It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, October 15, 2021
Satellite photos show how Trump wrecked a sensitive sand dune system in Scotland to build a luxury golf course
tcolson@businessinsider.com (Thomas Colson)
Before-and-after satellite images showing the destruction of sand dunes after Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course was built on them.
Before-and-after photos show the environmental damage caused by Donald Trump's Scottish golf course.
Trump opened the course on a sand dune system in 2012 despite fierce local opposition.
Newly obtained satellite photos show the stark change in the landscape since the course opened.
In 2006, the New York real-estate magnate Donald Trump purchased a stretch of coastal land in Aberdeenshire, northeast Scotland, for the purpose of building "the world's best golf course."
But as conservationists predicted, the part of the highly sensitive ecosystem on which Trump International Golf Links was built was largely ruined. Officials announced in December 2020 that the coastal sand dunes Trump's the resort would lose their status as a protected environmental site because they had been partially destroyed.
Insider has obtained before-and-after photos from the satellite technology firm Maxar, which show the dramatic destruction of the prized Foveran Links sand dunes between March 2010 and April 2021. March 2010
Satellite images taken in March 2010 of Foveran Links show the dunes in their full unspoiled form:
Overview of the area where Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course would be built,
The site contained areas of mobile sand and dunes that were semi-fixed in position, as well as marshes, dune grassland, and low-lying areas called dune slacks, according to a government document designating Foveran Links as a site of special scientific interest.
A closer image of the dunes shows some of these features in more detail:
A closer view of the area containing the sand dunes at Foveran Links where Donald Trump's Aberdeenshire golf course would be built.
NatureScot, Scotland's conservation agency, said that Foveran Links was "a very high-quality example of a sand dune system characteristic of north east Scotland, and was of exceptional importance for the wide variety of coastal landforms and processes."
April 2021
Images taken of the course in April 2021 show how many of the sand dune features at the southern third of Foveran Links, where Trump's golf course was built, had been partially destroyed. Here is a general overview of the area:
These side-by-side photos show a zoomed-in view of the 18-hole links course (right), along with what it looked like before the course was constructed (left):
Before-and-after photos of the coastal stretch of land where Donald Trump built his Aberdeenshire golf course.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at LSE's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, explained to Insider earlier this year how building on top of the dunes had resulted in their destruction.
"Sand dunes are a dynamic system, they're wind-driven, so they go backward and forwards," he said.
"Building a golf course on top means you can't have the dunes moving around, so they have to stabilize them. So they've essentially planted vegetation on top of them and put physical constraints on them so the dunes can't move and it's not a dynamic system anymore."
"The argument the Trump International Golf Links used was that they'd protected them by stabilizing them. But essentially what they've done is they've just killed it as a natural environment."
The Trump Organization did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Uber Freight boss says 'we're living in shipping Armageddon,' and it's going to take the entire industry to fix it insider@insider.com (Mary Hanbury)
Uber Freight chief Lior Ron told CNBC that we've reached "shipping Armageddon." Ron said it would require the entire industry to fix the crisis - there's no one single cure, he said. Better wages may help to attract truckers turned off by the long-haul driving lifestyle, he said.
Uber's logistics boss says the "entire industry" must pull together if it wants to fix the shipping crisis.
In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, Uber Freight chief Lior Ron said that we've reached "shipping Armageddon." The company was using its own technology to help tackle the problem, but only a sector-wide solution would work, he said.
"It really requires the entire industry because we are facing just unprecedented times," he said. "We're ordering more and more packages that we love to consume to our doorstep, but the supply chain is completely imbalanced ... the entire network is different."
Uber Freight, Uber's logistics arm, launched in 2017. In the same way as its core ride-hailing product works, Uber Freight acts as a middleman, providing an app to connect independent truck drivers with shippers that have cargo. Ron said that there were more than 1 million truck drivers using the app.
Earlier this week, the White House stepped in, announcing plans to shift the clogged-up Port of Los Angeles to a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week schedule to help ease traffic. Retailers Walmart, Target, and Home Depot also announced extra working hours to shift their own stock from containers and help de-jam cluttered ports. When asked whether better wages was the solution to the trucking problem, Ron said that it was an important element, but wouldn't resolve the problem on its own. Long-haul trucking has become less appealing to drivers, especially in the wake of the pandemic, he said.
