Episode 24: Getting a Measure on the Economy

Episode 24 October 19, 2021 00:35:44
Episode 24: Getting a Measure on the Economy
TradeSecurely
Episode 24: Getting a Measure on the Economy

Oct 19 2021 | 00:35:44

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Show Notes

2021 – Year Two: Canada in a COVID World

In 2021 we have seen rising inflation, global supply chain bottlenecks and disruptions, as well as ballooning public debt. Though the world is getting back to work, COVID continues to morph into new variants offering more uncertainty. On this episode of the TradeSecurely podcast, three economists discuss all of the above as we get a measure on the economy.  Our guests are Ruben Nizard, the Coface economist for the North America Region, Dan North the Senior Economist, North America for Euler Hermes and Peter Hall the Chief Economist at Export Development Canada.

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Speaker 1 00:00:03 Welcome to the trade security podcast. Speaker 0 00:00:06 Uh, 2021 is year two of Canada in a COVID world. In 2021. We have seen rising inflation in August. It posted the highest rates since 2003 global supply chain bottlenecks and disruptions continue. Public debt has ballooned, and though the world is getting back to work. COVID continues to morph into new variants, offering more uncertainty. Welcome to the trade security podcast. I'm Janet Eastman. And on this episode, we will discuss all of the above with three economists. As we get a measure on the economy, I'm delighted to welcome back Rubin Huizar. He is the Kofax economist for north America region. Good to see your Rubin. Hello, Dan north is a senior economist north America for EULAR armies. Good to see you, Dan. Good Speaker 2 00:00:54 To see you, Janet. Thank you. Speaker 0 00:00:56 And I'm very pleased to have Peter Hall as well. The chief economists at export development Canada. Join us for the very first time. Peter. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Janet. I'd like to start off with you each sharing a little bit about what you've seen out there, and I guess let's, let's start with you, Dan, give us, give us an overview of what you've seen over the last year and a half. Speaker 2 00:01:19 Well, I think what we saw actually is, uh, policies that were enacted in 2020, which are still affecting us today and will going forward specifically policies on the fiscal side, where we pumped $5 trillion into the economy about 25% of GDP most, uh, the highest in the developed world. And we have very easy monetary policy of zero rates, actually negative fed funds rate after inflation and enormous money printing. So this is a big formula for inflation and we're starting to see it obviously in CPI has accelerated dramatically housing prices, commodity prices and transportation prices as well. Um, we have a huge bottleneck at our largest point ports of LA and long beach. We have something like 65 ships sitting there and they're usually a handful. Part of the problem is there's nobody to unload the ships on the no truck drivers to take the stuff away, which leads us into another part of the government policy. Speaker 2 00:02:27 That's been a problem, a labor shortage and the enormous labor shortage. The gap between job openings and hirings has never been bigger. And part of that is due to the fact that we've had 18 months of extended unemployment benefits. Well, those just went away. So now suddenly we have six and a half million people that are no longer on the unemployment rolls and that should boost the, uh, the labor force going forward. So, you know, those are two problems that we have is, is inflation and a lack of labor. Um, the good side of that is consumers still have a fair amount of excess savings to spans. So wait, then this year is going to end up. Okay. And next year as well, the risk sitting out there is, is if COVID res there's a resurgence, a code, will it slow down consumer? So we do have to look at that. Speaker 1 00:03:26 Really your thoughts. Speaker 3 00:03:28 Yeah, I agree with, with Dan, uh, we, the, the policy response has been a big part of the story of the past 18 month. Um, there was also a positive side to, uh, to, to this, uh, to these policy response. Um, at the very beginning of the crisis, we were all worried that, uh, the COVID-19 pandemic will take here is to, uh, to, to, to, to, to recover from, from this. Uh, and it has a lot of emoji, lot market, these very, every response to, uh, to, to, um, uh, to recover way faster than we had initially anticipated, or at least, uh, I'm thinking for myself that I had initially anticipated and nothing that I think that we shouldn't forget that, that we've, I've experienced a very, uh, very strong recovery so far. Um, we're seeing some signs of slow down and some very Eddy signs of sort of slowdown now. Speaker 3 00:04:29 And most of these are related to supply side pressures, um, that are putting the economy under constraint. And, and, and I do see a path where, where these issues could become attracted and, and, and, and, and become more entrenched. Uh, but there's also a path where we go towards a normalization of these issue or, uh, where inflation, uh, starts gradually easing, uh, where these, uh, supply chain bottlenecks starts to ease as well. Um, I, I do see a path for that, but it's just a very difficult period. Uh, and it's very difficult to forecast how long it's going to