Prime Minister Tony Abbott (click here) will seek the support of pension funds to invest in Australian roads, rail, ports and commercial developments when he visits Canada next month.
Canada's top 10 pension funds manage well over $700 billion in assets and are among some of the biggest in the world.
Mr Abbott and Trade Minister Andrew Robb will visit Ottawa - as part of a trip also taking in New York and Washington DC - to talk to government figures and business leaders, including pension fund chiefs.
Canadian pension funds are active in investing in infrastructure and real estate around the world, including power companies in the US and seven British airports including Heathrow.
The largest, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), committed to a $1bn interest in Sydney's Barangaroo South office tower project in July 2012....
When investments are made in sovereign nations and in the case of New York a sovereign state, the contract is usually guaranteed to have a return. Sovereign entities are reliant on their currency exchange rate, not stockholder earnings. Recently though, the Canadian investment in the Poughkeepsie, New York power plant provided to be rather expensive for residents of that city.
Craig Wolf - Poughkeepsie Journal - March 2, 2014
Electricity costs are about to give consumers a shock. Sticker shock.
Bills are headed up.
Customers are already seeing higher bills and can expect more, according to utility officials. The impact is widespread, as Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. serves about 116,119 electric customers in Dutchess County and 87,601 in Ulster County. New York State Electric & Gas serves about 15,386 customers in Dutchess and 5,355 in Ulster. Four separate factors are creating the perfect storm of higher costs, especially for Dutchess.
• Many consumers used more power in January as cold snaps hit the region. Plus, more demand across much of the nation caused a spike in market prices. Winter’s not over.
• In Dutchess, a 3.75 percent energy tax hit as of Saturday on all energy forms, including electricity.
• In May, a “new capacity zone” charge imposed by a federal and state plan will boost costs by an estimated range of 6 percent to 10 percent for local consumers.
• And this summer, Central Hudson will ask the state to let it raise delivery rates effective in July 2015, ending a two-year rate freeze.
“I think it’s not good for us,” said Eric Fuegel, a senior citizen living in the Town of Poughkeepsie. “I get a big bill,” about $500 to $600 every two months, for both gas and electric service, he said. Hearing for the first time about the “new capacity zone” plan, he thought it “weird” and compared it to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority charges that hit the lower Hudson Valley in payroll and telephone taxes....
The northern tier of the USA is really getting hit hard with energy costs due to the displaced Polar Vortex. At least for now. So, with the price of natural gas spiking, consumers will be looking for alternatives.
In order for any economy to keep growing the circulating capital cannot be monopolized by subsistence spending. Energy is a subsistence issue. Minimum wage increases will move people away from subsistence incomes and provide greater disposable income. The increase in wages improves quality of life, lifts debt burdens from the national deficit and debt and increases economic demand on products so growth occurs.
May 22, 2014
By Doug Carroll
Existing home sales rose in April (click here) for the first time in 2014, an encouraging sign amid growing worries about the housing recovery's sagging momentum in recent months.
Sales crept up 1.3% from March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.65 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.
But the pace is still almost 7% below April 2013 and the four-month average for this year trails last year's by about the same percentage. The sales rate was consistently over 5 million last May through October.
Last month's sales of single-family homes were about 8% behind their April 2013 pace, while sales of condominiums, town homes and co-ops were unchanged....
The focus on the Minimum Wage is right on track with the focus of Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen. She stated the housing market will improve when young people can afford their own lives and move out of their parent's home and into the housing market. It's time to push the economy to achieve those goals.
By E SEARCEY
MAY 21, 2014
Janet L. Yellen (click here) has long occupied a front-row seat as Washington grappled with the financial crisis and the weak economy that has plagued the nation. Standing over second base at Yankee Stadium, where she delivered a commencement speech on Wednesday, Ms. Yellen suggested that playing the game is a lot harder than it looks from the stands.
Ms. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, told a swirl of thousands of purple-robed New York University graduates that finding the right path in life involves missteps. Even Yankees legends such as Babe Ruth failed most of the time when stepping up to bat, she said....
Chairwoman Yellen is correct. Any path in life is not about guarantees so much as a journey. No future is set. Life is a challenge. But, the end does not justify the means and the morality within the journey is just as important, if not more so than the destination.
The turn of events which launched drastic measures by The Fed to correct the course of a disastrous banking system is more a lesson in 'immoral methodology' and the lack of insight of those without vision. The immorality of the days we live in today is the accumulation of wealth by so few. It only confirms the lack of insight and only to realize economic growth includes the upward movement of all, not just control by a few.
