In the wishful-thinking category, if we could each have a share of the net worth of Canada we could each bank $134,400.
Don't feel too bad if you're just a touch below this number. That includes all individual, corporate and governmental wealth. And it's an average rather than a median. Even the Canadian Press can tell that it's wishful thinking to think this reflects anything based in reality.
Untouched in any of the media stories that I saw, and buried in the middle of the original Statistics Canada report, is this:
The first quarter of 2005 was marked by the first negative savings by households in decades with the personal savings rate dropping to -0.6%.
The demand for consumer and mortgage credit was up from the previous quarter. With sustained low interest rates, the growth in total household debt continued to outpace the growth in personal disposable income. This resulted in a debt to income ratio of 107.3% in the first quarter, up from 105.8% in the fourth. However, the ratio of household debt to net worth slid to 17.9% in the quarter, as growth in net worth exceeded growth in debt.
This shouldn't be news to anybody: in terms of actual income to outflow individual Canadians are continuing their slide toward increased debt, but are coming away with small increases in wealth (I presume largely due to increased housing prices).
Meanwhile, governments aren't the only organizations reducing their debt-to-income ratio:
Since 2000, corporations have generated more funds from internal operations in most quarters than they required to finance their non-financial capital acquisitions. As a result of this profit-driven string of surpluses, the corporate sector has been a net lender to the rest of the economy and has also used these funds to restructure their balance sheets, largely through paying down debt.
For non-financial private corporations, the ratio of debt-to-equity (at book value) continued its downward trend, reaching a new low in the first quarter as it has done in each quarter over the last four years.
To sum up: for the past 12 years, the federal government has been steadily reducing both its debt and its debt-to-income ratios. Throughout the past four years, corporate Canada has been able to do the same.
Meanwhile, for consumers, debt is through the roof, while real wages would be falling if not for increased education.
Now tell me again which group should be benefitting most from the federal government's surplus?
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