Looking At The Bright Side

In many ways, Synergy Merchant Services has made a New Year’s Resolution. In fact, we’ve actually made several. Some of our team members are trying to quit smoking while others are looking to upgrade to new homes. Many of our resolutions also, of course, have to do with staying steadfast in our commitment to continue assisting small to medium-sized Canadians businesses to grow with the help of our merchant cash advance program.

As far as our blog goes, however, we are looking to report on and discuss as much good news as possible in the wake of a year when the nation was hit hard by the recession. We will be doing our best to look at “the bright side” of each situation, if you will, as we have certainly had our fair share of bad financial news in 2009.

With the turn of the decade, Canadians now face new challenges. And while we look at “the bright side” and acknowledge that the worst is behind us, we recognize now that, as a nation, we will need to work together to continue to help the national economy grow. The Toronto Star, reports today that we will have to come to grips with the fact that economic growth will be slower than what we have experienced in the past..

The report was based on comments made at the 2010 Economic Outlook panel that took place earlier today. Attended by over 1,200 people, the business crowd came to hear predictions about the Canadian and American economies for the coming year.

Said Royal Bank of Canada economist Craig Alexander: “We’re going into a slower rate of growth. It’s not as much fun to grow at 2 or 2.5 per cent as to grow at 4 or 5 per cent.”

Based on such predictions, The Star surmised that a number of factors, while not expected to prevent, will hinder the process of an expanding economy. Among these factors are “an aging population, higher debt levels and reduced consumer demand”. This, says the paper, will result in “temperate” increases in employment, wages and stock market values as compared to those seen over the last decade.

BMO Capital Markets’ Sherry Cooper expects the U.S. economy to grow by 2.6 per cent in 2010 which would be an obvious improvement over the estimated contraction of 2.5 per cent in 2009.

Said Cooper: “We can argue the U.S. economy remains on life support. The recovery in the U.S. will be sub par and for many people it will be suspect because of higher unemployment rates.”

Canadians, however, are joining Synergy in looking for “the bright side”. According to The Star, a December poll of 4,283 people conducted by Pollara discovered that 54 per cent of Canadians expect for the nation’s economy to grow in 2010. 43 per cent of respondents expect employment to improve.

Here’s hoping the optimism continues and the bright side continues to get brighter for all Canadians in 2010.