It’s nice of you to let me know that, but the primary subject of the thread concerns another country. When you state “The two sides of the ideological divide on economics are “tax and spend” vs “borrow and spend”” you are wrong. There are other economic options being explored in places other than the United States. That is, in fact, the entire point of the OP. There are political ideas and actions going on outside the USA that don’t mirror American politics, amazingly enough.
Well if this thread is all about Canada then what did you and the OP bring up the US for?
This thread is a comparison of US vs Canada. Wouldn’t it make sense then to include both countries definition of “conservative”? In the US conservative means barrow and spend.
As for taxes, my wife and I paid combined federal and provincial taxes of about $31,000 last year and would have paid (save for foreign tax credits) about $25,000 in US federal taxes. Living in a high tax state like NY this would probably mean around the same taxes (but Quebec is one of the most highly taxed provinces, so the comparison is fair). But, and it is a huge but, we get medicare for our taxes. Go to our family doctor (or any other if he is unavailable) and we pay nothing. End up in a hospital for anything, all they want is your medicare card. What we would be doing living in the US would be paying for a horribly bloated military and an insanely bloated prison system. I know there are idiocies here too, but nothing like those. To be fair, we pay about 13% sales tax, which is higher than any US state, I believe.
And it shows. The banks are solvent (little or no deregulation here) and the economic crisis seems to be rather more like a routine recession and may even be over. I saw three “Nous embauchons”–we’re hiring–signs on one bus trip last night. True they were in retail sales, but there must be some retails sales going on.
I already admitted my mistake. Would it make you feel better if I do it a second time?
And if this thread is just about Canadian politics, why were there twenty-nine seperate references to American politics in the OP?
I suspect Canada will do fine, and our current woes may actually benefit Canada. If there are fewer jobs here, that could be the answer for Canada’s “Brain drain”. People may decide to simply go where the work is. If companies are doing poorly under our regulatory hodge podge, they may start considering Canada as their base of operations. I don’t think Canada will be taking over as “policeman of the world” - I don’t get the feeling that they want to?
Oh hell. Just look and see what the loonies to the south are doing, and do something else 
Could you elaborate on this? What are the major differences?
The big difference is that our major banks are all solvent and still turning a profit. 
Seriously, the headline just a day or so ago breathlessly announced that BMO’s quarterly profit was down 44% to $358 million. Oh noes!
The federal government has pretty much dislocated its shoulder patting itself on the back taking credit by pointing at stricter capitalization and leverage regulations. No doubt that’s at least a part of it. Mortgages are regulated somewhat differently as well, which is likely a larger part. Most mortgages are held by the banks that grant them rather than being turned into securities, so the lender has every incentive to avoid bad loans.
There is also much talk about a more conservative banking culture. I’m not sure how much I buy that. The banks have forever been whining about not being allowed to flourish and grow like the banks in other countries. Still, Canadian banks simply don’t fail, ever (well, okay, 2 since 1923, but note that includes the 30’s), and there’s got to be some explanation.
As usual, Sam, your carefully crafted list turns out to be rather cherry-picked, buffed and tweaked to make your claims look more convincing. A few caveats:
Maybe. The Canadian curve in the chart you cited looks like it’s turning upward too at the end; it’s not at all clear whether or when the percentages for the two countries will become significantly different again.
What specific Canadian “pension plans” are you talking about? AFAICT, your Old Age Security pension is financed from your federal general tax revenues, while your Canada Pension Plan, according to this description, is “a hybrid between a fully funded one and a pay-as-you-go plan”: in other words, basically Social Security with a lockbox. And no, it’s not accurate to say that the US Social Security sytem “will go broke in a couple of decades”. It’s predicted to pay full benefits, even with no funding adjustments, until 2037, and will most likely have its funding adjusted then to continue to allow it to pay full benefits. In any case, even with no changes it will pay some benefits for the foreseeable future, rather than just going “broke”.
This is meaningless unless we know what the effective corporate tax rate is in both countries: since the US corporate tax code is notoriously loophole-ridden, the nominal 35% rate in the tax code is a very poor indicator of the taxes most corporations actually pay.
You don’t specify what you mean by “personal rate”. Canada’s top marginal income tax rate is lower than the US’s, but Canada’s bottom marginal rate is higher than the US’s.
And, as others have pointed out, a big contributing factor in Canada’s relative economic stability at present is precisely the fact that its financial system is more tightly regulated than ours, which I doubt is something that your pals at Cato would celebrate as an indicator of economic “freedom”.
I’ve suspected this for some time Der Trihs but now I know that I’m right.
You’re nothing more then a completely heartless bastard.
Whenever I’ve worked for non governmental enterprises the main thing in my mind has been imagining the looks on the little faces of the shareholders at dividend time.
Can you imagine how HURT they must feel when theres just not enough dosh to buy another RollsRoyce?
Well sorry matey but there are some of us who actually care.
People like you make me physically SICK.
No doubt you shoot foxes as well when you’re not practising canniballism,(Can forgive the latter but not the former)
I just hope that you can sleep at night you spawn of Satan.