The Bank of Canada has cut its overnight rate for the second time in the last six months - to 0.5% - and the Canadian dollar has reacted as expected, [indeed, as intended,] putting the Canadian dollar at a six-year low in terms of dollars (-10.2%) and pound sterling (-10.4%). So why the rate cuts and competitive devaluation?

Canada's real estate market has started to look eerily similar to the conditions that were present before the United States' real estate crash...This article reviews the data to compare the Canadian real estate values to the U.S. real estate market, to suggest why the Canadian real estate market is due for a significant correction.

The government needed a safe place for Chinese people to put their savings to work but the stock market turned out not to be that safe. Now the government may have to hold off on some painful reforms to keep confidence and consumption up and cash flowing through the economy and provide more time for China's 3 bubbles to pop to the country's detriment.

Puerto Rico is just the tip of the iceberg of the coming debt crisis in the western hemisphere as Greece is just the tip of the iceberg of the coming debt crisis in Europe.

One way to gauge the level of concern about the situation in Greece is to see how many S&P 500 companies mentioned Greece relative to other countries during recent earnings conference calls so FactSet combed through the 21 earnings conference calls held since June 1 by S&P 500 companies and found these 9 countries to have been mentioned the most [where's Greece?].

The fuse on the global debt bomb has been lit. We are now officially in the crisis to which the 2008 meltdown was just the warm up. Here's why.

Chilling references to a potential (likely) financial crisis in Canada keep cropping up in official statistical data releases. First it was concerns about the housing bubble there and the high level of personal debt to income, now it's about how hard manufacturing is getting hit there in spite of the loonie (Canadian dollar) dropping 17% against the US dollar in the past 15 months. It really begs the question "Oh Canada, Are You Prepared For What's Coming?"

History shows rather clearly that the stock market is prone to extreme events, aka crashes. The challenge is deciding when the risk for a repeat performance is unusually high... The leading factor, of course, is the business cycle but internal market issues can't be ignored either. With that in mind, I've developed what I think of as a crash-risk index for the U.S. stock market (S&P 500), which draws on signals from ten metrics that are reflecting different factors...

This isn't the time to listen to those leading politicians, economists and pundits who say we're not in a bubble and we're finally seeing a sustainable recovery. We're not. Central banks can't keep this bubble going forever... [Instead,] you need to prepare for another across-the-board bubble burst and the deepest downturn since the Great Depression, with deflation, not inflation, and this time, in spite of what others such as Jeff Clark might tell you, Gold will not be your defense, it will be your downfall. Here's why.

Money illusion is a longstanding concept in economics that has enormous significance for you if you’re a saver, investor or entrepreneur. Money illusion is a ruse performed by central banks that can distort the economy and destroy your wealth. Let me explain.