Re: OT: Canada Posts Whopping 13.8 Billion Surplus

On Sep 29, 9:36 pm, PolishKnight <mar...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello Andre, Ben, er... Jill. :-) I feel like I really ought to stay
far far far away from this, but I can't resist. Andre has this huge
chip on his shoulder about Canada being so much better about the U.S.
(you know, that country people can find on a map. (Well, people who
aren't educated in leftist U.S. schools anyway. More on that later.)

On Sep 29, 9:52 am, Ben <ArGe...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 28, 11:18 pm, Andre Lieven <andrelie...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 28, 10:52 pm, Jill <aske...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[blah blah blah]
Unfortunately, the news about "the Canadian Way" with regards to
health care isn't anywhere near as good as the economic news.

Well, obviously I'm on your side in this one, Ben. Thank you for
making the points in favor of the US so much better than I ever did or
could.

Thanks for the support, and you're welcome, Jill.

Bleah! Could you two at least assure me there was no tongue in that
exchange?

I was wondering when you'd pop in--this is one of your favorite topics
as well. As far as tongue---a gentlemen never tells (ducking).


Aside from them being... wrong.

So statcan is wrong? Okay, if you insist. Of course, this means you
can't use it as a source, either.

Yeah, we trade a lot with you, so
do you with us. On a proportional measure, of course, less of US
imports are from Canada, than the other way around, 'cause theres
nine of you to one of us. But, you need our energy. Oil, gas, and
hydro. Waddya gonna sell us ? A TV ?

Er, how about cheap pharmaceuticals? :-)

That's the ugly side of communis, er, national health care that it's
proponents don't like to admit: They depend upon the AMERICAN health
care system for innovation after killing their own local industries!
When GW banned development of most FETAL stem cell lines, proponents
argued that without U.S.A research, nothing would happen. That
doesn't say too much for the scientists of Germany, France, and Canada
does it? (And with our dollar falling below the loonie and Euro
further, expect French scientists to start learning English if not
already and looking at Philadelphia real estate ads...)

In addition, the U.S. produces crappy Microsoft software. (Ok, much
of it is being written in Canada now.) Don't forget McD's, Starbucks,
etc. Granted, this is all chain store crap but it's chain store crap
the world wants to buy.

While Canada is a fantastic place for studios to film cheaply, these
are still U.S. firms doing the filming and selling blockbusters around
the world. Films are now commonly designed for dubbing for an
international audience because many films that are known to audiences
in the U.S. as total crap make a profit once they are distributed
internationally. Granted, Russians and Poles are at least smart
enough to bootleg them rather than pay for a ticket. :-)

Yes, Canada has oil, gas, and hyrdo but that's less of a testament to
Canada's superior government and more about their huge natural
resources.

Good catch--I'd neglected to bring that up.

Saudi Arabia makes more on such exports...

Check the automotive and argicultural markets sometime. You might
even want to look at tourism. We can't count trade in health care,
because Canadians cross the border to get it here.

Its so amusing to see USians who have no knowledge of Canada,

It's not only amusing for USians but also most of the world. You're
like the geeky country kid jealous of the big city neighbor that gets
all the attention.

pontificating about matters Canadian, trying to tell folks who LIVE
HERE, how little we know about LIVING HERE....

Nice straw Canadian, but I'm just telling you that Canada isn't
paradise on earth, and what success you do enjoy is *because* of your
proximity to the US. With regards to my knowledge of Canada, I've
told you in the past that my paternal great grandparents are from
Quebec, and I visit the St. Laurien area quite often. So no, Canada
is not the great unknown to me.

There's a dirty little secret about Canada that they don't have so
many of those non-white meenooritees up there. And they like to keep
it that way:

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/sep/22/illegal_immigrants_turning...

"According to the national nonprofit group that acts as an umbrella
organization for agencies that help refugee claimants, there are
"fraudulent advisers in the United States endangering asylum seekers"
by telling them there is a "special Canadian program" for Mexicans."

Gee, the lefties in Canada who says it's heaven on earth with
socialist benefits apparently found SOMEONE who listened! :-)

"As he recounted his story, Ortega repeatedly stressed his thanks to
social services for helping his family.

"Social services, they help us too much," he said. "I want to say
thanks and to Canadians 'thanks.'""

<Laughs> No wonder Parg slurper Bennie is in my Bozo Bin.

lol I'm in your kill file because you can't take it anywhere near
the level at which you think you're dishing it out. That, and the
fact that you're a pansy.

I don't have an absolute ideology (I can see where some government
solutions would work better than private, such as roads) and wouldn't
mind a national healthcare solution if it worked, especially in the
states.

But it's clear to nearly everyone that the U.S. government is so
dysfunctional when it comes to administration that it would muck up
the healthcare system even more than it is already.

Regarding health care, I don't believe there's any government that is
doing it all that well.


Look at their success record with Social Security, Medicaid, and
public education (see above).

Hell, our government is _SO_ messed up that they can't even manage the
roads (bridges collapsing all over the place while they line up "women
and minority" owned contractors rather than best practices) and the
airports. It's a genuine miserable experience to go to a U.S. airport
ESPECIALLY since they federalized the screeners.

Even the leftists here are terrified of what would happen to the
economy and healthcare if Hillary and her buddies got a hold of it.

Are you kidding? Lefties are just fighting over *which* socialist
wannabe they want to elect, not whether or not there should be one in
office.


Our healthcare woes are due to a variety of factors most of which are
CAUSED by government:

The AMA Union trying to constrict supplies of doctors with exorbitant
medical training burdens and anti-immigrant policies.

HMOs being tied to employers hence employees losing coverage if they
change jobs. (Does this happen with our home insurance?)

