July 10, 2023
Canada and "extra" money
The bank bangs on about extra money provided by pandemic relief as a reason for the two barrelled attack on living standards.
They point to graphs like this:
And say. OMG, look at how far above the standard we are.
What they do not show you is this graph:
It is clear that the highest income brackets have usurped all the excess money out there. This was done through the power of the "financial market" to redistribute "investment" activity by the working class upward. For the regular worker, their investments are down. But, for those in multi-billion dollar portfolios, it has not been so bad.
In addition, managers and the like gave themselves large raises while workers took home less. Wage growth continues to stagnate in Canada, not even making-up the previous decades dismal record.
With most indicators of the economy declining, it looks like the central banks have gotten what they wanted: a soft landing for capital and a hard landing for workers.
There is less money in the hands of workers and more workers out of work.
Equities
Stocks are up, but only a few companies are driving that tendency:
Europe
The breakdown of unemployed is as you would expect. A full 23% would like work, but are currently unemployed and the rest are not working because of age, disability, mental health, and/or family obligations.
These stats are released regularly, but the business press always release these graphs at the start of summer when students are on break. Makes the unemployment stats look worse.