News Story of the Day: Canadians keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into debt, and there is no sign in sight that debt consumption will slow down.
According to the latest numbers from Statistics Canada, Canadian household debt hit another record high in the third quarter as the ratio of debt to disposable income rose to 166.9 percent, up from 166.4 percent in the second quarter.
In other words, Canadians owe $1.67 in debt for each dollar of disposable income.
Total household debt surpassed $2 trillion: $1.31 trillion in mortgages and $590 billion in credit cards, automobile loans and other types of personal loans.
It is going to be a scary time for Canadians when interest rates start to tick upwards.
Chart of the Day: it truly is amazing how the economy has transformed since 1955. The chart below suggests just how much it has changed as it outlines the 60 companies that have stayed on the Fortune 500 list from 1955 to today. Creative destruction makes everyone wealthier, indeed!
Illustration of the Day: the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has an interesting illustration that attempts to explain that there can be various household demographics that can explain the “income inequality crisis.” Here is the illustration:
Quote of the Day: Ayn Rand was a brilliant mind; it was disappointing that libertarians, Austrians and Rand could never get along. In the book “Ayn Rand Answers,” Rand talks about the idea of overpopulation, which is an absurd concept. She talks about how in a free society there is no such thing as too many people, but if you live in a controlled, socialist state then it becomes a problem. Here is Rand explaining the idea:
There is no population problem. If people were free to produce, they’d produce enough to feed themselves. There’s enough on this earth to support much larger populations. Further, as people become more affluent and educated, they don’t breed large families.
There is a problem when populations grow through ignorance, anti-birth control campaigns, or religion, and people can’t make a living for themselves because they live in controlled economists or dictatorships. That’s a problem; but the solution is freedom, not more state power.
The greatest population explosion in history was in Europe during the nineteenth century: 300 percent. At that time, intellectuals of the altruist/socialist/collectivist persuasion raised the same objection: the population explosion would cause the world to perish from hunger. This was on the eve of the greatest prosperity the world had ever known, because it was the freest century ever. Today, when people yell about population and hunger, it’s because they have the same ideas and the same farsightedness as nineteenth-century socialists. They seen (or even know) that under controls, a growth in population is disastrous. But socialism is disastrous for a population of any size: it’s only a matter of time before the birth of more human being is too much, since there’ll be nothing to feed him.
Video of the Day: do you want another reason as to why Hillary Clinton lost the U.S presidential election? It’s gobbledygook like this that led to her demise. And it’s people like Hillary that have been in charge of the government education system for decades!
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