If you’ve been following FX rates for a while, you will remember that the USD/CAD has been very steady for the last 15 years or so — normally around 1.05 with a few spikes into the 20’s and 30’s. The current rate at this moment is 1.4385. It’s the largest spread in at least 12 years. That’s 1.4385 Canadian Dollars (CAD) for every U.S. Dollar (USD).
The pictured bottle of pepper is roughly $13.22 (USD).
This isn’t limited to Canada, either. A global crisis is unfolding, as you will see in the coming posts.
It was just yesterday when we documented the continuing slide in the loonie, which is suffering mightily in the face of oil’s inexorable decline.
As regular readers are no doubt acutely aware, Canada is struggling through a dramatic economic adjustment, especially in Alberta, the heart of the country’s oil patch. Amid the ongoing crude carnage the province has seen soaring property crime, rising food bank usage and, sadly, elevated suicide rates, as Albertans struggle to comprehend how things up north could have gone south (so to speak) so quickly. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 