FDA also pricing small companies out of the market with massive
regulations.

It's amazing that with these huge problems that the U.S. still leads
in drug manufacturing. It must mean that the other systems are REALLY
messed up!

I really get much too emotional when someone rags on the US,
especially when the US does so much for other countries who show
little or no appreciation in return.

And Andre falls squarely into this camp, his insistence to the
opposite notwithstanding. There's a video production made in Great
Britain (presumably, one that Andre didn't fact-check when he was 12),
that demonstrates what the world would be like without the existence
of the US, and it painted a bleak picture. If I can find it, I'll
provide the link to you.

I loved the book "fatherland" that engaged in historical science
fiction. It started a huge trend. I'm going to disagree with the
above author.

I think the most significant impact would be WWI. Clearly, without
U.S. involvement there probably would have been an armistance on the
European mainland and the Prussian empire would have continued. This
probably would have been better for Poland since without Hitler, it
wouldn't have suffered the ravages of WWII and communism afterwards.

We can probably safely assume that Lenin would still be in Russia but
with a stable mainland Europe and strong prussian (Prussian?, Andre...
is that German/Austria?) empire, communism in the former, much smaller
USSR would have been contained and eliminated more quickly (possibly
by 1940's). No WWII, no Hiroshima. Also, no Israel and no anti-
western middle east. Germany would have replaced the United States as
the conservative force opposing the USSR in the cold war.

Without white guilt in the U.S. combined with feminism and marxism,
political correctness would have died on the vine. Women would have
the right to vote in most western countries, but that would probably
be it. No reverse discrimination or strong man hating sentiments.
Feminists who suggested in the 1950's "equality in the workplace"
would be laughed out of the room.

Conclusion: The U.S. did a good job of cleaning up the mess they made
in WWI. We've done a LOUSY job of cleaning up the mess we made with
the civil war.

That's quite a number of leaps there. Interesting, but speculative at
best.


Hey, I like the US, and USians, well enough: Hell, I *married one*.

"Golly, I like blacks! I even have one for a friend!"

Sprio Agnew referred to white liberals as "limosine liberals" since so
many of them actually didn't want to associate with blacks (or working
class whites) but liked to sneer at how they were superior for caring
about them through socialist programs paid for by other people's
money.

I just don't cotton much to the idea that The American way is the
One Way. Especially, well, when The Canadian Way does very well
for us...

Your "Canadian Way" is simple capitalism when it comes to trade. Your
health care system is dysfunctional to the point where your own
government has to strongarm its citizens to try and keep them away
from exercising freedom of choice, your citizens swarm the US for some
forms of health care, or they have to sue to get freedom of choice.
Why is it that Quebec keeps wanting to secede?

I'm not an expert on Canada (as Andre will tell you) but it's my
understanding that Quebec is not interested in secession but rather
the opposite:

They just stop clamoring overtly for it. :)

They want to keep the resource rich Canada available as
a taxation and economic asset rather than vice versa.

Quebec would whither and die on it's own.

Most likely, but they're a stubborn crew.


Oh, the Canadian Dollar closed the day at $1.00.52 US.

It says a lot that nobody paid much attention to the CD until it was
worth 1 USD...

Over the
year, the Canadian dollar has appreciated in value against the US $,
by 17%. The Euro has only gained 7% in that time, and the Pound
and Yen, only 3% each.

Yep, the US is having economic troubles right now. The apparent
difference between us is that we didn't gloat when the Canadian dollar
was worth half the US dollar.

Substitute "gloat" with care. Most Americans generally like Canada
and think of them as nice, friendly neighbors (although a bit strange)
but don't go crazy with envy.

Yep, true. I don't want to give the impression that I don't like
Canada, because I do. If I couldn't live here, I'd want to live there
(only, close enough to a US state to get decent health care lol).


Besides, if you knew anything about
economics, you'd know that you can't maintain growth forever.

On the larger scale, we have maintained growth forever with hiccups
along the way. This is true of humanity as well as the USA or Canada.

The USD is a mess due to one of my favorite topics: The US housing
bubble. Greenspan (the same genius that Bill Clinton ran water for)
lowered interest rates almost to the point of zero to counter the
dot.com recession (well underway while Clinton was in office) and
built a huge RE bubble that he only now realized after it's too
late.

I remember several family members wanting to take advantage of that,
and climb into bed with the ARM's and home equity loans at 110% of
home value. Those that listened to me send me extra cards at Xmas.


Granted, GW should have done something about it but he was too busy
trying to play nice with the leftists who view him as the source of
all evil in the universe.

The current fed is now terrified to raise interest rates hoping to
stop the US housing bubble collapse but it's too late. We now have
retired women holding up signs in front the pentagon in the hopes of
unloading their 2 bedroom ranch for $670K (any takers? :-) She seems
to think that her original purchase for 40K (or her husband's)
entitles her to get a family to go into debt for 50 years so she can
live like a princess.

Oops. We're supposed to be bashing Andres sacred Canadian cow.
Sorry... back to the subject at hand:

A few months back, a hospital administrator friend of mine mused that
maybe what the US should do is socialize basic health care, the type
that someone would visit a doctor's office for, and keep the higher-
end procedure privatized. One of the huge costs to his hospital was
people going to the emergency room for routine care because they
didn't have health insurance (which, to him, didn't signal a 'health
care crisis', because he noted that many of them had the means but
simply didn't want to purchase or contribute towards health care
insurance).


With high oil and gold prices, we're riding high.

For now, sure. And good for Canada, because my relatives living there
are benefiting from it as well. Times change, though.

Si... :-) Eso es? Where's that hole in the border wall senior? :-)

regards,
PolishKnight


.

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