People shop at a Walmart Supercentre in Toronto on March 13, 2020.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
Many economies are approaching a tipping point where high inflation becomes normal while economic growth slows sharply, the Bank for International Settlements warned in its annual report published Sunday.
Countries around the world are facing a dangerous cocktail of high inflation, slowing economic growth and heightened financial vulnerabilities tied to high debt levels and rising interest rates, said the BIS, which acts as a bank for the world’s central banks.
This may quickly turn into a period of stagflation resembling the high-inflation and low-growth era of 1970s and early 1980s, the organization said. It argued that economic policy makers around the world need to move rapidly to halt inflation, even if that means causing significant economic hardship.
“We may be reaching a tipping point, beyond which an inflationary psychology spreads and becomes entrenched. This would mean a major paradigm shift,” the BIS said.
Central banks around the world have stepped up the pace of interest rate increases in recent months to try to tame inflation. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced the largest interest rate hike since 1994. The Bank of Canada has increased its benchmark rate at three consecutive rate decisions, and hinted that it is considering a supersized 0.75 percentage point rate increase in July. That would be three times the size of a normal rate hike.
Interest rate increases lower demand in the economy, which can help bring down the pace of consumer price growth. But higher interest rates can also push the economy into a recession, as steeper borrowing costs curtail consumer spending and business investment, and push up unemployment.
“The overriding near-term challenge is to prevent the global economy from shifting from a low- to a high-inflation regime. In doing so, policy makers will need to limit the costs to the economy as far as possible and to safeguard financial stability. Some pain, however, will be inevitable,” the BIS said.
Getting inflation under control won’t be easy, the organization warned. The recent commodity price shock tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to multiple inflationary pressures that have been building over the past year. This resembles the oil price shocks in the 1970s that pushed the United States, Canada and other countries into a period of high inflation, high unemployment and low economic growth known as stagflation.
The situation today, however, could be even more dangerous than in earlier periods of stagflation because of the amount of debt – particularly housing market debt – that has built up over more than a decade of ultra-low interest rates, the BIS warned. It called the current combination of soaring inflation and elevated financial vulnerabilities “historically unprecedented.”
“Unlike in the past, stagflation today would occur alongside heightened financial vulnerabilities, including stretched asset prices and high debt levels, which could magnify any growth slowdown,” it said.
As they push interest rates higher, central banks are trying to engineer a soft landing– a situation where inflation comes down without a sharp slowdown in economic activity or significant rise in unemployment. Top central bankers, including Fed chair Jerome Powell and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, have said in recent weeks they believe a soft landing is possible, although they acknowledge that it is getting more difficult.
The BIS poured cold water on the probability of a soft landing in its report. BIS economists looked at monetary policy tightening cycles in 35 countries between 1985 and 2018, and concluded that about half of them resulted in a soft landing – that is, did not end in a recession.
However, further analysis showed that recessions were more likely if rate hikes followed a period of ultralow borrowing costs and a build-up of financial vulnerabilities. That is the situation Canada and many other advanced economies are in today.
“A hard landing may not be foreordained,” Columbia University professor Adam Tooze wrote in a newsletter commenting on the BIS report. “But what the BIS is telling us, is that central bankers have never attempted to stop an inflation as rapid as the one we have seen in the first half of 2022, with the level of debt build-up we have seen since the early 2000s.”
The BIS is not alone in its grim prognosis. Earlier this month, the World Bank cut its 2022 global growth forecast to 2.9 per cent from a 4.1-per-cent forecast in January, and said that “the danger of stagflation is considerable today.”
Much of the BIS report focused on the changing dynamics of inflation, which is surging across large parts of the globe for the first time in decades. The annual rate of inflation hit a 39-year-high of 7.7 per cent in May in Canada, the highest since 1983. It averaged 9.2 per cent in April across countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The BIS noted that once economies shift into periods of high inflation, consumer price increases become self-reinforcing. Businesses and consumers start paying more attention to rising prices and start behaving differently, respectively setting higher prices and demanding higher wages to protect their margins and purchasing power.
