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 33 episodes available.

Paulitical Economy™ episodes:

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
January 05, 2026Post 349: Mortgage Burdened Youth and the Illusion of Prosperity
The price of weight-loss drugs is plummeting.
Used luxury watches are a multibillion dollar business.
And so are fakes.
TV watching via streaming has taken over.
And YouTube leads the way.
The percentage of American homeowners with a mortgage has been declining.
But is due to a generational divide with the next generation’s monumental mortgage debt funding the retirement of mortgage-free Boomers.
Audiobooks are becoming increasingly popular.
A look at housing supply and how the US, Canada, the UK and Australia rank far below Italy and France.
Cue housing affordability crisis.
In Financial Ructions
U.S. corporate bankruptcies are the highest in 15 years.
Higher interest rates are slowly squeezing the economy.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the U.S. has been above 6% for three years.
And the spread vs. the 10-Year Treasury yield jumped higher the last few years.
That’s what happens when the Fed stops buying trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities.
We start a new book review: Depression, War and Cold War by Robert Higgs.
We see that no, the U.S. economy did not thrive during World War II
And how it was the threat to property rights and the resulting plummeting of private investment that prolonged the Great Depression.
It was only once the war ended and the government drastically cut spending that the economy took off.
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37min
December 30, 2025Post 348: Artificial Wealth and the Enduring Allure of Easy Economics
Electric vehicle demand is a fraction of what auto manufacturers thought it would be.
But government involvement helped to distort expectations.
Ford takes a huge write-down.
Coty is a leading cosmetics/fragrance company founded in Paris.
Its sales are falling, but not as fast as its share price.
And we take a look back at this interesting business.
Do you know what a flacon is?
We revisit how Social Security is heading for insolvency in eight years unless changes are made.
And how back in 1983 Washington managed to put aside their differences and temporarily fix the program.
Because they had no choice.
In Financial Ructions
We take another look at the GENIUS act.
And how it could be setting the stage for another massive taxpayer-funded bailout.
We also look at how artificially driving stock market higher via passive investing or artificially low interest rates harms economic prosperity.
And we wrap up our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong by Hunter Lewis.
We look at the irresistible allure of Keynesian sophistry.
And how today’s economic mess is the result of decades of widespread willingness and desire by many well-intended politicians and much of the populace to believe that the easy way out is the right way.
Keynes unwittingly provided the intellectual cover for this to happen.
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40min
December 23, 2025Post 347: Christmas Music, In-Flight Miracles and Monetary Delusion
Christmas with Andy Williams and the murder trial of his ex-wife.
The US restaurant industry is seeing negative foot traffic.
This is what happens when inflation drives dining costs through the roof.
However, after a rough patch in late 2024, Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants continues to generate decent sales growth.
A quick, closer look at Costco Travel.
And great deals on car rentals too.
And some people will shamelessly do anything to jump the queue.
US headline inflation ticked down but is still above the Fed’s arbitrarily set 2% confiscation rate.
However, due to the government shutdown there are questions about the veracity of the data.
Canada’s inflation rate remains steady in its own arbitrarily set confiscation range.
Although core measures, while still elevated are the lowest since March of last year.
And rental accommodation in some cities is down significantly.
Welfare fraud in America is costing hundreds of billions of dollars.
Such that many on welfare live better than most middle-class Americans.
In Financial Ructions:
Japan has the highest debt to GDP of any developed economy.
And now interest rates are rising as 35 years of interest rate and price discovery distortion come home to roost.
And in our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong by Hunter Lewis.
We look at Keynes’s barbarous relic and see that the gold exchange standard that contributed to the Great Depression was not the classical gold standard.
And how Keynes, with his enormous intellect, deliberately sought to confuse and intimidate critics into silence.
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45min
December 15, 2025Post 346: The Economy Speaks but the Government Refuses To Listen: Cue Financial Engineering
Lululemon continues to struggle in the US.
While Costco continues to relentlessly drive sales higher.
People continue to flock to RH for luxury furniture.
But investors refuse to do likewise with the share price.
The overall rejection rate for new credit applications is the highest in at least ten years.
Almost half of mortgage refinance applications were rejected.
Auto parts sales in the US continue to do well.
And AutoZone has done extremely well in past recessions.
Swiss watch sales continue to struggle but used watch prices seem to be bottoming at a much higher level than pre-COVID.
And we revisit Swatch.
In Financial Ructions:
We take a look at stable coins and how the US government has changed the rules in an attempt to help finance their profligacy.
And an open letter to the Federal Reserve lambastes the Bernanke doctrine.
Asset prices over the economy.
In our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong
We see how attempts to artificially inflate wages causes unemployment.
And it’s not only consumer spending that results in someone else’ income.
The same goes for all expenses as well as profit.
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48min