be. And that's why other problem with the word transitory that we've heard a lot in the past few months is that a transitory can mean two months for some, but, uh, but it looks like it's going to be at the very least 12 months, if not more. Uh, and, and can we still say that it's transitory when, when something is last more than a year and that there are very heavy consequences for, for businesses in, in this environment over to Speaker 1 00:05:44 You, Peter, what are your thoughts? Speaker 4 00:05:47 Well, you know, I'm going to reel back a little bit, uh, Janet, because, um, our team actually had observed ahead of this, that when came into the COVID period, you know, so when we were shocked by the news, um, we were in an economy that was not a pre global financial crisis type of economy. There were, were, there were not a lot of bubbles out there. And in fact there was the exact opposite. There was a lot of pent up demand, and we could see this in the us housing market. We could see this in terms of the reconfiguration of the average us consumer from, you know, a debt loving, uh, spending bingeing consumer before, uh, the global financial crisis to a much more prudent consumer with a higher savings rate and the debt to income ratio that was down. And of course, businesses were more prudent as well. Speaker 4 00:06:43 They had held back on their investments. The sluggish growth of that, uh, post global financial crisis period had kept them from actually investing as they had done before. So, so a lot of pent up demand in the U S and in Western Europe ahead of the pandemic. So our call was that there was going to be actually quite a sharp V-shape for recovery. And indeed that's what we saw in retail sales and global trade activity against the prognostications of guys like Klaus Schwab, who said, you know, this is going to be another sort of drop into the chasm, and we're going to have a hard time getting out of it. He couldn't have been more wrong, and I think he should be called out for that because a lot of the policy prescriptions inside of the great reset were predicated on an economy that was not going to come back quickly. Speaker 4 00:07:37 It did come back quickly and now business is caught short, trying to keep up with that. So the things that Dan and Rubin have talked about in terms of the constraints that we're dealing with are endemic they're ubiquitous and business was not guided properly on the fact that this was going to be what they were faced with. There was lots of scaremongering that was out there. And, um, and so business was caught short on this. I firmly believe we have the capacity right now. The capacity is just all in the wrong places, because the recovery was actually not an even one emerging markets stepped out of this way ahead of the rest of us and in the developed world. And so what that did was to throw a lot of the logistic infrastructure, you need directionally back to our markets. And of course, while we were closed, all of that stuff got stranded there. Speaker 4 00:08:31 So we've got containers in the wrong places. We've got ships in the wrong places, and this is a world economy. That's actually trying to sort all of that out. So I actually see that there's a horizon to re resolution on this. It's just, it's not going to be instant where it's going to take us until about the middle of next year until we sort out some of these supply constraints. But this is a world economy that actually, I believe fundamentally has the capacity to manage the growth that we've got right now. We just need to get through this frictional disturbance that we see at the moment. Speaker 0 00:09:05 Uh, Dan, I had a sense that you might have some comments there, did you, or Speaker 2 00:09:09 Yeah. Um, you know, we're talking about the trans story things and the structural backdrop ear. I just want to go back to the supply chain bottlenecks, which are contributing to inflation and point out that, you know, as I said, uh, off the ports of LA and long beach, we're so backed up because we don't have, uh, truck drivers and that's going to be driving wages, which is a key component to inflation. Um, and these things are not going to go away. If you I've looked at the comments from the port directors who are on the ground, and they're saying, I don't see this going away until the middle of 2020, who at best, probably not the end of 2022, when you see a lot of that from other cores, uh, respondents in, uh, in different surveys. So as Ruben noted this transitory inflation, I don't think is, I think that's a very optimistic word. Speaker 2 00:10:16 I would also note no, the most recent fed meeting was just the same words from Jerome Powell, transitory inflation, transitory inflation. And the day after that, he came out in front of, uh, Congress and said, you know, that they have been saying transitory inflation. Yeah. Maybe it's a little bit longer than we thought. And the day after that in front of the ECB, he said the same thing. So I think this is an issue that we're going to have to deal with through 2022. And it is going to cause problems in the economy because a lot of these costs are enormous. They're getting passed on to consumers. No doubt about it. Speaker 0 00:11:00 Ruben, did you have any additional comments that you wanted to make there? Speaker 3 00:11:04 Um, yeah. So one comment on investment and on the capacity. I also think that there's a