Where is the US economy headed?

@realjohnboy,

Most of it is GM building cars in Canada versus Michigan. The US imports a lot of raw materials e.g. oil from Alberta.

@RABEL222,

Well if they moved here to stop paying taxes, the moon is made of cheese. I believe our taxes are much higher. Take if you will McDonalds. Sure they are in Canada, they provide terrible jobs, they pay taxes here and the profits, at least for company stores, goes to the head company. The list of American stores or companies in Canada is pretty endless...
Take Costco, another american company. They buy Canadian beef, package it, take the best for their customers down south and leave us with inferior cuts, making it a more expensive product. The profits are not left in Canadian banks, but are shipped south.
As for car companies, we also bailed them out too. They got loans any mortgage holders would be envious of. Mind you, GM paid the loans back or are in the process off doing so unlike the banks, but they are owned in part by the Canadain, Ontarian and American government. But, with the 'buy American' policies, they won't be able to buy parts made in Canada.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Yes, I'm aware.

Do you think Germany is being generous?

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@talk72000,

I highly doubt Canada's 12,000 employees, some of which are employed in dealerships, built the majority of GM vehicles. The US has 68,500, down from 91,000 before restructuring. Total GM world wide employees count at 209,000.
Yes, you do buy oil from Alberta and you'll probably be buying more. Sadly, you still pay less at the pump than I do, and I live in Alberta.

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@Ceili,

Quote:

Take Costco, another american company. They buy Canadian beef, package it, take the best for their customers down south and leave us with inferior cuts, making it a more expensive product.

Says who?

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@hawkeye10,

Well my dad for one, he used to work in the beef business.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

Well my dad for one, he used to work in the beef business.

He and who ever else told you this appear to be wrong

Quote:

Many Canadians who still ask, “where’s the beef,” now have an answer. It’s at Costco.

The giant retail chain accounts for 16.2 percent of all Canadian sales of fresh beef, and last year generated $3.9 billion in meat sales, said Claude Gravel, assistant general manager for fresh meats with Costco Wholesale Canada.

Costco markets 56 percent of all AAA slaughter beef in Canada and is working with feedlots to increase the amount of AAA and prime beef available, he said during the March 10 Tiffin lecture at Lethbridge College.

He said only one percent of slaughter beef in Canada grades as prime, or AAA, and his goal is to increase that to four percent through pre-slaughter identification of superior cattle, new management and feeding protocols and a camera system of grading to eliminate subjective judgments.

http://www.producer.com/News/Article.aspx?aid=34118

More info on beef grading here
http://clients.newhallklein.com/gfs/eng/pdfs/Grading_Brochure_Domestic_April_08.pdf

AAA is the second highest of 4 grades, representing 48% of the slaughter, and Costco sells 56% of the AAA sold in Canada even as they sell only 17% of the beef sold....you should be giving them backslaps for selling high quality bee rather than slamming them.

American Costco beef has been consistently fantastic over 20 years and three states that I have been buying my beef from them. I doubt that they do it any differently in Canada.

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Hawk... I'm not talking about fresh beef, or any animal parts shipped to the butcher in store. I'm talking about the pre-package stuff. If a costco in canada is selling fresh beef from a kill floor in Lethbridge, it hasn't crossed the border, has it. It has remained in country.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

Hawk... I'm not talking about fresh beef, or any animal parts shipped to the butcher in store. I'm talking about the pre-package stuff. If a costco in canada is selling fresh beef from a kill floor in Lethbridge, it hasn't crossed the border, has it. It has remained in country.

If Costco is selling a high volume of high quality beef in Canada then Costco is not open to the charge of working to deprive Canadians of high quality beef. It may be that someone is shipping a lot of the best beef out of Canada, but leave Costco out of it.

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@hawkeye10,

Costco was one example. All the major grocery stores sell pre-packaged meat that comes from the states. Fresh beef is another ball of wax entirely.

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@Ceili,

Another thing...."high quality beed" to an American is something that makes a tender flavorful steak. I remember years ago reading that Asians actually prefer stuff that we consider lower quality because it works better with the way they cook and eat it. They cut it into very thin strips and put it on very high heat in a sauce, and the steak meat that we like comes out dry I think they said, but the tougher meats get tender and maintains juicyness.

IDK what Canadians eat, but maybe we are looking at the same thing here, where we want your steaks more than you do and you want our tougher cuts more than we do. This which follows suggests that I am correct, that what you call a conspiracy against Canadians is nothing more than the markets working after free trade pacts between the nations were put in place.

Quote:

Regional differences in tastes and preferences also provide incentives to trade. For example, Select and No-roll product from the United States, which is discounted in the U.S. relative to Choice grade on the basis of lack of fat marbling, has found a market in Canada where it competes in the lean end of the domestic fed beef market.

http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher.do?id=1195832444213&lang=eng

Note: the same thing happens with chicken...Americans dont eat the dark meat other than the wings, so the majority of the thigh meat is shipped to Asia, where they love it.

