Canadian Dollar Reaches Parity with US$ 702
boxlight writes in to mark the occasion when the Canadian dollar hit parity with the US dollar for the first time in 31 years. The article notes that Canada has run a budget surplus in each of the last 10 years. "This is actually bad for the profits of Canadian corporations that sell their products to the US for US dollars (Canada sells far more to the US that the US sells to Canada); but it means us Canucks will get cheaper Macs as the Canadian prices get closer to US prices with every new release."
Article is useless without a graph! (Score:3, Insightful)
Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow that seems like little comfort for us Canadians that realize the impact this has overall on our economy. Anyone that isn't into business or economics up here gets excited about the CDN dollar being stronger because it translates into better cross border shopping for a very small minority, cheaper vacations, and some discounted consumer items like Macs. But take a look at how this impacts the country as a whole and we don't have much to celebrate as an exporting nation.
Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:5, Insightful)
* American products become cheaper to foreign markets. This helps with the trade imbalances we currently have.
* Foreign products become more expensive to American consumers, also helping with trade deficits.
* It discourages foreign workers from sneaking into the US. Getting $4.00 an hour is suddenly not so much compared to what they get paid in their home country.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
The glass is half full or half empty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Book Prices? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Our economy is stronger than it has been in my entire life. At .70 US, .80 US and .90 US there were people predicting the imminent collapse of the economy, but as a whole it has just gotten stronger.
And while we may export resources, we largely import manufactured goods, so for some one looking to buy just about anything, this is good news.
Its also worth noting that while the loonie has gotten a little stronger, this is largely a story of the US dollar weakening and the Canadian dollar not following (as it has often done in the past). This means that the price of Canadian goods have not increased globally, leaving plenty of opportunity to sell to other markets.
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow that seems like little comfort for us Canadians that realize the impact this has overall on our economy. Anyone that isn't into business or economics up here gets excited about the CDN dollar being stronger because it translates into better cross border shopping for a very small minority, cheaper vacations, and some discounted consumer items like Macs. But take a look at how this impacts the country as a whole and we don't have much to celebrate as an exporting nation.
Dont' over estimate the crunch on our export industry. A significant amount is via oil which is a commodity that does not reduce in demand linearly with price. Manufacturing etc... has been on a steady decline for the last 8 years as well as the dollar rose. That has hurt the eastern Ontario economy. At the same time sky high oil prices and an increase in demand world wide has lead to a super heated economy in the west. The west gains from this as our commodity is in demand and we are at capacity to provide. so a Price increase helps the western provinces while it hurts the eastern provinces. Our trade with the US is immense but it hasn't ever been about selling them large quantities of manufactured goods. There is also a time lag related to the effects as contracts signed when the dollar was weaker will remain for a while. So it'll be a while before we see how parity helps or hinder us. As a westerner I don't mind a big crunch in the eastern economic power block.
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Small minority? link [nrcan.gc.ca]
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, Canadian economists were also VERY worried about the impact of the American housing market collapse on our economy. This turned out again to be a false alarm. Lumber exports have fallen, but aside from that, the economy just keeps trucking along to everyone's surprise.
You're right. The high dollar shouldn't be good for Canada. But for some reason, it isn't hurting much.
Not bad for Canadian Business (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the obsession with 1 to 1? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry that has happened to you. Unfortunately, anytime the value of something changes, someone wins and someone loses. I know hindsight is 20/20, but how far did you expect to get living in Europe with US dollars in the bank? Why would you not change those over to Euros when you decided to live there?
As for the idea that discouraging foreign workers is a good thing, might I ask in what universe you live in? Do you actually want to pay 25 bucks for a meal in a cheapish restaurant? That is what will happen if the immigrant labor leaves.
I have no problem with immigrant labor. What I have a problem with is illegal immigrant labor. Sure, it helps me get a cheaper burger at Chili's, but when I have to pay $50 for an aspirin at a hospital, I figure I'm not saving all that much. Besides, slavery allowed for cheap food and clothing as well, but that doesn't make it right. When an illegal is working at a plantation.. I mean farm, they are more or less owned by that farm. Only instead of being shackled by chains, they are shackled with the thread of deportation or imprisonment. I expect foreign workers in the US to get a fair wage. When that worker is here illegally, enforcing minimum wage or any other labor laws is impossible.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:2, Insightful)
What American products? Do we still make anything here (besides Brittney Spears albums)?
