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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: loco on May 14, 2014, 08:06:36 AM
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Should America be a little bit more like its mentally retarded, little brother? Ah, maybe a little bit. Discuss.
3 ways America should be more like Canada
Its middle class is thriving, its people are universally liked and its government actually works.
Fifty years ago, this description might have fit the United States. But not now. America’s middle class is shrinking and its global reputation is spotty. Congress, meanwhile, creates more problems than it solves.
So for guidance on how to fix America, why not look north to Canada, where the mood is upbeat and life appears to be getting demonstrably better? The New York Times recently reported the Canadian middle class is now the world’s richest, surpassing the U.S. for the first time. In the 2014 “better life index” recently published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada outscored the United States in 9 of 11 categories, including education, safety and overall life satisfaction.
The poverty rate is lower in Canada, and every Canadian citizen has government-provided health insurance, which might explain why Canadians enjoy longer life expectancy than Americans and are considerably less obese. As for the government, Canada’s national debt amounts to about $18,000 per person, compared with $55,000 in America.
So what is Canada doing right?
It has a more stable banking system. Canada has virtually never experienced a financial crisis, and there were no bailouts north of the border in 2008 when the U.S. government committed $245 billion to save dozens of U.S. banks. The differences between the two countries are somewhat accidental. In the United States, distrust of a strong central government all the way back in the founders’ days led to a system of state-chartered banks vulnerable to political meddling, and therefore riskier than the big, nationally chartered financial institutions that operate in Canada.
“In the United States, instability was permitted by regulators because it served powerful political interests,” Prof. Charles Calomiris of Columbia University wrote in a 2013 paper for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “In Canada, the banking system was not used as a means of channeling subsidized credit to a favored political constituency, so there was no need to tolerate instability.” The legacy of that today is a malleable U.S. banking system that, among other things, was deregulated in the late 1990s at the behest of banks themselves — which contributed to the 2008 collapse.
The financial crisis and the abuses that led to it are still holding back the U.S. economy. Shoddy lending standards were a major cause of the housing bust, which has whacked $3 trillion off the value of Americans’ real-estate assets — even with the year-long recovery in the housing market. That’s a huge loss of wealth that continues to hold back U.S. spending. And it’s just part of a 25-year debt binge Americans are still working off. With far fewer lending excesses, Canada didn’t really have a housing bust or a credit crisis to recover from.
Money doesn’t dominate politics. Canada has much stricter rules governing campaign contributions than those in America, where campaign-finance laws are getting weaker on account of recent Supreme Court rulings striking down limits on spending. Tougher limits in Canada give people and businesses with money to spend less influence over laws and regulations. “Every single one of my voters thinks that is terrific,” says former journalist Chrystia Freeland, now a Canadian member of parliament, representing a district in Toronto. “There is a lot less influence of the really wealthy and single-issue interest groups. A regular person has a much bigger voice.”
Many members of the U.S. Congress report spending half their time, or more, raising money for reelection efforts rather than legislating. Freeland estimates she spends less than 5% of her time doing that. There’s virtually no chance the United States will ever adopt a Canadian-style parliamentary system, but Congress could pass new laws or amend the Constitution in order to limit the corrupting influence of Big Money in politics. Were that to happen, however, it would probably make incumbent politicians more vulnerable to challengers. Maybe next century.
There’s less hostility toward immigrants. Canada, like the United States, has limits on the number of foreigners it allows into the country to work. But the whole issue of immigration is far less politicized, and there’s a broad understanding that skilled foreign workers help the economy. Canada actually recruits immigrants, part of a deliberate effort to attract talented foreigners most likely to contribute to economic growth. In the United States, the quota for skilled immigrants is far below the number U.S. firms would hire if they could get them. Despite appeals from many businesses, Congress is paralyzed on reforms that would let more skilled immigrants in, partly because that issue gets conflated with separate reforms aimed at stemming the flow of unskilled illegals.
Canada has its own problems, needless to say. Its government-run healthcare system draws complaints of long wait times for care and trailing-edge medical technology. Some economists think a housing bubble may be forming, for instance, and trends such as rising income inequality affect Canada just as they do every other industrialized country. Plus, it's cold.
In the Land of Moderation, however, such challenges seem manageable. “We’re less anxious because we didn’t have the financial crisis,” says Freeland, “but Canadians should guard against smugness.” Now there's something you're unlikely to hear an American politician say.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-canada-is-prospering-and-america-isn-t-150359533.html
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From the article above:
"The legacy of that today is a malleable U.S. banking system that, among other things, was deregulated in the late 1990s at the behest of banks themselves — which contributed to the 2008 collapse."
Yet many people still keep on blaming Bush for the 2008 collapse when it was Bill Clinton's policies that most contributed to it.