"It's harder for them to be on the road and there is a better alternative in driving closer to home and doing last-mile delivery. We ask them to do more and more and maybe they don't want to even have to go on the road because they have to be stuck in facilities or have health concerns," he said.
International call for Myanmar to let envoy meet Suu Kyi
Issued on: 15/10/2021
The military authorities have said they will not allow ASEAN special envoy Erywan Yusof to meet anyone currently on trial, which includes Suu Kyi
Sydney (AFP)
Eight countries and the EU diplomatic chief on Friday urged the Myanmar junta to let a regional special envoy meet ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The call comes as concerns grow over the military government's commitment to a "five-point consensus" agreed with regional bloc ASEAN to defuse the bloody crisis that erupted after Myanmar's February 1 coup.
ASEAN foreign ministers met virtually on Friday evening to debate whether to exclude Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing from an upcoming summit over his government's intransigence.
Brunei, which currently holds ASEAN's rotating chair, will issue a statement Saturday on the meeting's outcome, diplomatic sources said.
The military authorities have said they will not allow ASEAN special envoy Erywan Yusof to meet anyone currently on trial, which includes Suu Kyi.
In a joint statement, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway and East Timor say they are "deeply concerned about the dire situation in Myanmar" and urged Naypyidaw to "engage constructively" with the special envoy.
"We further call on the military to facilitate regular visits to Myanmar by the ASEAN Special Envoy, and for him to be able to engage freely with all stakeholders," said the statement, also endorsed by EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell.
This last phrase is an apparent reference to the junta refusing Yusof, who is also Brunei's second foreign minister, access to Suu Kyi.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated that Yusof should be allowed "a meaningful visit where he would be able to meet with all parties".
"We urge the regime to facilitate a visit by the special envoy," Price told reporters.
The State Department also announced that senior official Derek Chollet will head from Sunday to Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, in part to address the crisis in Myanmar.
Rebuffing pressure, the Myanmar foreign ministry on Thursday insisted Yusof could not "go beyond the permission of existing laws" and urged him to focus on meeting government officials instead.
International pressure has so far had little impact on the junta, which launched a brutal crackdown on protests against its power grab that has so far killed nearly 1,200 civilians.
February's coup ended the country's brief dalliance with democracy after decades of army rule, though the army has pledged to hold elections by August 2023.
The military government, which calls itself the State Administration Council, has defended its actions pointing to alleged vote rigging in last year's election, won easily by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
Climate and indigenous activists walk into the intersection of Pennsylvania and 3rd St NW during a climate change protest, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021, by the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Indigenous groups and other environmental activists marched to the Capitol Friday as they continued a weeklong protest demanding that Congress and the Biden administration stop new fossil fuel projects and act with greater urgency on climate change.
Nearly 80 people were arrested on the fifth day of the “People vs. Fossil Fuels” protest. That brings the total arrested during the week to more than 600, organizers said.
Under a banner declaring “We did not vote for fossil fuels,” activists pressed President Joe Biden to stop approving new pipelines and other fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency. Demonstrators urged members of Congress to “listen to the people” who sent them to Washington and take urgent action to phase out fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
Capitol Police said 78 people were arrested on obstruction or crowding charges. Three of those arrested also were charged with assault on a police officer.
Speakers said Biden was not following through on his promises to act on climate change.
“It’s ridiculous. He promised, just like they’ve done in the past, ‘We’ll talk about it, we’ll bring it to the table.’ Where’s our seat?″ asked Isabelle Knife, 22, a member of the Yankton Sioux tribe of South Dakota.
“We haven’t had a seat. We haven’t been heard,″ Knife said. “It takes youth to be on the frontlines. It takes us to put our bodies on the line.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration was “listening to advocates and people who have been elevating the issue of climate for decades.″
Environmental activists “have important voices, and they’ve put climate on the front of the agenda when it wasn’t 10 years and 20 years ago,″ Psaki said Thursday.
She encouraged activists and anyone who supports action on climate change to look at Biden’s proposals in a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger Democratic-only plan to address social and environmental issues.
“He’s trying to push across the finish line ... an enormous investment and commitment to addressing the climate crisis,″ Psaki said. “That’s in his legislative agenda that’s currently working its way through Congress now. It doesn’t mean his climate commitment ends once he signs this into law; it just means that’s what our focus is on now, and it will have a dramatic, important impact.″
The Capitol protest followed a sit-in Thursday at the Interior Department in downtown Washington. Demonstrators clashed with police as they challenged pipelines and other fossil fuel projects and called for declaration of a climate emergency. More than 50 people were arrested.
