Mathew Joseph Financial Solutions Limited

04/07/2026

04/07/2026

How do you lose your entire fortune, go completely insane, and end up being worshipped as the Emperor of the United States? Joshua Norton sure figured it out.

In 1859, he was a San Francisco businessman but lost his life savings on a massive, failed investment. The financial ruin completely broke his mind.

He vanished for a few months, and when he finally returned, he walked into a local newspaper office and officially declared himself Emperor of the United States.

By all logic back then, he should have been thrown into an asylum. But instead, the entire city of San Francisco just collectively decided to play along.

They treated him like absolute royalty. The best restaurants gave him free meals, and theater owners reserved VIP balconies for him.

He even printed his own fake currency and walked the streets collecting "taxes" to fund his completely imaginary empire and the local citizens actually happily paid him.

When a rogue police officer tried to arrest him for vagrancy, the public outrage was so intense that the police chief had to issue a formal apology, and officers were ordered to start saluting him in the streets.

When the penniless Emperor died in 1880, nearly 30,000 people flooded the streets of San Francisco for his funeral.

02/05/2026

https://consultmathew.ca/avoid-these-tfsa-and-rrsp-mistakes-to-keep-the-cra-off-your-back/

02/03/2026

Debasement happens when a monetary regime loses credibility—think Zimbabwe in the early 2000s or Argentina over much of the past half-century. It can start with emergency government spending, which turns into chronic baseline deficits, bloating debt. Leaders demand low interest rates and exert con...

01/01/2026

Instead of chasing resolutions, try changing the invisible defaults — from recurring payments to tech settings — that run daily life.

11/14/2025

They placed 1,700 sheep among solar panels—and the animals’ unexpected behavior surprised researchers - Le Ravi

Imagine a flock of 1,700 sheep peacefully grazing underneath rows of gleaming solar panels. This unusual sight is not just a curious spectacle—it’s the

11/03/2025

11/02/2025

10 phrases that instantly lower tension in difficult conversations, according to psychology

We’ve all been there—midway through a difficult conversation when you can feel tension thickening the air. Voices get sharper, body language hardens, and suddenly you’re no longer listening, just reacting. But here’s something psychology reminds us: calm is contagious.When one person softens...

10/21/2025

People who honed good money habits when times were lean are all too willing to abandon those same practices once they earn more income. Here's how to tame lifestyle creep.

09/04/2025

If you're worried about retirement, take action now in to assuage your fears.

07/29/2025

Is housing shelter for families or an asset class for investors?

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that nearly one in three single-family homes sold this year were bought by investors. These aren’t just the big institutional landlord. Increasingly, they’re small-scale cash buyers and syndicates scooping up homes that would otherwise go to families.

Meanwhile, ordinary homebuyers, especially first-time buyers, are stuck. Between high mortgage rates, tighter lending standards, and elevated prices, the path to ownership is more out of reach than it’s been in a generation.

This wouldn’t be surprising in a hot economy. But we’re in a market where transaction volume has fallen, affordability is worse than during the subprime bubble, and individual buyers are frozen out. Prices should be correcting.

They’re not.

Why? Because investor demand is quietly putting a floor under prices. Builders are selling excess inventory to cash buyers. Sellers know institutions can waive inspections and close fast. The result is a distorted market that won’t clear.

Here’s the real problem:
When home prices are supported not by end-user demand, but by capital markets looking for yield, housing stops functioning like shelter and starts functioning like an asset class.

And when the entry-level home is treated like a financial product, working families can’t compete.
They’re not just losing bidding wars, they’re losing access to ownership.