As do the imported components and raw materials used to build the few 'American made' products left.
Generally, its a wash, except that the declining dollar is just another way of cutting your wages and encouraging you to spend what little you have left at the 'company store'.
Re:About time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Book Prices? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to support them, thank them for the offer, and then pay the full CAD price, at least for the next couple months.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:3, Insightful)
the only reason that most products are forign products is because they are priced lower. If they become pricier because of weakening dollars (or other currency's becoming stronger) then American products will bounce back.
It's not like we no longer know how to manufacture in this country... it's just that it's cheaper to import.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:4, Insightful)
The declining dollar will drive a sharp inflationary pressure, which severely limits the Feds ability to moderate the economy. The Fed might want to lower interest rates, but every lowering will result in a rapid inflationary hike, leaving it with the choice of either letting property prices collapse with associated pain of bank runs and failures, or by letting the dollar continue in free fall which means letting everyone holding US assets pay for the irresponsible behaviour of some.
And of course, if the Fed shows it's going to let the dollar tank, that'll just cause everyone to dump even more dollar assets, driving the dollar down further.
Long term there will be a correction, and there will be advantages such as a resolution to the trade imbalances. But the fundamental problem is that large parts of the next decades consumption has already been done, paid for by borrowed money secured with overinflated real-estate prices. Adjusting to paying interest rather than shopping luxuries will suck badly.
On the bright side, perhaps the economists will bang their little heads together hard enough this time to come up with numbers for GDP growth and asset values that are actually based in reality.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, until enterprising individuals build plants in the US to make the goods we were previously importing, but at a lower price. And those plants start hiring US workers.
Yes, I agree, that would be a catastrophe - let's just continue buying all our stuff from other countries and let our workers keep losing their jobs. Outsource everything - eventually the world will just pay us American's to sit around and watch ads for their products.
Re:U.S. Economic Decline (Score:3, Insightful)
So, there's economic decline when companies spend their money on employees' health care, but not when the government takes that money and spends it on employees' health care.
Interesting.
Wait until China unloads dollars! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now imagine the USA expected a surplus and made a huge tax cut because of it. And then the surplus never happened so a huge debt was created. Someone has to pay this debt off. Imagine if the people paying this debt off are the ones you are running a trade deficit with. Hence, our trading partner buys treasury bonds at an alarming rate.
This works great for the USA short term because we get cheap goods from China (because their currency is still of low value because they invest their profits right away) and save a little bit on taxes. Well, a lot if you're rich.
But as you're probably starting to realize, this can't go on forever. Eventually it's going to collapse. At some point the debts will have to be paid and this will be done by raising taxes and INTEREST RATES. So now not only is the dollar worth less because everyone has a ton of them around the world, but it costs a ton to borrow them so no one wants them.
All of a sudden the value of your house is half of what it was, the value of your paycheck is half, etc. A domino effect is created because no one can afford to borrow money any longer. American business doesn't take risks, people can't take risks, and money is tight. We haven't experienced this in a long time. Money has been cheap. It's been the USA's biggest seller. The dollar was valuable and it was available. That's prosperity. Imagine the dollar being expensive and worthless. That's a depression.
So expect the Canadian dollar to become more and more valuable against the USA dollar for awhile.
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:1, Insightful)
We are a nation of exporters but what are we exporting? Natural resources. China can't just decide to produce copper, aluminum, or oil. You have to buy that stuff from the nations that have it and most of these things have static prices anyway. An ounce of gold or a barrel of oil pretty much cost the same anywhere in the world no matter what currency you are using.
fiat money sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that our money is all "elastic" makes it purest BS.
What's really sinking the U.S. dollar is strong inflation. You DO realize that's why they changed the inflation index to not include food anymore, right? They don't want to paint a real picture of what inflation is like because they don't want to cause a panic. If you include housing and food you get a double digit inflation rate over the last umpteen years.
