nikoblock.bsky.social @nikoblock.bsky.social · 03/02/2026Finally, debt has skyrocketed as well, roughly paralleling home price. The household sector's total debt relative to its income was 0.6 in 1976, and rose to 1.5 in 2023. 100
nikoblock.bsky.social @nikoblock.bsky.social · 03/02/2026Meanwhile, dwellings per capita have also risen dramatically, from 290 per thousand people in 1971 to 403 in 2023. 100
nikoblock.bsky.social @nikoblock.bsky.social · 03/02/2026Housing inflation has been steep. I estimate that the cost of a benchmark single-family home relative to the median family income has risen from 2.8 in 1976 to 6.7 in 2023. (Data are from StatsCan, CREA, and the Macrohistory Database.) 100
nikoblock.bsky.social @nikoblock.bsky.social · 22/04/2025Since 2000, rising oil prices boosted the value of the CAD, which has undermined other every other area of Canadian manufacturing. The overall losses relative to the supposed economic gains of oil are astonishing. 120
nikoblock.bsky.social @nikoblock.bsky.social · 22/04/2025I give a quick rundown of Canadian political economy and the "staples trap", then recap a key arg from @jimbostanford.bsky.social: that the Canadian dollar's tightening linkage to oil has given us a case of Dutch disease. 100
