Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

To harryylogy

You know when something is so disgusting people say "I think I just threw up in my mouth"...you know kind of a half gag that you catch before it goes THROUGH your mouth, well that's kind of the reaction I get when I read your comments and I'm certain it's the reaction people get when they look at you.

You know what I can't wait for? You writing back some dumbass idiotic remark and posting it, thinking you are smart and witty. Please amuse me, I can't wait. Make sure to hit spellcheck and if you're too lazy I'll just get my 5 year old to decipher your text.

Is that clear enough for you or should I draw you a picture?

Posted By: harrylogy
u pose as a doctor & u cannot even write " colleagues " correctly...

Okay seriously... If you can't bother to write out "you" then you really shouldn't be insulting someone else for spelling or grammar errors. Little girls use "u" when writing text messages to be brief. You sound like a little girl. I won't even bother reading your other comments because I suspect you are a moron or more likely a troll.

To Harrylogy

I am Canadian, I like Americans and believe both are countries have their positives and negatives but reading your comments makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

You are retarded, can't spell worth of s@#t and people like you give Americans a bad reputation, you ignorant f%@k.

As usual, Fareed is both smart and ignorant, not unlike most journalist these days. He speaks of "open immigration" in Canada and how the US educates and trains workers that are in turn kicked out of the US, effectively, then simply go to Canada and help that country without consideration for America or Americans benefit.

A better policy is to prohibit more than 1/2% foreigners into US colleges and universities and make most slots available to US citizens, to regulate industries through taxation penalties for hiring foreign workers so that they are incentivized to hire US citizens.

Industry complains, illegitimately in nearly all cases, that US citizens are not be adequately trained in the US and there is a shortage of workers, hence a need to access foreign labor markets. This perception is false but quickly turning into reality. Why?
Simple, industry is no longer concerned with the welfare of America or its citizens. Once strong community stewards, many companies today are foreign owned and have no vested interest in America other than profit making. Once upon a time, industry worked hand in hand with government to provide incentives and with education to ensure adequacy of emerging workforces to ensure its own survival. Today, under the corrosive policies of ???free trade??? (which means anything goes), industry is of a mentality to simply go with the cheapest and easiest labor substitute rather than continually reinvest in American enterprise???foreign workers win at American workers expense.

We have well over 10 million US citizens out of work in the US and nearly double that under-employed (working perhaps two low paying jobs instead of one livable wage job) and our standard of living continues to plummet. In every First World country in the world that has embraced the tenets of free trade, their standard of living has fallen markedly???for it must if they are to compete with Third World labor prices. What America needs is the reinstallation of sound tariffs toward fair trade, and elimination of both legal and illegal immigration with strong foreign worker restrictions to ensure that America???s might can grow once again???America???s economy does not need the world to survive???we can take care of ourselves and do it with a higher standard of living and much stronger economy if we simply focus on America, American business ownership, pride, community, and most of all, US citizen workers???industry will always take care of itself.

Xelan Bonn
Journalist and past President, Patriot Union of America

The US currently has GDP of $14 trillion, shortfalls $568 billion in 2008; owes $12 trillion in external debt; and has stock of money of $1.4 trillion.
(www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/rankorderguide.html)
If the trend was not reversed; the stock of money could only cover deficit for mostly two more years. Time could be much shorter because external debt is nearly 9 times the stock of money.
It is a ggod time to be humble and consider other systems that proven effective.

I haven't heard any reports about members of Congress or the Obama campaign returning the political contributions they received from these Banks, have you? I think such expenditures by the Banks at this point are just as egregious as trips and bonuses. Those contributions should be returned immediately.

The problem with the US is our size. We have failrly tolerent educated people in east and west coasts who recognize our strengths and weaknesses. They want government with common sense. Then you have the south and the midwest, which is ruled by the ignorant Republican Party. I live in Kansas. Try listening to the people around here talk about our country's problems. They recite Fox News verbatim.

