Blame Canada!

[Barney Gumble]

While you folks have been struggling with massive job losses, Canada’s economy has added 300,000 jobs in the last year alone (on a population basis, that means while you have dropped a percentage point, we’ve gained a percentage point).

And yes, it’s because we’re taking your jobs. As many technical centers in the US close up shop, we get the work. We do quality work for less, much as India does quality work for less, or China does quality work for less.

However, there is far more to it than simple wages for the companies involved.

Consider this: In Canada, companies don’t have to worry about providing health care coverage, a massive cost for most companies in the States. The Canadian government provides that. Prescription drug plans? Cheaper by at least 70%, because our prescription drugs cost 50-80% less than in the US. Taxes? As of next year, Canada’s corporate taxes will be lower than the United States. Why? We run surplus budgets and have had our personal income taxes cut over the past half-decade.

In short, there are a host of reasons companies are moving the work out of the US and into other countries, and it isn’t all wages. You have a government that is driving itself into a massive debt. While your president boasts of cutting taxes, state economies face bankruptcy.

And if you think job loss is bad, what is the US going to do when its biggest creditors (Germany, China and Japan) decide that the US just isn’t the investment it used to be? Remember, to fund all of its activities (the activities that the US government says it doesn’t need the permission of the world community to undertake), the US requires $1 billion of foreign investment every three days.

I’ll close by saying this. When an individual maxes out his credit cards and takes out loans to fund spending that is four times what they earn in a year, we call them financially irresponsible and probably a lot worse.

Yet when the Bush Administration does it, they call it saving the economy.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/750150.asp?cp1=1

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Way cool.

I'm on my way up.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

2. Tape a few episodes of Carnivale first.

We don't get HBO.

[Comadreja]

3. Rubbing it in?

US companies simply stop offering health care when it gets too expensive. Don't be so smug. Canada has to be part of the opposition to curb the US, or climate change will overtake everyone. B.C. is already going up in flames and Europe is roasting. This isn't just our problem, because the main culprits are multinationals.

[markus]

4. A piece a few months back on NPR's business show

outlined how U.S. automakers won't even consider locating a plant in the states without at least $150 millinon or so is outright cash grants, but will cheerfully relocate production to Canada. The reason? Health care costs.

I have packing and moving house. Can you just please annex North Dakota? If you just merge us into an existing provice, we won't be able to elect any more right-wing yahoos of the sort we have in Bismark (our capitol). We can just blend in with the rest of the rocky mountain provice yahoos.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

5. Sorry, but...

the yahoos in that part of Canada are right-wingers, too.