02/08/2025
"Economic Chaos Edition💡
Interest rate uncertainty is nothing new, but seldom does it hit the crescendo we're seeing today.
At least during the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and COVID, you knew central banks had to cut.
Today, most talking heads expect lower inflation but it could go either way by year-end, dictated largely by U.S. policy. Trump & co.'s growth agenda could either prove a tailwind for Canadian inflation or a gale-force headwind that blows our GDP into an abyss, or both.
Amid this week's funhouse of uncertainty, one Big 6 bank economist countered the chaos with an outlook as sharp as a bowling ball:
“Canada's economy will either improve this year or slide into a moderate recession—it all depends on which way the tariff winds blow.”
Blink twice if that clears everything up.
Economists are so mystified they aren't even trying to pretend they have answers. This bank's forecast is the personal finance version of “maybe bring an umbrella”—technically true, functionally unsatisfying, and somehow forgivable.
If there’s anything the 2025 tariff circus reinforced, it’s that even the best-paid macroeconomists with their Ivy League spreadsheets can't predict whether we'll be sipping champagne in two months or hoarding canned beans.
But this isn't the first time a crisis has tossed the outlook like a salad, and it won't be the last.
Whether it’s a pandemic, banking system fiasco, real estate bubble, oil shock, currency devaluation, sovereign debt crisis, or tactless coercion from your biggest trading partner, mortgage rates have always been subject to economic upheavals.
- Robert McLister
Feb 06, 2025 11:58 AM ET"
