Canadians are using their appreciating homes as ATMs (as Americans did in the early 2000′s before their housing crash) and the funds being borrowed are not just for home improvements, but in many cases to fund living and lifestyle expenses.

A currency war is a battle, supposedly an economic policy to cheapen a country's currency compared to that of others, to promote exports but the real reason, the one that’s less talked about, is that countries actually want to import inflation - a way of creating monetary ease and importing inflation. Let me explain.

Investment “rules” that were relevant for a century are obsolete. They were based on a world where economies grew, people’s standard of living increased and outcomes tomorrow better than today. Arguably each of these conditions will not hold in the future but if they don't, neither do the rules of thumb that guided investing last century. These guiding principles developed and worked in a world that that no longer exists but applying them in the future will result in devastating financial outcomes. [Let me explain.] Words: 1261

The Canadian housing bubble will never blow up. There’s simply too much “plankton” in the water. It keeps the “food chain” healthy and offers ample nourishment for the “big wales and sharks” and shorting the Canadian housing bubble is useless. Here's why.

The real estate sector in Canada is in a bubble that could burst at any time according to the IMF, Deutsch Bank, the Bank of Canada and The Economist.

Take a moment to read these introductions to a number of articles about the trials and tribulations of the economic miracle of China. It is most likely you will find a number of them well worth your time to read and reflect upon.

Where does the Dow go from here? Maybe up a little higher but, more likely, it's all downhill from here though perhaps that statement is misleading. More like, down a cliff.

In the financial world at this very moment, we have 8 different "weather systems" that are all developing in real time. If several of the more powerful components were to converge – and reinforce each other – then we could very rapidly reach the point of greatest financial instability that the world has seen since 2008.

The attempt to solve what was essentially a global debt crisis with mountains of more debt means we will have another global financial crisis – the question is when rather than if - and this will have an impact on our economic recovery and on asset prices and hence the importance of diversification in terms of geography and where and how they are owned.

In absolute size of net foreign liabilities the U.S. leads the way but, as a share of GDP, its position is much less than that of Spain & Poland who exceed the acceptable level of 60%. Where does your country rank?