{"id":9094,"date":"2015-06-14T07:21:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T12:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9094"},"modified":"2015-06-14T07:21:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-14T12:21:31","slug":"is-canada-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9094","title":{"rendered":"Is Canada Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/06\/14\/is-canada-next-household-debt-home-price-bubble\/\" target=\"_blank\">Is Canada Next?<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cAll of that negative news has kind of put a downer on consumer sentiment,\u201d is how Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Thomson Reuters, explained the crummy consumer confidence reading on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Thomson Reuters\/Ipsos Canada Primary Consumer Sentiment Index had<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/partners\/thomsonreuterscapitalize\/advtrfinance\/as-expected-canadians-are-feeling-the-weight-of-a-depressing-economy\/article24922880\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>dropped<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to 51.6, the lowest so far this year and well below the 56.4 of last August before the oil-price crash soured the mood. By comparison, since 2010, the index has mostly been in the mid-50 range.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cnegative news\u201d has extended beyond the price of oil. She pointed at some well-known retailer chains\u00a0that have shut their stores in Canada recently, including Target, Future Shop, and photography retailer Black\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Already on March 30, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz had\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/report-on-business\/economy\/stephen-poloz-warns-of-atrocious-first-quarter-economic-growth\/article23681442\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>warned<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that economic growth would be \u201catrocious\u201d in the first quarter \u201cbecause the oil shock is a big deal for us.\u201d And he was right, with GDP dropping 0.6% annualized, the first quarterly decline since 2011.<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t help that the Bank of Canada, in its\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bankofcanada.ca\/2015\/06\/fsr-june-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>Financial System Review<\/u><\/a>\u00a0released on Friday, pointed out that household indebtedness and the housing bubble were the top two vulnerabilities that threatened Canada\u2019s financial stability. The top vulnerability:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cElevated\u201d \u2013 actually dizzying \u2013 \u201clevel of household indebtedness\u201d<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The vulnerability associated with household indebtedness remains important and is edging higher, owing to an increase in the level of household debt and the ongoing negative impact on incomes from the sharp decline in oil prices. In addition, the quality of household debt may be decreasing at the margin\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Household leverage has been pushing relentlessly higher. In the first quarter,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.statcan.gc.ca\/daily-quotidien\/150612\/dq150612a-eng.htm?HPA\" target=\"_blank\"><u>according<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to Statistics Canada, the household-debt-to-disposable-income ratio edged down a smidgen for the first time in four quarters, from its all-time high, to 163.3%. Debt increased once again, but this time slightly less than\u00a0income.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is Canada Next? \u201cAll of that negative news has kind of put a downer on consumer sentiment,\u201d is how Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Thomson Reuters, explained the crummy consumer confidence reading on Friday. The Thomson Reuters\/Ipsos Canada Primary Consumer Sentiment Index haddropped\u00a0to 51.6, the lowest so far this year and well below [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[942,103,6363,195,353,943,4254,4255],"class_list":["post-9094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bank-of-canada","tag-canada","tag-consumer-sentiment-index","tag-debt","tag-gdp","tag-stephen-poloz","tag-wolf-richter","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9095,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094\/revisions\/9095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}