Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for December 20th, 2006

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal is finally paid for! Unbelievable, is all I can say. I grew up in Montreal during the building of the “Cement Stadium”, and I remember it’s initial price tag of $185M and it ballooning to a final price tag of $2B which evidently has been paid off using a tax on cigarettes in Quebec. That shows that:

• Quebecers smoke a hell of a lot of cigarettes to get taxed enough to pay off this huge debt.
• That is a really STEEP tax, which they are not getting rid of, they are keeping it to pay for upkeep of the stadium and for other debts the Quebec Government has (like the number of cancer patients from smoking?)

Folks, if this debt can be paid off (in 30 years), then ANY debt is payable. I remember as a kid thinking I wouldn’t see the stadium paid for before it was demolished, or it fell down, but it is now paid off, holy cow! –C8j

So the rate of inflation (or the consumer price index) was at 1.3 % last month (year over year) which is higher than it has been, but below the average that we have seen in the past five years.

Canadians paid 1.4% more for the goods and services in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket in November than they did a year earlier. Despite this increase, the growth rate of the all-items index remains well below the 2.3% average for the last five years.

Didn’t I just say that?

So what is driving these prices up?

• Replacing worn out crap in your house, and renovate? That is up 8.2% year over year. All those fixer upper shows are causing us all to go out and DO, which is increasing demand on the products, with a set supply, that means increase in prices!
• Mortgage interest costs are up, due to the higher interest rates.
• The price of electricity has gone up 5 % over the year.
• The cost of eating in a restaurant is up 2.8%, really? That seems low to me, maybe I am eating too upscale these days.
• Oh and if you live in Alberta, you are getting GOUGED big time in some areas, just in case you weren’t aware, especially those home improvement areas.

It is worthwhile looking at the Stats Canada site to see what makes up their basket of goods and how it affects the price index.

What are you doing to combat this price creep? –C8j