About That Canadian Economy -- December 8, 2019

The other day I posted personal thoughts about the North American economies:

• the US: incredible
• Canada: closed for business
• Mexico: road to Venezuela

Apparently others have noticed the same thing. From zerohedge the other day:

Canada: "Terrible" jobs report, worst since the financial crisis.

As the US was basking in the warm glow of the best jobs report since January, it was a different story over in Canada, where BMO's chief economist Robert Kavcic had one recommendation to clients: "avert your eyes." Here's why: Canadian employment unexpectedly tumbled by 71,200 in November, the biggest decline since the financial crisis.

For those hoping that the details might serve up better news, they too were disappointed: Full-time employment was down 38.4k, and the private sector shed 50.2k. The jobless rate also rose sharply, up four ticks, and also the biggest monthly jump since the recession, to 5.9%.

Hours worked fell 0.3%, and remain an area of persistent disappointment—they’re now up just 0.25% y/y, much more muted than the 1.6% annual job gain. Oddly enough, the one area of strength was wages, with growth accelerating to match a cycle high at 4.5% y/y, according to Kavcic.

Putting it together, BMO's "grading system" gave this report a 12.1 rating out of 100, which is pretty much as bad as it can possibly get (it is in fact the worst rating in about six years of tracking).

Yeah, pretty much closed for business.

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Renewable Energy

We previously posted that global EV sales were down about 24% year-over-year in October, 2019. A reader also noted that the US solar industry was down about the same:

The U.S. solar industry experienced a 30 percent year-over-year decline in installed photovoltaic capacity in 2017, according to a new industry report.

The U.S. Solar Market Insight report said that the U.S. installed a total of 10.6 gigawatts of new solar photovoltaic capacity last year, down from 15.1GWs in 2016.

Source? In Q4 2018, the U.S. solar market installed 4.2 GWdc of solar PV, a 139% increase from Q3 2018 and a 4% increase from Q4 2017. This brought the annual total to 10.6 GWdc, 2% lower than 2017.

10 gig x 20% CF = 2 gig x 1000 = 2000 MW power, mostly at the wrong time of day.

Note 1: same amount of power as provided by two of ND's lignite-fired plants. Antelope Valley 880 MW & Coal Creek 1100 MW

Note 2: Maybe we're not as collectively stupid as it sometimes appear. Can we hope that this solar insanity peaked in 2016 in the USA? It definitely has peaked in Germany (13% capacity factor!) ... probably 2017 .... don't recall. I'm not ready to hope EV's have peaked in the US. EV's are probably a good idea in China where they can run on coal for the next 30 plus years.

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Basically A Reprint From Her First Book Decades Ago

Only because I enjoy following her have I posted this link to her most recent essay, but it' snot particularly good. It's mostly a re-hash of what she wrote decades ago and what she continues to write about.

The author and title in The Hollywood Reporter, Camille Paglia: The Death of the Hollywood Sex Symbol (Guest Column).