Another economist pushing… Financialization

Another economist pushing… Financialization

Canada’s economy is on life support, the nation is in a clear recession watch, and the Bank of Canada needs to cut interest rates further, says an economist.

A new report from Rosenberg Research, Canadian Economy on Life Support, shows that despite interest rate cuts from a high of five per cent in 2024, per capita GDP is still falling, and the economy is growing at only one per cent annually.

-       Canada’s economy is on life support and country is in recession watch, says economist, BNN Bloomberg

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The annual value of US equities turnover has amounted to $85 trillion, or 370 percent of GDP—about 60-75 percent of which has been executed by algorithmic and high-frequency trading, buying and selling securities in matters of seconds. It is not clear how such activities may have helped raise funds for companies to do business.

-       Financialization has increased economic fragility, Atlantic Counsel

 

By Gregg Wall (2-7-2026)

The sky is falling, the sky is falling, cried the economist… a mouthpiece for a failed status quo.  The problem?  Per the economist, Canada is not growing, growth has stalled, and the solution is more rate cuts… more monetary welfare for financialization, rapacious oligarchs, and the neoliberal paradigm that has failed Canada, the EU, and the United States, since at least 2008.  Rate cuts (aka welfare for the connected and powerful), of course, have destroyed Canada’s middle class, led to cheap finance for M&A, monopoly formation, the offshoring of the economy & factories, juiced asset valuations for the uber wealthy… all of which, along with unlimited taxpayer welfare for the rich, fueled industry consolidation, cartel and monopoly formation, and further resulted in monopoly pricing power and monopsony power to crush wages. How ironic that the economist’s policy prescriptions are a direct attack upon the dual mandate in America, and the primary concerns of the ECB and BOC.  To wit, stable prices, full employment, and growth.

The economist in question fails to address several items; he merely calls for more monetary welfare for the powerful, the lords of finance, private equity, and venture capital (the cancerous tail that wags the economic dog).  First, decades of growth have produced little or nothing for Americans and Canadians, as the spoils of the economy – wages & wealth – have gone to a predatory few. Wage and wealth inequality are out of control in Canada and even more obscene in the United States.  

Second, the problems Mr. Rosenberg describes are problems nearly all Western economies face… the aforementioned cartels, financialization, monopolies, and wholesale theft and looting by capital.  None of this is novel inside Canada or the West, they are the norm, the result of a failed economic model and paradigm, continuously propped up and on life support by debt, deficits, and increasingly, military Keynesianism.  Poverty is endemic throughout much of the West (accepting, notably Scandinavian countries, which, with a healthy social welfare state, produce the happiest citizens in the world).  And Canada is no exception.  When Mr. Rosenberg talks about “life support” perhaps he should consider what is obviously on life support and that is the dereg, financialized, necro, neolib economy (continuously fed the morphine of central bank money printing, quantitative easing, and the low interest rate regime to manage debt, debt service loads, and endless financial engineering – at the expense of CAPEX, the real economy, and real wage gains).  

Which brings us to number three, compare Canada to our southern neighbor, that is burning its economic, fiscal, and monetary candle at both ends and the middle, with:

·      $42 trillion in national debt (including Donnie’s $4 trillion Wall St bailout);

·      40% of GDP is government spending;

·      U.S. debt to GDP (federal only) is 124%;

·      Endless colonialism, violence, and wars, including a police & surveillance state that is attacking the American people;

·      An empire that is a money pit, along with our friend(?), Israel… an America that increasingly finds itself without friends.

And number four, and finally, none of this is sustainable.  King Trump has alienated the world, attempting to have it both ways: pretending there is a rules-based order when clearly there is not, as Trump imposes brute force and threats to Americans, friends, and foes alike.  Canada stands out as the only peer nation the US runs a trade surplus with (sans oil & gas).  Canadian oil and gas the ungrateful Americans make a killing on, while Canada pays the O&G industry’s obscene externalities, subsidies, tax breaks, and welfare.  Let’s be clear, Canada’s economy is not seeing growth because it’s under attack by an ungrateful, greedy American government.  If one studies economies addicted to financialization & financial engineering, one finds out they are addicted to debt, deficits, and growth in money supply (hallmarks of both a debt trap and a doom loop).  And we all know where that leads.  That’s right, a disaster.  Rampant military Keynesianism over sustained periods… same nasty ending: a hideous misallocation of taxpayer resources.

Rosenberg’s policy prescriptions are more of the same: more of the very policies that placed Canada and the West into the horrible positions we find ourselves in today. That is to say, doubling down on financialization, concentrated wealth and power, oligarchy, pathocracy, and endless support for wealthy boomers (who have, often, hitched their wealth to their homes, while there’s an affordability and a housing crisis throughout North America).  The West compels citizen support for a low-rate regime by tying their homes and wealth to a low-rate regime, while the macro damage to the economy, jobs, and opportunity are catastrophic.  Please look around and tell me what you see.  If central banks want to aid the public and discourage economy cancelling financial engineering and the wartime economy, they should try a bifurcated rate regime… surely central banks can manage that.  They should certainly stop devaluing currencies. 

At the end of the day, aggressive monetary policy is just more welfare for the predatory elite.  Policy that works at cross purposes with the FED’s and many other central banks’ mandate, max employment and stable prices, by feeding a colossal drag on the economy.  Once again, financialization, financial engineering, oligarchy, private equity, VC and monopoly are activities, personages, and business practices that should be discouraged, crushed, and eliminated.

All known killers of the Canadian and American economy and jobs. 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026