Paulitical Economy™

By Paul Musson

A snapshot of what’s going on in the world’s economy.

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FAQs about Paulitical Economy™:

How many episodes does Paulitical Economy™ have?

The podcast currently has 41 episodes available.

Paulitical Economy™ episodes:

March 23, 2026Post 359: Why Canadians Are Getting Poorer and Less Happy
Homicides in the US are the lowest in 125 years.
Canada’s economic decline has outpaced all other developed nations over the last ten years.
And so has our happiness.
I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
California has by far the highest gasoline prices in America.
And Kansas the lowest.
Delta’s passenger revenue miles go negative.
And economy class revenue even more so.
And a look back.
If you’re thinking of buying a new car you might want to hire a professional haggler.
The ratio of stock market wealth to housing wealth in Canada is at a 23-year high.
And a look at wealth disparity.
Darden restaurants continues to grow its top line.
Sales at Bloomingdale’s accelerate and stagnate at Macy’s: Special K.
General Mills has grown its volume in only one of the past eighteen quarters.
Inflation in Canada ticked down last month.
But food prices are getting out of control.
Amazon is testing 30-minute delivery service.
In Financial Ructions:
Longer-term interest rates around the world are gapping higher.
And so did wholesale inflation in the US.
In our Book Review of False Dawn
We see that any recovery that did happen in the 1930s was in large part due to Hitler.
And that rather than allow food production in the US to fall to a sustainable level, the government introduced the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) which served to raise food prices.
Not helpful when people are starving.
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41min
March 16, 2026Post 358: The Central Bank Led Housing Affordability Crisis That Has Caused a Decline in Global Fertility
Carnival Corporation is charging record prices.
And a look back.
A look at what and who caused Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
And how housing affordability crises around the world have contributed to lowering the globe’s fertility rate.
Construction of rental properties in Canada is soaring.
And rents are falling.
But construction of single-family detached homes has slowed.
And an increasing number of completed homes are vacant.
Because people can’t afford them.
Four of the largest economies in the world are states in the US
Something Stupid.
Our Canadian government outdoes itself.
The bar was already very low.
Inflation in America has levelled off but still above the 2% confiscation level.
And a look at why the official numbers don’t reflect the true cost of health insurance increases.
Job growth in Canada is very weak: household and payroll survey.
In Financial Ructions:
We look at foreign holders of US Treasuries.
And how the basis trade makes the Cayman Islands the largest foreign holder.
In Chapter Five of our book review of False Dawn by George Selgin:
We look at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that was established by the Hoover Adminstration.
And how it was way ahead of Bernanke in terms of aiding and abetting the proliferation of zombie companies.
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40min
March 09, 2026Post 357: Why Canada’s Economy is Falling Behind: Vacant Homes, Weak GDP, and Startups Leaving
An increasing number of homes listed for sale in Canada are vacant.
A look at Canada’s poor record on economic growth.
And sadly, it’s primarily self-inflicted.
In Financial Ructions:
More Canadians are starting new companies in the US than they are in Canada.
This is a significant change over the last ten years.
Book Review
We continue our review of George Selgin’s great book False Dawn.
One of the big contributors to the banking crisis in the early 1930s was that banks were not allowed to have branches and thus diversify their exposures.
Conversely, Canada did have a branch banking system and only one of the 18 banks failed during the Great Depression.
The bank holiday plan was drawn up by President Hoover’s team but implemented by FDR.
And it was the threat of publishing the names of those unpatriotic citizens who had withdrawn gold from their bank accounts that resulted in gold flooding back into banks.
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22min
February 24, 2026Post 356: 35 Years of Easy Money and the Generational Wealth Divide
A Wall Street Journal article looks at how older Americans are significantly wealthier than the next generation.
Spoiler alert, it’s a result of bad policy.
As cocoa bean prices soared, chocolate consumption fell.
Now it’s the bean prices that are falling and government imposed minimum prices are causing an inventory glut.
Amazon sales continue to soar.
Especially in web services.
Inflation in the US continues to fall: Disinflation.
But beef prices continue to soar.
Core inflation numbers in Canada also fell.
But food prices are getting out of control.
We take our first look at Dallas-Based Wing Stop.
Sales were extremely strong until early last year and now they are falling at an accelerating rate.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s has turned things around with its value offerings.
