Constant price increases seems to be the norm with many products these days. Living in Ontario, the added household expense of electricity, natural gas and gasoline energy costs alone has reduced the amount that we could spend on other items. Combine this with increasing taxes and this exasperates the situation. I have even noticed grocery prices slowly creeping up. Many of the higher paying manufacturing jobs are now gone and are only being replaced by minimum wage employment - how far can you go on $10.00/hr? The dream of owning your own home will stay a dream. We did this to ourselves not only with our greed but also with the greed of corporations. North America is haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate to overseas interests.
The economy does not benefit from high energy costs, this money simply vanishes into a proverbial black hole and is never seen again. I have always maintained that the economy was never fixed in that many governments simply dumped truckloads of money on the effect and never corrected the root cause of the previous recession.
Household values will start dropping in Canada with respect to the new mortgage rules; an interesting concept in that Canadians will have to start purchasing homes they can actually afford. I am simply in awe at the high ratio mortgages that some of my peers are carrying and with a modest 2-3 percent increase in their mortgage rates at renewal; they will be homeless. The high level of debt tied up in equity loans is perhaps the next bubble to burst.
I could go on, but i will not. The dark line that you see on the horizon is the next recession approaching and there is no more money left to "dump" on this one.
Be well...