December 11, 2025Post 345: The Shared Misery of Canada’s Housing Affordability Crisis and Profitability Leads to Dominance
I’m reposting my first and so far only Pollitical Economy (2023) which asked you for your favourite Christmas movie.
Giving you some Christmas viewing ideas.
Another look at Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
It’s more widespread than people think.
And how it’s predictably fueling anti-immigration attitudes.
Netflix is shooting the lights out.
And now they’re buying Warner Brothers.
And a look back at Warner Brothers.
After eight straight quarters of negative sales growth Deere Corporations flips things into positive territory.
Turned positive in the same quarter as Caterpillar.
In Financial Ructions:
Canada’s GDP grew strongly in the 3Q, but it was pretty much all down to rising exports.
And more quirky housing price stuff that gets included in GDP but shouldn’t.
In our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong by Hunter Lewis
We see how ever since Keynes’s The General Theory back in 1936, governments will do whatever they can to stop a recession from happening.
What this does is prevent the healing with the misallocated capital being papered over with even more misallocated capital.
Resulting in:
Slower productivity growth
Exploding government debt
Widening wealth disparity
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38min
December 01, 2025Post 344: Apple’s Story, Canada’s Blind Spot, Japan’s Dilemma
Apple is a pretty impressive business founded by a very impressive entrepreneur.
But its share price is way ahead of the business i.e. expensive.
We take a look back.
After many quarters of negative comparable store sales growth, Best Buy’s sales are actually accelerating.
Strongest growth in over four years.
Hewlitt-Packard adjusted sales have now grown for six straight quarters.
And we take a look back.
Canada’s method of calculating inflation doesn’t capture the soaring prices of housing.
But the Bank of Canada didn’t need a properly constructed inflation number to warn them about a brewing housing affordability crisis.
In Financial Ructions:
A look at rising interest rates in Japan.
And how the Bank of Japan is caught between a rock and a hard place i.e. rising interest rates and higher inflation.
US jobs grow in September, although one source has them negative in three of the last four months.
And job openings continue to fall.
Canada has had two good labour force survey monthly jobs prints in a row.
And jobs in the private sector increased for the first time since June.
However, the payroll survey shows that jobs have shrunk 133,200 so far this year.
In our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong,
We see how Keynes gave politicians the intellectual cover they needed for their profligacy.
And Hayek didn’t think Keynes knew much about economics.
And we look at the tight relationship between government and Wall Street.
And how that led to taxpayer dollars being used to make investors whole on their toxic investments.
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44min
November 25, 2025Post 343: America is trading down and the affordability crisis policymakers don’t want to fix
Home Depot sales are once again weakening.
They’re blaming a lack of hurricanes.
Target department store sales are accelerating downwards.
With discretionary items taking the biggest hit.
Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly turning to off-price retailers such as TJ Maxx and Marshalls.
Sales are accelerating upwards.
Core inflation in Canada remains elevated.
And I add some comments on the scandalous increases in property taxes and new development charges over the last twenty years.
In Financial Ructions:
Record low mortgage rates resulted in record high home prices and record high profitability for homebuilders: We look at Lennar.
They are now going in reverse.
But home building costs are sticky downwards.
And record permanent buydowns by homebuilders are preventing home prices from falling even faster.
In our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong by Hunter Lewis.
We see that Keynes believes that savings without an expectation of profit will not lead to economic prosperity.
Yes, and expectations of profit without savings will have the same effect.
And how Keynes reverse engineers to justify government intervention.
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42min
November 17, 2025Post 342: Wealth Disparity in the Special K Economy – Even the Fed is Noticing
Americans are dining out less often.
Traffic has been down eight months in a row.
Yet Darden, owner of Olive Garden, is seeing same store sales accelerate.
But not Wendy’s:
US same store sales are accelerating downwards.
They said that lower income consumers remain under pressure.
And we take a look back.
As financing costs go up, used car sales go down and loan losses go up.
CarMax, the largest used car dealer in the US, is struggling.
Car repossessions in the US could hit a new record this year.
Penniless: The US stops minting pennies.
And why this is a sad indictment of monetary policy in developed economies.
Older Americans have a much higher delinquency rate on student loans than younger ones.
The US government is proposing 50-year mortgages:
This is a really bad idea.
But it didn’t stop the Canadian government from also going down that path back in 2006.
After a year of declining sales, Caterpillar turns things around.
Government spending is helping.
In Financial Ructions:
The establishment is finally waking up (or admitting) to the fact that the US is a two-tier economy.
This is what happens when one part of society benefits at the expense of the other.
This is the opposite of capitalism.
And we revisit when a former vice chairman of the Fed said people were too stupid to realise the economy was in great shape.
In our book review of Where Keynes Went Wrong
Hunter Lewis and I address Keynes’s assertion that saving is bad for the economy during an economic slowdown.
And it’s related to what I consider to be the most dangerous word in economics.
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58min

FAQs about Paulitical Economy™:

How many episodes does Paulitical Economy™ have?

The podcast currently has 33 episodes available.