When it comes to the economy, Obama is quite simply a liar. Hear him in his own words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314&feature=related

Enter Your CommentTo harrylogy:

I am a Canadian and I happen to think that America, for all its problems is the one country who has done the most good for the people of the world in the last 50 years. Sure America has problems, mostly internal, and has made some enemies around the world, mostly countries and groups who harbor jealousy about the over consumption shown by western countries, but in general America stands for decency.

For you to comment as you did shows your ignorance and stupidity. Canada is a country of decent people who do not try to dominate others and who share a common heritage with the USA. We are trading and security partners. We share a border and many many family ties.

Thanks for showing the world your stupidity and making an example of what IS wrong with America. Ignorant, self righteous mean spirited idiots who cant even spell and do nothing to contribute to bettering our world.

YOU are a part of the problem.

To harrylogy:

I am a Canadian and I happen to think that America, for all its problems is the one country who has done the most good for the people of the world in the last 50 years. Sure America has problems, mostly internal, and has made some enemies around the world, mostly countries and groups who harbor jealousy about the over consumption shown by western countries, but in general America stands for decency.

For you to comment as you did shows your ignorance and stupidity. Canada is a country of decent people who do not try to dominate others and who share a common heritage with the USA. We are trading and security partners. We share a border and many many family ties.

Thanks for showing the world your stupidity and making an example of what IS wrong with America. Ignorant, self righteous mean spirited idiots who cant even spell and do nothing to contribute to bettering our world.

YOU are a part of the problem.

In the same issue, George Will says we should keep backing our banks and their bundling of securities that were never secure! It is time for America to get back on track and realize our economic policies have only made the greedy wealthy. Canada has a lot to teach us, but will we listen? Not as long as the same protectors of the wealthy are heading our Treasury and Republican Senators are cutting aid to those who really need it and can do some good--our states. Satorigal@yahoo.com

i iam an American currently iving in Australia..In the wakd of the ongoing fires, the Australian federal and state govenments have pledged multiple millions of dollars to help the survivors rebuild their lives and property. In addition, every major bank and supermarket chain has donated further millions, along with providing the general public with places to make donations of their own. Compare all this with the American response to Katrina, where victims were warehoused then set adrift and their abandoned neighborhoods left to rot. Most Aussies, like most Canadians, would regard it as shameful to alllow a child - or anyone - to suffer and die for lack of medical coverage, or to abandon people and places struck by disaster. They understand that a decent society costs money and that money must be raised by taxation. Thanks to such realism, Australia has enoyed a booming economy, a budget in surplus, universal health care, a functional infrastructure, and assistance for those in need. Like Canada, therefore, it stands a far better chance of coiming through the current economic crisis intact than does the debt-and-decay riidden USA. Like the Soviet Union before it, America sold out pragmatic common sense in the name of ideology, and is now paying the price. BarbG

Me and my brother are both well-educated Taiwanese students studying in Canada. As it turned out, I found work here in Vancouver and my brother found work in New York. Under the Canadian immigration rules, which are now quite reasonable as compared with a decade ago, I became a landed immigrant within two years and will be full citizen within another two years. My brother is sadly still waiting for his company to sponsor him down in the US. As a response to prior postings, many immigrants came to our adopted country relatively young, and frankly we aren't the clueless non-English speakers as we are often stereotyped. We're often highly productive workers because we have to fight for our citizenship. Most of us have higher than average abilities to be able to get in by the point system and aren't taxi cabs, nor welfare recipients.

"what is its market value ?
how many sq. ft. is its size
& how many sq ft. of new property does your after taxes salary buys... ?
That's the way to compare CAN to USA...
Just try & u will se that Amers r at least 30 % richer than Cans & Euros..."

These questions are highly subjective and there is no way to necessarily equal one for one.
In Toronto the average home is slightly under 350,000. Right now in the United States that would buy a freaking mansion is some podunk town in Oklahoma but won't probably won't get me a square foot in Manhattan. Total square footage? Again highly subjective, a 1 bedroom 700 square foot condo right downtown Toronto is considered worth more than my parents 3,000 square foot, 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom sitting on a half acre of land.

I would recommend you read this article called "How Canadians Stole The American Dream."
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20080625_50113_50113&page=1

The byline? Compared to the U.S., we (Canadians) work less, live longer, enjoy better health and have more sex. And get this: now we're wealthier too.