After eight quarters of significant sales declines, Deere Corporation has really turned things around with two quarters of accelerating sales growth.
And its share price continues to grow much faster than its sales.
In Financial Ructions:
Financial conditions have been accommodative since 1991.
Yes, it’s the Fed.
In our Book Review section:
We start reviewing a new book.
False Dawn by George Selgin
The book is about the impact that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies had on economic recovery.
In chapter 1 Selgin starts by telling us it was the first major downturn that the government attempted to fix: First Hoover and then Roosevelt.
PM: In my opinion, it’s not a coincidence that it ended up being the deepest and longest downturn in American history.
In chapter 2 we see that the New Deal was not in FDR’s mind during the election campaign of 1932.
And FDR even criticized Hoover for his reckless government spending.
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34min
February 17, 2026Post 355: Gold, Housing, Jobs & Debt: What the Data Is Really Telling Us And What It Isn’t
Eddie Bauer: Another retailer is going by the wayside.
And a look back.
For Canadians who file for insolvency, on average they owe money to over 10 different lenders.
The Chart of the Century shows car prices in Canada going down 15% over a nine-year period.
When in fact they actually increased 23%
US jobs numbers are once again revised downwards.
And Canada continues to struggle.
Vancouver and Toronto lead the North American housing affordability crisis charts.
A look at how high wages have grown much faster than lower wages.
This wasn’t always the case.
Toys:
Mattel sales are still rising but the company is having to discount to move product.
Hot Wheels accounted for most of the growth.
Hasbro sales are booming in large part because, unlike Mattel, they pivoted to a “digital first” strategy including gaming.
Wizards and Digital Gaming was up +86%.
Sugar prices are plummeting.
But it’s probably not because of weight-loss drugs like Wegovy.
At least not yet.
In Financial Ructions:
He’s back: The Reuters main stream economics journalist.
And a few corrections.
And what could drive the second phase of the gold bull market.
In our book review section, we finish our review of the great book by John B. Taylor.
Taylor says that the great economic harm caused by the GFC was a result of “a series of unpredictable government actions and interventions with little or no basis in economic theory.”
With the Fed keeping short-term rates at basement levels for so long it started to impact long-term interest rates.
An unwillingness to admit what the issues were, and their own role in the debacle, delayed the Fed from doing the right thing.
And he finishes off saying that policy should be based on the way things are and not the way we wish them to be.
Ah men.
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46min
February 10, 2026Post 354: Higher Prices Without Higher Value: From Pepsi to Housing
Pepsi has had 14 straight quarters of declining volume.
Management springs into action.
Despite beef prices rising more than 30% over the last two years, Tyson is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in its beef division.
A look at the main causes of housing affordability crises.
Spoiler alert, it’s distorted interest rates.
Weight loss drug Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk’s share price is losing weight faster than its customers.
Troubling signs in the U.S. job market.
Layoffs way up and hiring plans way down.
And Peloton’s share price is also shedding weight faster than its customers.
In Financial Ructions:
Interest on credit card balances is much higher than it was back in the 1990s.
Despite today’s prime rate being lower.
There’s a lot more fluidity in the U.S. job market than the headline numbers would indicate.
And significantly more fluid than that of Europe.
And how to depoliticize the Fed.
In our book review section, we continue with John B. Taylor’s Getting Off Track:
In Chapter 2 we see that the rise in short-term rates in 2007/2008 were not due to concerns about liquidity, but instead it was a solvency crisis.
And in Chapter 3, Taylor says that it wasn’t the failure of Lehman Brothers that sent markets into panic.
But a poorly communicated rescue plan i.e. TARP.
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39min
February 02, 2026Post 353: A New Fed Chair and an Old Problem: Money, Markets, and Division
Politics in the U.S. is significantly more divided than back in the 1950s/60s.
But the country is not divided because of the politics.
The politics is divided because of monetary policy.
Dick’s Sporting Goods continues to have impressive sales growth.
They have bought Foot Locker which had been struggling for some time.
French luxury goods company LVMH is still experiencing weak sales growth.
Particularly in wine and spirits.
Nike finally halts its sales declines.
And growing strongly in the U.S.
In Financial Ructions:
The big and important news is that Kevin Warsh has been nominated as the next Fed Chair.
I quote extensively from a recent op-ed and from three of my previous posts.
How the Canadian government suppresses mortgage rates, contributing to the housing affordability crisis.
Investment in the private sector in the U.S. has been declining.
Primarily due to the Federal Reserve and the financialization of the U.S. economy.
The 60 day delinquency rate on subprime auto loans is hitting all-time highs:
Yes, higher than the GFC.
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38min
January 27, 2026Post 352: How Central Banks Create Fake Wealth, Redistribute Real Wealth and Cause Economic Stagnation
Uber is experiencing uber sales and profit growth.
By charging more and giving less.
Pubs in the U.K. are banning some politicians from their establishments.
It’s a tax revolt.
Ranking airlines:
Southwest in the U.S. has improved.
But U.S. airlines score poorly on a global basis.
Inflation in the U.S. remains firmly above the Fed’s arbitrarily set 2% confiscation rate.
Coffee still soaring and eggs coming back down to earth.
Knight Swift is one of America’s largest trucking companies.
Sales were weak in 2024, turned positive in 2025 but have again turned negative.
And a look back.
The return of the establishment hacks.
Politically motivated economic commentaries, by both sides, simply deflect from reality.
And hinder the public’s ability to demand the right actions from our government.
Which I suppose is the whole point.
In Financial Ructions:
We see the bond vigilantes relentlessly holding Japan accountable.
And now even Germany.
Amazon lost almost half a billion dollars on the bankruptcy filing of Saks Global.
Equal to around six and a half hours of sales for Amazon.
Being willing to pay more for American products to save American jobs, while noble, still hurts American workers.
And we see that manufacturing jobs in America decreased primarily due to advances in technology.
In our book review section, we finish our review of Depression, War and Cold War by Robert Higgs.
We see the tried and tested strategy used by policymakers to distract from their gross mismanagement of the economy i.e. find a common enemy.
And how some policymakers not only attempt to keep knowledge out of public view, but also try to shape what that knowledge is.
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35min
January 19, 2026Post 351: The Fake Wealth Effect that Leads to a Divided Society
Delta Airlines passenger revenue growth is barely in positive territory.
But falling fast in economy class.
Walmart takes to the air.
In less than two years drones will be delivering to over 40 million Walmart customers.
Saks Global files for bankruptcy protection.
A look at the evolution of Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
The Bank of Canada first handed the baton to municipal and then federal governments but took it back after COVID.
Consumer products company Helen of Troy sales have accelerated downwards.
Its share price is down 93% since its peak in 2021.
But has still grown at an average annual rate of 9% over the last 40 years.
In Financial Ructions
U.S. job numbers remain relatively weak.
Yet, over the last two months, jobs in the private sector are growing strongly.
And government jobs have been declining.
A look at a report that says we are only at the beginning of a gold bull market.
In our book review of Depression, War and Cold War by Robert Higgs:
Further proof that the high real GDP numbers during World War II did not represent economic prosperity.
And that low real GDP numbers immediately after the war did not signal consumer hardship.
Although real GDP declined in 1946, in terms of the growth in private investment, it was a year unmatched in U.S. economic history.
But mainstream economists still point to war time boom and postwar contraction in an attempt to falsely validate Keynesian economics.
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40min
January 12, 2026Post 350: Mortgage Debt of the Next Generation is Funding the Baby Boomers’ Retirement
A look at how pension plans compare between the Canadian private and public sectors.
Car prices in the U.S. and Canada have soared.
And no, it’s not because of tariffs.
Macy’s seems to be turning around its business.
And more evidence of the Special K phenomenon.
But not all luxury companies are benefiting, and Saks Global may be filing for bankruptcy protection.
And we take a look back.
Continuing our luxury theme, we look at stats for the most expensive homes sold in the U.S. in 2025.
And a cool video of Larry Ellison’s house in Florida that includes a PGA standard par three golf hole.
The growth in spending of the bottom 10% of income earners since 2021 in the U.S. has not kept pace with inflation.
In other words, it’s been falling in real terms.
Not so for the top 10%.
In Financial Ructions:
We see how the U.S. government concurrently put in place two new housing policies which will have opposite effects on the housing affordability crisis.
A report shows that tariffs can actually serve to reduce inflation.
Unfortunately it’s due to tariffs slowing the economy and increasing unemployment.
We continue our book review of Depression, War and Cold War by Robert Higgs.
We see the hazards of using traditional measures of economic prosperity in a command and control economy.
And while World War II was not a time of economic prosperity, it did serve to do away with the pessimistic expectations that had become ingrained during the Great Depression.
And did set the stage for booming prosperity once the war ended.
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36min

FAQs about Paulitical Economy™:

How many episodes does Paulitical Economy™ have?

The podcast currently has 41 episodes available.