Apparently, Canada’s President of the Treasury Board, Tony Clement is sharing some advice with President Obama on how to run a government. But then the Canadian government doesn’t ‘have the checks and balances purposely enumerated in the U.S. Constitution to inhibit’ it.
Nice find. However, articles like that will increase the likelihood of the US wanting to annex Canada. But it is interesting how the article uses fudged stats. It compared combined provincial and federal debt to GDP for Canada (58%-still too high in my opinion) and then gave only the Federal number for the US (101.5%)–one shudders to think what that would be if you added all the state debt into the picture. Secondly, the US unemployment rate of 8.3% is a lie; it apparently stops counting people who are not on unemployment, and never counts the young unemployed.
The article does play well with an earlier comment that I made that indicated that Canada could do well even if the US has a meltdown.
Peter, they will not want to annex Canada… why? If they determine Canadian policies already.. or at least the most important policies. You know that I’m not exactly the greatest admirer of the US, but from my position 9,000 km away, it would be 70% chance of major problems for Canada if the US went bankrupt overnight. The US is Canada’s largest trading partner, to start. I understand where you are coming from and what you say, but I don’t subscribe to the same desires. What could happen under your scenario of “doom and gloom” could potentially make the lives of the other Candian-Americans (or just Canadians!) more difficult. So I don’t subscribe to the same theory. The big question is how is Canada prepared to deal with life without the US? I’m not trying to put you on the spot; I just want to know if Canada really has contigency plans in place….
China is Brazil’s largest trading partner. I think China surpassed the US a few years ago. If you totally despise the USA, the best thing to do is convince your local PM to vote for pro-China policies, or anywhere other than the USA. What’s great is that I don’t have to.. here, the politicians follow the money. The USA made Brazil the largest beef, chicken, and soy exporter due to US protectionalism.
Peter, I know we work in different areas, but please try to get into exporting to ANY country OTHER than the US. It will make you very happy. Because it’s not productive for you to even waste brainpower on such things as dollar collapse, or US going bankrupt. People have been saying this for years — it’s way above us. If they wanted it to happen, it would happen. They don’t want it, so it doesn’t happen. It could happen tomorrow, but if it does, it’s because someone (or most likely a GROUP) is plundering the system and getting rich from it. Would you reallly want your fellow Canadians to suffer..? I doubt it.
Returning to exporting — You probably ALREADY have the capital, but if you need the “know-how”, at least for here, I’ll do everything pro-bono to get you up and running… as long as I have have the right to buy you out! The same principles apply everywhere, just the technicalities changes.
I don’t know where Frank Miniter got the numbers for his article, but according to the IMF, in 2012, the public debt of Canada is 84.7% of GDP, while that of the US is 106.6%. These figures include the debt of all levels of government in each country.
We have an governmental information vacuum on FATCA, surely they haven’t forgotten about it? Cozying up seems counter intuitive to me, but I’m not in the business of running a country. Why this, why now? Because there may be no better time for diplomacy than when one country that purports itself to be a friend attacks another. Maybe a little friendly advice to help curtail a friends demise? I’m encouraged that there’s some high level diplomacy going on for the sake of both’s survival.
@ShadowRaider, Canada is in much worse shape than the article suggests. Ontario is not helping, that’s for sure. Ontario is the California of Canada, thanks to all the Keynesian debt here.
@Geeez, demagoguery is not rational but an appeal to emotion and anger. The United States is leaving itself wide open for demagoguery–it is already succumbing to it with the regime of Obama (hope and change; Forward!; tax the rich, wealthy overseas fatpigcats, etc.). Let me state the principle simply: What happens when the nation with the most powerful military faces economic meltdown? They begin to annex the resources of their neighbors, or at least will be tempted to do so. Already the United States treats ALL the countries in the world as economic protectorates. Annexing them is the next most natural step in this progression. Give it time.
As for selling to other countries, I’m all for it. But I am more of a investor than an entrepreneur. I’ll give it a think.
Also, I should respond to this:
It is important I think that everyone pay attention to this problem. There was a lady that Adam Ferguson wrote about in his book about Weimar Germany; she was on a fixed income with large bonds in German marks that paid handsomely for her living. When the crisis was starting her banker told her that she should buy some Swiss Francs, but it was against the law to hold foreign currency so she didn’t take his advice. Later, her investments went down to nothing and she could barely survive. Had she bought the CHF, she would have been fabulously rich by comparison. Inflation is actually not something that anyone can control. The Bernanke thinks he is in control, but he is lame joke when it comes to predicting the future. He is unable to control the actions of billions of people. That is the essence of the Austrian premise: central banks don’t control economies, billions of people making choices determine what happens. So precisely the opposite is happening. No one is in control. It can’t be controlled. Paying attention to this problem will actually be very lucrative, provided Armageddon doesn’t happen–provided the investor finds the correct hedges against inflation. Problem is what is a good hedge is difficult to predict: commodities, precious metals, stocks, real estate, spam? Gold and silver are good bets at this point, partly because there are so many short positions. When the metals start going up there will be short squeeze.
So it is actually lucrative for an investor to fret about these problems, because the macro environment is crucial to making decisions about what to invest in.
To give an idea of the lack of control of central bankers, take a look at ZIRP’s greatest advocate in the world, Mr. Mark Carney of the bank of Canada. He has set the Canadian interests rates below the US to be able to compete with the US dollar in the race to the bottom. Then he has made several public statements telling Canadians to stop borrowing money, when it is his policy that has created the borrowing patterns of Canadians. His policy encourages malinvestment and he tries to control malinvestment by issuing warnings. What a dipstick! Just let the market set the interest rates, and malinvestment will slow down.
Cheers.
Triple ehhhh!
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/27/canada-credit-rating-aaa_n_1833544.html?utm_hp_ref=tw#slide=more247004