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The Money Road
Garth Turner's prescription (?) for coping with the coming deleveraging and the bursting of the Canadian housing bubble
- GenresNonfiction
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 11, 2010
Some of you may remember Garth Turner, onetime Finance Minister for Canada and political maverick, for which he was kicked out of the Conservative caucus.
Money Road is hard to place, current affairs, economics, political commentary, prediction? All of these.
He is not very positive about the Money Road of the title, the road to retirement and the money we will need. He thinks it will be bumpy. He thinks we are in a real estate bubble that will pop just like south of the border and leave too many new buyers (a fixer-upper, in a not great area of Toronto, no parking and messy neighbours, recently went on the market for 546,000 and sold for 740,000) All our governments are building deficits so there will be reductions in services and increases in taxes to pay for these. Check out the rants on his blog, www.greaterfool.ca
He gives some very sound advice on investing, not specific details as that would vary for each case, but more specific than we often see in the mainstream media.
He has a light, casual writing style that some would find irritating, but having and ex-finance minister giving down to earth advice on investing and avoiding (not evading, that's illegal) excessive taxes is a pretty good deal.
I enjoyed it and have gone back and re-read a couple sections.
Money Road is hard to place, current affairs, economics, political commentary, prediction? All of these.
He is not very positive about the Money Road of the title, the road to retirement and the money we will need. He thinks it will be bumpy. He thinks we are in a real estate bubble that will pop just like south of the border and leave too many new buyers (a fixer-upper, in a not great area of Toronto, no parking and messy neighbours, recently went on the market for 546,000 and sold for 740,000) All our governments are building deficits so there will be reductions in services and increases in taxes to pay for these. Check out the rants on his blog, www.greaterfool.ca
He gives some very sound advice on investing, not specific details as that would vary for each case, but more specific than we often see in the mainstream media.
He has a light, casual writing style that some would find irritating, but having and ex-finance minister giving down to earth advice on investing and avoiding (not evading, that's illegal) excessive taxes is a pretty good deal.
I enjoyed it and have gone back and re-read a couple sections.
November 26, 2023
The book had a few different parts to consider:
* An overview of what to expect from financial markets following a debt crisis. This was written in 2010 and was just following the 2008 crash. I found it interesting to see how well it paralleled the current (2023) environment, and kept thinking perhaps most of Garth's predictions were about to come to fruition about a decade late. I think it was not so unreasonable his predictions, but he perhaps did not predict how low interest rates would go (nor did anyone else), which further drove real estate debt bubble higher. Despite what feels like rantings sometimes (and I think he admits as much), I found a lot here that I agreed with, and would be useful to others to consider in the age of "housing always rises" mentality.
* A basic to intermediate discussion of investments and tax planning strategies. At times, the discussion swings a little too far into sketchy and risky ideas for comfort, but the core ideas are pretty good. Risk averse GIC and Bond fund investors typically ignore the risk of running out of money in retirement due to inflation and low rates of return, so the idea of promoting taking on more risk is important. Also, was good to see discussion of other options like Preferred Shares (rate reset preferreds were a terrible investment since 2010 due to falling rates, but may finally be coming into their own.... in 2023/2024 during rising rates). Some of the ideas regarding leveraged RRSP tax efficiency like the meltdown seem far too high risk for the average investor and are promoted a little too haphazardly for my taste.... But still, to get ideas flowing this was pretty good overview.
In general the structure was a little bit scattered and the stream of consciousness style writing made it hard to jump to a specific section, and this is meant to be read like a novel from beginning to end. Sometimes it feels inconsistent where he seems to be promoting something in one chapter and then promoting the opposite in another, and don't even try to do the math on what must be a 700% portfolio allocation between the different ideas. Garth's political views sometimes creep in and the tone of superiority where everyone else are idiots and deserve what they get is also a little off-putting, but he certainly knows what he is talking about and looking past some of the superficial issues, its an excellent book that didn't feel like normal financial guides (laundry lists of basic ideas, afraid to recommend anything more advanced or explain reasoning behind it).
Was worth my time, and I recommend it. It is particularly rare to find something from the Canadian perspective.
For further reading, I would recommend Bonds for Canadians to learn the more conservative side of investments although it would be much more dry and technical:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
* An overview of what to expect from financial markets following a debt crisis. This was written in 2010 and was just following the 2008 crash. I found it interesting to see how well it paralleled the current (2023) environment, and kept thinking perhaps most of Garth's predictions were about to come to fruition about a decade late. I think it was not so unreasonable his predictions, but he perhaps did not predict how low interest rates would go (nor did anyone else), which further drove real estate debt bubble higher. Despite what feels like rantings sometimes (and I think he admits as much), I found a lot here that I agreed with, and would be useful to others to consider in the age of "housing always rises" mentality.
* A basic to intermediate discussion of investments and tax planning strategies. At times, the discussion swings a little too far into sketchy and risky ideas for comfort, but the core ideas are pretty good. Risk averse GIC and Bond fund investors typically ignore the risk of running out of money in retirement due to inflation and low rates of return, so the idea of promoting taking on more risk is important. Also, was good to see discussion of other options like Preferred Shares (rate reset preferreds were a terrible investment since 2010 due to falling rates, but may finally be coming into their own.... in 2023/2024 during rising rates). Some of the ideas regarding leveraged RRSP tax efficiency like the meltdown seem far too high risk for the average investor and are promoted a little too haphazardly for my taste.... But still, to get ideas flowing this was pretty good overview.
In general the structure was a little bit scattered and the stream of consciousness style writing made it hard to jump to a specific section, and this is meant to be read like a novel from beginning to end. Sometimes it feels inconsistent where he seems to be promoting something in one chapter and then promoting the opposite in another, and don't even try to do the math on what must be a 700% portfolio allocation between the different ideas. Garth's political views sometimes creep in and the tone of superiority where everyone else are idiots and deserve what they get is also a little off-putting, but he certainly knows what he is talking about and looking past some of the superficial issues, its an excellent book that didn't feel like normal financial guides (laundry lists of basic ideas, afraid to recommend anything more advanced or explain reasoning behind it).
Was worth my time, and I recommend it. It is particularly rare to find something from the Canadian perspective.
For further reading, I would recommend Bonds for Canadians to learn the more conservative side of investments although it would be much more dry and technical:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
February 17, 2019
I've got very mixed feelings about this book. It seems like the author targets the general audience and is trying to provide financial advice for people who are not so well versed in personal finance, but he mostly doesn't do a good job of explaining things in approachable terms. I had a very hard time following the logic of what events in the market lead to what changes in prices and so on, and I don't consider myself a complete noob in personal finance. Some of the advice is very valuable though. If you don't have a TFSA yet - open it yesterday!
October 23, 2011
A great book for getting a better understanding of the current financial situation and where best to invest your money. The author is a firm believer in asset diversification and avoiding the expectations of society that we should put all of our money towards (and take on a huge debt to finance) a house. It's not an easy book to find, but worth picking up if you do. I'm going to track down my own copy to refer to again.
July 29, 2010
He has some good ideas and sound advice on tax avoidance, balanced investment portfolios, use of TFSAs etc., but loses credibility as he still believes in technical analysis (yes, those head and shoulders graphs! see where you should have sold Nortel?!). Also, he solicits clients at the end.
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November 8, 2012This will be a re-read very soon - a re-read that will require note taking!
July 7, 2019
Overall really good. With my basic knowledge of investing I will need to go back and reread some things. Nevertheless happy I read it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews