Boyko's 2015 Crystal Ball (sports,economy,politics international & Cda & investments)

                    Saifoo pinning Wayne with his Rotary pin as our newest member 

Rotary Club of North Scarborough
Rota-Teller
January 14, 2015

Chairman- Gerd Wengler
O Canada-
Grace-  

Attendance- 18 including guests
Jacquline Smith
Mike Conway
Wayne Chih 

Announcements-
• Group 4 to meet in next room after this meeting

Marbelous Draw- 
• Barry Smith tried to arrange both the mutant marble and the winning ticket for Roland List to draw but Roland will have to wait for another day when the win will be more than $5.00 today.

Sergeant at Arms-
• Mike Mushet took to the floor in search of happy bucks and any others he could draw out from the members present. 
•He singled out Barry Smith for particular attention since he admitted that he now has wonderful in-laws as a result of their son’s recent marriage. Even a money-back guarantee (for just one week) was offered as an inducement to pull many dollars out of Barry’s pocket.
• David Seemungal was happy for the time that he had in Trinidad and for the opportunity to see the palliative care facility that our club has been sponsoring together with the Foundation.
• Arthur was happy for the opportunity to visit his old Club in Sault St. Marie. They welcomed him back saying that they hadn’t heard a decent joke at their club since Arthur left for Torononto.
The trip to S.S.M. was more traveling than he had planned for.  It was snowing and blowing when the Porter pilot tried to land but he had to circle time and again until he finally gave up and went on to Sudbury to refuel.  Then the plane returned to Toronto.  Arthur’s next plane did land in S.S.M. but the pilot had to find a hole in the snow storm to be successful. After arrival and after 45 years of familiarity with the town Arthur found that he had driven his rental car into a hanger instead of his intended destination. Finally, Arthur ended up his friend’s house 2 hours late for a BBQ steak which my then was cold.  But the ample wine and cognac that his host served was a welcome tonic for all of his travel challenges.

New Member Induction:
Basil Dias on behalf of President Maddy introduced the Four Way Test to our newest member, Wayne Chih. (See the Four Way Test on our club’s website).  

Gordon Brown then read the four parts to the object of Rotary;
The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis for worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

1. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
2. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying by each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
3. The application of the ideal of service by each Rotarian’s personal, business and community life;
4. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

Finally, Saifoo Lau pinned the Rotary wheel on Wayne and all in attendance welcomed Wayne as our newest member. 

Program-
Jim Boyko was are features speaker to-day and gave an interesting review of his 2014 predictions from sports, to elections (especially Toronto’s and Ontario’s) and even of the “mushroom” prime minister Harper.  He declared that we had survived no “black swan” event unless you were holding black gold investments.

Then we were all awaiting his forecast of things to come in 2015. Again, he gave us his sports predictions, declared that Toronto’s politics will be more boring now that John Tory is in and Ford is almost out. Many questions surround the future leadership of the Ontario PC’s and the NDP whose leader virtually called the election that she lost. Now the rumour mill is awaiting a decision on THE DATE for a federal election.  Harper seems to be awaiting news of a financial fairy godmother to solve his post oil-shock election timing.  As to international events, Jim expects the oil prices will not go anywhere but down, the Keystone XL pipeline won’t get a nod until after Obama leaves office and the republicans take hold of congress and the presidency. In his discussion about the economy, both in Canada the US and now Europe, the “Quantitative easing” policy now in vogue at central banks is still a mystery to Jim.  If only some bright economist will explain how printing more and more money to buy bonds backed by doubtful debts e.g. Freddy Mac and Faney Mae mortgages will not be a recipe for runaway inflation to occur, Jim wishes he or she would speak up and enlighten us all.

Jim’s whole story of the past and the future can be listened to on the attached link.  Even his investment recommendations are there again.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt4uahfhhxofclp/Jim%20Boyko%27s%202015%20predictions.MP3?dl=0

Next Meeting Jan 21st 
Lee Soda,  Director of ACSA (Agincourt Community Services Association) will be our guest speaker and will update us on the social needs in the Scarborough community that they service. This will fit well with the presentation later that evening of the results of the year-long study of the Scarborough’s Community Renewal Campaign. The highlights and results of the 2014 campaign will take place at 7:00 pm at Scarboro Golf & Country Club 321 Scarborough G & C Club Road.