glimmer of hope in, in, in this, all of these constraints that we're seeing that projections for capital expenditure on mansion, dairy and equipment, uh, are, are very optimistic. And what we've seen since the beginning of 2021 is, uh, is very good. Um, in north America, we expect that, uh, that CapEx will increase by about 15% and with these products shown capacity coming online, um, we do expect that at some point in 2022, uh, they, they will, we will sort things out and these supply chain bottlenecks will ease. So that's the first thing, uh, that I wanted to mention, um, in, in, in these discussion to second thing on inflation, um, is that, uh, the stage, I do understand the argument of saying that, um, currently inflation is transitory because when you look at the CPI in the us, um, it is true that it's been driven by just the few outliers, uh, and, and what I'm mostly concerned about. Speaker 3 00:12:26 And then what I think we should all look out is how these price increases are broadening out. We're seeing signs of price increase broadening out, uh, and, and that's something that we should keep monitoring. But with these few outliers with, uh, that are driving prices up, and I'm thinking here, um, with, with, with, uh, um, of, uh, of items in the transportation industry, and more specifically in the motor motive sector, I'm thinking here about energy prices. Uh, but if we look at what's happening in these sectors, uh, right now, and for 2022, um, we can expect the tensions to rise. And the big question then become well, the wage increase that we're seeing in some sectors, um, B B be transferred to, uh, to, to inflation will be passed on to inflation. And to that question, uh, I think that we should all be ambled because, uh, because there's, uh, there's, there's no clear answer to me at these stage that there's no clear evidence to me, uh, in inflation figure that, that the wage increase are pushing inflation higher. Um, so I, the, I see a scenario where this could happen, uh, but at the current stage of things, um, that's not what I'm seeing. Speaker 0 00:13:52 I'd like to actually talk about it. I'm trying to be cognizant of our time here. I want to actually talk a little bit about the holiday season, because that's coming up very, very fast. We have supply chain bottlenecks, we've got inflation, we've got as Dan you've pointed out, um, containers sitting in ports that can't get unloaded. Can't get to people. We have a container shortage, there's stuff, not coming and moving around the world. I read somewhere that, that we are likely to see a bit of a bear shelf holiday season, and it could be one of those gift cards, seasons, and then it, if it does become one of those gift cards, seasons, I ask you if all that money comes in over the holiday season for gift cards. And then the supply comes in in January, February, and March. Let's talk about those retailers. They've got all that money for the holiday season for the gift cards. Then they've got all the supply that comes in in January, February, and March. And people start using those gift cards. How does this all balance out, like what is going to happen to retailers trying to manage their money? Does this make sense to you? Speaker 4 00:15:06 Well, it presumes it presumes Janet that we don't run out of a supply of gift cards, uh, and all of this. Uh, there's, there's no guarantee that anything is going to be properly supplied. One thing I will say is that what we, what we are observing at the moment is that large retailers with lots of clout think Walmart and, and companies like that are worried about the supply chain constraints enough that they are getting out there and they are not just subscribing containers, but they are leasing ships and fleets of ships and flying stuff in exactly. They do not want to be shut down by any stretch of the imagination. Now that actually exacerbates a shortage. You know, there's nothing that fuels a shortage, like the perception of a shortage. And we all know it. You know, when grocery stores are running out of stuff, what do we do? Speaker 4 00:16:01 Well, I better secure my family for the next month or so. And the distribution system isn't built to handle that kind of thing. Well, it's the same with the shipping shortage. You know, the large players who have the deep pockets will get out there and they will forward by as much as they possibly can. And I don't want to minimize what Dan is saying. It is real. There's no question about that. I think that, you know, on the labor side of things, one, some of these stimulus programs start to Peter out. The, um, participation rate in the United States will actually climb and it's, it's been quite suppressed and we can debate why that is the case, but there is surplus labor there that for some reason is not coming back into the marketplace. So there's a bit of hope when it comes to that, but the large retailers seem to have looked out for themselves. Speaker 4 00:16:54 Um, what were in couraging, smaller retailers to do as, Hey, have an eye to the fact that these guys, the big ones are going to oversubscribe their purchases of transportation. It might not be a bad idea to call your contact and logistics inside of Walmart or someplace like that and say, Hey, do you have a couple of spare containers? You can send my way and chances are, they actually might have some spare capacity that way. Now it doesn't fix the problem. But