43 Replies to “Short US, Go Long Canada”

  2. that japanese looking fellow in the graph photo looks like he’s having a bit of a “Tylenol Moment” (tm?)

  3. Lookin’ good, Canada. As for the US, I’m sure Barry will heal those numbers with his caring, sharing community approach.
    Re Japan, I had no idea they have such a massive debt-to-GDP ratio. Wow. They would really be hooped if the global downturn were to accelerate.

  4. Woo, Canada.
    How exactly did Australia manage that debt load? Is that what we could have had without Trudeau?

  6. How exactly did Australia manage that debt load? Is that what we could have had without Trudeau?
    Probably. But without Diefenbaker we probably would have had the Avro Arrow. Sigh.

  7. Sadly, bad things for the US spell bad things for Canada. We can trade elsewhere, but elsewhere is a long ways away and more complicated. A relatively easily crossed border and hungry consumers south of the 49th serve us well.
    My concern is that we can have a great fiscal picture, but we are so reliant on trade that slow implosion of the former hyperpower will hobble us.

  8. Yes, but don’t forget the unfunded Canada pension plan liability that totals somewhere near 2.5 Trillion…
    And a 1.5/couple birthrate, and “freeeeeeee” healthcare with our aging population that is going to be sucking all of the younger ones dry.
    Expect your taxes to more than double in the next decades.
    The asshats in government keep telling us not to worry… immigrants will solve the problem… except there so is no place to take 1st world immigrants from that are capable of earning $60,000/yr out of the gate, so we are gonna be taking in 3rd world immigrants that are only qualified to make $20,000/yr. That means to maintain things to a similar standard, one would suggest we actually need to bring in MORE immigrants from the 3rd world than the amount of skilled workers being lost in this demographic trap. That means MORE people sucking our socialized healthcare dry, MORE people sucking our education system dry. Not too mention the effects on our culture. (Oh wait! Our culture is FREEEEEEEEEE Healthcare!)
    I am going long on Gold and long on an Independent Western Canada, and if Western Canada fails to materialize independently, I will be going long on passports.
    http://www.goingghost.com/blog/
    There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!
    Some people might suspect that this was all a Marxist plot!
    Nah!

  9. Unfortunately, after the coming-soon-to-a-polling-booth-near-you federal election, Canada will be in a mad rush to catch up to the rest of the “free lunch” theorists.

  10. canada has been bragging how they have reduced their national debt/gdp ratio to 33 percent..
    why does the chart have them at 62 percent??

  12. How are these charts arrived at? I have read in several places that the UK has on average 60% of all economic activity driven by government and they are printing additional money at 65% of the Labour budget. If this is correct this chart means the 40% of private wealth creating activity remaining is allowing the Labour government to show their debt at only 45% of GDP.
    Could one of SDA’s financial wizards tell me what the real figures are or are the Captain’s correct?

  13. Don’t forget, much of GDP is “false” GDP.
    For example, if you are a farmer, you are producing something “real.” Farmers understand capitalism… Got two cows? Sell one and buy a bull… next year… you got two cows and a bull… and the year after. Well, you get the idea – you are producing/creating something tangible.
    But, when the good gov’t comes in with all kinds of red tape crap, you find yourself hiring an accountant, who takes profits from capitalist cow producing venture – this essentially becomes an “extra tax” on the farmer to keep the gov’t happy. If you stop making the gov’t happy? Well, now your cow producing venture is going to have to hire a “Tax lawyer” to deal with the asshats at the Canada Tax & Revenue Agency… translating into more tax on the real producers.
    The scam comes in that when measuring GDP, we are not just measuring “new cows,” like we should be.
    What we do is say that the farmer made “A x new cows”, and the account produced “B x services,” and the tax lawyer also produced “C x services.”
    Then they add up “A + B + C = GDP”
    Uh huh… and how many cows are there? And where did “B & C” come from?
    It’s a scam.

