A Look at 2008 Holiday Season Sales
Stores opened even before the crack of dawn, but many Boxing Day shoppers were lining up as early as the night before, some admittedly even forsaking Christmas dinners to be first in line and take advantage of the savings. As the day wore on, the dangerously icy roads and miserable rain still didn’t stop shoppers […]
Economist Scales Back Dread Meter
Things may seem bleak at the present; however, the Canadian economy will eventually recover. Dungan and Steve Murphy at the Policy and Economic Analysis Program expect that the Canadian governnment will run deficits for a few years and they urge Ottawa not to repeat the mistake of raising employment insurance premiums before a recovery. Low prices for oil and […]
Inflation or Deflation- What Will be the Ultimate Outcome?
Economists really do not have a consensus as to what will happen in the next little while. At the moment, they cannot agree whether inflation or deflation is the bigger threat. Deflationists believe that the cooling economy will lead to decreased consumption. This, combined with lower gas prices, lower housing prices, and the plummeting stock […]
Housing Prices Tumble in Metropolitan Canada
It was bound to happen. Housing prices are beginning to fall in metropolitan Canada. In the Greater Toronto Area, housing prices have tumbled the first time in over a decade, down by 3% from last year’s levels. Average existing home prices dropped to $368,549 in September, from the $380,132 recorded in the same month last […]
Increasing Government Spending Will Stimulate the Economy
Keynesian Economics, or “The New Economics,” holds that governments should vary taxes and spending to offset both rising inflation and staggering output. Free-marketers argue that the cost of periodic crashes is worth it, in order to preserve the freedom of capital movements. At the moment, the former notion is prevailing. Before the 2008 financial crisis, […]
Manufacturers Can Breath Sigh of Relief With Lower Canadian Dollar
The loonie took a beating alongside stocks last week, falling 7.77 cents or 8.4 per cent this past week, and 2.59 cents alone on Friday. The loonie has now dipped below 90 cents against the U.S. greenback. The silver lining is that non-resource manufacturers will likely benefit from this drop because their main customers tend to be in the […]
Federal Government Provides $25B Injection to Lending Industry
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Friday that the federal government will buy $25 billion worth of mortgage debt from Canadian banks in a bid to stabilize the lending industry and encourage lower interest rates. Due to the subprime mortgage crisis, financial institutes are reluctant to lend money, and if they are, they’re charging significantly-higher rates. […]
Businesses Need To ‘Go Green’ To Stay Competitive In New Economy
Due to the economic downturn, many traditional industries are in peril because resources are no longer in demand, consumers are scrimping instead of spending, and the financial institutions are in disarray. To survive as a business, it’s paramount that now, more than ever, businesses need to innovate. We’re on the cusp of a new economy and only the […]
“It’s the Economy, Stupid”
With a federal election just around the corner, Canada is experiencing weakest GDP growth in almost 17 years. The deteriorating health of the Canadian economy is reflected in recent polls, in which Canadians now rank the economy ahead of health care and the environment as their chief concern. “For too long, we allowed high commodity prices […]
Canada Barely Avoids Recession
Canada narrowly avoided a recession in the first half of this year as the economy (GDP, or Gross Domestic Product) edged up by a weaker-than-expected rate of 0.3 per cent in the second quarter, following a revised 0.8 per cent drop in the previous three-month period. Most analysts had expected second-quarter growth of 0.6 per […]