What's worse? Now that the U.S. subprime crisis is in full-swing, the FDIC/Fed Reserve are propping up lenders by giving them money. (Remember the news about this a few weeks ago about opening up billions of dollars?) Where does that money come from? Nowhere! It's made from an elastic currency, which is the same as saying it is really coming indirectly from the people in the form of inflation as the money supply is diluted.
Now if only we had a gold standard again.... If banks weren't given government guarantees with fiat money all the time, they wouldn't have incentive to make shady loans in the first place for fear of going out of business if too many default. i.e. we wouldn't have a subprime mess in the first place. And even if we did, the cost of Countrywide going out of business isn't nearly as big as inflation across the entire populace.
And then there's that whole national debt thing...
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes indeed. My first thought was that the title should have read "US dollar reaches parity with Canadian dollar."
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whose deficit is it, anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion, but their lack of a military being the reason they can be more socialized is a matter of fact.
Re:Yeah but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it is the economists that keep saying it. They get their data from economic indicators such as the stock market, GDP, inflation rate, consumer confidence, unemployment etc. The President just repeats it.
Of course, since it does not jive with your politically colored glasses, I don't expect you to understand.
Re:Screwed economy but cheaper Macs?! (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, our primary exports are raw materials, not finished goods. As a resource exporter, countries can't afford _not_ to buy our products. They can't in-source the mining of bauxite, for instance, if they don't have the stuff.
Secondly, this is a measure of the US dollar sinking. Canada has grown modestly against other currencies: ~22% against the pound, ~15% vs. the Euro, and a rather large ~46% against the Yen, in just under five years. Those aren't dangerous numbers, they're a sign of a country growing in the international marketplace. The weakness here, of course, is that our biggest trading partner (by far!) is still the US, and if they go under, it's going to be rough on us.
I wish this had happened a bit slower so that Canada could disconnect their economy from the US a bit more, but the writing on the wall has been there for ages-ever since the invasion of Iraq, and really probably since Bush first got pushed into power by PNAC. [newamericancentury.org]
Re:Book Prices? (Score:2, Insightful)
That was my point exactly. The only way I would accept the deviation in pricing is if they were produced by Canadian printers at a higher cost due to lower production runs.
Well to be fair the pricing reflects a CDN $ at $0.65 - which it hasn't been in a long time. I've spot-checked my books, which span from the 1980's to now (the ones I checked - I've got plenty predating 1980) - you're right, that currency does seem to play a bit of a role in pricing, but it is updated VERY slowly - pre 1997 books, I can understand. But post-1997, with the option to buy online at currency value, well,
Here's an example:
K&R's C Programming Language in Amazon.com is $40 (rounded)
http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-2nd/dp/0131103628/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-0648757-4344429?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190309328&sr=8-2 [amazon.com]
The same book from Amazon.ca is $60 (rounded)
http://www.amazon.ca/Programming-Language-Brian-W-Kernighan/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1/701-4896514-8538726?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190309304&sr=8-1 [amazon.ca]
Both are shipped free.
Why, as a consumer, would I spend $20 more for the same book? In today's world, it makes no sense for books which have currency-based price deviations to have static prices, or prices updated so slowly.
I'm sorry that the small store suffers - $20 more in my pocket means that I've got disposable income to spend - or invest - elsewhere. It's the publishing houses which pocket the difference - I can't imagine how the book stores take a larger margin. The Canadian book and comic stores need to petition the publishing houses to have a more sensible and more dynamic pricing strategy. I don't mind if their prices are out of date if it's a small deviation, but raising prices by 30% which doesn't reflect the currency state for quite some time.
I don't know how the publishing houses would reflect currency rates for books already in stock - as a consumer, I hate to say that this is just not my problem. I would buy Canadian if the price was equitable, but only a fool would spend 30% more as a matter of national pride, when a more sensible corporate policy could address this. They've been pocketing the currency difference for years - sorry, but with the internet, they've got to change their business model if they want to keep their Canadian stores open.
For comics, which are produced monthly (more or less), they can update the pricing accordingly - who knows what they can do for subscriptions, but that's their problem.
