What, Me Worry?

I know, I know, everybody’s RSP is down 10 per cent in the last month, the value of your house has stopped rising for the first time since 1999 and there are lots of factories closing.

So, why is everybody behaving as if nothing’s changed? Yesterday I drove from Toronto to Waterloo and back; today it was a round trip to Buffalo. Nobody’s slowing down to save on gas at $1.35/liter. I’m a conservative driver; 110 km/hr is just fine for me. Most of the traffic whizzed past doing at least 140 km/hr, a velocity at which fuel consumption has got to be high. As for truck traffic, unless all those rigs are running empty, when you’re not doing 140 on 401, you’re doing 14 km/hr because of the huge volumes that are still clogging what continues to be the busiest transportation corridor in North America.

My local Starbucks has line-ups for those fancy new mango smoothies. And high-end U.S. retailer Lord & Taylor is willing to make a bet on Canada’s spending habits by acquiring Hudson’s Bay.

Call it the will-o-the-wisp recession. It’s out there somewhere, but I can’t see it.