1 - 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the border.
2 - Canada shop for health care across that border and 50% still have to purchase private health insurance to pick up where government health care leaves off.
3 - Canada has no defense establishment and rely on the US for that.
4 - Canada has no petro-chemical construction and design talent to speak of.
5 - Canada pipeline infrastructure is wholly owned by Houston TX company
6 -
7 - Canadian high school drop out rate is higher than the US
8 - Canada must rely upon US oil export facilities and pipelines as construction for their own will be in the courts for years
9 - Canada’s public debt is 72% of GDP vs US debt of only 50% of GDP
10 - Canada’s overall external debt (total public and private debt owed to nonresidents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services) is 67% vs 10% for the US.
Canada is screwed.
They owe somebody nearly a whole years GDP and some other country owns most of the export surplus producing infrastructure and Obama ain’t going to allow imports of tar sand oil and is going to take jobs from Canada by fixing NAFTA and Moodys says “Canada’s debt position will worsen in the coming couple of years”. And I predict that Moody’s downgrade of US credit rating will domino to Canada and have a far worse effect on Canada as its record of strong long-term economic performance is directly related to the trade surplus that had existed with the US its sole (77%) trading partner and Canada has no way to export oil off shore because of environmental litigation.
We have got a bunch of idiot marsxist running both countries into the ground put in place by a bunch of idiot marxists. And there is not one among them that has experience in balancing a chart of accounts or running a capitalistic enterprise. The US and Canada made lots of money by selling wheat to the marxist USSR because those stupid marxists did not pave the roads from the collective farms so 30% of the grain was bounced out of the trucks before it got to the bakeries. Ekers lurched into the truth. Recovery from this marxist caused recession can be found in energy and I am not talking about those bull shit windmills and other green crap. read more: The US NG/PROPANE/E85 Vehicle and GSHP Energy Policy and Economic Recovery Plan - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board
Oh by the way Palin has a way to fix all of this. As Governor, Palin has strongly promoted oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska and she fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history, the TransCanada natural gas pipeline. Both initiatives very conducive to improvement of Canada’s bottom line.
Canadians which would you rather have Obama the marxist who is going to outright steal your wealth by rigging NAFTA and making your tar sands worthless driving you to bankruptcy or Palin the oil Queen.
Now before you answer you must disregard the propaganda and the emotional outpouring by the thought police of the doper planet in the 1st 89 dialectic brain washing posts to this thread and think critically about your future direction looking at your past performance reminding yourself at all times that the Marxists Frank and Dodd created the ponzi scheme which is Freddy Mac and Fannie May toppling the world economy leaving all of us one gigantic mess to clean up.
PS marxism
Perhaps you should actually read that link. As I pointed out earlier, screaming “marxist” about people who are obviously not Marxists makes you look really, really stupid.
So Canadian GDP will fall at an increasing rate over the next years? I’ll take that bet, or feel free to name any reasonable metric. By the direness of your claims, the effects should be unmistakable.
So the US had a bilateral trade deficit with Canada. Meaning the US imports more goods from Canada than it sells to them in exports.
Hm. That makes it sound like we (the US) are dependent upon them (Canada). What would we do without their oil, natural gas, and hydro-powered electricity? OMG!11!
More seriously, bilateral trade flows mean little, and an overall trade deficit can be sustained for many years. For example, the US had its last trade surplus in 1973 – and it really took a turn for the worse under Ronald Reagan owing to the decline in national savings.
Confusion aside, what about the OP?
I put her odds at something under 2%, until this week. I’m not saying that she’s the probable nominee unlike this guy and this guy. But she has a shot. She has a shot because 1) It will be hard for Romney to get traction in a Republican primary given that we just passed Romneycare about 10 days ago, b) Huckabee isn’t interested, c) Petraus isn’t interested, and d) Newt is a freak, though he is also a dark horse favorite. Could she win the general election? Sure, if the economy tanks, which is not improbable seeing as we’re making some of the same mistakes as Japan did in the early 1990s (insufficient stimulus). The only bright spot is that Obama would have at least have the advantage of incumbency.
I’d love to see Palin vs. Colin Powell, myself.
**You demonstrate my points exactly!
What about the nasty old OP? **
Repeated here lest you foreget.