Re:American dollar still goes much futher (Score:5, Insightful)
So are budget deficits. Wait until the Chinese get sick of funding yours.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless the foreign manufactured product is a high cost/high density item like a laptop, where the air freight cost is a minimal portion of it, shipping the product is literally shipping it, taking 4-6 weeks to cross the Pacific, which incurs significant costs in order fulfillment and inventory management.
The hysteria about the flight of manufacturing from the U.S. isn't entirely wrong, but it's far too simplistic. Lots of basic good manufacturing still goes on here, and the devalued USD definitely favours that.
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:5, Insightful)
> Although like most US policy of the last 6 years, instead of fixing the issue they plan to take over others. Soon Canada, the U.S. and Mexico will share the "Amero" as currency within the North American Union."
Dream on. Canada hasn't had a federal budget deficit in more than a decade, and social security is fully funded on an actuarial for the next 75 years (that's right - 75 years, its not a typo). Contrast that to the US deficit, and the unfunded mess that is known as social security, with off-the-book intra-government "lending" totalling 75 trillion.
You can have our loonies when you pry them from our cold dead hands! Actually, not even then! There's more of a chance of switching to the Euro as the greenback slowly does its imitation of SCO stock.
Re:American dollar still goes much futher (Score:2, Insightful)
Sales tax may be a diffrent story however. The rates in Canada range from 6% in one province, to 13%-16.6% in all the others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincial_Sales_Tax [wikipedia.org] I have never seen a US sales tax rate over 7% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
In any event I thank you for pointing out the Federal rate difference.
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:1, Insightful)
Both. The huge budget deficit means that the U.S. will probably have to print more money to cover it (i.e. inflation). The prospect is spooking foreign investors, thus worsening the downward spiral of the U.S. greenback.
Re:Wait until China unloads dollars! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm am not at all surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many reasons for weakeness in the US currency including but not limited to a massive government debt and a glutonous appetite for foreign oil.
Yesterday T. Boone Pickens was on TV on the business channel I sometimes watch. He made a number of interesting comments:
1) World oil production is about 85 million barrels per day and T. Boone does Not think it can be increased. The best information I have comes from expertize within the Geological Survey of Canada, but this expertise is certainly not limited to the GSC, and we are now pegging the peak of work oil production at September 2006. If production increases above that level then it will not be by much. T. Boone commented that the estimated demand for 4th quarter 2007 is 88 million Barrels per day.
Hence we will see the oil price driven up in order to destroy demand. In all likelihood it will get worse.
2) T. Boone says he favours nuclear and pointed out that General Electric says they can build a reactor in 3 years plus the friction added by the regulators and dealing with opposition. Probably this is correct.
3) Canada is ramping up Tar Sands as fast as we possibly can which explains why our economy is so strong. We cannot increase production has enough to make much of a difference. Currently we are investing billions per year.
Currently the USA consumes about 23 million barrels of oil per day.
Any way you want to slice it - this is not good news. It is clear the US dollar will continue to weaken is decades of political scrapping and decades of economic mismanagement finally face their day of reconning. As has been said many times, in order to avoid the melt down of our economies due to lack of energy availablity and high cost, we have to build at break neck speed an infrastructure that can replace oil and gas. We needed to start about 15 years before the peak of world oil production. We have not done so.
If the peak really was last year, then all hell is about to unfold and it will not surpise me to see gas rationing in the not too distant future.
Some things to remember.
Ethanol will not solve the problem. 100% of the US corn production will provide less than 2 weeks of liquid fuel. Next, ethanol from any source lives by the equation that 1 tonne of dry plant mass yields the equivalent of about 2 barrels of oil and this if we can do the conversion for free. This includes cellulostic ethanol.
We don't have the plants build anyways.
Industry runs under much tighter constraints than consumers. A consumer will simply give up a dinner at a restaurant in order to save the money to pay for his next tank of gas. Industry shuts down the plant and lays everyone off. We have already lost most of the North American fertilizer industry and plastic feedstock production (IE the pellets that go into injection moulding machines) is also going to die. Electricity production from Natural Gas is not threatened yet but expect power costs to continue to climb as this sector pushes out weaker sectors. In all cases jobs are lost and expensive infrastructure goes idle.
If one looks at the mortgage crisis and factors in the job loses precipitated by energy issues, then it becomes clear that this picture is not yet well understood.