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Great post Loco!
Stable banking system
money out of politics (where have i heard that before? :D)
Less hostility towards Immigrants (i its mostly hostility towards illegal immigrants)
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Great post Loco!
Stable banking system
money out of politics (where have i heard that before? :D)
Less hostility towards Immigrants (i its mostly hostility towards illegal immigrants)
Thanks OzmO! You and people you know may oppose only illegal immigration, but I have known of Americanos who oppose immigration period, even skilled, legal immigrants. However, I've heard the Japanese are much worse at this though.
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From the article above:
"The legacy of that today is a malleable U.S. banking system that, among other things, was deregulated in the late 1990s at the behest of banks themselves — which contributed to the 2008 collapse."
Yet many people still keep on blaming Bush for the 2008 collapse when it was Bill Clinton's policies that most contributed to it.
Well, Bush did have almost EIGHT YEARS to reverse these policies.
I mean, Lincoln didn't blame Washington for slavery... he went ahead and did what he had to.... to change it.
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Well, Bush did have almost EIGHT YEARS to reverse these policies.
I mean, Lincoln didn't blame Washington for slavery... he went ahead and did what he had to.... to change it.
And? Obama has doubled down on the W policies - what does that say about him?
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Well, Bush did have almost EIGHT YEARS to reverse these policies.
I mean, Lincoln didn't blame Washington for slavery... he went ahead and did what he had to.... to change it.
People are blaming Bush for causing the 2008 collapse, not for doing nothing about cleaning up Bill Clinton's mess. Bush actually did sign into law some regulation. In that case, Obama has done nothing to fix this either. If anything, Obama is making it worse.
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Poutine, and they drink way more than us.
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Poutine, and they drink way more than us.
Then that makes 5
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You do know that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve injected over $100 billion to Canadian banks to help provide liquidity and avoid collapse right? This was in 2008. I can come up with at least one more example from memory.
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And? Obama has doubled down on the W policies - what does that say about him?
WTF does this have to do with what I said? LOL!
I'm talking about 2 men whose actions and events happened BEFORE obama took office.
The 2008 collapse was put in motion by clinton and perpetuated/continued by Bush.
Obama wasn't president yet. You cannot blame him for something that happened before he was POTUS.
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WTF does this have to do with what I said? LOL!
I'm talking about 2 men whose actions and events happened BEFORE obama took office.
The 2008 collapse was put in motion by clinton and perpetuated/continued by Bush.
Obama wasn't president yet. You cannot blame him for something that happened before he was POTUS.
33333 can lol
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33333 can lol
It was a combination of clinton policy + fear of the upcoming obama electoral win 8 weeks later, that caused the 2008 collapse.
Or it was the Palin selection. ??? lol JK... i miss Palin in the news! Kept things interesting.
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It wasn't just the fact that so many houses went on the market, due to repos causing values to plummet, limit the amount of money peeps can use to borrow based on their real estate holdings which were now super low and in effect made the housing industry slow way down that caused it?
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You do know that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve injected over $100 billion to Canadian banks to help provide liquidity and avoid collapse right? This was in 2008. I can come up with at least one more example from memory.
I'll bet it's not going to cost the tax payers a thing ::)
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I'll bet it's not going to cost the tax payers a thing ::)
Uhm; what? I don't follow.
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People are blaming Bush for causing the 2008 collapse, not for doing nothing about cleaning up Bill Clinton's mess. Bush actually did sign into law some regulation. In that case, Obama has done nothing to fix this either. If anything, Obama is making it worse.
Dodd-Frank is supposed to have addressed some of the issues contributing to the financial meltdown; therefore, it isn't true to say Obama has done nothing to improve the situation.
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Hoping the two posters above get into an in depth debate^^^
:o
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Hoping the two posters above get into an in depth debate^^^
:o
That would be difficult, given that just about every avxo post I read is exactly what I would want to have posted.
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You do know that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve injected over $100 billion to Canadian banks to help provide liquidity and avoid collapse right? This was in 2008. I can come up with at least one more example from memory.
What? Inconceivable. >:(
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It wasn't just the fact that so many houses went on the market, due to repos causing values to plummet, limit the amount of money peeps can use to borrow based on their real estate holdings which were now super low and in effect made the housing industry slow way down that caused it?
Yes, that was part of it. Was that Bush's fault too? No, but Bill Clinton's policies did contribute a great deal to that:
"President Clinton's tenure was characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation, which in many ways set the stage for the excesses of recent years. Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html
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You do know that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve injected over $100 billion to Canadian banks to help provide liquidity and avoid collapse right? This was in 2008. I can come up with at least one more example from memory.
Bingo. Canadian banks are so stable, the Government felt the need the implement "bail in" legislation.
