Authored by Caleb McMillan via Mises.ca,

As if Canadians needed more proof that the country’s real estate is in a bubble, and that this misallocation has spread to other sectors of the economy, the Bank of International Settlements released its latest quarterly confirming what any critical observer can see: binging on debt is rarely a good idea.

Canada’s debt-to-GDP gap is widening and even the central bank of central banks is concerned.

The BIS uses its credit-to-GDP analysis as an indicator and predictor of troubling economic waters. They claim successes in predicting financial crises in the United States, England and a few other economies. Generally speaking, according to the BIS, when a country’s credit-to-GDP gap is higher than 10% for more than a few years, a banking crisis emerges which is followed by a recession.

Canada entered that territory in 2015, warmly welcomed by the Chinese who’s debt-to-GDP gap has put them in the danger zone for at least the last five years.

In another parallel universe, perhaps Canadian authorities took the correct measures to counteract this high credit-to-GDP gap or to even prevent it from getting this out of control. But in our reality, we kept trudging across the tundra, mile after mile, pushing our credit-to-GDP gap up to 17.4%.

China’s “basic dictatorship” means they can turn their economy around on a dime, or so goes the thinking. Perhaps they will better absorb the economic slap in the face compared to Canada’s relatively freer market and less dictatorial government.

Still, both countries have a massive real estate bubble. In China, entire cities are centrally planned and built by government-connected contractors only to house absolutely nobody.

Wealthy Chinese families, witnessing the crony-capitalist chaos and subsequent malinvestments, have taken their hard-earned cash and moved it overseas. Enter stage-right the true north strong and free enough. Foreign speculation has helped drive up real estate prices in places like Vancouver and Toronto.

Of course, despite the pandering of Vancouver’s local politicians to angry locals that have been priced out of their home markets, foreign buyers are not the sole cause of Canada’s housing bubble and may in fact have little if anything to do with it.

Foreign speculation on Canadian real estate is to Canada’s housing bubble what subprime mortgages was to America’s infamous bubble. It’s more of an effect than a cause.

So what is the cause?

Don’t look to the BIS to own up to the disastrous and downright criminal actions of central banks around the world.

They’ve identified the disease of debt, but they’re mum on the cure as well as where all this speculative credit is coming from.

The Bank of Canada revealed that Canadians have taken on $2 trillion dollars in consumer debt. And while large numbers like these are thrown around a lot in the age of low interest rates, deficit spending and quantitive easing, it helps to have some perspective. It takes 31,709 years to count to one trillion. Now multiply that by two.

71.6% of that $2 trillion consumer debt is in mortgages. The BIS warns that large debt binges like this are almost always followed by a proportional recession. Thus, Canada has been flagged for bad times in 2018.

Of course, one doesn’t need the BIS’ empirical analysis to arrive at these conclusions. Following the sound economic logic of Mises and Rothbard not only reveals exactly what’s going on here but how we got here, what to do about it, and how to avoid it in the future.