An Interior Department spokeswoman said a group of protesters rushed the lobby, injuring at least one security officer who was taken to a nearby hospital. Police and protesters clashed outside the building, and officers used Tasers against several unarmed protesters, a spokeswoman for the protest group said.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, was traveling Thursday and was not in the building during the protest.
The protest was part of “a historic surge of Indigenous resistance” in the nation’s capital that started on Monday, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, outside the White House, said Jennifer Falcon, a spokeswoman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, a part of the coalition that organized the protest. More than 100 people were arrested as protesters linked arms and sat along the White House fence line to urge faster action to combat climate change.
The Andrew Jackson statue at the center of Lafayette Park across the street from the White House was defaced with the words “Expect Us” — part of a rallying cry used by Indigenous people who have been fighting against fossil fuel pipelines.
Protesters also climbed a flagpole outside the Army Corps of Engineers office, demanding a stop to Line 3, an oil pipeline upgrade that was recently completed in Minnesota. The pipeline will bring tar sands oil from Canada to Wisconsin.
“In November we made a choice to vote for a president who said he would be the climate president, who said he would stop pipelines, and right now we are seeing a betrayal from the White House and Congress,″ said Zanagee Artis, co-executive director of Zero Hour, a youth-led climate justice organization.
“We need climate action now. We are out of time to address this issue,“ Artis said, adding that he campaigned for Biden and called voters on his behalf.
“Black and brown people voted in droves″ for Biden, and young people voted in record numbers for a president who promised action on climate change, Artis said. Now Biden has the power to revoke permits for Line 3 and other pipelines “and he has not. He has the power to revoke fossil fuel leases and he has not.”
DEMONSTRATORS AT THE US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING
Climate change demonstrators gather in Washington, D.C.(11 images)
Climate change demonstrators have gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to raise awareness about the issue. Here's a look at their demonstrations.
Soldiers in Haiti in October 2021 Richard PIERRIN AFP
WHOSE SOLDIERS ARE THEY
United Nations (United States) (AFP)
The United Nations Security Council extended the UN mission in Haiti by nine months on Friday after an 11th-hour compromise was struck between western powers and China.
The council passed a resolution extending the mandate by less than the one-year that the United States had sought but more than the six months Beijing wanted.
The proposal was passed unanimously by 15 votes to zero.
The vote came shortly after 6:00 pm (2200 GMT), just hours before the political mission was due to expire, extending it to 15 July, 2022.
Haiti is currently in the grip of a deep political, economic, social and security crisis.
It has not had a sitting parliament for more than a year and a half amid disputes, with the country put under one-man rule by president Jovenel Moise, who was assassinated in July.
Beijing had signaled it would veto a US draft extending the mandate by a year.
China had drafted its own text proposing a six-month extension before Friday's latest iteration was agreed.
In the end, they agreed on nine months with a provision that the Secretary General would conduct an assessment after six months.
"BINUH" was established in October 2019 following the end of 15 years of UN peacekeeping operations and has been a frequent source of contention between Washington and Beijing.
Its mandate includes strengthening political stability and good governance.
China has frequently said that there should be no external solutions to Haiti's problems but UN diplomats say it wants to punish Haiti for its recognition of Taiwan.
Earlier this month, the UN Security Council accepted that Haiti's elections will be delayed until the second half of 2022.
The United States, the most influential foreign player in Haiti, had earlier pushed for elections to go ahead this year to restore democratic legitimacy amid a power vacuum.
Haiti's troubles, including a devastating earthquake, have led tens of thousands to flee, with images of horseback US border guards roughly rounding up Haitians generating outrage in the United States.
Trump demands to be 'declared the winner' of 2020 race — or get a do-over election Bob Brigham October 15, 2021
Former President Donald Trump is pushing a new conspiracy theory while demanding to be either reinstated as president or get a do-over election.
The United States Constitution does not allow for either option, but facts have never seemed to matter when it comes to Trump pushing his "Big Lie" of election fraud.
Trump remains fixated on Arizona, which he lost to Joe Biden, but has changed his focus within the state. The controversial Cyber Ninjas "audit" of Maricopa County, the state's most populous county that includes Phoenix, failed to prove Trump's conspiracy theories of election fraud.
Now Trump has shifted his focus to Pima County, Arizona's second most populous which includes the county seat of Tuscon.
