More bad news....

M

Mrs.Lucysnow

Valued Senior Member
If you're thinking the Canadian advantage must be due to exchange rates, think again. The Canadian dollar has actually caught up to the U.S. dollar in recent years.
"These are not 60-cent dollars, but Canadian dollars more or less at par with the U.S. greenback," Globe and Mail's Michael Adams writes.To add insult to injury, not only are Canadians comparatively better-off than Americans, they're also more likely to be employed. The unemployment rate is 7.2 percent—and dropping—in Canada, while the U.S. is stuck with a stubbornly high rate of 8.2 percent. Besides a strengthening currency and a better labor market, experts credit the particularly savage fallout from the financial crisis on the U.S. economy and housing market, which torpedoed home values and gutted household wealth. According to the report, real estate held by Canadians is worth more than $140,000 more on average and they have almost four times as much equity in their real estate investments.

In a column for Bloomberg View, Stephen Marche traces the increasing wealth spread between the two countries to America's "struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair."

"The Canadian System is working," Marche writes, crediting Canada's cautious, fiscally conservative society. "[T]he American system is not." http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...irst-time-canadians-now-richer-than-americans
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“On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news,” writes Canadian author Stephen Marche. “For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American.” His source is a recent study by Environics Analytics WealthScapes, which concluded that the average Canadian has a net worth of $363,202 to $319,970 for the average American. I figured I’d check that figure against other estimates. It turns out, if anything, it lowballs Canadians’ wealth advantage.
First, the Environics data measures only mean household wealth. Median wealth is probably a better metric for how the typical household is doing. And there, Canada is beating the United States by even more. Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report (pdf) found that in 2011, Canada had a median household wealth of $89,014 to $52,752 for the United States.

So not only does Canada beat the United States on median net worth. Just about every developed country save Sweden and Denmark does. The UK, Japan, Italy (!) and Australia more than double the U.S. median.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/18/are-canadians-richer-than-americans/


Read full article to see charts which show that actually Canadians have been wealthier than Americans all along. How does this stack up with those who claim that mixed economies with an evil socialist agenda's are making nations poorer when the US is dragging its ass behind? And if that weren't bad enough even Japan and Italy beat the US in median wealth. I don't get it, they can't produce a decent potato chip but they're wealthier. :shrug:
 
Hello Mrs.Lucysnow,

You don't grace the forum with your presence too often of late, but you always post items of interest. I am a Canadian and I have always been able to find gainful employment even though I have no formal education beyond high school and a wide range of experience but no 'career'. The politics and economics of our two nations is indeed quite different and individually and as a nation we are more conservative financially but more liberal in our social policies, in my observation.

Thank you for the links.

As for potato chips, we carry an immense variety at the store and I prefer just plain, ripple cut No Name potato chips about twice a year when I crave a major salt fix. They are made by Old Dutch and retail for about half the price of the brand name. Some of those 'flavored' types have a list of unpronounceable ingredients as long as my arm. No thanks, lol... :)
 
don't forget people that everything in Canada costs 2.5 times what it costs in USA and all the taxes and the processing fees and etc... and the so called "net worth" becomes not much of a deal, when your money is not worth as much.
 
youreyes said:
don't forget people that everything in Canada costs 2.5 times what it costs in USA and all the taxes and the processing fees and etc... and the so called "net worth" becomes not much of a deal, when your money is not worth as much.
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Have you got a link or two to verify your 2.5 times estimate? 2 and 1/2 links would suffice. :D

(It only costs that much if you order it from the USA. The cost of Fedex and the 'free trade' taxes add considerably to what may look like a cheaper price to start. I've only been to Alaska and Minnesota but aside from gas, most things weren't much different at that time and your 128 oz gallon was the kicker. When cost was compared per ounce, the difference was marginal.)
 
youreyes said:
don't forget people that everything in Canada costs 2.5 times what it costs in USA and all the taxes and the processing fees and etc... and the so called "net worth" becomes not much of a deal, when your money is not worth as much.
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This was my first thought as well. I live in one of the towns that pepper the highway about 30 mins off the border, and often hear from canadians passing through how excited they are at the prices here for common things like fast food, starbucks etc. As a teen, shopping trips to canada were always fun because everything was "on sale". You look at the tag and deduct 40% based on the exchange. I suppose now its their turn to come spend money here... and that's fine with me.
 
NightFall said:
This was my first thought as well. I live in one of the towns that pepper the highway about 30 mins off the border, and often hear from canadians passing through how excited they are at the prices here for common things like fast food, starbucks etc. As a teen, shopping trips to canada were always fun because everything was "on sale". You look at the tag and deduct 40% based on the exchange. I suppose now its their turn to come spend money here... and that's fine with me.
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yeah Canadians in Bellingham, where I stayed many times, are def. up for the shopping...which is why in my guess the town has flourished so much.
 
I believe it was 1977 when the Cannuck buck was worth $1.10. My in-laws are snowbirds and when the Canadian dollar was low, they yelped like crazy about U.S. prices so the difference cannot be as dramatic as some allow. I have an uncle who cross-border shops but he is a shop-a-holic who can't resist a sale either side of the border.

When Walmart came to Whitehorse, I didn't even go to check it out for over a month because one couldn't find a parking place for all of the Alaskans who had come over for the event and the supply trucks couldn't keep the shelves stocked.

Never have shopped much there except to study prices and products and now I don't shop there on principle. The beggars jacked their prices on milk to $10.00/4L when we had a highway closure for 5 days in June. Loblaws booked a Hercules to resupply their stores and did not pass the cost on to their customers at the local level.

Interestingly, Walmart very often is not even competitive on price but people are brain-washed by those 'roll back the prices' ads. I have worked in retail for years and I am the price checker and label analyst at our store. Conversations of this nature are interesting but it really depends what regions and aspects one wishes to compare.
 
Different areas will have different markets and varying price of items at a grocery store, fast food etc, based on region. So depending on which two cities we are comparing, there is probably a fair amount of flexibility there (my experiences are related to Detroit/Port Huron vs Windsor/Toronto/Sarnia.. I spent some time in MTL, but i was on a students budget and my expenses were limited to ramen noodles and beer). Spending habits will also make a difference. Aside from the trip to mcdonalds.. which from what I was able to google up (and it was pretty rough results) mcd canada is usually about 150% us price... the difference in what you save from country to country will have a lot to do with what specifically you plan to purchase. I can say for certain though, if you're a beer a drinker, its well worth a star spangled road trip.
 
If Canadian prices are higher, that makes their greater accumulation of wealth even more striking.

The major factor appears to be the greater debt load of Americans - medical bills, college, and vehicles, all run up debts for Americans that most others have avoided. The other important factor, inequality in income distribution, is another of those aspects of US arrangements that Americans seem oblivious to.

Y'know what would be really depressing? A stat that divided the number of hours Americans have worked into their accumulated wealth. As far as I can tell, all those people with more wealth worked fewer hours for it.
 
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