  14. The Japanese are just socialists with good credit. We complain about GM and Chrysler but Japanese taxpayers have had to subsidize their manufacturing companies and unions for 70 years or more while fiscally stimulating themselves using Keynesian economic theories for decades. Japan just has a different system of unionization than we do in North America, whereby Toyota and Honda’s unionized workers back home, where many of their parts are still fabricated, get higher pay than unionized North American workers ever have as well as job security for life, in return for allowing their respective companies to hire non-unionized temp workers to work along side them in Japan as well as to assemble their final product in Canada. Japanese taxpayers also subsidize the purchase of any local built car in Japan, take on most of their retired union workers legacy costs, and pay for most of the R&D that gives their companies a technological edge. In short, the Japanese have never had any regard whatsoever for free market ideals and it is beginning to show on their balance sheets.

  17. “How exactly did Australia manage that debt load? Is that what we could have had without Trudeau?”
    No, that’s what we could have had without Harper’s fiscal incompetence.
    WTF?

  18. Marc,
    Lol, yup, I read that Capitalism is: “You have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull.:
    http://www.thecapitol.net/Recommended/twocows.htm
    The one I read was the “The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to Government” or something like that. It was quite a while ago.
    They are pretty good – and it does work well as an example.
    Whether there is an accountant to figure out the tax, or a tax lawyer to help you defend against the tax agency, in no way increases the amount of cows – in fact they are a direct drain on the farmer, and the amount of cows he can produce… so, in no way should the “output” of the accountant or the lawyer be regarded as “GDP.” They really only qualify as “tax.” Sooo… why are they added to the GDP? They don’t increase the amount of cows. (Although, the proper use of an accountant could show how to more efficiently use your money, and thus increase cow production. But that is hardly the case when an accountant is forced to deal with tax).
    If the government passes 10,000 new laws a year, and thus creates a boon for the legal industry and lawyers… is that “increased production?”
    Many of our “services” are in regard to this, and lol, many of our “services” are no longer optional.
    I think this is how poorer countries, with far less regulation than us, and far less “GDP” than us, still manage to fill their bellies each day. (Think South America – it’s not like they are living in grass huts).
    If you’ve got a few hundred thousand Canadian, you can move to some parts of the world and live like a King for the rest of your life.

  19. Matt Australia was in deep trouble. What they did is sell assets like the Bank of Australia, Quantas and the airports. Think it was in the mid 80’s when they started to expect people to pay for some of the costs incurred by the gov’t for the people. Seems anti-socialism works fairly well for independent minded people. They also won’t let you into Oz unless you have a ticket out of Oz and they enforce it.

  21. philboyd @5:26 and
    philboyd @5:30
    He’s started providing indignant comebacks to his own statements! Awesome.
    WTF indeed.
    C’mon Phil, Harper’s not as fiscally conservative as most of us would wish, but you think he’s in competition with PET for screwing up the country?

  22. Speedy @6:00 – Nitpicking but… they let me into Oz wihout a ticket out – and I was on a temporary tourist Visa, the kind you get online in ten minutes (got a student one later). Just over two years ago.
    God I miss Oz.

  23. Oh! Oh! Matt’s comment “Is that what we could have had without Trudeau” seems to have woke up a Marxist Trudeauite.

  25. but you think he’s in competition with PET for screwing up the country?
    From healthy surpluses to massive deficits in the blink of an eye, yeah,
    he’s doing a hell of a job.

  26. “aging population that is going to be sucking all of the younger ones dry.”
    I love it when the older generation bitches about paying school tax on their property tax bill. I say fine, let’s make a trade. I’ll pay for my own education, you pay for your health care. I wonder which one costs more?

  27. philboyd:
    You mean the “massive” deficits that Harper was required by the Liberals to take on, else they wouldn’t support his budget and would take the first opportunity to take his government down?
    Those deficits?
    Yeah, you’re right.  Ignatieff really is fiscally incompetent.

  28. Right Garth, it’s always someone else’s fault.
    I just love how right wingnuts constantly lecture about
    responsibility, but are never willing to step up and take any.

