Skip to main content

Not only the Americans: Canadian retail sales doing well again

It is tempting to say that, american alone are irresponsible consumer, ever increasing consumption despite very difficult economic conditions.  of course there are two America, the average Joe one where unemployment is high and wages have been stagnant for more than a decade, and the 1% that has seen an average increasing in income of about 10% per annum for over a decade -- that's how the 1% controls somewhere between 40% and 60% of all American wealth.

Canada is different, first off, national income for all Canadians has been rising, and more Canadians are employed today than before the crisis in 2007 (of course population growth needs to be taken into consideration...).  However, by all measures the Canadian picture is good (or at the very least better than our southern neighbor...).   So stats come out day in and day out.  Retail sales for September (+1%) were released this morning; guess what they are up (virtually all sectors) both on a absolute basis (and chained dollar basis -- discounting the impact of inflation).

Retail Sales -- September 2011
Retail sales increase in September

In fact, the news was good in virtually all sectors of the economy, and the same story for the geographical distribution.  Aside from the "world is burning" problem around Canada, these data points would be an excellent reason for the BoC to raise rates (not going to happen).  I know that I sound like a broken record, but as a second derivative country (we sell stuff that people use to make stuff) Canada is very dependent on the rest of the world being in good shape.

Honestly, Europe is looking at dislocation for the next few months/year -- in fact we could easily see a sovereign default (it has been the solution of choice for nations that borrow too much in the past), America is trying hard to choose the worse possible outcome.  Republican obstructionism, and Democrats "big government solution" and a lobby system that is made to measure to fail Americans (and by default Canadians too), and a weak financial system for ever looking for the next way to loose a bundle (other people's money syndrome).

Canada needs to stay vigilant, not certain that low interest rate is the solution here! but I don't really have a better idea, and Carney seems to know what he doing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...
Post a Comment
Read more