“Whether inflation becomes entrenched or not ultimately depends on whether wage-price spirals will develop. The risk should not be underestimated, owing to the inherent dynamics of transitions from low- to high-inflation regimes,” the BIS said.
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OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VICTORIA – British Columbia is forecasting a record budget deficit and a rising debt of almost $129 billion less than two weeks before the start of a provincial election campaign where economic stability and future progress are expected to be major issues.
Finance Minister Katrine Conroy, who has announced her retirement and will not seek re-election in the Oct. 19 vote, said Tuesday her final budget update as minister predicts a deficit of $8.9 billion, up $1.1 billion from a forecast she made earlier this year.
Conroy said she acknowledges “challenges” facing B.C., including three consecutive deficit budgets, but expected improved economic growth where the province will start to “turn a corner.”
The $8.9 billion deficit forecast for 2024-2025 is followed by annual deficit projections of $6.7 billion and $6.1 billion in 2026-2027, Conroy said at a news conference outlining the government’s first quarterly financial update.
Conroy said lower corporate income tax and natural resource revenues and the increased cost of fighting wildfires have had some of the largest impacts on the budget.
“I want to acknowledge the economic uncertainties,” she said. “While global inflation is showing signs of easing and we’ve seen cuts to the Bank of Canada interest rates, we know that the challenges are not over.”
Conroy said wildfire response costs are expected to total $886 million this year, more than $650 million higher than originally forecast.
Corporate income tax revenue is forecast to be $638 million lower as a result of federal government updates and natural resource revenues are down $299 million due to lower prices for natural gas, lumber and electricity, she said.
Debt-servicing costs are also forecast to be $344 million higher due to the larger debt balance, the current interest rate and accelerated borrowing to ensure services and capital projects are maintained through the province’s election period, said Conroy.
B.C.’s economic growth is expected to strengthen over the next three years, but the timing of a return to a balanced budget will fall to another minister, said Conroy, who was addressing what likely would be her last news conference as Minister of Finance.
The election is expected to be called on Sept. 21, with the vote set for Oct. 19.
“While we are a strong province, people are facing challenges,” she said. “We have never shied away from taking those challenges head on, because we want to keep British Columbians secure and help them build good lives now and for the long term. With the investments we’re making and the actions we’re taking to support people and build a stronger economy, we’ve started to turn a corner.”
Premier David Eby said before the fiscal forecast was released Tuesday that the New Democrat government remains committed to providing services and supports for people in British Columbia and cuts are not on his agenda.
Eby said people have been hurt by high interest costs and the province is facing budget pressures connected to low resource prices, high wildfire costs and struggling global economies.
The premier said that now is not the time to reduce supports and services for people.
Last month’s year-end report for the 2023-2024 budget saw the province post a budget deficit of $5.035 billion, down from the previous forecast of $5.9 billion.
Eby said he expects government financial priorities to become a major issue during the upcoming election, with the NDP pledging to continue to fund services and the B.C. Conservatives looking to make cuts.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the debt would be going up to more than $129 billion. In fact, it will be almost $129 billion.
NANAIMO, B.C. – Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney says he’ll be advising the Liberal party to flip some the challenges posed by an increasingly divided and dangerous world into an economic opportunity for Canada.
But he won’t say what his specific advice will be on economic issues that are politically divisive in Canada, like the carbon tax.
He presented his vision for the Liberals’ economic policy at the party’s caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C. today, after he agreed to help the party prepare for the next election as chair of a Liberal task force on economic growth.
Carney has been touted as a possible leadership contender to replace Justin Trudeau, who has said he has tried to coax Carney into politics for years.
Carney says if the prime minister asks him to do something he will do it to the best of his ability, but won’t elaborate on whether the new adviser role could lead to him adding his name to a ballot in the next election.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says she has been taking advice from Carney for years, and that his new position won’t infringe on her role.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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