It’s a good deal for us, in buying American goods. There is a tremendous price advantage in America, which is generally acerbated by the Canadian dollar being worth less. When it’s at parity, it makes things like grocery shopping, etc just that much easier to do in the US.
I don’t know if most americans know but we pay about twice as much for produce up here, and most electronics have quite a bit of a surcharge compared to the same product in the US. In many cases, it’s cheaper to buy from the US, and have it shipped up here.
As for hewers of wood, drawers of water, I’d rather emulate the example of America, and be the shopkeepers of the world. :) We need to knock down our business regulations. Sure wish we had more bullish folks like you up here! We need that kind of opitimism.
I agree with all that you wrote. ...well said. And yes, I’ve seen grocery prices up there (Canadian relatives). But we in the USA need very much to get to work at producing useful things. Our economy is dying, because trade requires a two-way exchange of goods—not debt/bribes for goods.
The rise in the importance of commodities, including oil, will be unstoppable, I’m afraid, unless eastern Asia somehow crashes. ...doubtful, as east Asia, having a large and diversified manufacturing base, has been concentrating on growing consumerism and exchanging manufactured products for natural resources (including oil) in other areas like Africa and South America.
...wish I could get up to northern Alberta (the truly northern parts) sooner (low income nerd here and busy with a personal project over the next couple of years). We’ve been playing with some possibly better building foundation designs for permafrost—foundations that might stay level without needing posts all the way to bedrock.
BTW, on commodities, we’ll buy from Canada regardless of the new heights of the loonie. There’s not much other choice, with oil and other resources otherwise needing to be shipped halfway around the world to us with freight fuel prices rising. So if the loonie goes much higher, we in the USA are captive buyers.