In places there is hope , there is no life

Hope is an important humanitarian value for a dynamic life,Keep your heart remains true , and faith will light brightly lit**

There are no people who are too small for the love of God.

Happiness is to have a hand to hold , to find the heart to be healed , and depending on tomorrow Dengah love.

Do not allow yourselves to be sunk by a sense of disappointment due to failure

There is no greater enemy in our spiritual growth except vanity , and nothing is more encouraging spiritual growth except humility.

Everything will be the best.

Uninvited masaah will keep coming . The important thing is not a problem when it will come , but if we are going to deal with it wisely.

Learning to budge is the first step to becoming a winner.

Do not take into account the price we have to pay if we pray , because God has paid a very high price so that we can pray...

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Canadian Household Debt Hits a New All-Time High

There’s always that one thing everyone failed to anticipate that ends up reverberating through the economy. For Canada, it’s the collapse in crude oil prices.

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And some things that were less worrisome when oil traded near triple digits are obviously much more so today, such as the ratio of debt to disposable income among Canadian consumers. According to Statistics Canada (StatCan), that figure set a new all-time high in the fourth quarter of 163.3%, up from 162.7% in third quarter.

The debt component is tallied by summing total debt outstanding on mortgages, credit cards, and other loans. So it’s easy to imagine how the country’s housing bubble has caused debt to balloon, especially given the news that the average price of a detached home in Toronto exceeded CAD1 million for the first time in February.

But the growth in debt isn’t the only problem. With an already-weak economy battered by crude’s bear market, income growth is now slowing. 

We’re still only starting to get a sense of how crude’s decline will affect the broader economy.

The resource-rich province of Alberta will certainly feel it first and hardest. Falling crude first hits the financials of the companies that operate in that province’s energy sector.

As we’ve seen already with the steady stream of announcements of dramatically lower capital-spending budgets, energy producers will do what it takes to tighten spending.

And that leads to lower demand for goods and services from companies outside the province. As Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins recently noted, “Nearly one-third of the goods and services purchased by the Alberta energy industry are drawn from other provinces–and so are the workers.”

More important, budget cuts also lead to lower incomes and rising unemployment.

StatCan reports that Alberta shed 14,000 jobs in February, pushing its unemployment rate up by eight-tenths of a percentage point, to 5.3%, the highest level in more than three years. In the province’s resource sector, employment has decreased by 20,000 since its recent peak last September.

Facing a worsening job market, even those consumers who are still employed will start to rein in their spending, maybe on little things like going out to eat or on big things, such as buying a house.

Policymakers have long been worried about Canada’s housing bubble and have been working to engineer a soft landing. It’s true that Canada’s approach to housing finance is far more conservative than in the U.S., so we shouldn’t extrapolate our own experiences here to what’s in store for the Great White North.

But as falling crude begets slowing income growth and rising unemployment, that could very well make the soft landing harder. The Canadian Real Estate Association is already projecting that fallout from the resource sector’s collapse, particularly in Western Canada, will cause sales nationwide to decline by 1.1% in 2015.

Still, real estate markets are regional, and strength in other provinces, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario, is expected to push the average price of a home another 2% higher this year, to CAD416,200.

To be sure, Canadians are still managing their obligations responsibly. Diana Petramal, an economist with Toronto-Dominion Bank, says credit card delinquency rates are at record-low levels, while only 0.28% of mortgages were past due by 90 days or longer as of October.

Part of the story, according to Bank of Montreal economists Douglas Porter and Benjamin Reitzes, is that Canadians’ net financial assets have nearly doubled since the Global Financial Crisis, while household debt is up by 38% over that same period. A narrow focus on income clearly leaves out other sources of financial strength.

The Bank of Canada expects gross domestic product (GDP) growth will slow markedly during the first half of the year, before a moderate rebound in the second half. So the next few months (and their aftermath) will be a true test of whether Canadian consumers can continue shouldering their debt burdens.

Australian Consumer Confidence Remains High

Australia’s consumer sentiment remains near its recent high, and part of the story may be a somewhat stronger-than-expected job market.

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The latest reading from the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment came in at 99.5, just 1.2% lower than February’s reading, which was the highest level in a year. That means pessimists marginally outnumber optimists, but it’s a strong showing nonetheless, especially considering where it had been until recently.

Economists largely attribute the previous month’s surge to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s February rate cut, which took short-term rates to 2.25% from 2.5%. However, the bank was widely expected to follow through with yet another rate cut at its March meeting, and its decision to hold steady may have dampened sentiment in this month’s poll.

Of course, most consumers are likely paying little attention to central bank actions. Instead, they are probably reacting to how lower rates flow through to mortgages and other forms of consumer lending.

The other big factor weighing on consumer sentiment is perception of the job market and how that might affect a household’s personal finances.

To be sure, Australia is hardly in the midst of robust employment growth. But payrolls are growing nonetheless.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the country’s economy added 15,600 jobs in February, slightly better than the consensus forecast of 15,000.

And the unemployment rate ticked lower to 6.3%, just below January’s cycle high. However, that was likely the result of a lower labor force participation rate, which fell two-tenths of a point to 64.6%, just above the cycle low.

The ABS reported that full-time jobs rose 10,300, while part-time jobs increased by 5,300.

Over the trailing year, Australia’s economy has added an average of 12,600 jobs per month, compared to 10,700 over the trailing three-year period.

And full-time jobs recently regained their lead over part-time jobs.

Over the trailing one-year period, the number of full-time jobs rose by 7,000 per month versus 5,500 per month for part-time jobs. By contrast, over the trailing three-year period, full time jobs increased by 3,100 per month versus 7,500 per month for part-time jobs.

Full-time jobs are considered to be of higher quality than part-time jobs, owing to higher pay, better benefits, and greater stability.

Despite these promising results, there’s no question that the global commodities crash means Australia is facing some challenging economic headwinds. And most economists believe unemployment will inevitably head higher in the months to come.

While the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) expects unemployment to peak at 6.5%, other economists see unemployment heading as high as 7%.

The big issue vexing policymakers is which of the non-mining sectors will step up to take the lead from the ailing resource sector.

JP Morgan chief economist Stephen Walters told The Australian, “We’re just not generating enough jobs to absorb those jobs that are being lost in mining.”

“I don’t think there’s enough confidence out there,” he observed. “Firms don’t feel that they want to make long-term investments; they’re just treading water.”

Perhaps another rate cut from the RBA will instill confidence and revive those dormant animal spirits.

We should know soon enough. Based on futures data aggregated by Bloomberg, a majority of traders are betting that the central bank will cut rates by at least a quarter-point at its May meeting