Nanos Economic Monitor - Confidence in economy up - but Canadians still worse off than a year ago

The economic indicator is an indication of what?
What is the economy? How is it measured?

Is the stock market an accurate indicator? I say not. As I see it, the stock market is a compilation of the value of all individual stocks, the perceived value. Who knows the real value? it's not even what speculators think its value is but rather what the speculators think the value may be perceived to be by somebody else some time in the future.

Is the GNP a reliable indicator? I think not. The GNP is comprised of all kinds of weird values. If a $2 billion shipload of oil has a disaster and it caused the $12 billion cleanup that $12 billion is added to the GNP, six times as much as the original value. Is the progressive economics?
On a smaller scale; vandals desecrate a cemetery. the cost of buying or repairing new headstones, clean up the mess and paying someone to do it, all goes into the GNP. There are thousands of examples like this. So is that economic advancement?

I only believe in a growing economy when I see everyone having the basics of life, air, water , food, shelter, and a few other basic "goodies". When we have that I will say we have a good economy.

Since I'm on a fixed income my own economy is getting worse, slowly. I'm not worried about it for myself. For others who are in worse shape, I am.
I expect the economy (as it is defined) to remain the same at least until the middle of 2010. We may see a slow improvement after that.

However the reports of Whitney Tilson worries me. I hope he is wrong.

[updated Mon Sep 21 10:03:51 EDT 2009]

Regardless of who the government is I am happy to see that Canadians are feeling positive about the future.

Despite our dysfunctional minority government Canadians see that the recession is coming to an end and it is reflected in their attitudes.

However, we have some tough decisions to make in the future and only a majority government can make the decisions required about the deficit, reducing debt and of course reducing government spending.

The silence from the Libs is deafening on how they would tackle all of the important issues. They simply now want to sit on the sidelines and let Layton and Harper determine the direction of the country.

Canadians will accept Layton saying he does not support the government but when the official opposition takes that position Canadians will see it for what it is...irresponsible.

I believe if Iggy does not say something meaningful about the economy today in his speech, other than platitudes, it will be all over for the Libs.

[updated Mon Sep 21 12:46:42 EDT 2009]

Further to the above post. just a few minutes after I had sent that post i was reading the Toronto Star. I was surprised and pleased that Carol Goar said essentially said the same thing. I had never heard of the organisation she mentioned "the Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies'.
And I wasn't aware of the Sarkozy and economists' workshop. Three of the economists she mentioned I know nothing about but I am very familiar with Stiglitz and Sen. They are excellent.
I hope both initiatives bear fruit.

The other two articles on the Opinion page were excellent too. That one page today was well worth the price of the paper. A good read for everyone.

[updated Mon Sep 21 13:30:41 EDT 2009]

The "economy" as measured in profit and loss, and overall business activity is improving. The "economy" as measured by how it affects the average Canadian (ie: one without a large stock portfolio) is not, really, with the exception of some recovery in residential real estate values. Folks homes are still worth more than their mortgages in most instances in Canada, unlike parts of the US.

So far, employment remains the biggest fly in the ointment, with the jobless rate looking like it will hit at least 10% and perhaps higher before slowly improving late in 2010 or 2011.

[updated Mon Sep 21 15:38:58 EDT 2009]

The continuous lies to Canadians....continue unabated.

OTTAWA - Call it the case of the missing mug shots.

Despite adamant government claims to the contrary, dozens of photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper have vanished from the taxpayer-funded website that promotes the Conservative economic plan.

The photos disappeared after The Canadian Press questioned the government about complaints of partisanship in federal advertising, including a website plastered with Harper photos.

"We have not removed any pictures of the PM," a Privy Council Office spokeswoman insisted late Monday.

A spokesman for the prime minister made the same assertion.

After being presented with a cached image of the www.actionplan.gc.ca site from last week which featured over 40 photos of Harper, the government did not respond to further inquiries on the matter Tuesday.

They lie about everything and do it in your face even when shown evidence they are lying. This is the most dishionest government in Canadian history.

[updated Tue Sep 22 21:28:17 EDT 2009]

Hi Nik,

Is it possible for you to break those numbers down in terms of industry? Something doesn't look right in Ontario. We've lost a lot of jobs due to the Car industry collapse, and the IT industry also hard hit, being unemployed myself.

Something doesn't seem right.

Shawn.

[updated Wed Sep 23 01:53:28 EDT 2009]

Here is some new information being reported in the National Post today based on more of Nik's analysis of the mood of the country. The info is to be released later this week.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/22/john-ivison-ignatieffs-tacks-to-left-in-hopes-of-finding-tailwind.aspx

Here is the important information but read the National Post article it will make the Liberal supporters thank their luck stars that Layton saved their bacon.

"As worrying for the Liberal leader was the response that Mr. Harper is more trusted to manage tax policy (40.1% against 24.2%);
the environment (21.6% versus 16.8%); and healthcare (28.9% versus 21.5%).
Healthcare! Stephen Harper makes an unlikely guardian of the environment, far less a protector of medicare, but it shows how far short of connecting with Canadians Mr. Ignatieff has fallen the only good news for the Liberal leader was his performance on the national unity question, where he was within touching distance of Mr. Harper, and his generally strong showing in Quebec, where he beat the Prime Minister on every issue.
As Nik Nanos put it, with some understatement: "Outside Quebec, Mr. Ignatieff still has lots of work to do."

[updated Wed Sep 23 09:03:37 EDT 2009]