Canada? What the heck do they know?

[Ramirez]

I nearly forced Montreal to its knees myself once, and that was just a visit to Rue de St Catherine looking for...uh...poutine.

Really Bill, way too much information, I hope you at least gave Montreal a knee pad.

 

[Ramirez]

Then it was published that Lady Diana had to take a virginity test to marry this guy (who had deflowered so many himself), and I opted out of the whole business.

That might be true, but Bryan Adams got in there long before the wedding date....another victory for the Canadians.

 

[Sukerkin]

100% wrong Mark.

I guess I'll just flush my economics degree down the toilet then - clearly a complete waste of my early life .

the curent problems in America's economy all stem from ONE thing

the housing market

I think that this is a commonly held misconception from what I've read just here on MT. Making that claim is akin to saying that one of the chemicals in a detonator is responsible for an explosion. In a sense it has an element of truth as it is a causal factor but it is also a falsehood as the actual damage of the explosion came from a lot of other, far more important, factors.

the housing market got hurt because of one thing. Democrats FORCED banks to give loans to poor people who couldnt pay for them

{snip political commentary}

Whilst it can be argued that everything is fundamentally Politics, if anyone is actually interested in finding out how this particular crisis was engineered, then it's worth your time to track down a splendid short series on high finance that the BBC sneaked out earlier ths year. It manages to get the 'meat' of the matter laid out simply without having to do all the troublesome and difficult study and maths that I had to endure :lol:.

Wikipedia has a mention of it which may be a good place to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_Uncovered

 

[Gordon Nore]

That might be true, but Bryan Adams got in there long before the wedding date....another victory for the Canadians.

So that song, Summer of '69, wasn't about 1969?

Sorry.

 

[elder999]

Making that claim is akin to saying that one of the chemicals in a detonator is responsible for an explosion. In a sense it has an element of truth as it is a causal factor but it is also a falsehood as the actual damage of the explosion came from a lot of other, far more important, factors.

mmwuh?

I'll defer to your superior knowledge of economics-which, in spite of my efforts, is just so much gobbledygook to me at times....:lol:-but your explosive metaphor (or is it a simile? Does "akin" take the place of like and as?) isn't so good........

 

[Sukerkin]

Does it really matter, Elder, if my analogy failed to hit the mark precisely? The idea I was attempting to get across was that it was a mistake to ascribe the entirety of an outcome to a trigger.

I'm just wasting the cells on my fingertips typing words on a global 'screen' that won't change the way anyone thinks one whit anyhow. The Net seems full of closed minds fronted by shouting 'mouths' just lately, making the very concept of a 'Discussion Board' a non sequitur.

That's longhand for "I give up!" by the way . I logged in hoping for a little distraction from the far more serious things I have to worry about on this side of the monitor. But it worked the other way .

Back to quietly lurking in the shadows for me {slinks off sulkily under a black cloud of depression}.

 

[Ramirez]

So that song, Summer of '69, wasn't about 1969?

Sorry.

Actually, it is just a rumour about Adams and Lady Di, but patriotic Canadian that I am , I have to give my countryman the benefit of the doubt.

And let's not forget William Shatner....where would the US be without this fine Canadian export.

Enjoy.

 

[Raynac]

First and formost I apologize for any spelling mistakes. I WILL not edit this. too much time.

Canada's GNP for 205 was 1,052 billion
U.S. GNP for 2005 was 11,351 Billion. (but then who knows with Obama at the helm, Canada might overtake us!)


Deaf

Gross domestic product (GDP) is defined as the "value of all final goods and services produced in a country in one year".[1] On the other hand, Gross National Product (GNP) is defined as the "value of all (final) goods and services produced in a country in one year by the nationals, plus income earned by its citizens abroad, minus income earned by foreigners in the country".[

It is to my understanding that while the US does have a GNP 10 times the size of our, the US's population was also roughly 10 times the size of Canada's

and the more recent data is
USA GDP: $13.84 Trillion (2007 Est.)
Canada GDP: $1.432 Trillion (2007 Est.)

