OT of an OT: Ethanol

Hunpecked · #16 March 28th, 2006, 10:11 PM

Renegade 13: "True, but the state of an economy can not be measured by unemployment alone."

Um, yes, that's why I included GDP per capita and economic growth rate, which Renegade conveniently forgets to mention. BTW, it turns out the US unemployment rate has been consistently below Canada's since the 1980s. If the US economy is "in the crapper" then Canada's is...

"...the United States has relatively higher rates [of poverty]."

I believe that. Fortunately in both the US and Canada only a fraction of the poor stay poor for six years or more, i.e. both economies create jobs for the poor, many of whom are immigrants. An economy "in the crapper" wouldn't do that, would it? BTW, as a thought experiment, it would be interesting to move Mexico adjacent to Canada instead of the US.

"Canada has a trade deficit to Asia and Europe as well, but a huge surplus to the US ($100 Billion per year)"

Ah yes, the trade deficit boogeyman. Canada delivers goods, commodities, and services, and gets little green pieces of paper in return. Sounds like the US gets the better part of the deal here. BTW, if the US economy is "in the crapper," it seems strange that Canadians would accept these IOUs instead of insisting on tangible goods. Also BTW, if the Canadian economy is so dependent on exports to America, it seems that Canada, not the US, would suffer more from a trade war, contrary to Renegade's earlier assertion.

"Also if you take a look at the governmental deficits..."

While I have my own reservations about US government priorities, note that only a strong economy can support such levels of politically-motivated spending, i.e. the people who finance the debt obviously have confidence in the economic future of the US. Now if Renegade is of the view that American government is "in the crapper," he's welcome to his opinion. Confidence in the US economy, however, isn't a matter of opinion, it's a demonstrated fact.

My intention in replying to Renegade's post was not to demonstrate any superiority of the American economy or the wisdom of American policy. I wanted merely to point out that the Canadian and American economies are quite comparable by size-independent measures, both strong, and neither can be characterized as "in the crapper" by any stretch of the imagination.