{"id":183,"date":"2010-07-22T08:10:29","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T15:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/07-3\/wheat-from-the-chaff-their-woes-are-our-gain"},"modified":"2011-07-13T18:09:48","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T01:09:48","slug":"wheat-from-the-chaff-their-woes-are-our-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/183","title":{"rendered":"Their woes are our gain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/183\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div id=\"content\">\n<div class=\"blog\"><!-- back and forward --><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogbody\">\n<p><span>The current economic problems in Europe and elsewhere have become, at least for the time being, a moment of opportunity for Canada. Canada&#8217;s relatively stable financial sector, low debt ratios and healthy consumer demand are attracting a great deal of attention from international investors. As a result, Canadian government bonds do not cost as much to repay, and our overall borrowing costs are therefore reduced. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>&#8230; \u201cThe rest of the world loves Canada and thinks it\u2019s a safe place to invest, and May was a month of panic, generally speaking, of deteriorating European prospects, and of flight to safety,\u201d Eric Lascelles, a top strategist at TD Securities in Toronto, said in an interview. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>\u201cRisk-aversion ultimately resulted in extra demand for bonds backed by a strong fiscal position, credible central bank and healthy banking sector.\u201d <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>The surging foreign demand means Canadian federal and provincial governments issuing debt can pay less to the investors buying it when the securities mature, a dynamic that is also helped by the rather limited amount of Canadian debt for sale. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>While both Canada and the U.S. are running large deficits, Canada\u2019s is substantially smaller even on a per-capita basis, less than 4 per cent as a share of gross domestic product, compared with almost 11 per cent in the U.S. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>According to the debt-management strategy Ottawa released earlier this year with the budget, the Finance Department will sell $95-billion of bonds in the current fiscal year, less than the $102-billion in the previous year. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>\u201cThe more appetite there is, the easier it is to issue bonds, and the less the Department of Finance needs to fret over the deficits that are being run right now,\u201d Mr. Lascelles said&#8230;.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><em>Foreigners\u2019 total net purchase of Canadian securities for the first five months of the year was $53.9-billion, slightly more than the $52.1-billion bought by overseas investors from January through May of 2009. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;\">From <strong>The Globe and Mail<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/globe-investor\/foreign-investors-eye-canada-as-haven\/article1644569\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/globe-investor\/foreign-investors-eye-canada-as-haven\/article1644569\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"posted\">Posted by <a href=\"mailto:cwelch@lexiconic.net\">Colin Welch<\/a> at 12:30 PM<br \/>\n<em>Edited on: Thursday, July 22, 2010 2:42 PM<\/em><br \/>\nCategories: <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_americanpolitics.html\">American Politics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_canadianpolitics.html\">Canadian Politics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_globalissues.html\">Global Issues<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff2\/archives\/cat_theeconomy.html\">The Economy<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current economic problems in Europe and elsewhere have become, at least for the time being, a moment of opportunity for Canada. Canada&#8217;s relatively stable financial sector, low debt ratios and healthy consumer demand are attracting a great deal of attention from international investors. As a result, Canadian government bonds do not cost as much [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}