Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for October 15th, 2007

Canadian Leading Economic Indicators Unphased by Financial Market Stupidities

So the leading indicators are up 0.4% over August, and more importantly don’t seem to reflect any “wear and tear” from the financial market fiascoes of that time frame (i.e. lower than prime mortgage stuff).

Household demand remained the driving force behind growth. The housing index leapt by 5.3%, its largest gain in almost six years, due to higher housing starts. Spending on durable goods also accelerated. Strong consumer demand for services was the largest contributor to the growth of services employment.

So the Canadian economy continues to chug along happily, which is a good thing.

And the Loonie will Dive

RBC claims that by next year, the Loonie will be back down to 93 cents American, but I am not so sure about this one. I think the U.S. government has made a conscious decision to force their economy back to a more manufacturing base, and not have to rely on imports as much. A sliding American dollar makes for much more expensive imports, which means American manufacturers are on a much more even playing field now? Yes, it’s simplistic on my part, but if you want to kick start things, maybe creating a “Buy American” ground swell, by forcing the prices of imports up (without having to use tariffs) is pretty smart.

ATM Fees a little Math

After finding out that the banking machine at my office has become a “white” ATM machine to me (being a TD customer), it now means that if I take out $20, I pay $3 in service charges. What does that mean?

• Effectively I am paying 15% interest (at that moment) to get money from this machine. Yikes that is a hell of a lot of money to pay just to get $20
• Yes, I shouldn’t just take out $20 at a time, I should take out MORE, but I actually take the next logical step which is to go to a banking machine for my bank and not get charged anything.

As I said, invest in banks, no one else could get away with this.