quite frankly, if, if the goods that are going to be sold on black Friday, digital Monday and over the holiday season are not already in a warehouse or on the way right now, I'm sorry, but the retailer is done. There is no time to actually do it. Now. These are things that are all pre-thought and, uh, and things are in the works for that. So the panic at the end need to be really creative about how they get those good flows coming their way. Speaker 0 00:17:56 I see you nodding, do you have a comment there? Speaker 3 00:17:58 Yeah, I, I, I agree with, with, uh, with peer, um, I think that we're gonna have a difficult holy to season. Uh, if you look at, I was looking at a survey, um, last week, uh, showing that there were already half of consumer that were suppressing their per chase, because they were able to find what they were looking for. Uh, and, and, and, and also because of price increase or because they were too expensive. So we're not even in the holiday season and it's going to come very fast. And, and I don't see how retailers will be able to reveal their inventories, uh, meaningfully by then to, to respond to, uh, uh, to, to the they're the higher demand in the season. So it will be a very challenging situation for retailers and that we will have to some pressure that, uh, that we have seen on the retail sector in north America, which is by far one of the, uh, riskiest, uh, sector, um, in, in north America. And, and there's been kind of, uh, uh, the, the, the very, the surgeon consumption that we've seen, um, was, uh, was welcomed, but, uh, but was not all there story for the retail sector. And, and, and definitely, uh, there are some challenges ahead for the sector. So Speaker 0 00:19:31 Are we? Speaker 2 00:19:35 Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think your hypothesis on the gift card is, is pretty interesting and may well prove to be true, but I do think that you are going to have bear or picked over shelves and retail stores, and a lot of these retailers make or break in the holiday season. I think as Peter was alluding to the second thing is, you know, there's usually a surge in seasonal hiring. That's going to be a problem as well, because I just, everybody is trying to hire now with all kinds of incentives and people just aren't coming. Uh, I read a comment from a manufacturer in the ism report says, I don't understand that. So usually have a hundred applicants for a position I've got 10 now, and most of them don't show. So I, this kind of, this, it's a little bit of a mystery, but I wonder if a lot of it, well, there are three things. One, a lot of people retired out early to there's a need for childcare and three. I still think that there's a concern over COVID and all those combinations are going to be, I think, pretty tough retailers. Speaker 0 00:20:46 So are you expecting, based on what we're seeing, are we expecting like a significant number, a rise in bankruptcies probably in the new year for some of these retailers Speaker 4 00:20:58 That haven't been able to get the staff haven't been able to get the stock haven't been able to make any sales, like, is that the next wave of, is it bankruptcies that we're going to see? Well, Janet, I, I think that, um, you know, w we're really faced in the COVID, uh, era, if we can call it that, um, with a retailer that has really had to redo their model, like let's face it, you know, when the shutdowns happened, that was the moment of greatest crisis for, for most retailers and particularly the mom and pop type. But even Walmart was saying, wow, we don't have a digital delivery model here. And we're in serious trouble in terms of our flow and our margins. If we don't create one and so very rapidly, they got one into place. And many retailers have long since realized if, if they don't have some kind of digital platform, either one that they can get from say, like a Shopify service or something like that, uh, or build their own, then they're toast inside of this marketplace. Speaker 4 00:22:06 So, um, we're not really necessarily in a situation where the labor intensity is what it was before. And, um, that, you know, we, we go back into this digital mode. That's one thing I'd like to say. The second thing I'd like to drop on everybody is that, you know, shortages are not necessarily a bad thing. If you're holding on to the goods and there's a perception of shortage, then price increases that you can command can actually go straight to your bottom line and be very beneficial. Let's, let's not be naive about the perverse incentives behind the perpetuation of, uh, at least the perception of a shortage, uh, here. And, you know, I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but, you know, deep inside of us, there is that thing where, Hey, I've got the stuff that everybody needs, you know, should I, should I have my shells just stocked full of all of this stuff? Or should I sort of play the game? And, you know, it is that thing about the behavioral aspect of all of this that we can't ignore now, ultimately, you know, the truth gets revealed and, and the incentives are such for people to fill their shelves up again, but in the very short run, uh, unfortunately that incentive is not always there. Speaker 0 00:23:30 Anybody else with any other comments there? Speaker 2 00:23:34 Well, I, I just, uh, you know, along those lines, you sort of started off this question about, uh, perhaps