Some lost souls who stagger on to this site by mistake remark that most people here are not normal.

God, I hope not.

A new survey of 15,000 folks (which is a monster) shows at least one-third of Canadians are in financial trouble. It also tells us they either don’t understand this, or refuse to try. Half the people think they’ll be okay in retirement, but have no idea why.

This is shocking enough. But it’s only part of the picture. As I’ve mentioned before, seven in ten have no pensions, six in ten have no retirement savings and only half have an RRSP, in which there’s enough money to fund two of their golden years. Two.

Want more? Mortgage debt is now at record-breaking levels. Canadian households have a debt-to-income level of 145% and six in ten workers say they’d be essentially screwed if they missed one paycheque. Like most Americans, our family finances are a disaster.

But it gets worse. Over 32% of the population is made up of Baby Boomers, those profligate former hippies who toked and snorted and grooved their lives away. Now these nine million geezers are nearing retirement and will basically suck the guts out of the health care and public pension systems.

But that’s just the half of it. The country’s finances have spiralled into Sani-Flush territory, with record debt at every level of government, topped off by the geniuses in Ottawa who will spend $56 billion more than they have this year. So, you know what this means – high taxes and increased interest rates. For, like, ever.

Now, take the circular saw you got for Christmas away from your neck and think about this for a minute. The conclusion seems inescapable: Most people are walking financial failures. And the hell of it is, they don’t even realize this fact. This also means the housing market is doomed.

Not, not just this bubble. Without a doubt the current frothy real estate gasbag will explode in some messy fashion soon enough, brought down by excessive prices, rising rates, stagnant incomes, the HST or flagging affordability. That’s a given.

But how about after that? What of all those people who have been sitting around waiting for the 2009-10 housing Hindenburg to go down in flames, just so they can buy a house for less? Will they be doing something solid with their hard-saved cash?

Probably not.

While 70% of us have diddly to retire on, this is almost exactly the same percentage of the population owning real estate. In fact, we now have the highest proportion of homeowners in the western world. We fell for the houses-are-safe-investments speech, HL&S. As the real estate market flies closer to the sun, Canadians are shovelling huge amounts of their net worth into their homes. And if you ask most people what they plan to live on in the long, pensionless future ahead, the answer’s simple and consistent: their homes.

But how do you cash in a piece of real estate, to gain the income you need for 25 or 30 years of not working, when everyone else is doing the same thing? With an aging population, spearheaded now by those millions of detestable Boomers, where are all the buyers going to come from? Will the newly-emerging Chinese middle class be snapping up houses in Winnipeg or High Park, happy to line sellers’ pockets with big bucks? And maybe they’d like some Nortel stock with that.

No, no. Time for a rethink.

I said here months ago the generation of the house and the GIC is over.

We’re well into a new age defined by debt. This will lead to higher taxes and less disposable income. Massive government financings will keep upward pressure on interest rates. The economy will sputter along. Many jobless people in their fifties will not work again. Government revenues will be thin and expenses soar as the country grays. And, of course, there are all those people who have saved nothing and apparently don’t care. Not yet.

In this world, all you need starts with ‘L’.

No, not love.