The chickens are coming home to roost. I am SOOOO glad my wife and I paid off our mortgage and car loans years ago. Now it's just monthly utilities and we pay off the CCs each month. Now if I could only get healthy and stop seeing those damn doctors.....
And Happy June to you, as well. Doctors are harder to get rid of...
From memory, Justin Trudeau added more to Canada's debt than all the other Canadian Prime Ministers combined. Plus the Liberals fudged the numbers with massive immigration. (From memory, Canada had almost no economic growth during the ten years Trudeau was in power when measured on a GDP per capita basis, despite runaway deficits.) Add to that that individual Canadians were spending a whole lot of money they didn't have, and the Trudeau years were an unmitigated economic disaster.
Agree on that. And Carnage is trying to out do Trudeau and doing a good job at it too. But at least half of Canadians would vote for him again. We certainly live in interesting times.
Gosh, it’s almost like it’s intentional! Like we keep spending money that we don’t have so we borrow it from the central banks, who really don’t have it either, but they print up some more monopoly money and now we owe them interest on the money that they never had to begin with. I should have been a zionist banker.
Geez Bruce, I was just headed off to bed and decided to read your article. Sleep might be hard to come by considering the alarming economic trends you highlight in this article. Ultimately the only debt I can control is my own and that is well in check. As for the bigger picture, if everyone suddenly became financially responsible that would also lead to economic collapse in the short run. So it seems we are headed for the economic cliff that has been predicted for a long time. If only the stock market got the message. Keep up the good writing Bruce.
I have to admit the numbers shocked me too. I always try to keep a healthy buffer of savings between me and any economic difficulties. That way the $30,000 in available credit I have is my back-up if I ever faced a series of one unexpected economic disasters one after another.
What this tells me is that millions of Canadians are completely vulnerable if they lose their jobs or face a large unexpected bill - or their mortgage payments jump at renewal. If their savings are gone and their credit cards are maxed out, it only takes one economic blow to sink them. Not a good situation in a country already in recession BEFORE the full impact of the oil crisis hits...
Thanks for that Bruce. My wife is also an education assistant. Have you heard of Steve Keen, the Australian lefty economist. He theorizes about the impact of personal debt on the economy suggesting this is one of the reasons it is doomed to fail.
I'm not sure if Keen is a Lefty, maybe he is or isn't. He is a realist who challenges orthodoxy with empirical evidence. That's something that economists fail at regularly.
I think he differs from other mainstream economists in that he places more emphasis on individual debt in influencing the economy. Others focus on government debt and overlook individual debt - which has grown to unprecedented levels in recent times. I wasn't being critical in calling him a lefty. I consider myself to be a lefty of an old fashioned type that is becoming extinct. I thought Keen was of a similar ilk. Economically, he is a post-Keynesian - and he challenges orthodoxy, as you say.
Government debt comes closer to being 'free money', though it is 'free money' that usually comes at the cost of some kind of currency debasement. When individuals borrow, interest and principal payments thereafter are a drain on their ability to buy other stuff. Though some of Canada's immense private indebtedness may be seen as rampant consumerism, I suspect that half or more reflects the fact that incomes haven't gone up as fast as prices, particularly housing prices. Debt is thus a temporary workaround for an economy on life support.
The chickens are coming home to roost. I am SOOOO glad my wife and I paid off our mortgage and car loans years ago. Now it's just monthly utilities and we pay off the CCs each month. Now if I could only get healthy and stop seeing those damn doctors.....
Happy June, Bruce
And Happy June to you, as well. Doctors are harder to get rid of...
From memory, Justin Trudeau added more to Canada's debt than all the other Canadian Prime Ministers combined. Plus the Liberals fudged the numbers with massive immigration. (From memory, Canada had almost no economic growth during the ten years Trudeau was in power when measured on a GDP per capita basis, despite runaway deficits.) Add to that that individual Canadians were spending a whole lot of money they didn't have, and the Trudeau years were an unmitigated economic disaster.
Agree on that. And Carnage is trying to out do Trudeau and doing a good job at it too. But at least half of Canadians would vote for him again. We certainly live in interesting times.
Gosh, it’s almost like it’s intentional! Like we keep spending money that we don’t have so we borrow it from the central banks, who really don’t have it either, but they print up some more monopoly money and now we owe them interest on the money that they never had to begin with. I should have been a zionist banker.
Geez Bruce, I was just headed off to bed and decided to read your article. Sleep might be hard to come by considering the alarming economic trends you highlight in this article. Ultimately the only debt I can control is my own and that is well in check. As for the bigger picture, if everyone suddenly became financially responsible that would also lead to economic collapse in the short run. So it seems we are headed for the economic cliff that has been predicted for a long time. If only the stock market got the message. Keep up the good writing Bruce.
I have to admit the numbers shocked me too. I always try to keep a healthy buffer of savings between me and any economic difficulties. That way the $30,000 in available credit I have is my back-up if I ever faced a series of one unexpected economic disasters one after another.
What this tells me is that millions of Canadians are completely vulnerable if they lose their jobs or face a large unexpected bill - or their mortgage payments jump at renewal. If their savings are gone and their credit cards are maxed out, it only takes one economic blow to sink them. Not a good situation in a country already in recession BEFORE the full impact of the oil crisis hits...
Thanks for that Bruce. My wife is also an education assistant. Have you heard of Steve Keen, the Australian lefty economist. He theorizes about the impact of personal debt on the economy suggesting this is one of the reasons it is doomed to fail.
I'll look up Steve Keen. All debt is borrowing from the future - a future that is now arriving, unfortunately.
I'm not sure if Keen is a Lefty, maybe he is or isn't. He is a realist who challenges orthodoxy with empirical evidence. That's something that economists fail at regularly.
I think he differs from other mainstream economists in that he places more emphasis on individual debt in influencing the economy. Others focus on government debt and overlook individual debt - which has grown to unprecedented levels in recent times. I wasn't being critical in calling him a lefty. I consider myself to be a lefty of an old fashioned type that is becoming extinct. I thought Keen was of a similar ilk. Economically, he is a post-Keynesian - and he challenges orthodoxy, as you say.
Government debt comes closer to being 'free money', though it is 'free money' that usually comes at the cost of some kind of currency debasement. When individuals borrow, interest and principal payments thereafter are a drain on their ability to buy other stuff. Though some of Canada's immense private indebtedness may be seen as rampant consumerism, I suspect that half or more reflects the fact that incomes haven't gone up as fast as prices, particularly housing prices. Debt is thus a temporary workaround for an economy on life support.
Thanks Bruce. Part of the reason people get into debt is because wages have reduced in real terms over many decades.