I tend to agree with Mr. Zakaria. Canada does seem to have some things right. Where I have some disagreement is his statement on foreign visas for engineeers. I'm an engineer. Have been for 35 years. And as a professional, I don't like seeing my job outsourced or downsized. The simple matter is that US born kids are enrolling in engineering at far lower rates than when I went to college (I've heard as low as 15% of what it was). Even Mexico graduates more engineers than we do. The US schools are full of foreigners, that is true. But why? Why are the best and brightest of our youth avoiding a well paying, and fun profession? Instead, they are being enticed towards careers in entertaiment, marketing and finance. Without engineers, there is less (or no) innovation. Without that, the only thing our bright kids can do is package and resell junk to others. So it's no wonder Ponzi schemes become attractive. If you have nothing to sell, make it up. We've seen the mess that happened in Wall Street. When the percentage of the GNP in finance goes from 5% to 7%, money has to be shuffled from one group to another. Or look at the growth of seemingly useless and overly expensive marketing campaigns. Examples include convincing consumers that yet another disease exists for Plavixx, or that you need to change a well known brand called Gaterade to "G". No innovation. No real products. No R&D. No creation of wealth. Just questionable allocation of resources.
The bottom line. The road to a prosperous lies in educating and encouraging our youth to go into science ad engineering, and insure that this decision is financially rewarding. That is why the IEEE and other professional organizations try to control the number of H1B visas granted. .

In the US, immigration is primarily Employment Based. Meaning, most legal immigrants start paying TAXES from day one. They are eligible for a PR only if their employer files for them. And the Employers file only if there is a need. In Canada, a PhD with 65 points will immigrate with no JOB. And end up a cab driver. Worse, live off the taxes others pay.

Aleks:

Talk about dishonesty, or rather the selective use of statistics and misinformation.

The CDIC insures savings accounts. All financial institutions pay insurance fees to CDIC, a crown corporation that btw has never lost money.

Perhaps you mean CMHC where ones higher leveraged mortgage is insured, with premiums paid by the mortgagor. This seems to have worked a bit better than Fannie or Freddie since CMHC, another crown corporation, has never lost money. Ergo, no bailout.

The Bank of Canada isn't buying up any ABCP, rather it is allowing financial institutions to borrow against ABCP based on it's market value. And this has been widely debated in Canadian newspapers and in the Canadian Parliament.

The Canadian real estate market has fallen, not as sharply as the US (one can always find limited selective data to try to make a point) however if the crystal balls are correct, Canada will fall another 9-10% in 2009 then begin to recover. The US is forecast to decline similarly in 2009, and further in 2010.

Canadian mortgages, finally, are full recourse, and that is why some do file for bankruptcy, unlike the US where a mortgage holder can just walk away. I guess we just like laws that create a greater sense of personal responsibility.

Aleks:

Talk about dishonesty, or rather the selective use of statistics and misinformation.

The CDIC insures savings accounts. All financial institutions pay insurance fees to CDIC, a crown corporation that btw has never lost money.

Perhaps you mean CMHC where ones higher leveraged mortgage is insured, with premiums paid by the mortgagor. This seems to have worked a bit better than Fannie or Freddie since CMHC, another crown corporation, has never lost money. Ergo, no bailout.

The Bank of Canada isn't buying up any ABCP, rather it is allowing financial institutions to borrow against ABCP based on it's market value. And this has been widely debated in Canadian newspapers and in the Canadian Parliament.

The Canadian real estate market has fallen, not as sharply as the US (one can always find limited selective data to try to make a point) however if the crystal balls are correct, Canada will fall another 9-10% in 2009 then begin to recover. The US is forecast to decline similarly in 2009, and further in 2010.

Canadian mortgages, finally, are full recourse, and that is why some do file for bankruptcy, unlike the US where a mortgage holder can just walk away. I guess we just like laws that create a greater sense of personal responsibility.

We may be boring, but at least I still have my home and my job. Thanks mostly to the past 8 years of Bush, maybe I won't have those in the future!