GDP: For First Time On Record, Canadians May Be Wealthier Than Americans
This year, for the first time on record, Canadians may have exceeded their American neighbours in wealth.
According to estimates from the IMF, flagged by Kevin Carmichael at the Globe and Mail, Canada’s gross domestic product per person is on track to be $51,147 per person in Canada, compared to $48,147 in the United States.
It’s a reflection of the persistent weakness of the U.S. economy since the financial crisis began in 2008, and the relative strength of Canada’s economy, which has benefited from high commodity prices and surging demand in developing countries.
And according to available data, it may be the first time in history that Canadians have been richer than their brethren south of the border.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/24/canada-us-gdp-canadians-richer-americans_n_1168769.html?ir=Canada
In the spirit of the season, I quote the wise words of Nelson Muntz: HA-HA! 
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dotymed
(5,610 posts)Canada, the home of Universal health care and common sense social programs, has finally showed Americans how they are being enslaved by the elite. I doubt that Americans are smart enough to realize that.
What a fucked-up country of zombies that follows the mandates of the 1% to their detriment.
GO OWS. Lets make this our AMERICAN SPRING.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)dotymed
(5,610 posts)I don't have 20 more years though....oh well
kedrys
(7,683 posts)The 20 years *I* waited occurred since the mid-80s. I'm looking out my window and there's barely any snow - it just started yesterday.
No time like the present.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Like Russia, Canada is one place that has a lot to gain from Global Warming.
Um . . . for maybe a century.
Neoma
(10,039 posts)
Justice wanted
(2,657 posts)back to the U.S. She says she is happier, heathier and she was also remarking that she was noticing her dollar seemed to get her more. The joke was she was a professional shopper that the computer programing job she did was just a hobby so she spends a lot of time shopping and buying .
Nay
(12,051 posts)GDP or no, because Canadians truly are nicer in public, they live in a country that actually acts like a country and not a free-for-all unregulated area set up only to force people to fight for money, and their leaders aren't bought and sold wholesale. When we retire we'll be living there most of the year. My big regret is that we didn't move there when Sonny Nay was a kid, so he could have all those benefits and wouldn't have to live here in the U.S.
I hate how the U.S. economic system distorts human relationships.
ejbr
(5,891 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)Half of the reason we don't want the XL pipeline is because that would encourage the Canadians to do all the things we want to keep under wraps here.
Minarchist
(36 posts)Evidently, Canadians understand that profits are not a bad thing.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)they are achieved not that they are achieved.
groundloop
(13,776 posts)Profits are necessary. It's when the upper class that run corporations "need" more and more and more that things get fucked up. Take for instance the fact that 25 or so years ago the average CEO salary was around 30 times that of the average worker. Now it's over 300 times that of the average worker. THAT is obscene greed - no CEO is worth that much more.
Bragi
(7,650 posts)Canada has a right-wing national government that took over with less than 4 in every 10 votes, and is run by Alberta-based oil interests who are deeply tied to Texas oil and the Koch brothers.
In fact, the good things Canada used to represent are now very much in jeopardy because right-wing Big Oil has taken over in the last decade. Most of us Canadians are too lazy or uninterested to even care.
But yeah, people in our oil provinces now have very high average incomes, even higher than most Americans.
Yippee.
(But happy holidays to all anyway!)
- Bragi
DeathToTheOil
(1,124 posts)he'd be a "centrist-to-conservative" Democrat.
ROFF
(219 posts)I live in Saskatchewan, the home of single payer Health Care in Canada. We have a Conservative Provincial Government here. In the last provincial budget, the Conservative government cut spending but was proud to point out that funds for health care were increased.
Any government in Canada that is seen to be cutting funding for health care will be in deep trouble. Our right-wing parties are to the left of American left-wing parties.
My personal belief is that it is hard for Americans to understand how right-wing America really is.
Give Obama a Democratic Congress and you will see a left-wing government.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)That Congress got precious little done, thanks largely to nihilists in the opposition and crooks among members of the president's own party on the Senate Finance Committee that would not even consider a public option in the health care bill.
It is too simple to just expect a Democratic Congress to solve the problem under President Obama's leadership. As you point out out, our left-wing parties aren't very far to the left. We need to have Democrats in Congress who aren't bought. In an election run after the Citizens United decision, that will be a very tall order.
DeathToTheOil
(1,124 posts)Not quite, but, as I suggested to Bragi, Stephen Harper wouldn't have a prayer of inclusion in the Republican Party in America: He would perhaps be a centrist-conservative Democrat.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Unfortunately, I couldn't even get past the initial screening. I remember arguing with a bunch of conservatives after the 2004 election that Canada was then the place to be. I remember them saying that Canada was a hunk of shit country, that only eight percent of it had Internet coverage.
I should have hired an emigration lawyer.
Canada is going to get even better after Global Warming. It actually has a lot to gain from it.
Man, we're paying horribly for allowing Dubya and the Supreme Court to steal the elections.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)
But inequality is on the rise there now.
In a more figurative sense, yeah - elite interests have an outsized amount of political power in Canada too.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)
Quasimodem
(441 posts)You'll find a less succinct answer here:
http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/10/20/wealth-and-income-in-the-top-1/
applegrove
(131,831 posts)- they just hoped that the movement didn't get taken over by radicals.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)As I understand it, GDP is merely the sum total of all economic activity in a given year, which is then averaged to the population. It's a poor indicator of wealth.
If, for example, I live in country A, get cancer and have to spend $30,000 of my own money for treatment, the GDP of country A goes up by $30,000. If strong environmental regulations in country B prevented me from getting cancer in the first place, its GDP then suffers for the money not spent. As a denizen of country A, I certainly wouldn't feel any wealthier over it.
Also, averaging (calculating the mean as opposed to the median) is far too susceptible too outliers. If Bill Gates were to walk into a homeless shelter, the average net worth for the room he's in could well be over a billion dollars, but that's hardly a worthwhile indicator.
Spending money on useless wars and overspending on education and medical care owing to a lack of a decent universal healthcare system may all increase GDP, but do little for the wealth of a country, especially if the wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
I didn't even mention currency fluctuations yet.
I'd say the median Canadian has been better off than the median American for quite a bit longer than this.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)Survivoreesta
(221 posts)So there! 
enid602
(9,646 posts)I'd be more impressed if they could have accomplished this feat without exploiting the tar sands in Alberta.
postatomic
(1,771 posts)But they probably wouldn't want us. Just in case, I've made my white flag. I surrender.
