Canadian Funding Corp Reviews CMHC Design Reports For the Community» order

In the Future, Interest Rates Will Soar and Consumers Will be Sore Also

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:29:38 +0000

By: David Petch
Jul 02, 2009

At the present, governments around the globe are printing money as if there were no tomorrow in order to try and prevent debt-laden banks from going under and trying to stimulate the fractional reserve banking system. The past 20 years of economic growth has been based on a “Pay it Forward” basis…someone gets a new couch or car and ends up paying for it over a defined period of time. The expansion of credit in turn allowed for false consumption because most people never really had the money in hand.

In the past, whenever any purchases were made, most people either saved up until they had money in hand or used “Lay Away” programs for purchase (an individual would make biweekly payments until an item was paid for in full and then taken home). As the global economy continues to shrink and get worse, the first knee-jerk reaction is to start saving, which is evident in the US as reached 6.9% year over year. When prices decline, it makes sense to save money as it does not make any sense to buy things when there is economic uncertainty.

During periods of economic contractions, the absolutely worst sectors to be in are retail or any consumer-related businesses that people do not absolutely require, such as getting manicures and pedicures, furniture, cars, etc. Areas that tend to maintain somewhat of a stable environment are Pharmaceutical (especially those that provide life-saving drugs), food and energy sectors. One of the hardest sectors that will get hit in Canada in the coming years will be the government sector. There is so much money being pumped into government up here at present that it is serving as an artificial inflator of the economy.

When the S&P eventually bottoms in late 2009/early 2010, the economic bottom should follow history and be in place 12-18 months afterwards. This suggests that mid to late 2011 should mark the bottom of the global economic recession from a bottom in residential real estate…note: commercial real estate has recently succumbed to the global recession, so it is likely the consumer will bottom before businesses do. In other words, the bottom of the economy could be flat for a subsequent 1-2 years until consumers retrench from their bunkers and again begin spending.

Analysis today will focus on the 10 Year US Treasury Index and how it should behave over the course of the next 6-12 months.

The Rest…MarketOracleUk

http://revolutionradio.org/2009/07/02/in-the-future-interest-rates-will-soar-and-consumers-will-be-sore-also/

reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO

CFC Reviews CMHC Design Report: IDP — How is IDP Different? — Structured

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:08:58 +0000

There is a generally recognized order to dealing with design and sustainability issues in IDP. The reason that we need to deal with issues and decisions in the right order is to avoid locking in bad performance by making non-reversible decisions with incomplete input or information.
For instance, mechanical engineers may come up with very sophisticated air conditioning designs to deal with cooling loads, but if those cooling loads are three times what they need to be, due to huge amounts of unshaded, low-performance glazing in the wrong orientation, the improvement in energy performance will be marginal and the cost will be higher. By contrast, if architects quantitatively understand at the concept phase the impact of that glazing on performance and cost, they are in a better position to come up with alternatives.
Also, in most IDP, the design time is distributed differently. More time is spent upfront, but because the quality and completeness of decisions taken are better, less time is required later, especially by the engineers on the design team, to re-design and to correct for mistaken assumptions.
For example, on one conventionally designed project I am aware of, the owner switched glass types during construction, based on an offer from the contractor, in the belief that the new glass would save money. Unfortunately the cheaper glass also had lower thermal performance in both heating and cooling seasons, which necessitated re-design and upsizing of the mechanical systems at a premium after tenders closed. In the end, there were negligible cost savings and the operating cost was also higher for the tenants. Had IDP been employed, the owner would have understood that the system was optimized for the lowest total cost. Reviewed by Moishe Alexander.

CFC Reviews CMHC Design Report: Construction Tolerances – The Solution

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:45:41 +0000

The designer should take the following steps to avoid building problems into a detail:
• Determine how much each component can be expected to vary in size and position. For some items there may be no published standards, but professional designers should allow for some tolerance, and specify what will be accepted. If nothing is said, it is reasonable for standard trade practice to prevail whatever it may be. For many items, applicable standards will state tolerances.
• Look at each step in the order of construction. Will brickwork at it’s extreme position reduce the cavity to less than the minimum needed for venting and drainage, exceed the span or adjustment of the ties, or have inadequate bearing? Can the shelf angle be allowed to wander freely within allowed tolerance without constraining the brickwork? Follow the order of construction of the detail through mentally, asking at each step what will happen subsequently if the component just constructed is at it’s allowable smallest, largest, furthest up, furthest in, or other extreme of size and position. Can the remaining components be properly added, with allowance for their extremes as well?
• If it seems unreasonable to accommodate the established tolerances, consider specifying narrower tolerances. However, make sure that the reduction is physically and economically possible, and communicated clearly to the builder.
• Revise the detail if necessary so that adjustments are available to compensate for extremes at each stage, to make completion of the detail possible without reducing tolerances for subsequent stages. It is important when thinking about tolerances, or laying out the next stage of work at the site, to refer all measurements back to a common datum, so that errors do not accumulate. Reviewed by Jan Luistermans.