Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Immigration & Employment

People are seeing, how slowing immigration growth, has helped ease home rental costs. Yet, very little has been said about how slowing population growth has also boosted Canadian employment numbers. Baby boomers are retiring in hoards. Last year saw 26k workers retire every month. That gap has to be filled. Caps on temporary residents has reduced the supply of workers from abroad. That hole is being filled with local workers, causing the unemployment rate to drop. This is welcome relief for a country that is suffering economically from American tariffs.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Underground Economy

One of the reasons it is so hard to make economic predictions, is because there is so much information that analysts don’t have much data on, despite their show of confidence. One of those factors is the black market or underground economy. That is a part of the financial plumbing, where trade and employment are neither reported nor taxed. And globally those numbers are huge. In developed nations, 17% of all economic activity is underground. In developing nations, that figure rises to a 1/3. When you have such a huge chunk of global financial activity going unreported, economic predictions are hard to get right.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Governments Subsidize Key Industries

COVID helped us to realize that having local suppliers of essential products is important. That is why governments are working hard to reshore production of critical items like drugs, medical supplies, rare earths, chemicals and batteries. To fast track the transition, governments are buying shares in companies, guaranteeing to purchase finished products, and like the Chinese, erecting walls to keep the competition out. Investors should be paying attention. When governments financially support you and block the competition, this is often a recipe for big profits.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Country Subsidies

China has an investment strategy it took three decades for the west to figure out. Beijing, looked for the next generation of promising industries like electric cars, batteries, solar and communications technology. They then supported start up companies in these key sectors with subsidies that allowed them to produce products cheaper than any of their competitors. This forced the competition out of business and left China controlling the market. We are starting to wake up and change our policy. The west is now investing directly in rare earths, nuclear fuel processing and computer chip manufacturing. Expect the number of countries doing this, and the key industries they support to expand.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Ways To Play AI

Is SpaceX important to the future of AI? Of course? Whether you should buy it, is an entirely different discussion. At current prices, investors are paying $90 dollars for every dollar of sales the company generated last year. That is extraordinarily rich. If you want to participate in AI by owning companies with more reasonable valuations, look at some of the un-hyped suppliers to this industry that get paid no matter which AI platform wins. Companies that provide the fuel, produce the electricity, expand the grid or produce the metals needed to build out AI infrastructure - these are the unsung heroes of the artificial intelligence boom.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - IPO Performance

The markets are seeing more owners taking their companies public, than we have seen in years. Names like SpaceX and Antropic, the Artificial intelligence platform, have got the markets buzzing. But the question investors should be asking, is how have new issues performed compared to the markets as a whole. Is it worth venturing into this unknown? The stats show that between 1980 and 2024, the average Initial Public Offering went up by 5.6% in the first year, and over 3 years, underperformed the markets as a whole by 20.5%. There are exceptions, but generally new issues are aggressively priced to the advantage of the seller and not the buyer. Investors need to be selective.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Are Tariffs Here To Stay?

Back in February, many foreign countries breathed a sigh of relief when the US Supreme Court struck down the broad based tariffs that the Trump administration imposed. This set in motion a mad scramble by US companies to apply for the 166 billion in refunds these tariffs had accumulated. Trump, unfazed, said he would be back with a new set of tariffs that would be much harder for the courts to challenge. It took months to conjure up a revised formula, but the new trade rules are just starting to roll out. Anyone hoping they would disappear is going to be disappointed. As long as Trump is president, tariffs look like they are here to stay.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Defensive Portfolios

Building a defensive stock portfolio isn’t rocket science. For ideas, just think about all the products and services you need to buy whether the economy is good or bad. You switch on the lights when it is dark. Turn up the thermostat when it gets cold. Take the trash to the curb once a week. You shower, shave and eat breakfast before driving to work. All these activities are non discretionary. They are continuous expenditures. With a little research, you will find that behind many of these services are public companies with shares that trade on the stock market. These are great candidates for a defensive portfolio.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Taxing Unrealized Profits

The next frontier in governments ever increasing reach to separate you from your money is the annual taxation of unrealized profits on assets, even though they continue to be held and aren’t sold. In their crosshairs are investments like stocks, homes, businesses, art, precious metals and cryptocurrency. Countries have been watching the Netherlands and Switzerland closely to assess the impact. Both have been early adopters of this new form of taxation. The risk with this approach, is that the people who end up moving elsewhere are the ones this tax is intended to target - the wealthy.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Kid Headache

A lot of retirees are able to look back on a life filled with great careers, substantial charitable commitments, deep friendships and financial success. Yet their one sore point, is kids who never give them the time of day, except when they need the bank of mom and dad to bail them out financially. If you have this kind of relationship, do what actors like James Brown and Jerry Lewis did - write them out of your will or divert a substantial portion of your wealth - while living - to worthy causes or people. There are far better places to put your wealth, than in the hands of kids, who don’t appreciate or deserve it.

For more information listen to our Making Money podcast with Ron Hiebert and Graham Hicks at letsmakemoney.ca or CFCW.com.