"i am inclined to believe that Canadians have much less of a disposable income."

- i am inclined to believe that you don't know, and i'm not going to look it up for you


"That means less for spending, less for saving. "

- according to the federal reserve, canadians have had a higher personal saving rate than americans for decades...that adds up:
FRBSF: Economic Letter - What's Behind the Low Personal Saving Rate? (03/29/2002)



"Does Canada get a free ride when taking national defense expenditures into consideration? "

- free ride? HA! canada was fighting in WWII for two years before uncle sam developed a spine...canada fought in the korean war...despite it's tiny military, canada has provided a lot more peacekeeping man-hours for united nations missions than the usa but you don't hear anyone accusing the usa of getting a free ride on canada's peacekeeping coat tails...on a per capita basis, more than twice as many canadian troops have died in afghanistan than US troops have died in iraq...we're not getting a "free ride", especially when you take into consideration that we're not constantly making enemies by smashing defenseless countries against the wall to show the rest of the world we mean business (that is not a worthwhile military expenditure)...canada did not request nor need the usa to protect it from vietnam, cambodia, laos, nicaragua, panama, grenada, haiti, cuba, guatemala, libya, and iraq



"Being that Canadians, as a whole pay a higher % of their earnings to taxes, their governmental deficit is going to be lower."

- it also helps that we don't spend $621 billion on the military, and $451 billion on interest on the national debt, and $400 million on a presidential election campaign...we pay higher taxes, but we don't pay anything for health care....i am inclined to believe that if you added in the per capita cost of US heath insurance to US per capita taxes, canadians would come out ahead


"Are you saying that having a high deficit reduces the standard of living in a respective country?"

- ABSOLUTELY YES! in canada's case, a high deficit would affect the government's ability to provide social programs to support lower and middle class (about half of canadian social program spending benefits the middle class whose economic well being is essential to the strength of the general economy)...a high deficit would affect the government's ability to fund universal health care which is an important contributor to standard of living...a high deficit would affect the government's ability to fund education, research and development, science and technology which contribute to a skilled workforce, productivity, and competitives...a high deficit would affect the government's ability to fund civilian infrastructure maintenance like highways and airports which facilitate economic activity...a high deficit would affect the government's ability to enforce regulations such as workplace health and safety, food safety, pollution, etc...all these things affect our standard of living


"While i do applaud you for taking the time to calculate such figures, your final result is subject to change, and therefore incorrect."

- fair enough...go back to dec 31 2007 when the national debt was $9.2 trillion and the GDP was $13.8 trillion to get a 67% debt to GDP ratio....the national debt has increased by $1 trillion since then, but the GDP certainly has not, so the debt to GDP ratio is going to shoot up in 2008