a surge in bankruptcies, uh, particularly in retailers. And that's always the case after January, but it was interesting to see last year, you know, with this wild swings in the economy that you might expect to see an increase in bankruptcies. And we didn't hear in the us, and we credit a lot of that to the paycheck protection program, because that program provided almost 40% of annual revenue to all small businesses. So we really think that that helped support a lot of businesses that would otherwise have gone other under, and there was that support in Canada as well. Well, that's not there anymore unless our new administration says, yeah, we're going to have to do that, but that effect isn't in place anymore. So I do think you could of see a surge that you didn't last on. Speaker 0 00:24:36 Okay. Let's talk a little bit about what we do see for inflation in, in the near future. Like the bank of Canada has a target of 2%, but far how far out is that for Canada, Peter? Speaker 4 00:24:50 Well, uh, that's a, that's a great question. I'm afraid I'm going to have to do a little bit of disagreeing with, uh, with Ruben here. Um, I don't see that this is outlier inflation at all. Uh, when you examine all items, inflation and core, uh, both in the United States and Canada, the monthly increases that we are seeing are distributed through, um, through the system, uh, broadly enough to satisfy me that this is not as temporary as central banks would like it to be. Now, that's, that's the operative question here? How temporary is temporary? Because if you get enough persistence of prices, well, when you get wage resetting at the end of the year, you know, folks are going to say two and a half percent. You're out of your mind now, don't, you know, that there are labor constraints inside of the economy. And by the way, don't, you know, that the consumer price index and I'm speaking of the American one, here is up 5% year over year. Speaker 4 00:25:52 Like there's no way that, that I'm going to take two and a half percent. I'm going to jump over to somewhere else. It's going to give me a higher pay packet. And of course, this is where you transfer over from demand pull inflation, which is what we're seeing right now to the more dangerous cost push inflation. When it starts getting into the wage system. There it's upwardly fluid. It is downwardly rigid like once that is in there, it's in there. And I'd like to point out that currently in the United States from about the two to 3% annual increase threshold manufacturing wages have jumped up very quickly to 5%. So it's already in the works and the manufacturing sector and for what it's worth in Canada, it's jumped up to seven and a half percent year over year. So we're, we're, we're not just seeing you businesses have to deal with higher costs. Speaker 4 00:26:45 Businesses are passing this on consumer price. Indices are going up and on a month by month basis, the monthly annualized increases are way ahead of target. And they have been in the United States for seven straight months. So I have a very hard time believing that there is going to be a reeling in of these prices anytime soon. And of course now all of the central banks are piling in and saying, Ooh, you know, we've got to dial down our QE programs. And, um, you know, interest rate increases are going to be happening sooner than we thought before. I've been saying for a long time that I believe that central banks are behind the curve on this one. And now they're stepping up and starting to talk that way and saying, okay, we we're going to have to put something into motion. So, you know, here for this year, we're looking at year over year inflation. That is going to be around 3.1% CPI inflation in Canada. It's going to be very hard to keep it below 3% next year ribbon. Did you want to have additional comments there? Speaker 3 00:27:47 Um, no. I, I think that Peter is making very valid points. Uh, I do think that is right that to signal that, uh, that the risk of this inflation, this demon bull inflation becoming, um, cost push inflation is, is, is probably very risky. Uh, what I was just pointing out or a bit earlier is that I thought wasn't in the latest CPI figures necessarily what I was seeing. Uh, but I do have a worry that it might happen because, uh, again, we're probably in the, in the U S is probably going to end the year with a CPI bowl of 5%. Uh, and that's going to play out in the wage increase negotiations. Um, and, and definitely that could mean a higher inflation for longer. Um, but that's not my baseline scenario. Um, my baseline scenario is that, uh, is that, and actually we're already kind of seeing that in the us is that inflation will slow because there will be, there's already some con some signs of slowdown in consumption, uh, especially for, uh, for, for consumer goods. Um, so, um, I'm trying to sell things out. And, um, I, I think that even if we will likely have still very high inflation at the end of 2021, we'll still likely hotline inflation in 2022. I think that the, that we're on a path and my baseline scenario is that we're on new paths of gradual easing that might take some time. Speaker 4 00:29:36 Well, one of the things you keep, we need to keep our eyes on those producer prices because are ultimately the ones that get passed on to consumers. And when you look at the us producer price index, it's over 8% year over year and rising. And