The cheery economic news just keeps on coming. Now there’s a report that for the first time in recent history, Canadians are richer than Americans — to the tune of $40,000 per household. Furthermore, the Canadian unemployment rate is lower than ours, 7.2 percent vs. our 8.2 percent. Their currency is virtually equivalent to ours now, and their labor market is better; so is their real estate market. According to the US News 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.”
The one bright spot, notes the author, is that the average American has more liquid assets, ie, cash, than the average Canadian. Heh, really? Where? Who?
Perhaps there is solace in knowing the numbers came originally from a Canadian source. Well, that explains it. Biased, obviously. And not averse to a bit of gloating:
For the moment, it seems that the risk-averse Canadian tortoise has the lead in the race against the risk-taking American hare, who has singed his feet on his rocket pack. How Canadians will respond to this at the household level remains to be seen. Are we naively careering toward American-style (pre-crash) financial behaviour with loaded credit cards, second and third mortgages, and a lax approach to savings in a headlong pursuit of materialism, hedonistic pleasures, and instant gratification? Or does it say something about our abiding national character that we have so many sober souls in positions of power who will mete out regular scoldings like the clergy in pulpits of old and do things like change our mortgage rules to protect us from ourselves?
Ouch.
Will people be seeking refuge there once again?
I’ve considered it for the last few years, or at least dreamed about it.
I’m moving to Canada.
I dunno, that reporter sounded pretty snarky. Not sure I like that attitude …
Actually, considering how our economy and jobs have been crashing for the past decade, I would not be one least bit surprised if Canada was better overall.
I wouldn’t be surprised either. They’ve always looked like they have their act together. I fear we may have seen our best years some time ago.
I think we have. Too much animosity between the parties, and hatred, greed and corruption among the politicians.
It’s still too cold up there. Give global warming a few more years though.
A couple of more years like this one and I’ll be too old and desiccated to move.
Housing is identified as the major factor in this, but I would suggest that there is an even more-important underlying factor in why this has happened. Healthcare. QED.
I too thought that was an odd omission.
Or maybe our media have hyped it into a much bigger item than it actually is in the overall scheme of things … ?
Nope. It’s a matter of record; our healthcare costs about 2.5 times what theirs does.
I don’t doubt that. I just wonder if the study decided health care wasn’t a big enough item in the average household’s budget to be included.
That’s probably true, PT, but only because, from what I read, so many people put off healthcare problems until they become emergencies, at which point they throw themselves on the mercy of the system (EMTALA). That keeps it off the household budgets but it looms huge in government deficits. What is the result of that? I’m thinking one of them is the steady rise of sales taxes, probably the most regressive of all systems. It steadily erodes the net worth of the middle class while being negligible for the wealthy. Here in Joplin the total sales tax is about 8% and in several neighboring communities is approaching 10%. That’s huge, but it’s like boiling a live frog – you just keep raising the temperature gradually, the frog takes it, and the median net worth decreases.
You should read this, it’s a piece written by a self-described “die hard conservative Republican” about living in Canada, and living with Universal Health Care for the first time… it’ll answer some of the health care questions:
http://ayoungmomsmusings.blogspot.ca/2012/07/how-i-lost-my-fear-of-universal-health.html
Interesting article! With health care, as with so many things, it’s hard to appreciate what you’re missing if you’ve never experienced it. (I’m as guilty of that as anyone) But radically changing the American system to something more like the Canadian system seems about as likely as our changing our guns laws or broken political system. I was thinking last night about why the U.S. seems so far behind other modern nations when it comes to the many forms of civility; all I could conclude is that relatively speaking, we’re a very young nation. Perhaps in another couple of centuries, we’ll get our act together.
Your link to “A Young Mom’s Musings”, Gabe, confirms what I’ve heard from other knowledgable sources about universal healthcare, i.e., that it’s not the bugaboo commonly perceived here in the States. The U.S.A has a kind of paranoia about government, an inherent distrust of it. Maybe PT is right in her comment (below this one), that we are still too young a country, but somehow I think there’s more to it. After all, Canada was a frontier with about the same timeline as us. No, I think our political system is too contentious and that it got that way from Gerrymandering, something that promotes the election of extremists. It’s pandemic this year.
The similarities between the two countries obscure the differences… the USA was created as a religious colony. People desperately seeking a place to practise their religion without persecution. Canada, on the other hand, was created as a business. Our ‘pilgrims’ were a corporation, the Hudson’s Bay Co., who were searching for fur — started in 1670, HBC is the oldest corporation in North America, and one of the oldest in the world.
Your pilgrims decided they needed more land, and started a war with the original North Americans. The HBC needed more profit, so they traded and negotiated with the Natives.
When Canada was created, in 1867, French, English and Natives had been living together, peacefully, for nearly 200 years. By the time the USA was created, your country had been at war with the Natives for nearly two hundred years.
People forget this. But this is where our paths, as British colonies, divides. Canada had three (or more) founding nations. We’re not “just” French and English, we’re French and English and the many nations that were here before. That matters.
In a lot of ways we’re more Aboriginal than European. Canada’s earliest motto on every piece of governing documentation, for example, was “peace, welfare and good government” — the American motto being “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
There’s a book I strongly recommend you find, it’s called ‘A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada‘, by John Ralston Saul, a Canadian philosopher (yes, we have some). He describes, in the book, how Canada was created through negotiation, slow change and egalitarianism.
Personally, I think it’s a brilliant book.
http://www.amazon.ca/Fair-Country-John-Ralston-Saul/dp/0670068047