  29. Get with the program, philboyd.
    Flaherty, in Italy today, is devising an exit strategy from deficit spending.
    Since you seem to be against deficit spending, I’m sure that news will make you happy.
    You are against deficit spending, aren’t you? You know, spending your way into prosperity is a bad idea. Right?

  30. Responsibility. That’s a great point, Phil. I’d like to see what Ignatieff is willing to do differently than Harper. I haven’t heard him say what that might be yet. Have you?

  31. And Phil:
    Canada spend exactly what it committed to spend on stimulus at the last G-20 meeting … that is, 3% of GDP.
    I would say it’s responsible to live up to your word. Don’t you agree?

  32. Black Mambe thanks for the correction. Years ago they demanded a return ticket or you never got off the plane.

  33. Phil is one of those that hang out on the CBC. A poster linked some photos of what was happening in Iran and a whole lot of people gave it thumbs down. He was confused as to what they were opposed to.. it was pictures. I don’t like reality would be the answer. That or they enjoy just being a Pain In The A. Makes them feel smart I’m thinkin’.

  34. You are against deficit spending, aren’t you? You know, spending your way into prosperity is a bad idea. Right?
    Yup.
    I would say it’s responsible to live up to your word. Don’t you agree?
    It is, but in Harper and Flim Flam Flaherty’s case, which word are you talking about?
    The one about fixed election dates?
    Or eliminating the GST on gas?
    Or promising not to run a deficit in the last, politically opportunistic, $300 million down the shithole, election??
    Or the abandonment of every principle he’s ever professed to believe in??
    Talk is cheap.

  37. ouch.
    what happened to Japan?
    30 years ago it was the great economic model. everyone *wanted* to believe they had refined it best in all developed world with their automation, mass production and exceptional quality control.
    then we found out how the jap banking system, industry and gov’t were co-conspirators in a ponzi scheme financial model.

  38. God I miss Oz.
    ~Black Mamba at June 13, 2009 6:38 PM
    Here I am!
    (Think South America – it’s not like they are living in grass huts).
    ~sam steele at June 13, 2009 5:53 PM
    No, not grass huts, it’s like a lot of them are living in cardboard boxes.
    I’ll pay for my own education, you pay for your health care. I wonder which one costs more?
    ~allan at June 13, 2009 7:05 PM
    I and my wife have paid health care fees and taxes for decades, my wife has never used any health care dollars except for checkups, myself I’ve used them for checkups and one knee surgery.
    We deserve it so shut your piehole.
    We’d pay for our own health care, but the universal health care system that the so-called “Greatest Generation”* put in place won’t allow it.
    From healthy surpluses to massive deficits in the blink of an eye, yeah,
    he’s doing a hell of a job.
    ~philboyd at June 13, 2009 6:51 PM
    The CPC cut the GST by 2%. The G8 is meeting to deal with this economic crisis.
    What is on the agenda to stimulate activity?
    Tax cuts.
    *Socialist Policies enacted by the Greatest Generation Under Lester Bowles Pearson:
    -Canada Pension Plan
    -Universal Health Care System
    -Canadian Armed Forces Used for Peace Keeping
    -New Flag
    -Student Loans( which are rarely paid back)
    -Bilingualism
    -Auto Pact
    -Status of Women(Royal Commission)
    Pearson’s favourite acolytes were:
    Pierre Trudeau
    Jean Chretien
    Paul Martin Sr.
    All of whom were cabinet Ministers in Pearson’s governments.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Bowles_Pearson
    Those of you who slag baby boomers are wrong about who made Canada a Socialist nation.
    It was the “Greatest Generation” who made Pearson Prime Minister, us “Boomers” were to young to be voting in any significant numbers.
    Not that I’m defending Trudeau, who was first voted in by the “Greatest generation” too, Trudeau being a member of the “Greatest Generation” himself, but his only real faults were that he repatriated the Constitution and made the Charter of Rights, plus the NEP for which I will always despise him.