anyways though, I agree with the earlier statments about the system being unstable. First of all I find it funny that the country I hear called the richest country in the world so often is 10.9 trillion in debt http://zfacts.com/p/461.html
Canadas not so bad due to the tight watch kept over the system but the way I see it, both country's have been thriving off of controled disaster. We increase the money supply by giving out loans using money that we do not have, its just like the wall street crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929
except that we are controling it

if you ask me we should have never told people that a recession was happening, because you know what it did!? it made people start to become tight with there money, they stopped spending. well wouldn't you know it thats whats making the recession worse. thats why they are sending out those economic stimulus packages. so that people will spend them and thus keep the economy healthy... if nobody told us there was a ressesion and we kept spending blindly, yes we would still be entering a ression but we would be in alot better shape and the recession would be smaller

Its like the banking system, your bank at anygiven moment does not have enough money to give all of their clients the money they owe them. even so banks have system going that makes it so that they can give people their money when they need it by keeping a certain ratio of money ready for their customers. but if everyone gets spooked into thinking their money isn't safe and decided to pull all there money out at the same time BOOM no more bank.

that being said It was a good system, us canadians seem to be handling the situation well using alot of neat tactics that Im learning about in an economics class to shelter us from the brunt of the recession.

 

[exile]

I nearly forced Montreal to its knees myself once, and that was just a visit to Rue de St Catherine looking for...uh...poutine.

You were looking for poutine???

Poutine fills a badly needed gap in the Canadian diet. Most folks there can't wait to miss it. And you went looking for it?

Bill, you gotta get a grip!!!!

 

[Rich Parsons]

Don't need the whole US. A Boy Scout troop and maybe a couple Marines looking for beer, take maybe a weekend. I nearly forced Montreal to its knees myself once, and that was just a visit to Rue de St Catherine looking for...uh...poutine.

You were looking for poutine???

Poutine fills a badly needed gap in the Canadian diet. Most folks there can't wait to miss it. And you went looking for it?

Bill, you gotta get a grip!!!!

I was in Japan of all places and they told me I needed to order this great dish. I could not understand their accent when they said poutine. So, I had them translate items. I just smiled, and said I grew up with that as being normal staple from New England families and Canadian friends. So I went for some Sashumi (sp). I preferred eating their local run of the mill than eating an import that Icoudl pick up at home.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Recent article in Newsweek "World View - Fareed Zakaria : Worthwhile Canadian Initiative"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/183670

Made the following interesting observations.

• Canada alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors
• In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.
• The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.
• Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers.
• Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1.
• Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada.
• Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent.
• Unlike our own insolvent Social Security, its health-care system is cheaper than America's by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes.
• Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States;
• "healthy life expectancy" is 72 years, versus 69.
• American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America's largest car-producing region.
• The U.S. currently has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away from our shores thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal "permanent residents" in Canada—no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job.

Maybe they know something our own Socialistically inclined overlords missed, eh?

To answer your question at the end of your post about what do "our" overlords know or have missed, and that is they are out for their own investments.


As to automotive and Ontario, Ontario has a long history of automotive, and in recent years the ranking of all North America Plants have many of the Canadian plants in the more efficient and also highest quality.

The Oshawa plants for GM have had some real high rankings many gold and silver medals for quality and efficiency, and a recent award for doing it some many years in a row.



As to European Banking many of the Euro Banks have opened up or leveraged more as part of the influence from the EU, to help investments into the underdeveloped countries. Mostly eastern European countries need the investment and loans. Recently the German Government told the EU banking that they would not loan or invest more into eastern Europe as they needed to worry about home.


As to regulations, They are tricky some are good some are bad. But the Savings and Loans were loosened up and then the Credit Unions and Banks were partial loosened up, lead to issues in the 80's. That also had lots of impacts to real estate as well. Hmm, it seems these MBA's that are young and hot to prove themselves seem to come up with similar things that have happened in the past or let us call it history and they repeat mistakes. I wonder if MBA degrees should include a mandatory history requirement?

Thanks for the link and the points.

 

[Carol]

You were looking for poutine???

Poutine fills a badly needed gap in the Canadian diet. Most folks there can't wait to miss it. And you went looking for it?

Bill, you gotta get a grip!!!!

I'm sure there had to be at least one spot on St. Catherine's that sold poutine...

