On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:02:08 -0600, Tony Hwang wrote:



Ed wrote:
So how are those illegal "wars" do'in for ya?

If the mission was to bankrupt yourselves as a nation, then it's
"Mission Accomplished!"

Why you haven't thrown Bush and his neo-con puppet-masters in jail yet
is a mystery.

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http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/...re-now-richer/

The U.S. may bill itself as the land of opportunity, but right now,
Canadians are making out better.

That's according to a column in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, which
reports, "Over the past five years, net worth per Canadian household has
exceeded net worth per American household (total combined value of
liquid and real estate assets minus debt) for the first time."

According to Environics Analytics, a Canadian marketing and analytical
services firm, the average household net worth in Canada was $363,202 in
2011; the figure for the U.S. was $319,970. That means the average
Canadian household is more than $40,000 richer than its American
counterpart.

"And these are not 60-cent dollars," The Globe and Mail notes, "but
Canadian dollars more or less at par with the U.S. greenback." Making
matters worse for the recession-ravaged U.S., these figures do not take
into account the public sector debt that will someday come due for
citizens of both countries; government debt as a percentage of GDP is
higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada.

The reasons for the disparity in wealth are as depressing for Americans
as the news itself: Instead of "a sudden surge of productivity or
entrepreneurial genius" north of the border, the paper cites "the 2008
economic crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market."

Indeed, the crash in U.S. home prices means that Canadians own real
estate that is on average worth $140,000 more than that held by
Americans. They also own twice as much property and have nearly four
times as much equity in it after mortgages are taken into account.

One small bright spot for residents of the beleaguered U.S.: Americans
still have greater liquid assets than Canadians. But even this statistic
serves mainly to underscore the magnitude of the housing market
catastrophe.

Public policy may be in part to blame: As The Globe and Mail points out,
"Canadian leaders rejected mortgage interest deductibility," making it
somewhat harder for citizens to get so deep into mortgage debt.
Moreover, subprime mortgages -- those ignes fatui of the American
economy -- did not catch on in Canada the way they did here.

All of which leaves our "thrifty, socialist neighbors to the north" --
who have long eschewed both the dynamism and the risk of the American
system in favor of higher taxes, greater regulation and a sturdier
social safety net -- looking pretty clever right now. Still, it's worth
observing, as The Globe and Mail does, that Canadians are "taking on
more debt than [their] supposedly more spendthrift American cousins."

Early this year, it was reported that economic mobility -- the
centerpiece of America's self-image -- is actually greater in Canada and
Western Europe than in the U.S. According to The New York Times, "The
mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour
season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion
toward center stage."

"It's becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much
mobility as most other advanced countries," said one economist. "I don't
think you'll find too many people who will argue with that."

I've moved interstate three times, now, in five years.

Hmmm.
All I know where I am, we have labor shortage, house prices keep going
up. People still spend money, city population is increasing steadily.

Where I am, there isn't a labor shortage, per se, but the population increases
steadily. The housing prices are still going down, though. :-(

Above all I like the weather getting warmer and warmer. I almost forgot
how to use snow blower sitting in the tool shed getting rusty.....

I sold mine and moved South...

For a starter reducing the power of unions may be a good idea.

....to a right-to-work state.