The first 89 posts of this thread were not on point either. Your post offers just more obfuscation and non-critical thinking. A dialectic that runs on feelings rather than cognition. A transformational Marxism. You abandon individual principles of attending to the OP for the group principles. If there is no one in the group which can think for his or herself then you are merely awaiting your Jim Jones to offer up the cool aid.
Okay, fine, Mister Smartee-Pants, I’ll address the OP.
First up, it’s hard enough to predict politics a week from now, let alone what might happen during and after a hypothetical Palin administration that runs from 2013-2017, but in the interest of wild speculation… Assuming the U.S. takes an even harder swing to the right, a necessary condition to make a Palin presidency possible, I can picture a number of regressive grassroots moves that Palin won’t initiate but will be glad to support. Gay marriage would stall, if not retreat. Abortion rights, the same. I don’t see any indication from Palin’s background that she has the patience to deal with nitty-gritty details of administration, so she’ll be even more aggressively incurious than Bush43 was frequently described, and even more isolated. She’s likely to lash out at members of her administration who she perceives as disloyal or too intelligent, gradually surrounding herself with fawners or people smart enough to manipulate her by appearing to be fawning while advancing private agendas. She might end up mired in scandal after scandal as her underlings and family members, over whom she has little actual control, get caught in various compromising positions, rather like Ulysses Grant. Her personal popularity will take major damage, as Grant’s did, and she’ll end up leaving office somewhat embittered, as she was unable to impose lasting fixes on what she perceives as America’s problems.
Somewhere along the way she’ll get a few things right, and historians will credit her for that, at least. Possibly Palin’s administration will increase research into and treatment of mental retardation, in part inspired by Palin’s youngest child Trig, afflicted with Down Syndrome. This may end up vaguely similar to Eunice Kennedy’s efforts.
Truth be told, it’s not Palin herself that should be the concern. I figure her for a scandal-ridden one-term-wonder at best. Rather, the circumstances under which Palin might get elected suggest a serious backlash in the U.S. and affixing the term “socialist” to anything will be the equivalent of painting it with tar, and far easier than debating it on merits. There will be little incentive to improve education during this time, which will remain critical to long-term progress. I’d hope it’ll be seen as little more than a historical blip.
Hey, Obama got elected, so Palin’s election isn’t all that improbable. At least she’s had some experience at governing.
I gotta admit, I just love how the thought of “President Palin” makes liberals quake with terror and soil their skivvies.
Hey, I love the thought of bending railroad tracks with the power of my mind, but at least I admit I’m only making it up.
And of course a half-term as governor of a low-population backwater state is way more impressive than one term as the President of the United States, experiencewise. She’ll just blow Obama away on that one. You betcha.
A half-term governor who left that low-population, backwater state with the highest debt to gross state product ratio in the US. Alaska’s total liabilities are around 70% of the GSP. Compare that to the Pub’s poster-child for our current financial crisis - California’s debt is around 40% of the GSP.
Conservatives are prone to acquiring huge crushes on their leaders: the doe-eyed accolades of Bush II were ubiquitous in certain circles until they recognized him as a loser.
Now conservatives have attached themselves to a former half-term governor. They believe her to have greater experience than a man who was a) a US Senator, b) a law professor at a leading conservative-leaning law school, c) best-selling author, d) editor of the Harvard law review, e) a competent manager who was able to run beat the Democratic machine by maintaining a unified team even during a stressful campaign, f) the greatest orator of the past 3 generations, and g) a representative familiar with state-level issues. Oh yeah, then there’s the community organizing thing.
Obama’s resume is varied and remarkable. He attracts smart people and knows how to secure their best and most serious efforts. Palin’s hopping around to different colleges before she finally obtained a degree in journalism doesn’t really compare, except for those with a deep psychological need to believe otherwise.
What was Alaska’s ration before Palin took office?
Whale blubber and Cheerio’s, mostly.
Ratio, even.
Damn you!
I’d’a said Baked Alaskas and Eskimo Pies, but you win for speed.
I do that all the time.
Couldn’t find the pre-Palin numbers for Alaska, but the town of Wasilla saw a significant increase in debt during her term as mayor.
Not too many still respect the "quitinator’. If she does not give you pause, you are a unique righty. Who the hell quits an elected position like governor and actually has fans that can justify it. It requires a special kind of blind spot.
At this point in the election cycle, Palin’s down in 3rd place where she barely squeaked by Newt.
She needs to do something ground-swelly if she’s to have any chance at all.