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Dodd-Frank is supposed to have addressed some of the issues contributing to the financial meltdown; therefore, it isn't true to say Obama has done nothing to improve the situation.
Dodd-Frank is shit and a bad idea, just as its authors are. It will only make things worse.
One example is the general idea that people applying for credit should essentially pay the same interest rate, regardless of FICO score or other factors. Banks adjust to this by making it harder to borrow in the first place.
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You do know that the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve injected over $100 billion to Canadian banks to help provide liquidity and avoid collapse right? This was in 2008. I can come up with at least one more example from memory.
This is correct. Right about the same time Canadian chartered banks severed ties with the FDIC.
I noticed a subtle change in the stickers in bank windows from FDIC to CDIC without a whole lot of fanfare.
In addition, US Dollar denominated chequing & savings accounts received a bit of an overhaul as well.
All of a sudden accounts that were previously charged for $USD money orders were given free $USD money orders, as banks phased out customers writing cheques on their $USD accounts. When you see banks suddenly waiving millions of dollars in revenues you know something big is going down behind the scenes.
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Bingo. Canadian banks are so stable, the Government felt the need the implement "bail in" legislation.
Get your money out of the "Big 6". In the USA, they call them "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF).
In Canada they call them the "Systemically Important" (SI) and they have a lot of derivatives exposure.
Bail-in provisions are now entrenched & codified into law throughout all the western nations.
We were ALWAYS unsecured creditors at the back of the line. The only reason they did the bailout in the USA, is because they got too many nut jobs down there with guns, and they weren't ready for the inevitable fallout.
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Another way Americans should be more like Canadians is to get out of everyone's bedrooms!
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Get your money out of the "Big 6". In the USA, they call them "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF).
In Canada they call them the "Systemically Important" (SI) and they have a lot of derivatives exposure.
Bail-in provisions are now entrenched & codified into law throughout all the western nations.
We were ALWAYS unsecured creditors at the back of the line. The only reason they did the bailout in the USA, is because they got too many nut jobs down there with guns, and they weren't ready for the inevitable fallout.
Yeah... That's exactly right. They did it because of "nut jobs with guns"... ::)
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Get your money out of the "Big 6". In the USA, they call them "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF).
In Canada they call them the "Systemically Important" (SI) and they have a lot of derivatives exposure.
Bail-in provisions are now entrenched & codified into law throughout all the western nations.
We were ALWAYS unsecured creditors at the back of the line. The only reason they did the bailout in the USA, is because they got too many nut jobs down there with guns, and they weren't ready for the inevitable fallout.
They did the bail out because it was a money grab and most citizens are too imbecilic to comprehend this, or do anything about it. There were many banks that received bail out funds who did not require it.
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Uhm; what? I don't follow.
Nor does Coach, that's why he left the thread already.
Coach doesn't understand the difference between banks acting as guarantors or 'injecting' 245 billion into bailouts
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Yeah... That's exactly right. They did it because of "nut jobs with guns"... ::)
If you're the Gov't, which would you rather deal with?
A) The fallout from bailing in funds from 300 million armed Americans?
B) The fallout from bailing out Wall Street banks?
Either way the tax payer covers it, ...but would you rather the 300 million gun nuts feel the immediate loss,
Or would you rather slowly acclimatize them to it, while you grab their guns, line your ducks in a row, and arm every federal agency up the wazoo?
Anarchy & chaos in a society full of gun owners isn't a fun place to be is the point I was getting at.
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They did the bail out because it was a money grab and most citizens are too imbecilic to comprehend this, or do anything about it. There were many banks that received bail out funds who did not require it.
Actually, they all needed it, ...some more than others, but they all had subprime & derivatives exposure.
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Actually, they all needed it, ...some more than others, but they all had subprime & derivatives exposure.
Not entirely true, considering there were banks that received funds that did not ask for it, but received money anyway, to obscure the identities of some of the banks that were most in jeopardy. You also don't voluntarily pay 100 cents on the dollar for toxic assets, many of which Goldman Sachs under-wrote.
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Not entirely true, considering there were banks that received funds that did not ask for it, but received money anyway, to obscure the identities of some of the banks that were most in jeopardy. You also don't voluntarily pay 100 cents on the dollar for toxic assets, many of which Goldman Sachs under-wrote.
HA! They didn't voluntarily pay 100 cents on the dollar for toxic assets underwritten by Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs told them to do it, ...and it has always been Goldman Sachs calling the shots and issuing orders.
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HA! They didn't voluntarily pay 100 cents on the dollar for toxic assets underwritten by Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs told them to do it, ...and it has always been Goldman Sachs calling the shots and issuing orders.
Of course... Goldman Sachs told them to do it... ::)