Skip to main content

National Post: Canada's economy shrank in Q2/2011


OTTAWA – The Canadian economy shrank in the second quarter, the first quarterly fall since the 2008-09 recession, largely due to temporary factors such as Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday. Real gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 0.4% from the first quarter, worse than the median forecast of a 0.1% increase in a Reuters survey of economists. The first quarter grew by 3.6%. However, most economists expected a rebound in the third quarter from the temporary disruptions in the second. If this is the case, Canada would escape the technical definition of recession — two quarters of negative growth. The decline was marked by a 2.1% fall in export volume. This, in turn, was influenced by a supply disruption in the auto industry caused by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as wildfires and maintenance shutdowns that helped cut oil and gas extraction by 3.6%. Business investment, housing investment and consumer spending were all up in the quarter. For the month of June, Statscan said real GDP rose by 0.2% in June after a 0.3% fall in May, with the auto and gas industries posting rebounds.
© Thomson Reuters 2011


Don't need to say much more -- hate reprint, but anything else would just be a rewrite -- which is lamer.  Bottom line is that Canada's Q1/11 +1% performance was followed by zero or close to zero growth in Q2.  The question is what will happen in the second half of 2011, there the bets are off, housing in Canada is slowing, partly has a result of more stringent mortgage rules (30 year mortgage, sensitivity to higher mortgage rates).  Finally, is the health of our No 1 export market:  America.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The end of Tesla?

 it takes a special kind of idiot, to think that he can antagonize his entire customer base, and think that it will not impact his business. When Elon Musk went to work for Donald Trump, and created the doge department, he antagonized every liberal, and these people represent 90% of his client base.That’s not a brilliant move. Now Elon Musk is worth hundreds of billions of dollar, so he shouldn’t care a great deal, however, he needs to care because of several other issues. The cyber truck has been a disaster, most have had to be recalled because of defective glue, it’s not a truck, it’s not a car, it’s noisy, relatively uncomfortable, but great as a development platform. What Tesla has learned in making car manufacturing more seamless is truly amazing. The problem was that Elon Musk was so pissed with the Democrats, and with Joe Biden, in particular because of some slight, which were just plain stupid too. By the way, that he decided to support with hundreds of millions of dollar, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Donald Trump‘s bad bargain

 The entire of 2023 and 2024 when Donald Trump was running for the White House, his mantra was no war, that the Ukraine conflict would be resolved in a day, and that he would do everything not to involve America and war. How the world has changed! He finds himself facing three conflicts; Ukraine, still going on almost 5 months after he became president. Gaza, an unspeakable crime against humanity, is obviously going to go all the way to its bitter end. And finally, Israel’s attack against Iran. It’s important to note, that Benjamin Netanyahu first indicated at the United nation that the Iranian were 3 to 5 years away from having the nuclear bomb. He made that statement in 1995. Therefore, no one is surprised that he uses the same two lines every so often. It’s entirely possible, that 30 years after he first announced it, that Iran has finally developed the bomb. It’s also remarkable that Iran, local power has been destroyed, from Yemen, to Syria, via Lebanon and Gaza to small exten...
Post a Comment
Read more

TACO again, but worst!

 Donald Trump got the rare earth metals that he had thrown away on April 2, liberation day as he called it. What did the Chinese get in exchange? The whole deal, is on the wrap right now. But let’s be clear. It’s the Chinese that have the upper hand.Some of the materials made by the Chinese, are simply unavailable anywhere else. suspicions are that the Chinese got the high-end chips that they lost under Biden. Tariffs will probably return to the level of April 1, and in the end Donald and his friends got nothing for it. It gets worse, Chinese exports to United States are down 40%. The Chinese have found new markets, I probably never gonna buy American grain again. Once again, Donald Trump proved he’s a great negotiator. He got absolutely nothing for his Showmanship. He told the world, that everyone would come and kiss his ass, instead they’re laughing At him. There’s no joke about Donald Trump, a 25 and inherited a huge fortune and proceeded to make it a small one. Bottom line, the...
Post a Comment
Read more