"A new analysis of mail-in ballots in Pima County, Arizona means the election was Rigged and Stolen from the Republican Party in 2020, and in particular, its Presidential Candidate. This analysis, derived from publicly available election data, shows staggering anomalies and fictitious votes in Pima County's mail-in returns, making it clear they stuffed the ballot box (in some precincts with more ballots than were ever sent!)," Trump claimed, even though there is no evidence that ballot boxes were stuffed.
"The Department of Justice has had this information since the November 2020 Election, and has done nothing about it. The Pima County GOP should start a canvass of Republican voters, in order to identify and remove the obvious fictitious voters from the system," Trump wrote.
"Either a new Election should immediately take place or the past Election should be decertified and the Republican candidate declared the winner," Trump said.
QUEBEC IS GOING TO BE PISSED
New electoral boundaries strip Quebec of a seat, gives Alberta 3 more
OTTAWA — Elections Canada says Quebec will lose one seat in the next redistribution of federal ridings in Canada
Overall, the number of seats in the House of Commons will increase by four to 342 seats to reflect Canada’s growing population.
Alberta will gain three seats, Ontario one and British Columbia one, while the number of MPs in other province and territories, except Quebec, will remain unchanged.
Quebec's 78 MPs will be reduced to 77 — the first time since 1966 that a province has lost a seat during redistribution.
The number of ridings is adjusted every 10 years following the decennial census to reflect changes in population.
Elections Canada says the new electoral map will not be ready until 2024 at the earliest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2021
Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press
BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE SAID; SHATNER TELETUBBIE
George Takei disses William Shatner's trip to space: 'He's boldly going where other people have gone before'
Takei threw shade at his former Star Trek co-star following Shatner's historic trip to space. When asked by Page Six what he thought about Shatner's ride on Blue Origin, Takei quipped, "He's boldly going where other people have gone before."
Star Trek's George Takei takes a jab at William Shatner's trip to space. (Photo: Getty Images)
"He's a guinea pig, 90 years old and it's important to find out what happens,” Takei, 84, added. The actors starred together on the original 1966 series.
"So 90 years old is going to show a great deal more on the wear and tear on the human body, so he'll be a good specimen to study," Takei continued. "Although he's not the fittest specimen of 90 years old, so he'll be a specimen that's unfit!"
Shatner is well aware his age made him the oldest person ever to go into space on Wednesday.
"I had to walk up that platform, I was exhausted. My muscles hurt from all this training, I'm aching, I'm in pain," the actor quipped on Thursday's CBS Mornings. "And I'm up there, and I'm saying, 'Holy s***, I am 90!'"
Shatner admitted to getting nervous before blastoff.
"You're lying back there and you know there's all this explosive material. And we know it's safe. They've made this, Blue Origin has made it safe. I want to emphasize that. So it's safe. But it's one thing to say it's safe, and it's another thinking 'Oh, I remember O-rings, and I remember explosions," he shared, admitting the feeling of being in G-force was an emotional experience.
"You're floating. Your gut is floating, your head is floating. The outside is, you're immersed in things that are indescribable," Shatner continued. "I was so moved. And what I wanted when I said I want to hold on to it, it's like a truth that suddenly comes to you. And you don't want to dissipate it. You don't want to lose it. You want to hold it for the rest of your life."
William Shatner says Prince William is 'missing the point' of space tourism
Charles Riley CNN Digital Friday, October 15, 2021
William Shatner is firing a rhetorical rocket back at Prince William after the future king criticized space tourism.
Shatner, who blasted into space earlier this week on one of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' rockets, said the prince has "got the wrong idea" by saying that solving problems on Earth should be prioritized over tourist trips to space.
"He's a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he's got the wrong idea," Shatner said during an interview with Entertainment Tonight. "The idea here is not to go, 'Yeah, look at me. I'm in space,'" Shatner added, claiming that trips such as his represent a "baby step" toward relocating polluting industries to space.
The 90-year-old "Star Trek" actor said that a power generating base could be constructed 400 kilometres above the Earth and used to supply homes and businesses below. "The prince is missing the point," he added.
"All it needs is... somebody as rich as Jeff Bezos [to say], 'Let's go up there.'"
Without mentioning names, William criticized billionaires focused on space tourism in an interview Thursday with the BBC, saying they should invest more time and money in saving Earth. Bezos, SpaceX boss Elon Musk and Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson are all taking tourists to space.
