All the Bank of Canada has ever done is extend nearly limitless credit to parties with neither the means nor the intent to repay. At this point, that’s like sticking a fish pond pump into the hold of a ship which has all the drain cocks open.

Christopher Ragan, a professor at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy, told the panel that while he believes the Bank of Canada will be forced to cut rates, there is not much it can do to address the kind of shock that tariffs of that magnitude would have on the Canadian economy.

“Lower the interest rates all you want, it’s probably not going to stimulate much investment,” Ragan said.

Remember those heady days at the start of the pandemic when Canadians were told they’d be foolish not to borrow? Well, the invoice has arrived and it’s not pretty.

Business insolvency filings in Canada hit their largest third-quarter volume in 15 years, with 1,312 companies teetering on the brink of going under.

On a yearly basis, such filings also rose in every province but New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador from Oct. 31, 2023, to Oct. 31, 2024. Ontario led the pack with a two-thirds increase, or 588 more insolvencies than a year earlier, while Quebec bankruptcies rose 40.4 per cent, an increase of 847.

It’s doubtful that the Brazilian Real will become part of a new reserve currency anytime soon. Brazil is yet another example of the Zimbabwe solution in action.

The real has weakened almost 22% against the US dollar this year, the worst among 31 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Losses accelerated in November after a long-awaited fiscal package underwhelmed investors. Not even a historic intervention by the central bank — spending some $20 billion in reserves in two weeks — has been able to reverse the rout.

It’s entirely possible that Canada is headed to the place where Brazil currently finds itself. Just give us time.

First it was a collapse in the currency. Now the rest of Brazil’s financial markets are in the cross-hairs as investors lose faith in the government’s ability to contain a deepening fiscal crisis.

The selloff that sent the real plunging to a record low is engulfing everything from stocks to local-currency debt to dollar bonds, with traders even piling into hedges against a sovereign default. Market watchers say extraordinary measures on Tuesday by the central bank to stem the currency’s slide are little more than a temporary fix, and warn that signs the nation’s congress may water down a high-profile austerity package are likely to only add to the turmoil.

Not to worry. This provides a golden opportunity for the Bank of Canada to get interest rates down to the good old days of zero. If that doesn’t work, Justin can always blame Trump.

Canada had 1.5 million unemployed people in November, propelling its jobless rate to a near-eight-year high outside of the pandemic era and boosting chances of a large interest rate cut on Dec. 11.

…the youth unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 24 years was the biggest contributor at 13.9 per cent.

The decline of France continues unabated.

It seems unlikely that France will have a 2025 budget…A provisional budget, likely mirroring the 2024 budget, will probably be implemented….The public deficit is expected to exceed 6% of GDP in 2024. The Barnier government had hoped to reduce it to 5% by 2025, but without a budget voted for in 2025, this target will not be met. The provisional budget will be slightly restrictive, as tax scales will not be adjusted for inflation, but will not contain any real savings measures.

The 10y yield spread of French government bonds over their German peers widened to 88bp on Monday.