Benjamin Tal Quotations

There are two ways of seeing quality decline. One is that you lose high-quality jobs or you gain low quality jobs, and that is exactly what's happening.

So I will not be surprised to see consumption of other items going down, like people taking less vacations, spending less on furniture, or any other items that are non-essential.

Relying solely on real estate-based savings may be dangerous because this type of saving can be illiquid and selling a home can be an inconvenient and expensive transaction,

Look for manufacturing employment to continue to decline in the coming quarters -- a clear negative for overall employment quality.

When it comes to energy prices, we don't have much flexibility, we still have to drive, we still have to take the kids to (hockey), we still have to heat the house,

The practical implication of this environment is that young Canadians must start saving very early in their lives, compared to previous generations in order to realize the same inflation-adjusted return on their savings. Our findings suggest this is not happening.

Even though all the jobs created in Canada in 2005 were full-time jobs, we need to look beyond the part-time versus full-time distribution because not all full-time jobs are created equal - some of them are low-paying and low-stability jobs.

People see what happened in Louisiana, and all the people over there that the government was not able to take care of.

Oil has been driving up the Canadian dollar. Energy exports have boosted economic growth, and it continues to be bullish for the Canadian currency.

Economic fundamentals are still strong so the Bank of Canada may need to continue lifting its interest rate. We see strengthening of the Canadian dollar.

It's what we usually see at the end of the cycle.

Canadians of all age groups are not saving enough actively by putting money aside for a rainy day. How much savings is enough is a matter for debate, but most Canadian households would likely benefit from building a little nest egg.

Granted, a low-quality job is better than no job, but the headline employment figures exaggerate the real strength of the Canadian labor market.

A low quality job is better than no job whatsoever. But if many of these jobs don't pay very well, and they're not very stable, it means that in the next economic slowdown, we may see all of them disappear very quickly.