 

[searcher]

Sooooo. Are we going to pull our troops back from the Middle East and go take over Canada or what? :idunno: I mean, it is only Canada.:lol:

 

[Raynac]

Sooooo. Are we going to pull our troops back from the Middle East and go take over Canada or what? :idunno: I mean, it is only Canada.:lol:

*cough* war of 1812 *cough*

 

[Ramirez]

Sooooo. Are we going to pull our troops back from the Middle East and go take over Canada or what? :idunno: I mean, it is only Canada.:lol:

I doubt you could afford it, according to the article we will own your financial institutions soon.

 

[elder999]

Does it really matter, Elder, if my analogy failed to hit the mark precisely? The idea I was attempting to get across was that it was a mistake to ascribe the entirety of an outcome to a trigger.

Oh, and I agree with that-your analogy just left a little aftertaste for me....working with explosives and all....I even "deferred to your superior knowledge of economics." Not disagreeing with you, Mark, just addled a little by how you presented it.....chalk it up to the lateness of the day..

I'm just wasting the cells on my fingertips typing words on a global 'screen' that won't change the way anyone thinks one whit anyhow. The Net seems full of closed minds fronted by shouting 'mouths' just lately, making the very concept of a 'Discussion Board' a non sequitur.

Again, I agree with you. I've been posting less out of fear of becoming one of those "shouting mouths" myself....

That's longhand for "I give up!" by the way .

Please don't-the voice of sanity is always welcome, even if it does put you in the position Tiresias, holding up a beacon in the darkness that none can see......:lol:

 

[Sukerkin]

Thanks for those good words, Elder. I reflect them back to yourself also - I quite often learn something from your contributions that I either did not know or had not thought about in a particular way.

In retrospect, changing the analogy to something simpler and less esoteric may well have been a good course of action. However, I was huddled under a 'real life' black cloud raining misery just on me last night ... did it show ?

When I logged back in this morning, I did consider deleting my earlier post but in the end let it lie there as an example of what happens when you let life's woes bleed into your on-line existence {double }.

Plus, I do feel that what I said about the current state of the Web has a certain validity - tho' I probably could have been a little less woebegone about how I phrased it :lol:.

 

[Makalakumu]

There are always going to be partisans and reactionaries, but I think on the whole, the subject of sound money is starting to really become part of the public consciousness. If you turn off the screaming heads on the idiot box and tune into something that isn't owned by the financial interests, you'll start to glimpse a problem that is bigger then partisan politics, bigger then any one nation's politics.

The fundamental way that money is created is the root cause of all booms, busts, depressions, and a myriad of other financial woes. If you stop to consider the equation (P / P + I = D, where P = principal, I = interest, and D =rate of defaults) you'll see that failure is built into the system and that holding down the rate of failure is the only thing that keeps the wheels on.

Also, if you consider where the I in the equation goes, you'll end up facing one of the biggest frauds that has every been perpetrated upon humanity. The legal magic that allows P to be created from nothing, creates a parasitic upper class whose entire net worth is based off of sleight of hand. They must control societies bureaucracy in order to maintain this parasitism.

There will never be a leader elected in any nation who creates currency in this fashion unless the public is educated on the matter. Bush, Obama, Democrats, and Republicans, Liberals, Tories, etc, they are all creatures of the financial interests in some aspect. Sure, they will rearrange the deck chairs and pander to various groups, but the ship remains the same...and the ship is the Titanic.

Canada is not immune from this. A conservative reserve ratio of 18:1 only means that Canada's banks will be in the latter of the line of dominoes. If her banks do happen to survive, you can expect the greedy parasitic plutocrats to jack that ratio up politically and bailout when they get to the top. That is the lesson that history teaches us about fractional reserve banking. Greed always trumps public interest and currencies are destroyed.

It's only a matter of time, unless we reform the system.

 

[searcher]

*cough* war of 1812 *cough*

Don't even get me started.

I doubt you could afford it, according to the article we will own your financial institutions soon.

That is OK, your buddies over in England saw what a bunch of poor people with a high drive and desire can do.

 

[Raynac]

Haha searcher don't take it so seriously. geez you were the one that suggested attacking us anyways

anyways I honestly do not think canada would win in a war with the US. your population is 10 times the size of ours. each member of our population would have to kill 10 of yours. I guess the deciding factor would be who the other countries in the world sided with, if we had enought support, ya never know. but this is all hypothetical.

because obviouly we are not going to fight. (not till you guys run out of water anyways) and even then our goverments will work somthing out because the damage on both sides of the border would be too great.