Next consider how a government deals with recession? They print currency. Faced with the choice of inflation or recession, which do you choose? People on fixed incomes will lose their retirement.
Of course - one way to look at this is that its the retiring generation that lived beyond their means and created the mess. Their children certainly didn't. So maybe its poetic justice. However I do not think that people realize how bad its going to be. I watched my father-in-law lose his retirement because of the inflation Pierre Elliot (Idjot) Trudeau and his henchman Jean (Cretin) Chretien during the 1970's.
In part this
Re:Lopsided == Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, and keeping the Soviet-style economy in mind, Russia wouldn't have to "buy" anything to sustain a war effort. They'd simply order their people to build it - and that would work because the Russian mentality is nothing like ours is here. For one thing ultra-patriotic nationalism is normal and encouraged in Russia, rather than a silly notion as it is here. For another, not much time has passed since the bad old days when you did as you were told or you simply vanished in the night. People remember that too, and they have no illusions about their leaders not resorting to that kind of pressure in a time of war.
Re:American dollar still goes much futher (Score:3, Insightful)
This is tied to us too. We don't save money in this country. The average person doesn't have a savings any longer. They have a debt. And as individual's debt climbs more and more, the value of the dollar becomes less and less.
There's a lot of forces at work making the dollar worth less and less. From our lack of savings and increase in personal debt to foreign countries paying off our debt via t-notes. And then of course countries we deal with artificially keeping their currency low.
You do realize that if China did push their currency up, our goods would go up in price too. That would make the dollar more valuable of course, but not short term. So Bush isn't pushing for it because his Wal-Mart voter base doesn't want to pay more for cheap imports.
So with all these forces at work lowering the value of the dollar, the theory is big spenders like China are going to eventually say "screw the dollar, lets sell them now while they're worth something" setting off a chain reaction of dollars. The dollar becomes very much so worthless at this point.
So then interest rates go up because no one can pay their debts. High interest rates are bad of course.
This is one situation but it's increasingly more likely as we continue down this path.
Re:American dollar still goes much futher (Score:3, Insightful)
Eventually someone at the bottom gets stuck with them. That person is you and I.
What you're saying is they're stuck with them. I disagree. They can find buyers (lets face it, it's a USA dollar. It will always be worth something) who will pay below market values for them. Others will do the same, creating a domino effect of devaluation of the dollar in circulation.
What goods are they buying? Do you know what China is doing with all the dollars they have? Stashing them away by buying USA t-bonds. They're not investing in American companies, they're funding the war on terror. Essentially paying us off to build factories and infrastructure on the cheap.
They're going to get sick of holding worthless dollars and start selling their goods to emerging countries that can give them something of value back.
Re:American dollar still goes much futher (Score:3, Insightful)
At the same time they are not investing in their own economy, so that if the US economy falters it will take China with it.
Re:Cars still have HUGE price disparity (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't eat service industry. (Score:3, Insightful)
Relying on a bunch of corporate headquarters isn't how you maintain a civilization. Sure, they'll be the last thing to go, but when they do, there won't be a damn thing left. We'll have lots of service industry left, but no real exportable-wealth creation.
Service industry can act almost like manufacturing, when it 'produces' and 'exports' intellectual property, but as much as US politicians have fastened onto the idea of the 'information economy,' it's not a panacea. I don't see the US exporting enough music, movies, and microcode to make up for the amount of Canadian pressboard furniture, Chinese electronics, and Saudi oil that we consume.
Right now, we make up for this by issuing debt: we import (and in many cases, irreversibly consume) things that have real, intrinsic value, in return for scraps of paper (or, more likely, ephemeral digits in an account somewhere) that are only worth something because they're backed up by the US economy. When people decide that the US economy ain't what it used to be, suddenly those scraps of paper aren't worth much, and not only can we not buy any more, but the people who we've bought stuff from already are going to come calling for whatever we have of value left.
I've been asking for years how exactly the current US path is sustainable, and I've never gotten anything particularly reassuring. The current crop of politicians and financiers is selling the entire country up the river for enough gains today to them to retire on. But at some point in the future, the rest of us are going to be stuck holding the bag.
