Teresa, partner since 2010 (North York, Ontario)
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The Investors Podcast: Mastering the Art of Investing: A Deep Dive with Sam Zell
On today’s show, we have the honor of interviewing legendary real estate investor and entrepreneur, Sam Zell. Sam Zell has an impressive background, having started his career in real estate in the late 1960s. He is the founder and chairman of Equity Group Investments, a leading private investment firm. Over the course of his career, Sam has made many bold moves and investments, earning him a reputation as a savvy and fearless investor. One of Sam's most notable achievements was his role in creating the modern-day real estate investment trust (REIT) industry. He did this by founding Equity Office Properties Trust in 1997, which became the largest office REIT in the United States. In 2007, he sold the company for a record-breaking $39 billion. Joining us today as a co-host is David Greene, an accomplished real estate investor, and host of the BiggerPockets podcast, one of the most popular and highly-rated podcasts in the real estate investing space.
Hudson’s Bay utility corridor agreement reached among Prairie provinces
After years of fits and starts, a memorandum of understanding between the Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba governments has been reached to explore the feasibility of building a deep water harbour at Port Nelson on the Hudson Bay to export natural resources such as potash and liquified natural gas.
Marriages in China slump to historic low
Marriages in China dropped in 2022 to their lowest since records began, local news outlet Yicai reported on Sunday, continuing a steady decline over the past decade although the matrimonial total may have been affected by stringent COVID lockdowns.
Just 6.83 million couples completed their marriage registrations last year, data published on the website of the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed, down about 800,000 from the previous year.
The drop in couples tieing the knot, which follows pandemic restrictions keeping tens of millions locked in their homes or compounds for weeks last year, comes as authorities deal with a declining birth rate and a falling population.
Demographers warn China will get old before it gets rich, as its workforce shrinks and indebted local governments spend more on their elderly population.
To encourage marriage and boost the country's flagging birth rate, China said last month it would launch pilot projects in more than 20 cities to create a "new-era" marriage and childbearing culture.
This week’s fun finds
Summer 2023 Investment team book and podcast list
School’s almost out, so we’ve asked the Investment team for some of their recent reading recommendations and podcast proposals to help kick off the start of summer!
Caribbean treat
Aisha brought in some West Indian dishes for her moai (our version of bringing EdgePointers together for a meal). There was a lot of flavour packed into those containers!
US Supreme Court's dog toy ruling puts parody products on notice
The U.S. Supreme Court handed brand owners a win against parody products on Thursday when it ruled that "Bad Spaniels" dog toys resembling Jack Daniel's whiskey bottles are not shielded by the U.S. Constitution from the liquor maker's trademark lawsuit.
But in a 9-0 decision, the justices said a precedent known as the Rogers test for assessing the use of trademarks in artistic expression did not apply to VIP's products, reversing a U.S. appeals court and raising the bar for parodies to survive trademark claims.
The Rogers test is "not appropriate when the accused infringer has used a trademark to designate the source of its own goods - in other words, has used a trademark as a trademark," Justice Elena Kagan wrote.
Kagan contrasted the case with situations where she said applying the Rogers test was justified, including when Danish pop group Aqua's label MCA Records defeated a trademark lawsuit by Mattel over the band's song "Barbie Girl."
Can You Change Your Metabolism?
There isn’t a method to boost metabolism “in a way that’s durable or real,” says Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary anthropologist at the Global Health Institute at Duke University. He says most things people promise will boost metabolism fall into two categories. “There are things that are dangerous and illegal and things that are BS, and you should probably avoid both of them,” Pontzer says.
Basal, or resting, metabolic rate refers to work performed by cells when we are doing nothing. It’s the baseline hum of being alive as cells keep blood circulating and lungs functioning. Formally, it’s the calories per minute used for these housekeeping duties. That adds up to about 50 to 70 percent of the total you burn through each day, depending on age, says Samuel Urlacher, an anthropologist and human evolutionary biologist at Baylor University in Waco, Tex.
A common perception is that having a higher metabolism means you can get away with eating more while doing less, without gaining weight. The relationship between basal metabolism and weight is complicated, however, Pontzer says. “The larger you are, the more cells you’re made of and the more energy you burn because your metabolism is all your cells at work, all day,” he adds. But each individual cell is not more active or burning more calories per minute just because there are more cells, Pontzer says.
“If we go to the gym, and we successfully lose some fat and gain some muscle, we will have a very small result on increasing metabolic rate,” says Susan Roberts, a nutrition researcher and leader of the Energy Metabolism Team at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. “Changing body composition can make a little difference but not a lot.”
In terms of weight loss, the timing of a gym visit also might make a tiny difference, Urlacher says. “Those who exercise early in the day have better success with weight loss because it helps control appetite throughout the course of the day.”
Intuition might whisper that a brisk resting heart rate would also correlate with an increased basal metabolism, but that isn’t the case. A resting heart rate of 50 beats per minute for one person versus 70 for another just means the heart with the slower resting rate might be more efficient at getting oxygen to tissues, Pontzer says.
