How to Build Resilience in the US Apparel Industry

I fear that many outsiders to the wine industry believe it is full of snobs. It may have more wine snobs than other groups, but it is the same trade that manufactures, sells, and writes about all wines, thus in my view, true snobs are largely customers who can afford to buy only expensive wines. As I previously stated, if you only drink costly wine, you will miss out on certain simple joys, and most of us in the middle of it strive to keep our minds open.However, even if you spend a day tasting through finely made wines, or especially if you have spent a day tasting through any type of wine, few things taste as nice as a beer at the finish. Wine has a high acidity level, which is why it is virtually always best served with foodWith a few sour outliers, beer is generally low in acid and satisfies thirst while refreshing the tongue. They say it takes a case of beer to make a case of wine, and I can see why after a hard day of continually tasting the product and physical labor in the vineyard or cellar, many, if not all, winemakers and crew would appreciate a cool one.Overall, the wine press enjoys beer. Some writers are beer enthusiasts in addition to covering it. Others, like me, prefer to take a break and appreciate the product without overthinking it, especially after a long day of tasting. During my most recent trip to Alba to sample the newly released Barolo, Barbaresco, and other Langhe wines, a number of my colleagues and I came into a bar dedicated to birre artigianale near our hotel.

The bar, which did not appear to have 

survived the pandemic, quickly became an unofficial cafeteria for foreign journalists. Cold glasses of IPA were purchased by coworkers who had spent the day swilling and spitting young, highly tannic wines. Sure enough, we located a few winemakers there one night, and I was able to schedule a winery visit for my free day based on the encounter.It was our own unplanned third spot between work and home; a place to enjoy a beer and speak about wine after the day's hectic events, when small talk happens and life is primarily lived.Canada's housing market is seeing a dramatic decline on a magnitude not seen in decades, if ever.According to fresh data provided last week by the Canadian Real Estate Association (the leading source of information on this topic), the volume of sales has fallen to nearly half of its peak during the pandemic.And our housing bubble may be about to explode. Unfortunately, for Canadians looking to buy, even these significant decreases will do little to enhance affordability and pose hazards to the Canadian economy.Year on year, prices are down roughly 13%. Prices have fallen by more than 15% since February 2022, when they peaked. This could be Canada's sharpest decrease on record. For contrast, the rate of home price reductions in the United States during the financial crisis peaked in February 2009 at more than 12.8%.And some believe we are just halfway through.

To understand the true historical scope 

of this evolution, we should look at annual averages, where we have approximately a century of reliable data.CREA expects prices to reduce an average of 5.9 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. Meanwhile, RBC just forecasted an 8.5 percent decline. TD predicts a 10.7 percent fall. Even with CREA's lower projection, 2023 may be the second-largest fall in the real value of Canadian homes in history, adjusted for inflation.Of course, throughout the epidemic, Canada's property market skyrocketed, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. A correction is both acceptable and beneficial.Prospective home buyers, on the other hand, are not seeing an improvement. Despite prices lowering by more than 15%, the monthly mortgage payment required to purchase one is now more than before. The reason, of course, is rising interest rates.If you placed 10% down and got an average interest rate of about 6%, you'd have to spend almost $4,100 per month to buy an ordinary property.1 That's more than the approximately $3,800 per month required to do the same thing early last year. Even with a 20% down payment, monthly payments now would be more than $3,600.

These exorbitant costs are significantly 

more than the approximately $2,300 per month required prior to the epidemic. At today's rates, home values would have to decline by more than one-third to return to that level. That would be a nearly 45 percent decrease from peak to trough, returning prices to where they were ten years ago and doubling the entire price decline observed in the United States between 2006 and 2012.These figures are only to help illustrate the issue; individual circumstances, rates, real estate markets, and so on will differ. But one thing is certain: with average (pre-tax!) monthly incomes of approximately $4,800, we stay solidly in historically expensive territory.Using data from the majority of the past century, I discovered that property prices relative to salaries in 2022 were three times higher than they were in most of the period preceding 2000. Despite the expected reduction, they may still be around 20% higher than the already-high 2019 levels in 2023.Of course, loan rates were far higher in past years, making even low-cost homes difficult to finance. However, I believe that by 2023, the ratio of mortgage payments to wages will be the second highest in Canadian history, trailing only 1981.