Re:Benefits to a cheaper dollar (Score:3, Insightful)
What is it that we produce again, beyond credit products and consulting. I'm talking in the range of consumer or industrial products.
...But at the same time further weakens the American economy. We cannot, under the present economy, 'make' stuff as cheap as other countries (China, Slovenia, Turkey, etc.) can. Computers are 'cheap' in the US now because Chinese workers assemble the PCBs for literally dollars a day, where we can more adequately measure skilled labor costs in dollars per hour.
So by the time we retool our now closed factories to start making stuff again, and buying the raw materials to do so with a weaker currency, we're at a pretty huge economic disadvantage. And before the skilled laborers required to run machines for $3-$4/hour instead of the $15-$30/hour they presently see, the economy is going to have to get even worse. Otherwise, something has to give.
So long as it's better in any way to be in the US, they will continue to come. And frankly, we need them. It is true that the 'just-crossed-the-border' immigrant will work a lot harder and a lot dirtier for the money than the average American suburbanite will. And they have no recourse not to work because going on welfare is not an option. Right now, you can make more on welfare (if you have children) than at basically any entry-level or unskilled labor job.
I'm not suggesting that we should marginalize or enslave immigrants, or treat them as indentured servants, but it is their 'deregulated' nature that allows them to operate as they do, and fulfill a niche in the economy. In the And we as a society have come to rely on them to do so. Throughout the history of ALL 'successful' (US, British, Roman, Egyptian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, etc.) civilizations, those same successes have always relied on an economic substrate or underclass to support the inordinate affluence of the upper class. I'm not saying I'm against it. Just stating fact.
As we begin to regulate immigrants, we 'up' the street value for those that jump through the hoops to become legal.
So as the economy in the US weakens, we gradually start calling for the regulation and naturalization of hitherto 'illegal' immigrants. We do so in the name of preventing terrorism and not 'stealing jobs' from Americans. It has yet to get to the point where illegal immigrants compete with a significant number of Americans for jobs. However, as the economy weakens, eventually Americans will be competing with illegals for the same jobs. At that point, we've, as usual, already trained our replacements. At that point, the economy is basically fscked anyway.
As Americans, we carry so much debt that it won't take much for the economy to tumble, and fall hard.
It is my hope that some of those who made vast fortunes in the time after WWII, the Carnegies and Goulds of the modern era in the form of Gates and Frick have the hindsight and the progeny (genetic or otherwise) who can capitalize on this weakened economy, and put the US back on track.
Sadly, I think that we will continue to Visa ourselves to death on an individual level while the government throws away money on unwinnable wars and aimless other projects.
Now is a time for strong leadership, and cautious economic policy. But with no real industrial infrastructure remaining, I don't see any good coming from a weakening US economy.
Re:Article is useless without PRODUCTIVITY (Score:2, Insightful)
(LOL) Oh. Really.
The last time I brought a "USA" product thru Canadian Customs, they looked at the Seagate hard drive and said "Hmmm 'MADE IN CHINA' "
I had to cough up a lot of duty AND GST.
So much for this NAFTA bullshit.
HELLLOOOO! Haven't you heard? The USA does not MAKE anything anymore!
They just move stuff around and re-sell it.
How long you think this crappy biz model will last?
And Canada is not that much further behind.
I give us about seven years, maybe less...
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Article is useless without a graph! (Score:3, Insightful)
> Maybe I'm being more cynical, but I firmly believe that if the US government has to choose between letting the union splinter and dropping a nuke into New York, then pop goes the apple.
Of course, if that's what it takes to "keep the union together", then its already a failure by any reasonable measure. The way we dealt with secession in Canada was two-pronged
On the legal side:
On the political/social side:
- get the groups most pressuring for secession deeply involved in the political process, so they can't stand outside the door and throw rocks
- devolve more power to all the provinces
We're stronger because we were able to face the boogey-man of secession, and adapt (Canada is good at coming up with compromises) rather than try to use force. Its like a marriage - using force to keep someone with you who doesn't want to stay is a bad idea, whereas recognizing that they have the right to leave might just encourage them to stay, since its a show of fairness and equal treatment between partners.