so if that's giving us any indication of what's going to happen for consumer prices and I'm not comforted, um, and if you look at Canadian producers, the price indices, they're rising it over 15% year over year. So, you know, what's being baked into business costs. And by the way, remember that businesses are looking at this squeeze between their input costs and now wages, which are a huge part of their input costs, starting to accelerate and their selling prices, which aren't moving by as much. And they're saying, I'm getting margin squeeze here. Like if I'm going to keep myself afloat, I've got to increase my selling prices, you know, just so that my shareholders are happy so that my CFO is happy. And you know, so that my banker is actually happy. There is tremendous incentive inside of the system to actually perpetuate what's going on. And I don't like this. I'm not a proponent of this by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm actually trying to advise business people here. How do you stay whole inside of an environment like this? And it's really tough, but I I'd really love to know what Dan is thinking about this. Speaker 0 00:31:01 Just want to warn you guys. We have five minutes left. So, uh, Dan, go ahead. And if you want to, yeah, just go ahead and comment on Peter here. Speaker 2 00:31:10 Right. Well, one thing I think we've all talked about is wage increases, and that is the thing we have not had until now. And this is what is going to gives me an, uh, an idea of higher inflation all around wage increases we haven't had. And I started to show up in the data and also in the, uh, in surveys, such as the NFI D survey or several parts of this one is the percentage of, uh, respondents saying, I've already given a compensation increase. That's at a record high. And the respondent saying, yeah, I'm going to give an increase. That's at a record high as well. And as, as Peter mentioned, the, uh, the input prices, the producer price index, you also see this in the ism survey. They're all saying, you know, the, the prices that we have to pay to get goods are rising very, very rapidly. It's kind of out of control and yeah, then you get onto the question of, can you pass it on? And from what I understand, you can in some industries and not in others. So, you know, we definitely see wage pressure. That's a key. Nope, no question that, uh, that it's coming and the input prices from supply bottlenecks are just enormous as well. Speaker 0 00:32:40 Okay. 30 seconds each for a final comment over to you, Peter. Speaker 4 00:32:46 Well, look, um, it's, it's obviously very complicated. We've all articulated the fact that it's very murky. It's hard to see what the future is, is looking like inside of all this. And, you know, I I'd like to, uh, appeal to the title we've given to our forecast right now, which really characterizes the dilemma for us. You know, that Yogi Berra said, you know, when you reach a fork in the road, take it. And, you know, we all sort of scratch your heads and say, is that genius? Or is that idiocy? But that's where the economy is right now because we haven't resolved this pandemic thing, but we're now not going into lockdowns. Uh, in order to calm down the economy is charging ahead at the same time. So, so the economy has actually taken the fork in the road and that's, what's making it difficult for us to sort of see around because both of these tracks are happening at the same time. Speaker 0 00:33:47 I'm going to have to cut you off there. Cause we're almost at a time very quickly, Ruben, your final thoughts. Speaker 3 00:33:52 Um, well, I'm going to say what I, what I said at the beginning, it's a very challenging times to, uh, to, to, for the economy and to forecast what is going to happen. Um, so I think that with that in mind, uh, what we need to do as economists in, in, in, in close contact with businesses is to warn about these risks and, and that these risks are looming and that they should be prepared for a turbulent, uh, turbulent period, Speaker 0 00:34:24 Dan, over to you, Speaker 2 00:34:26 Just real simple on the big items we think next year is going to be strong growth, probably over 4%. And when you think about the last couple of decades at bid something like 2.2%, that's pretty good. We think that there's still a lot of excess savings sitting out there that consumers are going to use up to a big risks. We've talked about over and over inflation. And I still think we need to keep an eye on COVID because who knows what the next variant is. And winter is coming. Winter is coming where we know the virus is going to thrive more. Right? Speaker 0 00:35:01 Gentlemen, I wish that we had three times the amount of time, cause we didn't cover nearly as much as we had hoped, but it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much. Speaker 3 00:35:10 Thank you. Thank Speaker 0 00:35:11 You. Ruben Nazar is the economist north America region for Kofax. Peter Hall is vice-president chief economists at EDC and Dan north is senior economist for north America. EULAR armies. The trade securely podcast is brought to you by the receivables insurance association of Canada who's member brokers and insurers are Canadians helping Canadian businesses grow and succeed by enabling them to trade securely at home and abroad. That is our show for today. Thank you so much for watching.

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