  39. Could I offer up a twist on the buy a bull scenario…
    Keep both cows. Buy some bull semen from your capitalist neighbor farmer.
    Next year, four cows… Everybody wins.
    As they say on the shampoo bottles “rinse and repeat”.
    Odds are you’ll have your own bull sometime in the future

  40. On thing I forgot to add to PM Pearson’s socialist accomplishments was that he created the current immigration system….no doubt so the new immigrants could run the new universal Health Care system and the CPP into the ground.
    Pearson had a minority government which ran it’s full term of five years with the help of the NDP under Tommy Douglas, it’s first leader.
    That is how the Pearson Liberals were able to implement such radical change in Canadian society.
    Of course, none of it would have been possible without the votes of Canada’s “Greatest Generation” who failed to fight for freedom and democracy in WWII, instead ending the war early without fighting the Communists over whom the “Greatest Generation” had a tremendous military advantage.
    Practically every trouble we face today, from terrorism to continued radical social engineering to the problems in Iran and North Korea, stem from the failure of the “Greatest Generation” to deal with the Communist threat when they had such a huge war machine, land, air, and naval superiority, as well as a monopoly on the atom bomb, at their disposal.
    Instead, they gave the Communists half of Europe, they went home, demobilized, and kicked the can down the road, allowing the Communists to further infiltrate western society, catch up in armaments, and leave a massive growing problem for future generations to face.

  41. Oz,
    The “greatest generation” (of which Trudeau was a mere draft dodger), has NO right to speak jack shit.
    They made themselves wealthy by mortgaging their children’s futures… and now that they have spent all their socialism to make them the wealthiest generation to have EVER existed, they are looking at their children and going “tough”, we PAAAAAAAAIIIIIID into CPP (and spent it all to make us rich), but LESS of our children should support us.
    Get bent.
    Trudeau the Treacherous Traitor increased our debt by over 1200% to fund his “compassionate society.”
    It SICKENS me, to hear even my own MILLIONAIRE parents, screech that “THEY PAID” into CPP, and so they deserve it… uh huh, and what chance do I have of EVER collecting it myself… and what chance do I have of ever achieving the kind of wealth you guys did, you know, before you had to pay capital gains taxes, and dividend taxes, and back when our tax rates were less than in the states.
    Nope, the Baby Boomers will bankrupt their children alright… because they PAAAAAAAAIIIIIID! (And then spent their savings – and now expect their children should pay for a rainy day for them – while they are THE richest ever to exist!).
    Uh huh.
    And many countries that have embraced socialism as heavily as ours also promote euthenasia… what do ya think?
    Btw, we would have never been in this demographic mess if Baby Boomers would have spoken up against abortion.

  42. I have read a few studies that show this will be the FIRST generations in Western Civilizations history, aside from the great depression, that have virtually ZERO chance of becoming better off than their parent’s generation.
    And all we hear is excuses and we PAAAAAIIIIID!
    It is SICK!
    100 years ago, parents and grandparents would have been ASHAMED to have screwed their progeny this way, and yet, not a one of them will give up their CPP or their FREEEEEEEE Healthcare to help out their children, nor the country in which their future generations will live in.
    What a difference from the founding father’s eh?
    Long on passports!

  43. That was totally incoherent sam steele.
    So, to be clear, you recognize that the “Greatest Generation”, who were the parents of the Baby Boomers, are the ones who created this Ponzi scheme currently known as Canada, yes?
    The Baby Boomers merely inherited the socialism that their parents created, just as following generations are going to inherit a busted national treasury.
    I, myself am a Baby Boomer.
    I turn 50 in August. I’m never going to see a dime of CPP and my own retirement portfolio has been decimated.
    The time left in my life to make it up just isn’t there.
    It’s a good thing I’m in excellent shape because I’ll never get to retire now.
    I’m glad your folks are millionaires.
    I hope they know what an ignorant bigot you are, how much you hate them, and I hope you don’t inherit a nickel.
    My own parents, born in 1922, didn’t give me a penny.
    Everything I have I earned.

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