The Liberal government has been calling inflation a “global phenomenon,” but Canada’s central bank governor says that it’s “increasingly” a Canadian affair. “Some of this inflation reflects global developments that we don’t control but inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what’s happening in Canada,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told the Halifax Chamber of Commerce…

While the war in Ukraine is partly responsible for the cost-of-living squeeze in the UK, the bed for high inflation had already been made following COVID-19 lockdowns and years of big government spending and borrowing, experts told The Epoch Times. David Paton, professor of Industrial Economics at the Nottingham University Business School, said he believes COVID-19 lockdowns…

Commentary  “You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.” – Agent Smith (The Matrix) In the movie Matrix, the hero, Neo or Mr. Anderson, is eventually able to escape from the chokehold of Agent Smith and avoid a collision with an approaching metro train (the “sound of inevitability”). The Federal Reserve, with…

Commentary  The economy is faltering, and markets are becoming chaotic. In spite of this, the mainstream financial media is busy convincing investors that the bull market is solidly intact. The 10-2 Treasury yield curve inverted on Tuesday, March 29. This inversion occurred for the first time since September 2019. Meanwhile, the 30–5-year Treasury yield spread…

Commentary The world economy has been on a perilous road for over a decade. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) that hit the world in full force in September 2008 led central bankers and the government to issue extra-ordinary measures to stop the financial sector from melting down. Governments, for example, issued blank guarantees to bank…

Commentary After 29 months of operation, the Fed will end its large-scale asset purchase program, or Quantitative Easing, on March 11, 2022. While many believe the end of QE is long overdue as it stoked the inflationary fire, others suddenly find themselves facing uncertainty. Bond investors are becoming increasingly nervous as they fear interest rates…

Commentary  Markets reacted badly last week to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s statements outlining the Fed’s initial forecast for the coming year. With inflation clearly no longer being “transitory,” with the Consumer Price Index accelerating to 7 percent in December, Powell has turned increasingly hawkish. Apart from seeming to confirm a series of rate hikes for 2022,…

Commentary Professor Jeremy Siegel sounds pessimistic about the equity market. The Russell E. Palmer, finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, predicted the Dow Jones would rise above 20,000, years before it did. Now he warns that “too much money chasing too few goods implies that inflation is likely to be…

Commentary Retail investors continue to eagerly buy every dip or decline in stocks in hopes that stock prices will soon make new all-time highs. While they’re throwing money at stocks, they can’t see the warning signs that financial conditions are tightening. When financial conditions become too tight, risk assets tend to crash. Investors are willfully…

The current higher inflation rates experienced by Canadians may not be transitory if the government and central bank do not modify their policies to address it, says a report released on Dec. 2. “While COVID’s effect on the economy has certainly contributed to the rising cost of goods and services, if central banks and governments…