Today's data: national balance sheets for Q3!! 🥳 www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quoti…

Household debt reaches all time high, but an under-reported statistic is that financial and total assets have also reached new highs. #cdnecon
This matters since many will see the riding debt as a sign over 'overleverage', but this isn't necessarily true. I'll paint a more optimistic picture here.

First, debt as a share of assets are very much in line with historical norms.
Second, the "household debt is 173% of income" headline is correct. But financial assets (which doesn't include homes, for example) is 544% of income!
So, instead of "debt" let's look at "net debt". Household net debt as a share of disposable income is actually highly negative. -350%.
Debt service ratios are an interesting statistics to look at too. Here we see that recent years have remained stable, though notably higher than pre-financial crisis.

.... BUT
All of the increase in debt service costs are due to rising principle payments. Interest costs have been consistently declining to now barely over 6% of income.

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More from @trevortombe

27 Aug
Big omissions in #ableg Fiscal Update: no recognition of our main fiscal challenge (reliance on resource revenues) and no indication of how we'll move forward.

As @RonKneebone so wisely put it: we have a substance abuse problem. Step 1 to overcoming it: admit we have a problem.
Here's a link to his paper: journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/sppp… (Read it!!)

Also, note this isn't a critique of current govt only. Failing to recognize this as a problem is an all-party challenge; former govt did it repeatedly as well.
I'll add that the province is going to need to consider revenue measures. No, not necessarily sales taxes. Gas taxes, a health levy (payroll tax), taking back CTax revenue, changing PIT rate, etc. Lots of options we should consider.
Read 5 tweets
23 Jul
When an organization uses "induced jobs" when talking about economic impacts, you know they overpaid for shoddy analysis.
Add up all the indirect effects, you'll get roughly two jobs for every job! And including induced gets really crazy. With not unreasonable assumptions, I can show you oil and gas accounts for infinity percent of Canada's economy.

INFINITY!!! ... must be an important sector.
Good resource: "uses and abuses" in IO analysis pc.gov.au/research/suppo…
Read 7 tweets
23 Jun
The $133 billion is the estimate of the gap between current assets and future pension commitments. It isn’t an “unfunded liability” in any sense that matters for the APP discussion. I’ll try to explain. #ableg
The CPP is funded by contributions of current workers and returns on investments. This is because of a sensible reform in the late-90s to ensure CPP is sustainable in the long run.
If we were to stop *ALL* contributions from workers but still pay out pension benefits that people have accumulated/earned then would current assets be enough? No. Does that mean CPP isn’t funded? No. Worker contributions make up the difference!
Read 11 tweets
17 Jun
Recommendation 1 is to reform fiscal stabilization and hold an equalization referendum. Okay, fair enough to debate.

The analysis presented around Recommendation 1, however, is 100% false. It's mistakes like this that undermines the credibility of the panel's work. #ableg
It's not that these numbers are made up. Not at all. You can review them for yourself here: www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.…

These represent the gaps between federal revenue from Albertans and spending in the province. It's not specifically about equalization. Not at all.
To learn more, I wrote about how to measure such fiscal transfers, and how to account for them by program, for the Canadian Tax Journal here: trevortombe.com/publication/tr…

TL;DR: Gap due to strong econ. And EQ accounts for as much 'transfer' out of Alberta as the GST. #FunFact
Read 9 tweets
8 May
Unemployment in Canada rose to 13% in April, but that masks much of the story. Many have zero hours. Many others exited the labour force.

I've put together some alternative measures of the 'effective' unemployment rate in #cdnecon. Now: 32%. (Will explain in this thread.)
This says that unemployment "would have been" 32% if the participation rate and average hours were unchanged between February and April 2020. Usually this doesn't change much from month-to-month. See red line pre-Feb.
And here's the decomposition of the changes. Much of the increase is because of people leaving the labour force (who aren't counted as "unemployed").
Read 11 tweets
30 Apr
Can the Federal govt handle the additional COVID spending? Some are raising debt concerns. Since it's important to think this through. I try to help here (with calculations!). #cdnecon #cdnpoli 1/n
First, interest rates and borrowing costs aren't really the issue in the short-term. Borrowing rates are incredibly low right now. Question is only how soon we return to normal budget balances. bankofcanada.ca/rates/interest…
To explore this, I run some scenarios based on the PBO estimates released this morning. But I project beyond 2020 to give a sense of magnitudes. (Lots of uncertainty, but still helpful!) Note: *these are scenarios, not predictions*.
Read 16 tweets

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