The last time it was worth putting money in a savings account in this country, I didn鈥檛 have any money to save.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Bank of Canada鈥檚 interest rate hovered in a range between just under five per cent, to just below six per cent.

But we kept having these pesky recessions. In 2003, the rate was down to two per cent. It bounced back to four per cent just in time to be walloped by the Great Recession.

It then stayed under two per cent for the next 15 years. Until this year, of course, when the BoC decided (like half a dozen other central banks) that inflation wasn鈥檛 a temporary aberration.

The BoC鈥檚 overnight rate is now 4.75 per cent, and it鈥檚 expected to go up to 5.0 in July.

Canada鈥檚 not alone, of course. Britain, the U.S., many other European countries have all raised their interest rates recently.

It鈥檚 having massive effects on the world economy. Speculative tech firms, new startups, and leveraged buyout vultures are suddenly realizing that they no longer have access to a free money machine.

In housing, it鈥檚 thrown a giant monkey wrench into the Canadian real estate system鈥檚 expectations that prices of homes will always rise, faster than any other asset.

But what I鈥檓 really interested in is what happens if higher interest rates stick around for two, five, maybe even 10 years.

What does that do to the psychology of the average Canadian? How does it change our relationship to spending and saving?

Through much of the 1970s and 1980s, saving was a good idea. Heck, back around the early 1980s, you could get bonds that paid annual interest of 10 per cent or more! Sure, your mortgage probably had an interest rate of 15 to 20 per cent, but鈥�

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The main effect of ultra-low interest rates over the last couple decades has been that saving money didn鈥檛 work. Saving was for chumps. Sure, you could save, but anything you put in a bank account would be slowly eroded by inflation.

Instead, everyone who wanted their money to do anything had to invest. Housing and property was the most popular form of investment, but average people also piled into the stock market. The entire cryptocurrency boom and bust wouldn鈥檛 have been possible without low interest rates.

It was a great time to be investing, especially if you were the kind of person who subscribed to a high-risk, high-reward philosophy.

People who are risk-averse with their money have been sitting idly by.

The next 10 years might favour the cautious, rather than the brave.

Business is likely to get a lot more cautious and conservative, if this high-interest environment keeps up. Fewer wild tech startups building juicing machines and AI chatbots. Fewer bizarre financial instruments that look suspiciously like Ponzi schemes.

If this makes money more boring and reliable, I鈥檓 all for it.