto and other cities across the country. It's funny how experts are saying the housing market will cool, when there is a great chance we'll go the same way as the USA, England and other countries with a housing market crash of our own.

Inflation is quickly gaining speed. After years of Bush tax cuts and record breaking federal budgets, the excessive amounts of money around the globe are starting to come back into the US causing quick rising inflation. This inflation was hidden for the past years partly because of the outsourcing of cheap labour around the globe. On Tuesday, the government announced that the producer price index, or PPI, rose 1% and core inflation, as fudged as those numbers are was up 0.4%. Remember that the core inflation numbers do not include food or energy costs (both of which are rising much faster).

Gold has hit another all time high today of $967.70 per ounce. With inflation gaining speed we should see gold continue to rise more over the next couple years. In the short term, the IMF is planning to sell off some of its 3,000 tons of gold reserves. They have not set a date but it looks like they'll sell some 400 tons of gold onto the market. This should give an opportunity to buy some more gold at cheaper prices, but again, no date has been set and demand is obviously high.

It's best to avoid trying to time this gold bull market and just buy on dips. I know of many people who were waiting for gold to drop to lower prices only to see it continue to rise (now they wait for the price it was at).

The most important thing is to start preparing, stop spending and preserve any capital you have against the heavy inflation that could very well destroy your savings.