I was alarmed to learn over the holidays that a local jeweler – one of those fellows with an ad budget and an insatiable appetite to buy your gold – has branched out. He’s now offering car and mortgage loans (the latter offered via a “contact” according to his website).  Let’s assume our friend is not the only gold bug to have updated his business plan. This makes credit available – at what are sure to be less reasonable terms than those offered by more established lenders – to who-knows-how-many financially vulnerable consumers who can’t get a loan elsewhere. If you are looking for evidence that personal debt is getting out of hand, consider this the new year’s first red flag.

Canada’s rising personal debt is just one of the stories worth watching in 2012. As I reported last month, consumer credit card debt hit $448 billion in the third quarter of 2011. Statistics Canada says household credit market debt, which consists of consumer credit, mortgage and loan debt, rose above 150% of personal disposable income during the quarter. They’ve never seen numbers that high. Ultra-low interest rates have encouraged Canadians to borrow, even as the global economy has struggled to recover from the 2008 credit crisis. If it feels unsustainable that we continue to pile on debt while consumers in the U.S. and other developed countries do the opposite, that’s because it probably is.

Four other stories I’m watching this year:

• Canada’s unemployment rate. Business spending – an important driver of economic growth – dropped sharply in 2008. And while it has recovered since, Canadian employers are not spending at levels the Bank of Canada would like to see. In a speech last month, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney called on the private sector to invest more in emerging markets. Meanwhile, reports of layoffs are back in the news. Watch this; a rise in the unemployment rate will tell us a lot about the likelihood of a meaningful uptick in business spending.

• Europe, obviously. A late-December BBC poll of 27 economists found 25 of them predicting the eurozone economy will slide into recession this year. The more pressing issue though is sovereign debt. Watch for key bond auctions – tomorrow in France and Jan. 12 and 13 in Spain and Italy respectively – to see if investors have gained any confidence in the region’s ongoing efforts to save the euro.

• China’s landing. Hard or soft? China’s had a remarkable run since gaining membership in the World Trade Organization a decade ago. But there are signs now that it is not immune to the headwinds facing other major national economies. Watch its property values. Critics say the Chinese have produced at least some of their growth artificially, by developing state-sponsored real estate projects for which there was little or no demand. That got them the growth they aimed for, but it may have inflated a property bubble in the process. If it pops and China lands hard from the heights of double-digit annual growth figures, it will impact the global recovery.

• Political risk. Americans are ramping up for this year’s presidential and congressional elections. There’s been a lot of talk about that country’s sovereign debt, and the expectation that no meaningful progress will be made until after the November vote.  I think that’s optimistic.  My sense is that the U.S. will still be politically divided at the end of this year, and incapable of reaching consensus on the role government should play to support the recovery. Gridlock will persist, and the great engine of the global economy will remain in neutral. Of course the U.S. is not the only source of political risk. The so-called Arab Spring has stretched into its second year. Fighting continues in Syria. In Egypt, two Islamist parties have emerged as leading political forces. Muscovites are protesting last year’s election results. And eurozone leaders have so far failed to get a real handle on their sovereign debt crisis. Political risk has always been an issue for global investors. Rarely though have we seen a period so rife with tension and volatility.

Stay tuned.