The difference between the rate of inflation and the Bank of Canada’s prime lending rate. Across western economies since 1930, the RIR has fluctuated between one and three percent. In Canada between 1988 and 1996, the RIR ran between five and eight percent, thereby providing unreasonably high profits for the bond market and banks. More moderate ratios since are not so much a sign of progress as a signal that other, less easy-to-spot kinds of fiscal vivisection are underway.