"We need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live," said the prince.
The second-in-line to the British throne stated that he had "absolutely no interest" in going to space. He also expressed concerns over the environmental impact of space tourism, saying there was a "fundamental question" over the carbon cost of space flights.
Shatner became the oldest person ever to travel to space when his vessel — a suborbital space tourism rocket built by Blue Origin — brushed the boundary of Earth's atmosphere and vaulted him into weightlessness. Shatner described the payoff of floating above the Earth as "profound."
The actor said that space travel is not something a person can understand until "you're up there and you see the black darkness, the ugliness."
"From our point of view, space is filled with mystery ... but in that moment, it is blackness and death. In this moment down here, as we look down, [Earth] is life and nurturing. That's what everybody needs to know," Shatner told CNN after his flight.
In this photo provided by Blue Origin, William Shatner, experiences weightlessness with three other passengers inside the Blue Origin capsule on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. (Blue Origin via AP)
NASA Leadership Visits JPL, Discusses Climate Change and Mars
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson addresses participants during a climate roundtable at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Oct. 14, 2021.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Oct 14, 2021
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy met with elected officials about Earth science and visited mission control for the Perseverance Mars rover.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy affirmed the agency’s commitment to studying climate change during a visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Oct. 14. The visit was hosted by JPL Interim Director Larry James and also included a meeting with scientists and engineers operating the Perseverance Mars rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
Administrator Nelson convened an Earth science roundtable discussion at JPL that focused on ways scientists, engineers, resource managers, and policymakers can work together to address climate challenges on our home planet. Taking part in the roundtable were Caltech President Thomas Rosenbaum, California Reps. Judy Chu, Pete Aguilar, Julia Brownley, and Ted Lieu; California Natural Resources Sec. Wade Crowfoot; and California Environmental Protection Sec. Jared Blumenfeld.
“In truth, this discussion is about saving our planet,” Nelson said. “NASA is the point of the spear on climate change.”
Central to the discussion were NASA JPL efforts to address climate resilience by measuring key indicators, such as the powerful greenhouse gas methane, and tracking freshwater across the globe. NASA assets also provide decision-makers and responders with critical data about damage following natural disasters such as earthquakes and wildfires.
On Oct. 14, NASA Administrator (second from left) and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy (far right) visited JPL. With them are (from far left) Caltech President Thomas Rosenbaum, JPL Interim Director Larry James, JPL CFO Sammy Kayali, and NASA Office of JPL Management and Oversight Marcus Watkins.
JPL leaders also discussed future plans for the Mars Sample Return campaign to bring rock and sediment samples Perseverance collects back to Earth for study. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter team updated the group on their next flight plans.
The visit ended with a trip to the gallery looking into JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility, the clean room where Moon probes, orbiters sent to Jupiter and Saturn, and generations of Mars rovers have taken shape. Engineers and technicians there are assembling the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft. NISAR, a partnership with the Indian Space Research Organisation, will track subtle changes to the Earth’s surface, providing new ways to mitigate the threat of natural hazards, better manage natural resources, and understand climate change.
NISAR is part of NASA’s Earth System Observatory, a new set of Earth-focused missions to provide key information to guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. The satellites within the Earth System Observatory will complement each other, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to atmosphere.
JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
For more information about NASA’s climate change research, visit:
Twitch downplays this month's hack, says it had minimal impact By Sergiu Gatlan October 15, 2021
In an update regarding this month's security incident, Twitch downplayed the breach saying that it had minimal impact and only affected a small number of users.
"We've undergone a thorough review of the information included in the files exposed and are confident that it only affected a small fraction of users and the customer impact is minimal. We are contacting those who have been impacted directly," Twitch said.
The company also stated that no login credentials or full credit card numbers/payment data belonging to users or streamers were exposed following last week's massive data leak.
"Twitch passwords have not been exposed. We are also confident that systems that store Twitch login credentials, which are hashed with bcrypt, were not accessed, nor were full credit card numbers or ACH / bank information," Twitch added.
Data exposed in the incident and leaked on the 4chan imageboard primarily contained documents from Twitch's source code repository and a subset of creator payout data.
As explained in previous updates issued after the attack, the attackers could gain access to data due to a faulty server configuration change that exposed it to the Internet.
"Their community is also a disgusting toxic cesspool, so to foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space, we have completely pwned them, and in part one, are releasing the source code from almost 6,000 internal Git repositories," the anonymous poster said.
