Finance committee  You know, it's interesting. Barack Obama, in 2007 or 2008, tried to bring in a program to help people who were losing their homes when the bubble burst in the U.S. The homeowners who didn't have a massive amount of debt freaked out and said, “I'm not going to pay for somebody els

Finance committee  The debt levels are extremely high, but one thing we haven't mentioned yet is that about 22% of all mortgages are variable-rate mortgages. The balance of five-year-term mortgages come due in the next one, two, three or four years. They will all be reset at much higher rates. That

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  That's a great question. Nobody knows the answer to that question. I can tell you that in the late seventies, when they brought in a new chair of the fed in the U.S., Paul Volcker started raising rates when they were at 11% and inflation was around 10%. For the next two and a ha

Finance committee  The last time the housing market corrected substantially in Canada was in the early 1990s. Interest rates went up to 13% and there was an overall correction. I don't know the exact percentage, but I think it was in the 20% to 30% range. One of the notable, iconic events was the

Finance committee  I think the prices in 1999 were similar to the prices in 1990. It was a long period of lower to flat prices. This new bubble started to form shortly after 2000.

Finance committee  That's right. Both Canada and Australia escaped the corrections that happened in 2008-09. Those two countries have the most extended housing bubbles and house prices at this time. It was considered lucky at the time, but I would say maybe it was unlucky that we didn't have a he

Finance committee  The simple answer is no. The measure I prefer is debt to GDP. A few developed countries in the world are in the same category as Canada, but Canada is right at the very top of the list in terms of private sector debt. I'm sure most of the discussion about debt in this committe

Finance committee  I do, for sure, and it requires government intervention. Absolutely.

Finance committee  I didn't mention the decline in house prices as much as the interest rate on mortgages. The mortgage interest is the biggest component of the monthly payment for most people, depending on the amount of down payment they have, but let's assume it's a first-time buyer with the mini

Finance committee  The most comparable period.... We talked about it. We're here to talk about inflation, and the most comparable period for inflation would be in the late seventies, which happens to be when I started working. In my first job, I didn't have my licence to sell stocks as a stockbroke

Finance committee  Well, obviously, it's not healthy when people can't afford to buy a house except with the help of parents, grandparents and co-signing of mortgages. We can just look at the burden of debt that Canadians are taking on, especially at the household level. It's probably the top three

Finance committee  Minsky was an unorthodox economist who didn't get much play, but when the global financial crisis hit, of course, people started calling what happened a “Minsky moment”. A “Minsky moment” happens when lenders discover that borrowers cannot repay their loans. In fact, they cannot

Finance committee  Well, as I mentioned, obviously, I was early in bringing this to people's attention with the first edition of my book. My thesis is that the housing market has to correct back to the trend line. Research done by Jeremy Grantham shows that all bubbles burst, and all bubbles corre

Finance committee  Thank you for this invitation to contribute to this very important work in tackling the question of what to do about inflation. I am here as a private individual and author of three books on finance. I also work as an investment adviser and portfolio manager with one of Canada's