North America

Shortly after we remarked most recently on the unprecedented Canadian housing bubble that has migrated from Vancouver to Toronto, Gluskin Sheff's Chief Economist David Rosenberg joined the growing chorus of calls for government intervention into the Toronto housing market. In an interview on BNN, Rosenberg, who correctly called the U.S. housing bubble in 2005 when still at Merrill Lynch, said the massive deviation from historical norms has him drawing comparisons between the two situations.

Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings, the acquisitive owner of Caribou Coffee, Peet's Coffee & Tea and Krispy Kreme, confirmed swirling speculation this morning when it announced it would acquire U.S. bakery chain Panera Bread for $315/share - a 20% premium - in a deal valued at about $7.5 billion. If completed, the transaction would mark the largest M&A deal for a US restaurant company, and the second-largest in North America after the 2014 acquisition of Tim Horton's.

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

German precious metals group Heraeus Precious Metals (HPM), part of the Heraeus industrial group, has just announced the full acquisition of Swiss precious metals refining group Argor-Heraeus. Heraeus is headquartered in Hanau, just outside Frankfurt. Argor-Heraeus is headquartered in Mendrisio in the Swiss Canton of Ticino, beside the Italian border.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via Mises Institute,

Los Angeles, home to one of the least affordable housing markets in North America, is now proposing to expand rent control to "fix" its housing problem. 

As with all price control schemes, rent control will serve only to make housing affordable to a small sliver of the population while rendering housing more inaccessible to most. 

On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) officially came into effect, virtually eliminating all tariffs and trade restrictions between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins reminds readers: