The dreaded "Christian Activist"
Posted on 06/19/2005 8:43:03 AM PDT by Heartofsong83
Wow. Great column.
Yeah it sure is. I'm about to add a second column from the same chain (in Winnipeg, where the Winnipeg Free Press editorial slammed Christians a couple weeks ago - search up "Barf Alert" to find it).
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
They are just looking for a political punching bag, and they are using the US election results to try to make the claim that Canada is "diverse" and "tolerant" but it will backfire badly if we get organized well enough...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1426118/posts for a similar column
An analogy: we don't want Howierd Dean to shut up / our enemies don't want the politically active Christian right to shut up ~~~
No, they want the Christian right to shut up. Bad analogy.
Gosh, I'd better tell all the people buying new, $400,000 houses in my (rural, Southern) county that our economy is tanking.
It all depends on where you go.
Well, in all fairness, the economy is tanking in places that are not the South
Reason # 7619 for you to leave your Yankee/West Coast hellhole and move to the wonderful paradise that is Dixie, that is, if you ain't liberal.
The author could rephrase: "The economy is tanking in the parts of the U.S. run by Democrats."
The US economy is not tanking....anywhere.
read/ping?
>Our economy is roaring along while the U.S. economy tanks.
>Gosh, I'd better tell all the people buying new, $400,000 >houses in my (rural, Southern) county that our economy is >tanking.
The Canadian economy didn't go thru the post 9/11 recession the US economy did. Canada hasn't had a recession in over 10 years and in fact really is in full "biggest boom ever" mode in many places. No federal deficits either. With oil at $58US a barrel and with all commodity prices shooting up the Canadian economy is doing gangbusters. Alberta's economy is stratospheric. The whole province, economy, population and all is growing by 10%+ a year.
In Toronto, Vancouver and many places in Alberta $400,000 won't buy you a garage in a half decent neighbourhood let alone a house. The real estate boom is bsed more on low interest rate bubble mania than true economic fundamentals and strengths.
The saying goes, when stocks are poor, real estate is hot.
Interesting perspective, thanks. In North Carolina, $400,000 buys a palace.
Keep telling yourself that, pal. Its a perfect analogy.
Canada's performance is not really that spectacular. It is kind of like a country long undergone bad times suddenly going better. The same is happening with NZ - it is touted that we never have had this good since 1968 with...4.8% of unemployment and 3.5% economic growth each year from 2000 onwards. But in real monetary terms, all countries' salaries are growing by the same amount.
When you look carefully in NZ's case, people still leave home for jobs overseas, and the average Kiwi is still very poor. To illustrate my point, let me introduce Joe Average, a typical married middle class family living in Northcote in Auckland. They together earn $80,000 ( = US$56,800. This is already the upper median level income for New Zealand), and with marginal tax rate of 33% they got only $61,400. Add to it medical insurance which is very likely to run about $3000 (in NZ it is not as common to see medical insurance included under employee benefit packages), a 3 bedroom house costing at least $450,000 (=US$319,500) and two cars each costing about $40,000 to $60,000 the middle class is marginal poor by US standards. By my personal conversations with my uncle it is very similar with Canada. And the most lethal point is that consumer goods costs the same in New Zealand as in the US, even after assuming the US dollar's weakest level over the past 5 years! Anbd no, I'm not comparing with prices in WalMarts.
So what would you choose? A seemingly booming-like-never-economy that is much poorer even after all these growths, or a seemingly-in-the-tanks economy where the salary is growing at the same rate but with a much richer starting point?
I would choose to be right here in the burgeoning urban sprawl of Charlotte, North Carolina.
I had no idea housing was so expensive in Canada or New Zealand. I wonder why that is, when both countries have so much available space? My original point about US$400,000 houses in my county was not to say that houses were terribly expensive - my family of 9 lives in a new house with plenty of space for well under $200,000 - but that there are obviously a considerable number of people around here with very large incomes.
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