The Canadian dollar is now worth more than the US dollar.
Today, Nov. 27, 2007, the US dollar is trading at about 99 cents of the Canadian Dollar. In November of 2003, the US dollar was worth approximately $1.57 Canadian dollars.
Is it any wonder though when you look at our national debt? The national debt was pretty much flat for 40 years until 1983. From 1983 to now, the debt has been increasing except for 2000 and 2001, and over the past 5 years, the debt has increased from roughly 6 trillion to over 9 trillion. Somehow, we’ve managed to spend an extra 50% of our total debt in 5 years.
Every time I go to the grocery store, I’m surprised by how many items cost more from week to week. 2 liter bottles of cola were regularly 89 cents not too long ago, and now they’re $1.29. Oreo cookies were regularly $2.50 a bag a few months ago, and now they’re $3.69. When every item at the grocery store that costs under a dollar is increased by 10 or 15 cents, it adds up very quickly.
Supposedly our inflation rate isn’t out of the norm and has been floating between 1-3% for the past 7 years, but the value of our dollar is dropping fast, and we’re compounding the problem by spending way too much money. Our government can’t afford to spend another 50% of our debt over the next 5 years.
We need to make some hard choices soon or we’re all going to be in a world of hurt. If we continue on this way, we’re going to end up with another great depression or worse, a bankrupt country. We have a war going on in Iraq, which doesn’t look like it’s going to end any time soon. If we pull out now, we’re going to be in a worse situation because Iraq will fall apart. I’m not sure it’s the wisest thing in the world though to take the financial burden of starting a new country when we have so many problems in our own country to deal with.
Now we have politicians saying that we should have universal health care. How on Earth can we justify the expense when we’re 9 trillion dollars in debt and have a dollar that’s worth 63% of its value 4 years ago?
How can we justify any new expenses? Building a wall to stop immigrants? Are we serious? Let’s pay off our debt first otherwise we may not have a country to put a wall around.
The US has the strongest military in the world, but wars can be won without firing a single shot. All they have to do is buy us, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.
The US people need to come together. We need to think more about “we” instead of “I”. Rather than farming work out to India or China, we should hire people from the US. The more people we can get off of welfare and out of poverty, the better our economy will become and the less our government will be burdened with the expense of supporting people. The more we buy products made in the US, the better off our economy will be. If we can’t buy US Products or hire US citizens, then at least we should support friendly countries. I don’t know how many times lately that I’ve heard about cheap Chinese products causing health problems such as lead paint on Thomas the Tank Engine trains. There has been recall after recall of toys and other Chinese products because in all honesty, they aren’t our friends, and they don’t care if we get sick or die from their unsafe products.
The other side of the coin is that we need to get out of debt as individuals. We need to make the hard decision of cutting back and paying off those credit cards and other high interest loans. I heard recently that the average American spends 20 dollars for every 19 he or she earns. With spending habits like that, is it any wonder that our government is in the same boat?
We can’t keep going on like this, and we can’t rely on our government any longer to bail us out of financial burdens. If we’re on welfare, we need to do everything we can to get off of welfare. If we have a dispute, we need to resolve it ourselves before wasting time and money in the courts. There are a million ways we all can make a difference, and if we don’t now, it’s all going to come crashing down around us in the not too distant future.
Sources:
Inflation Rates: http://www.inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/CurrentInflation.asp
National Debt: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html
USD to CAD Value Trend: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDCAD=X&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=