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@hawkeye10,

Just to clarify, there is no grand conspiracy. I merely said, if you do care to go back, that stores, such as costco, buy canadian beef, package it and sell it back to us at a premium. Frequently, this beef is often of lower quality as the best cuts are not sent back up.
Some of the best beef in the world comes from AB, we grain feed the herds. Trust me, I've eaten corn and hay fed beef and it's awful. Alberta is probably one of the biggest beef producers in Canada, we supply about 67% of the beef. I think the meat I get from my butcher would be above quality compared to most I've tried. Canada has much higher standards/rules for food production than most places world wide. Brazil and Oz are the biggest exporters of meat in the world and I don't like their products at all... different feed.
I'd think the N. American diet is pretty standard as well, we have similar tastes. As witnessed by the selection of American restaurants and menus I've perused. I'm always astounded by the amount of food I'm served in the US though, huge Portions.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Do you think Germany is being generous?

Compared with other NATO countries - yes, because we pay more.

But I suppose that this is still a kind of paying back our war guilt: the occupied zones officially didn't end until September 1990:

'Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany' wrote:

The French Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America hereby terminate their rights and responsibilities relating to Berlin and to Germany as a whole.

So it's okay.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

But I suppose that this is still a kind of paying back our war guilt: the occupied zones officially didn't end until September 1990:

And it has nothing to do with paying for your defense?

Let me get this straight:

The Germans and their government do not want American military bases in their country, and would be very happy if all US military personnel and equipment left tomorrow?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

The Germans and their government do not want American military bases in their country, and would be very happy if all US military personnel and equipment left tomorrow?

I don't know what "the Germans" want and certainly can't speak for our centre-right Conservative/Liberal coalition government.

What I do know, however, is that every single garrison has a huge impact on local economy, no matter from what country.
(We've 21 US-bases momentarily here - that number will be around 10 by 2015.)

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

And it has nothing to do with paying for your defense?

Today it was announced that our government will close 31 more garrisons, reducing the forces by 90,000 troops down to now 180,000.

I haven't heard that they want to hire more US-troops instead.

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@Walter Hinteler,

The narrator in King Solomon's Mines, which is Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE, a high Government Official, speaks of four tribes which consider every able bodied man to be a warrior. He gives them as the Kukuanas, the Ifnatoos, the Germans and the Ignosis. I'm going from memory and I might have some of those slightly wrong.

Was he wrong Walt in1885 and is that anything like the case today?

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@Walter Hinteler,

C'mon Walter, surely you must know what the general attitude in Germany is about US bases and whether or not your government has taken positions on them.

If its a non-issue for Germans and the German government alike, then it is far more likely that these bases serve German interests (of one sort or another) then a case of lingering war-guilt.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

C'mon Walter, surely you must know what the general attitude in Germany is about US bases and whether or not your government has taken positions on them.

Well, as said: I live in the (former) British Zone. We had Dutch, Belgian, Canadian and British bases here, additionally some smaller US-units for handling the nuclear weapons.

I really can only guess what people think, living where US-bases are situated.
I've no idea about the government's position on this topic.

I do think that these bases are (and were) a big issue for the local/regional economy.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

I've no idea about the government's position on this topic.

In 2004, the (then) Social-Democratic government said that the USA were doing the very same what Germany did: reducing the basis due to changes in the world.

The conservative/liberal government seems to carry on with this position. (Actually, they said nothing about the UK-bases being completely closed in less than two years.)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Since you seem to be well attuned to current affairs around the world, I'm going to assume the same can be said about you relative to Germany. That being the case, and based on your response, I'm going to take a huge leap and conclude that this is essentially a non-issue in Germany, and that the primary reaction to the bases being closed would be negative because of the economic impact.

That being the case at 25%, you're getting a damned good bargain.

Since the other 75% is paid by US tax dollars, we're getting the shaft.

Clearly there is no longer any reasonable strategic value in having US troops in Germany. The Soviet Union no longer exists and China isn't about to send their tanks across a continent to invade your cities. Should The Russian Bear get aggressive, I'm sure the brave men and women of European militaries can send Putin packing.

If the German government doesn't see it as an indispensible element of it's nation's defense, we can't be getting much consideration for it.

Germany's been a friend, but I don't see why my taxes should pay for the economic support of German base towns and villages.

No offense intended Walter, but my impression is that you are German nationalist, who is, while perhaps ingrate is too harsh a term, of the belief that any reasonable gratitude the German people may have had for US generosity as long since run its course. I've no problem with that of course except to the extent that my taxes dollars are being wasted.

I have to thank you though. This brief exchange has inspired me to do further research on the subject so that I can formulate a clearer position which I can then convey to my elected representatives.

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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