Image: BleepingComputer
According to the 4chan user, the archive leaked on the imageboard contained the following Twitch info: The entirety of twitch.tv, with commit history going back to its early beginnings Mobile, desktop, and video game console Twitch clients Various proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services used by Twitch Every other property that Twitch owns, including IGDB and CurseForge An unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios Twitch SOC internal red teaming tools (lol) Creator payout reports from 2019 until now.
The 4chan thread was named "twitch leaks part one," which hints at additional stolen data likely to be leaked in the future.
Lee Valley warns customers of delays of up to 1 year, higher prices to come
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Supply chain issues show no sign of abating
CBC News ·
Retailers are warning of the massive problems they are seeing in getting products from suppliers and manufacturers to the shelves. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Canadian retailer Lee Valley Tools has a bleak warning for anyone looking to get their hands on high-end garden shears, brass escutcheons or crokinole boards any time soon: good luck.
The Ottawa-based home and garden chain with 20 stores across Canada told customers in an email this week that it is sending out its Christmas catalogue "uncomfortably early" this year because it is anticipating major delays in getting its goods to market.
"The message for consumers is buy early, because there is no chance to reorder or to replenish [before Christmas]," said CEO Robin Lee in an interview with CBC News. He said that the inventory the company has now are products they ordered a year ago.
Lee Valley is just the latest company to warn of the massive problems it is seeing in getting its products from suppliers and manufacturers to the shelves — a complicated process known as a supply chain.
The COVID-19 pandemic waylaid the usual trends of supply and demand by wiping out both in early 2020 as factories shut down to keep workers safe, and consumers weren't in the mood to buy anything but the essentials anyway.
But now that things are slowly heading back toward some sort of normalcy, suppliers can't ramp up fast enough to keep up with booming demand of everything from cars to appliances to gaming consoles and even iPhones.
Shipping costs are a major factor, with the price to ship containers from Asia to the West Coast of North America more than quadrupling this year, one logistics firm told CBC News in an interview recently.
Container ships wait off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., on Oct. 1. The cost of shipping containers from Asia to the West Coast of North America has more than quadrupled this year, according to logistics firms. (Alan Devall/Reuters)
Labour shortages, fuel costs blamed
Lee Valley's CEO says labour shortages and higher fuel costs are contributing to higher prices.
"There are a lot of [shipping] containers out there, but the cost of moving those around has gone up. In some cases, orders of magnitude. We used to pay about $7,000 to bring a container from Asia, and the cost today is $34,000," Lee said.
Lee Valley says consumers shouldn't expect to receive some items until closer to next Christmas, never mind this one.
Lee pointed to one of the router bits his company carries. Normally, that part would take four months to arrive from a company in Taiwan where he's ordered from for years. He put an order in last week and said the expected delivery date is May 2022.
"A lot can happen between now and then. And if we get just a tiny little bit more demand, we could be out of stock for more than a year on that product."
He estimates problems with the supply chain may continue for another 12 to 18 months — but cautions that it's hard to tell.
"Consumers have to understand that even when COVID is over, it's not over," Lee said. "This ripple effect is going to continue for a very, very long time."
Ikea reports problems, too
Small firms like Lee Valley have been swept up, but even the big fish are having problems. Swedish furniture retailer Ikea says it also can't keep its shelves fully stocked right now.
Company CEO Jon Abrahamsson said the biggest challenge is getting goods out of China, where around a quarter of Ikea products are made. As a result, he expects consumers will face difficulties well into 2022.
Most of the chain's wares in Europe are made there, too, but more of what gets sold in North America comes from Asia, so the supply crunch is being felt most acutely in Canada and the U.S.
"On the retail side we have learned agility like never before because every day you have to work with what you have," Abrahamsson said. "You have to find ways to solve customer needs with limitations that we have never seen before."
With files from Reuters
2005-2007 DEJA VU
With average prices up another 14%, Swiss bank UBS warns of housing bubbles in Canada
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UBS says Toronto has second-biggest housing bubble in the world
House prices in Canada have risen by 14 per cent in the past year, fuelled by record-low mortgages rates and a pandemic-caused desire for more space. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Average house prices rose 14 per cent in the past year, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Friday, adding to concerns that Canada's most expensive real estate markets are dangerously overvalued.
