This video has some really solid statistics about Canadian peoples debt, the 30% senior citizen’s retiring and the glut of homes that will be entering the market that is going to drive home prices down.
It talks about how corporations has filled peoples head with ideas of a lifestyle that most debt ridden Canadian cannot really afford. This is a must watch, it is a hard look at the reality of things and the coming hardships.
Canadians now have taken on large amounts of debt and with interest rates so low, home sales presses on. However, it is not just mortgage debt that Canadians have added to their balance sheets, credit card and line of credit debt has been soaring as well. This basically is a recipe for a disaster similar to what happen in the United States running up to 2008 economic crash to happen to Canada in the future.
Professional writer and organizer Felice Cohen makes things work living in New York’s smallest apartment that is close to all amenities and only blocks from Central Park. She lives by the philosophy of “Don’t Aquire What You Can’t afford”, which I think is great. People buy and collect too much “crap” these days and it just piles up. Watch the video it’s cool.
Here’s a funny incident in China, where a millionaire purchased a Lamborghini Gallardo and after a short while the engine cut out and would not run. He then had the Lamborghini Gallardo towed to the dealership and while towing it…the dealership damaged the body as well.
Next the dealership garage try to fix the engine problem but cool not and after complaining to the dealership manager about the body damage from the towing, the dealership refuse to be responsible for it.
Few days ago, I was browsing the FutureShop.ca and on the front page FutueShop was having this 1 Deal-a-Day Promotion and on March 7th the deal was this spectacular deal on a 15.6 inch Acer Laptop. To be exact it was a Intel Core i3 380M (2.53 Ghz) 15 inch Laptop with 6 GB of RAM and 500 GB of hard drive space for the low price of $499.99.
Back in year 2003-2004 I worked at an enterprise technology company and was part of the outside sales team. There was two individuals that worked on the inside sales team…basically the group that offered sales support. The first guy let’s call him N. Singh and the second guy let’s call him J. Singh. These two individuals are real, NOT fictitious and it just so happens by coincidence that their last names are both Singh. They are also not related.
A greater number of Canadians feel that the economy is getting worse than last year. Now 20% up from 14% last year feel this way.
Some of the top concerns of Canadians are having enough money to retire, and improving personal finance. They feel that the Canadian economy maybe getting a little bit better by the government reports but at home things are getting worse, goods are more expensive (inflation), jobs are hard to find and people are still being laid off. So to the average Canadian, their personal finance situation really don’t feel any better.
The U.S puts out reports that the recession ended last year sometime, and the Federal Reserve say that they are going to do more “Quantitative Easing” to further stimulate the economy. The stock market responds by sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average well over 11,000. All this in my personal opinion is hog wash, it is just more U.S Government propaganda to make things seem a lot better than they are.
If there is anything the credit crisis over the last few years has taught us is that debt is bad, despite what financial companie’s try to tell you. The other thing is that everyone has to really watch their spending. Part of the monitoring of spending is those little things that you buy, like coffee, latte or a bottle of water here and there.If the economy continues the way it has been for another few years, you will most likely be forced to change your habits, especially if you are in heavy debt, you have no savings or if you are in a job that is at risk of layoffs.
Interesting how jobs are being loss at record pace which means people do not have money to spend or live, but when you watch certain U.S and Canadian government reports…they try to paint a rosy picture.