A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Hello Professor Wolff, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Canadian economics but things are very bad here. The average home price in 1980 was $47k ($163k adjusted for inflation), in 2000 it was $119k ($190k adjusted for inflation). Between January 2020 and March 2022, the average home price soared from $504,350 to $795,952. The average home price in my town, with a population of 100,000, is $1 million now. My entire generation has been bought out of the housing market. The annual average earnings of full-time employees in Canada is a little more than $54,630. Average hourly wages in Canada have barely budged in 40 years. Now, the Bank of Canada increased interest rates to 8.1%. We're told this is due to supply chain management issues, bottlenecks. Yet corporations are making record profits. Canada is experiencing neoliberalism on crack. What's the solution? Do we need more unions? What can be done? Why are they increasing inflation now?"