The group that represents realtors across the country says the average price of a Canadian home sold on its MLS system was $686,650, almost 14 per cent higher than it was in the same month a year ago.
Canada's inflation rate hit four per cent in August, the fastest increase in the cost of living in almost 20 years. The new data on house prices Friday means that house prices are going up at more than three times that record pace.
CREA says the average price can be misleading, since it is heavily skewed by sales in the most expensive markets of Toronto and Vancouver. It trumpets another number, known as the MLS House Price Index (HPI), as a more accurate gauge of the overall market, because it strips out some of the volatility.
But the HPI is rising by even more than the average is right now — up 21.5 per cent in the past 12 months. In the Greater Toronto area, the average price of a home that sold was $1,136,280 in September, up 18 per cent in a year, according to the local real estate board. In Vancouver, the average is 1,186,100 — up by more than 13 per cent in the past year.
"There is still a lot of demand chasing an increasingly scarce number of listings, so this market remains very challenging," CREA chair Cliff Stevenson said.
The pandemic has had an unexpected impact on house prices in that instead of causing people to be more conservative because of the economic uncertainty, buyers have been eager to shell out for more space.
Canada's central bank slashed its benchmark rate to help stimulate the economy through the pandemic, and when lenders passed those rates on to consumers in the form of record low mortgage rates that had the effect of pouring gasoline on the fire of housing demand, making it more affordable to borrow more and more money to buy a home.
UBS warns of bubble
The fresh numbers on prices come as a major Swiss bank was already warning that Toronto and Vancouver are home to two of the worst housing bubbles in the entire world.
In an annual ranking, UBS examines the housing markets in 24 major world cities in Europe, North America and Asia to assess them based on how expensive housing is compared to local income levels and other factors.
It then puts all the cities into one of five categories:
Depressed housing market (a score of -1.5 or lower).
Undervalued (-0.5 to -1.5).
Fairly valued (-0.5 to +0.5).
Overvalued (+0.5 to +1.5).
Bubble (1.5 and up).
Six cities were deemed to have housing bubbles. Two of them are in Canada.
Toronto got a score of 2.02. That was higher than every other city except Frankfurt, Germany, which scored a 2.16.
Vancouver scored a 1.66, just behind Hong Kong (1.90), Munich (1.84) and Zurich (1.83).
Realtors say a lack of homes is the problem and are urging the construction of new ones. But one expert says supply and demand imbalances are nowhere near able to explain the current price increases. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)
The bank says house prices in Toronto have effectively doubled in the past decade. Government interventions through things like foreign buyers taxes and rent controls caused the market to take a breather in 2018 and 2019, but things have only accelerated since, the bank said.
"Real prices increased by almost eight per cent from mid-2020 to mid-2021," the bank said.
The bank says price gains are being fuelled by record-low mortgage rates, which are not expected to last much longer once the Bank of Canada inevitably has to raise its rate.
That "could lead to an abrupt end to the current housing frenzy," the bank said.
Isabel Serrano, a prospective homebuyer in Toronto, is well aware of how frothy things have gotten in the city. She and her husband have been renting for the past 15 years, and are finally ready to buy. But despite having more than $200,000 a year in combined income, the pair can't find anything in their price range — and they keep getting outbid when they try.
In an interview with CBC News, she said she has looked at between 40 or 50 houses in the past few months, and placed offers on four. In some cases, the house sold for six figures more than the asking price.
"I never thought it was going to be this hard. I really didn't," she said. "It blows my mind that there are no homes to buy. It blows my mind that we cannot find a house to buy for $800,000."
WATCH | Isabel Serrano says house prices are out of reach for people like
Prospective home buyer Isabel Serrano says even though she and her husband have steady incomes, there's only so high they can go in terms of buying a home to live in. (Credit: Mark Boschler/CBC) 0:53
Things don't look much better in Vancouver. Taxes on vacant homes and foreign buyers in 2016 cooled what was then a red-hot market, as prices rose by more than 20 per cent that year. Those moves seemed to relieve some of the pressure, as prices declined by 10 per cent between 2018 and 2019.
"Since then, however, lower prices, falling mortgage rates and looser stress test rules have enticed households to buy properties again, leading to a fast rebound," UBS said. "From mid-2020 to mid-2021, property prices increased by 11 per cent, offsetting past losses."
High prices aren't just bad for would-be buyers like Serrano, who plan to live in them — they don't augur well for investors hoping to pay them off by renting them out either.
