Regarding government fiscal deficits, people often lament that their children and grandchildren will have to repay this debt. Don't worry: it's never getting paid back, by anyone. (1/n)

(2/n) Even on the rare occasion that governments run surpluses, Canada's never gonna run a multi-hundred billion dollar surplus, let alone what will be needed to repay the current annual deficit plus interest. A $10-20B surplus in a few years will barely put a dent in this.

(3/n)The government's only choice is to inflate away the debt, which will inevitably happen, whether deliberate or not. The U.S. racked up $250B debt to fight WW2; did they pay that back? Last year (in better times) that was just 3mo worth of deficit. Inflation made it irrelevant

(4/n) Inflation will hit us all and that's how we'll pay it back. A few decades from now $343B will be a fairly inconsequential part of a much larger debt by then. Inflation is literally a hidden tax on our wealth; at least that wealth which we store in "money".

(5/n) This means our savings account balances, GICs, bonds. Any wealth stored in the form of currency will erode away to inflation. That lost purchasing power is effectively a tax and that will pay for the deficits of today.

(6/n) To store your wealth in that form—that is, any money that isn't needed in the short-term—is reckless, far riskier than owning hard assets like stocks, land, real estate, bullion, etc. Only hard assets will maintain some sort of relative value.

(7/n) "Currency" is a derivative of the word "current". It has a current value of some sort, that is all. It has no enduring value. In the short-term cash is king (don't let this sway you from having an all-important emergency fund)...

(8/8)...but in the long cash could be toxic for your wealth, and we have government largess and fiscal recklessness to thank for it. /endThread

Even worse than cash: who's taking more risk, the person who lends money to ITALY for THIRTY YEARS at barely over 2%, or Spain for 10 years at a fraction of a %, or the person who buys fractional ownership of a profitable enterprise?

Inflation in action. Stocks aren't really "up" that much over the past 3 months. It's dollars (in this case USD) that are DOWN. We see gold breaking into new all time highs now, but check out copper!