The Canadian crisis

"Three years ago we were told that if all the condos that were planned were built, here in the Greater Vancouver area, we would have a 20% oversupply. Now throw in a credit crunch, a tanking economy, depleted savings and investments and we have ...... ??"

"Don't you just love those stories about the car salesman who sold 8 in the morning and another 8 or 12 in the afternoon - before he even had his coffee break. He must be one heck of a salesman given that BMW corporate head office released their sales statistics which showed sales down by over 25%. Gosh without that one fictitious salesman they would have been down by 30%. Now can we please get back to some reality in the discussion of this economic slowdown? Lots of people are going to get hurt financially. Lots of people are already hurting. But no worries really - Stevie will be back on the job come Jan 26. And that's fiction too."

"I think this is even more reason for us to shoot off a bunch of populist nonsense, put on top hats, and see if we can repeat every mistake made in the great depression letter for letter. No sireee, no stimulus, nah ah, no auto bailout, it's better to lose a million jobs and be able to wag smug fingers and have everyone go on holiday in parliament then to pull together as a nation in a pragmatic way and face this crisis. And as everyone from the West, East, Central, English, French, Aboriginal and Northern parts of our country knows it's those dummies in the East, West, Central and Southern, Aboriginal, French and English parts fault. I told you so."

Funny, funny stuff I read on a forum. I have been patient thus far waiting for the Canadian government to be truthful about it all. Our economy is not that disintegrated from the US and as much as we want to believe that our financial structure is sounder, our financial sector is not immune to global recession. This is the biggest financial crisis in 70 years. Canada has been in a recession for over a year. There has been turmoil in the markets since 2007. The housing crisis in the states is as old or older. What is obvious to everyone seemed to be impossible for the Canadian government to understand. Lehman Brothers failed in September. That was when the critical patient (the global economy) went into cardiac arrest. Almost all the major central banks, including EU, China, and USA have all announced counter measures and tackling the problem (regardless of how much effect they actually have).

The feeling I am getting is that the Canadian government thinks that by ignoring the problem or denying it, it will just go away. Self correction, orderly market correction or whatever you want to call it, they are nothing more than highly publicized self delusions. It is not too much to ask that our government at least has a detailed plan by now. It is not too much to ask that any political party has a detailed plan by now. Today, the Bank of Canada cut their key interest rate by 0.75% to stand at 1.5% which is at 1950s level. We'll see how that goes.

Let’s think about it. With a growing class of unemployed especially in the construction industry, sound infrastructure and job creation has climbed to top priority on the list. At this point no amount of stimulus as I see it can restore order and public confidence globally. You have to let them rebuild in a slow and painful process. For the time being, let us all concentrate on being more independent and resolving whatever domestic problems we can. In doing so, we may cut our connections from the rest of the world and may end up killing the trade industry and foreign relations but it also slows the bleeding spreading over from the rest of the world.