Spend Your House on Groceries! (and other Canadian economy news)

CBC’s Marketplace recently did an investigation into the high-pressure sales tactics used at the big banks to sell expensive loan and investment products to Canadian customers. Why is this not being addressed by Canada’s regulators, and what can we do to fix it?

Today we cover:
– Government IT Contractors Accused of Fraud in Double-Billing Scheme
– February Inflation
– February Housing Market Stats
– Reverse Mortgage Credit Card
– How Banks Mislead Canadian Investors with Sales Tactics

The MillennialMoron Friday Updates are a brief weekly news digest with commentary on Canadian housing, real estate, finance, and economics stories.

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Democracy Watch:
https://democracywatch.ca/
Bank Accountability Campaign
https://democracywatch.ca/campaigns/bank-accountability-campaign/
Liberal government’s broken or ignored promises on bank accountability
https://democracywatch.ca/trudeau-liberal-finance-minister-freeland-still-breaking-2021-election-promises-to-stop-gouging-and-abuse-of-bank-customers/

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:42 Government IT Contractors Double-Billing
01:25 February Inflation
01:55 Mortgage Interest Cost
03:01 Why Haven’t Prices Dropped?
03:24 February Housing Market Stats
03:52 Real Home Values Still Dropping
04:23 Reverse Mortgage Credit Card
05:29 Why Reverse Mortgages are Growing in Canada
06:25 CBC Investigation into Bank Sales Tactics
07:54 Duff Conacher Interview
15:00 The Importance of Financial Literacy
15:50 Canadian Accent

Sources:

Government reverse three cases of contractor fraud to RCMP (CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/contractor-fraud-federal-government-1.7149829
Fraudulent billing from IT subcontractors (Globe & Mail)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-contracting-fraudulent-billing/
Consumer Price Index, February 2024 (Statcan)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240319/dq240319a-eng.htm
Core inflation measures (Bank of Canada)
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/price-indexes/cpi/
Mortgage interest declining as inflation factor (Steve Saretsky via Twitter)
https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1770108333992853827
Bank of Canada policy interest rate history and meeting dates (Bank of Canada)
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/core-functions/monetary-policy/key-interest-rate/
Canada 5-Year Bond Yield (MarketWatch)
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmbmkca-05y?countrycode=bx
BAX market interest rate expectations (Montreal Exchange)
https://www.m-x.ca/en/trading/tools/canadian-interest-rate-expectations
CREA Market Watch (CREA)
https://stats.crea.ca/en-CA/
Slow February home sales signal things are about to pick up (Global News)
https://globalnews.ca/news/10367045/home-sales-prices-february-2024/
Reverse mortgage credit card (Mark McGrath via Twitter)
https://twitter.com/MarkMcGrathCFP/status/1770492171637911610
Details on card (Bloom Finance Company)
https://www.bloomfin.ca/bloom-card
Reverse Mortgage Basics (FCAC)
https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/mortgages/reverse-mortgages.html
Reverse mortgages are Canada’s fastest-growing debt segment (Brevity Mortgage)
https://brevitymortgages.com/blog-detail/the-fastest-growing-debt-segment-reverse-mortgage-in-canada
Banks’ deceptive job titles put investors at risk (CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bank-s-deceptive-titles-put-investments-at-risk-1.4044702
Canada mutual fund fees among most expensive in the world (Barrons)
https://www.barrons.com/articles/mutual-fund-fees-canada-morningstar-vanguard-expense-ratio-51568751799
CBC Marketplace investigation on bank upselling:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-hidden-camera-banks-1.7142427
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htm38oM5WFE
The CBC piece from 7 years ago (What Duff was thinking of)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bank-s-deceptive-titles-put-investments-at-risk-1.4044702
The CBC piece from 10 years ago (What I was thinking of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtQeQzUfYrI
Bank Act, Fair and Equitable Dealing section (Government of Canada)
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/b-1.01/page-65.html#h-1369154