Hard to develop any really clear picture. If all growth sectors are just credit driven can be very misleading. Right now if you do not have a dime and tons of obligations. Yet still have a reasonable credit rating you can get a new car with nothing down and even deffered initial payments.

One issue is are people spending their future economic activity or flexiability now? Smaller copies of the governments practices? One should never forget that a large percentage of governments of many developed countries are stretched financially past the limits still.

Up here in Canada an even worse senario might be too many people borrowing money just to keep going with pretty well fixed costs. I suspected this when consumer credit demand started to really show steady incremental increases a few years ago and they are still at it.

Fortunatly just now credit demand is slowing a little although this may be temporary. Our minimum wage is a little over ten dollars an hour and a lot of people do not do that much better.

This amount was at least survival until the inflation of the last few years. You can no longer really live even locally on that income level. Except perhaps with your parents.Some people in the larger cities with their higher rents etc must be really getting squeezed.

I have been taking a wait and see approach for about a year or two now. Not dead in the water but somewhat more cautious perhaps than historically my approaches to risks are. Some of it is my age but not all of it. I will probably build one replacement commercial building this year as long as I am positive the internal activity will be worthwhile from a financial perspective. I am just starting the miserable applications for a demolition permit and a building permit as the weather is starting to break a little.

The major canadian banks are forcasting the price of real estate in Canada to remain flat at best for the next ten years. Remember though that Canada did not take the real estate market hit that occured south of us.