There’s a lot of buzz in the blogosphere today about the fact that the Canadian
dollar this morning finally
reached parity with the US dollar. It’s a big deal for those of us who used
to think of Canada as a cheap place to visit, and I can’t imagine it’s good
news for the Whistler ski resort. But on a macroeconomic level it makes sense,
as Stephen
Gordon explains today.
For one thing, US interest rates are going down while Canadian interest rates
aren’t; there’s even a chance they might go up. And for another thing, a slowing
US economy is much less likely to drag the Canadian economy down with it than
it has in the past. Canadian exports to US have been mediocre of late anyway,
but more importantly the big Canadian export right now is energy, and oil prices
continue to hit new record highs. So it’s entirely possible that the US could
go into recession without causing any visible harm to Canadian exports.
Meanwhile, the Concatenation of the Day award goes to Bloomberg
News, for this:
The Canadian currency last closed above par on Nov. 25, 1976, the day before
the Sex Pistols punk band released their first single, "Anarchy in the
U.K."