A tip of the hat to reader Glen D. for the heads-up re this Frank Miniter article:
What Obama Doesn’t Want You to Know About Canada
With President Barack Obama claiming the government builds success, not individuals, Mitt Romney should look north to a story Obama would rather Americans didn’t notice. Canada is outperforming the U.S. on every
economic front and they’re doing it with policies Republicans say they’d like to implement.
For the inside scoop I interviewed Tony Clement, Canada’s President of the Treasury Board (the COO for the Government of Canada who is responsible for managing spending among other duties) and a Member of Parliament with the Conservative Party of Canada.
He was enthusiastic. This is a story he wants to tell. A story that people south of the border should be paying attention to. According to senior Canadian officials who’ve had closed-door meetings with Obama administration officials, the White House has been curious about how Canada is growing. When Canadian’s told them how, they even toyed with implementing some of the same policies.
First, for context, we need to do a numbers comparison with the U.S.
Canada’s unemployment rate is now 7.3%, whereas the current U.S. unemployment rate is 8.2%. Canada’s combined federal and provincial debt to GDP ratio is 57.9%, while Canada’s federal debt to GDP ratio is 34%; meanwhile, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio reached 101.5% in 2011.
Then there is the Canadian banking system. Canada’s banks are among the best capitalized in the world and far exceed the norms outlined by the Bank for International Settlements. During the financial crisis, no Canadian banking institutions had to be bailed out. The rest of this article, of course, could be filled with details about the troubles with U.S. banks and the Democrats’ Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but I’ll let all that be addressed in other articles.
It’s worth noting here though that homeowners are also in better shape in Canada. Today just 0.35% of Canadian mortgages are behind on their payments, whereas TransUnion reported that in the January-March 2012 quarter 5.78% of U.S. mortgage holders were behind on their payments by 60 days or more (that’s more than 10 times more than in Canada).
Canada also has a better credit rating than the U.S. Standard & Poor’s gives Canada an “AAA” rating and a “stable” outlook, but gives the U.S. an “AA+” rating and a “negative” outlook. Moody’s Investors Service Inc. lists the U.S. as triple-A but gives it a “negative” outlook. Meanwhile, Moody’s gives Canada an “AAA” rating and a “stable” outlook. […]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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