According to UBS, anyone buying an investment property with the intent to rent it out would need to rent it for 31 years in Vancouver to cover the price of buying it. In Toronto, it would take 28 years. In cities like Miami and Dubai, it's half that.
It's a big reason why the bank suspects both Toronto and Vancouver are in bubble territory, which UBS defines as "a substantial and sustained mispricing of an asset, the existence of which cannot be proved unless it bursts."
UBS has no qualms calling what's happening in Canada's two biggest housing markets a bubble, and they aren't the only ones.
Prof. George Fallis, who teaches economics at York University in Toronto, says the city's housing market shows all the signs of being detached from fundamentals.
Supply and demand
"A bubble exists if you can't explain price increases by using the normal variables we look at," he said in an interview. "Whenever you see that kind of thing, that should be a warning light."
Fallis says he worries some people buying today are doing so based solely on the expectation that gains in the future will be the same as those of the past, and it's always dangerous when that happens.
"Economists are not psychologists and the psychology of frothy expectations is poorly understood. But it's clear that it's [caused by] something arising which sort of shocks you," he said. The most likely trigger could be a rapid rise in interest rates, something that experts have already warned is inevitable.
"You only know a bubble exists when it bursts," Fallis said. "It just keeps going and going and going until it doesn't."
Canadian homebuyers pile into variable loans, blunting
impact of rising fixed rates
04:45 What to know about new mortgage rules
Nichola Saminather Published Oct. 14, 2021
TORONTO -
A recent move by major Canadian banks to increase fixed mortgage rates on the back of surging bond yields is unlikely to slow the country's red hot housing market, as more than half of new borrowers take out variable-rate loans that are the cheapest they've ever been.
The market share of new variable-rate mortgages surged to 51% in July, the highest level since the Bank of Canada began tracking the data in 2013, from less than 10% in early 2020, and mortgage brokers say this has continued to increase since then.
The shift is the result of a growing gap between variable rates that move alongside the overnight rate, and fixed rates, which have followed bond yields higher. The spread is set to further expand, thanks to the Bank of Canada's pledge that it won't raise the benchmark rate until the second half of 2022, even as bond yields continue to surge on rising inflation.
This, in turn, means the popularity of variable-rate mortgages will grow further, overturning a trend that has been in place for over a decade, according to experts.
Surging demand for housing during the pandemic has led the country's mortgage insurer and the Bank of Canada to warn of escalating risks, and politicians have vowed to take steps to boost affordability. Yet, the central bank's own low-rate policies have helped fuel soaring demand.
"We are at a point where there's an artificial suppression of the short-term, central bank controlled rate," said mortgage broker Ron Butler. But "a marketplace-based rate like the five-year fixed says 'no no no, I think rates have to go up'."
But "the effect on the marketplace, where the variable rate is so low, is very much blunted," he added. Canada's biggest banks have raised their five-year fixed rates in response to the surge in bond yields - ranging from Royal Bank of Canada's rate of 2.44% to Toronto-Dominion Bank's 2.29%.
That has pushed the average discounted fixed mortgage rate to a 16-month high of 1.94% as of Wednesday, while the discounted variable rate dropped to a record 0.95%, according to rate comparison site RateHub.ca.
"The variable rate is half the fixed rate," said Ratehub.ca co-founder James Laird, adding that demand for variable-rate mortgages usually rises when they are at least 75 basis points cheaper than fixed. "This is the most extreme difference we've seen."
Mortgages powered earnings growth for banks during the pandemic, but as economies open up, banks have more opportunities to lend and their willingness to pass on their higher borrowing costs to home buyers shows that flexibility.
The increase in fixed rates illustrates that some of the banks' eagerness during the pandemic to boost mortgage lending to deploy excess capital has ebbed, said Newhaven Asset Management portfolio manager Ryan Bushell.
The fact that they are driving more borrowers to variable-rate loans shows they "want people to be adjusting up the curve quicker," he said, since any central bank interest rate hike would raise floating rates while fixed rates remain the same.
A pullback in overall mortgage demand will only come if bond yields were to rise by 100 basis points or more, although this would be offset by better margins for lenders, said Rob Colangelo, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody's Investors Service.
"If bond yields continue to rise, they may need to make adjustments here and there, but I don't feel they'd ... be as significant as if the Bank of Canada says they were going to raise rates 50 to 100 basis points, for example," he said.
