My favourite story this week came from the CBC and talked about how fracking was affecting the price of ice cream. It turns out what makes ice cream creamy – guar gum – is also used in fracking. So as the demand for guar gum goes up so does its price and you can guess the rest.
Fear not, though, as a team at Guelph University (the university has been studying ice cream for more than 100 years) is looking for a substitute and may have found it in okra.
Next on my interest-o-meter was the latest twist on the well-known Nigerian letter scam coming to me courtesy of Quartz. This one starts with “I am Janet L. Yellen” and goes on to say as the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve she is making it her priority to ensure all outstanding payments and debts are paid. And here I thought her job was to run the U.S.’s monetary policy and ensure the country gets out of its recession.
Closer to home there are never ending stories about real estate – Vancouverites love to complain around the water cooler about house prices, or brag if they happened to get in the market 30 years ago. But in that case they probably aren’t hanging around a water cooler. They are more likely travelling around in their yacht somewhere.
The latest stories include how Vancouverites, and other Canadians, are stuck in starter homes longer as prices of larger family dwellings grow further and further out of reach.
But in fact things aren’t so bad here in Vancouver. According to Teranet National Bank House Price Index — my favourite measure because it actually looks at particular homes that have sold more than once and compares the two or more sales prices to determine what the market is doing — house prices in Vancouver were up only 6.1% in August year over year. Sounds bad until you compare it with Calgary where house prices were up 7.9% and Hamilton (what’s going on there?) and Toronto where prices were up 6.7%.
Coming up this week – all eyes are on Scotland as the country suffers from the 307-year itch with a referendum on independence being held September 18. For some economic facts on what it all means check out what BMO Capital Markets’ Benjamin Reitzes has to say.
