“Statistics Canada on March 2 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 9.6 per cent in the fourth quarter,…”
More details here in the National Post.
No doubt the government will want to break out the champagne after last year’s 5.4% decline, but since GDP ignores the distinction between productive and unproductive spending, the unprecedented federal and provincial borrowing binge coupled with the collapse of interest rates all the way back to zero accounts for most of what Keynesians call “growth”.
With the price of an average home in Toronto and Vancouver now approaching a million bucks, the central planners at the Bank of Canada might want to investigate the concept of Net Present Value. Then they might understand why interest rates and asset prices have a seesaw relationship which produces a world of hurt when markets belatedly realize that capital does not magically self-replicate.
It turns out they may be aware of that, but are studiously seeking to minimize public concern: “[BOC head commissar] Macklem last week said he was seeing early signs of “excess exuberance” in the housing market.”
Where have we heard that before? What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg at Stats Can.
The government is now praising themselves for finally achieving their income redistribution goals. From you to their rich cronies.
The tell that power is the end and the means is when what they tell you is just cover for what they’re doing, like “creating jobs.”
Blackie won’t be around in 20 years (or sooner) when the birds come home on all that filthy 0% lucre, and the millenials LOOOOOOOVE HIM so much right now, will be stuck paying usurious tax rates, when rates normalize. That’s if they can afford that, and their underwater mortgages
Any fool can spend like a drunken sailor, but Groper takes foolishness to extraordinary new levels
Enjoy your slavery millenials!
Just read last week in the local paper (the free one, I don’t pay for the crap Torstar pay to read KW Record), that a semi in Kitchener listed for $500,000 and sold for $800,000 with over 50 offers.
Funny how when Canada was productive, and the administrative “industry’s” small, housing was cheap. And now we’re a fiat printing, credit floating, paper shuffling and housing is expensive.
Where you start your “measurement” is important.
Having brought the real economy to a screeching stop by allowing train blockages,banning pipelines and then imprisoning the productive in their own homes..Any “Growth” will appear to be huge..as long as you measure from the most negative point.
Of course if you measure from “Pre Trudeau” them numbers are just tragic.
John…ya took the words outa my mouth.
When ya fall 2700′ in 3.2 Seconds…
and a day later climb back all of 270 ft…Well hells bells, that was a 10% Increase..!!
WooHoo – light up the fireworks…!!
Propaganda for the VACUOUS.
Interest rates are absurdly low all over the world, even in China, which is supposedly growing at eight percent.
As interest rates are related to economic growth rates, the only way they make sense is if China is only growing at a fraction of the rate it claims to—and if western economies had been shrinking even before Wuhan flu.
This is what comes of systematically destroying your entrepreneurial classes. Fascism with Chinese characteristics is proving a poorer substitute for capitalism than our masters thought. The Chinese work for cheap, and troublemakers quickly disappear. But they never think of anything new.
Isn’t the average house in Vancouver two million now? I mean a townhome in Tsawwassen is nearly 700k. Absolutely insane.
Abit OT but how is the Canuck Buck trading @ 79.11 and the other day closing above 80 cents?
How? Why? I don’t get it?
Because the Americans are in as bad or worse shape than Canuckistan, printing Trillions in “new munny” out of thin air.
Bond yields are at a tipping point, indicating huge inflation on the horizon, so, the Fed is busy ramping up the presses, buying its own Tbills and debt. Voila! Inflation defeated!
Welcome to Voodoo “Economics”.
It won’t take much of a tremor, to pop this massive bubble, and that shrew Yellen is the perfect patsy at the helm, along with Joe Bungle to run into the iceberg
Voodoo economics, what a great term, and a perfect description of what is happening. Yeah, it’s all gonna collapse big time. Don’t know when, but soon, I’ve heard the end of April, and also the end of this year. We little people don’t even get a say, and there will be 1980 style 18 – 20 percent inflation AGAIN! IF, IF, you are working, your income won’t cover your expenses, if you’re retired, your pensions will devalue to become almost worthless. If you own property, it’s value will tank, because nobody can afford the current costs of home purchase. The greenies will probably achieve their dream of utopia with no oil, natural gas or nuclear energy, and the planet saved. Of course we’ll all be dying of cold or starvation, or both, but at least we can die with the satisfaction that the one percenters and the Davos crowd will survive to carry the human race forward.
We sure as hell won’t be dying with the satisfaction of the “we told you so” as to what would happen, because it didn’t make a damn difference in our lives, only the lives of the Bidens and the Trudeaus, and the rich. Funny how their desire to make the planet better and work for them, will make the world a shittier place for the rest of us! Gee, I thought they cared. /s
Listening to Peter Schiff (or others) they talk about the liquidity that is being poured like gasoline onto fire.
In 2020, governments didn’t borrow, they just issued currency. The only way out is to devalue the currency through inflation. It’s 1972 all over again, run away inflation, look for consumer borrowing rates to start rising fast. We all shop and buy gas and you know they’re already lying about inflation, soon they won’t be able to lie anymore (and it’ll all be Harper’s fault).
Thing is, Schiff has been crying WOLF for years, his message gets drowned out.
Michael Burry of Big Short fame, and Jim Rickards, who also called the 2008 housing bubble, have recently, and quietly been warning investors that this market is ready for a fall, propped up only by massive printing, not supported by any sound fundamentals.
The charade can only go on for so long.
What could go wrong? The Green New Deal … that’s what. You want to crush all that irrational exuberance? Jack up the prices of energy. Tax and banish ALL fossil fuels used for EVERYTHING. Ban the internal combustion engine. Mandate solar panels on every house. Require added levels of insulation on every home.
Lost in the post-housing crash of 2008 was the historic spike in energy prices. Gasoline was $5.00/gal. Every company was adding “energy surcharges”. The “FREE” money being thrown about by the Fed and the banks, gave the illusion that “Everybody was $RICH$”. And because everyone was “$RICH$” … Government wanted their cut. And Government seized the boom times to demand more; fees and taxes on gasoline, sales taxes, tolls, permit fees, property taxes … literally … every facet of government increased and expanded. Government pay and pensions exploded far beyond anything in the private sector.
And then *POP* … fizzzzzzzzle … the illusion driven by insane monetary and banking policy blew up in everyone’s faces. But all the Government inflation of everyday activities remained. And the government workers remained RICH while the average man suffered,.