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Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Average per person wealth in Canada exceeds that for Americans

Average per person wealth in Canada exceeds that for Americans

Might people consider adopting Canada's economic policy of cutting marginal income tax rates and restraining government spending? Canada's marginal corporate income tax rate is about 15% below ours. That is a big difference if investors get to keep 15 cents more of every dollar that they make from Canadian investments. From Bloomberg:
On July 1, Canada Day, Canadians awoke to a startling, if pleasant, piece of news: For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American.

According to data from Environics Analytics WealthScapes published in the Globe and Mail, the net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.

A few days later, Canada and the U.S. both released the latest job figures. Canada’s unemployment rate fell, again, to 7.2 percent, and America’s was a stagnant 8.2 percent. Canada continues to thrive while the U.S. struggles to find its way out of an intractable economic crisis and a political sine curve of hope and despair. . . .

So where will Americans end up going for health care?

So where will Americans end up going for health care?

Obama has often said that he would like a health care system like they have in Canada. Look at how so few doctors these days are taking new Medicare patients. If that type of pricing policy is applied across the board, we would see fewer doctors providing services there also.

A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the north have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.

The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.

Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.

In 2011, Canadians enrolled in the nation’s government-dominated health service waited long periods of time for an estimated 941,321 procedures. As many as 2.8 percent of Canadians were waiting for treatment at any given time, according to the Institute.

“In some cases, these patients needed to leave Canada due to a lack of available resources or a lack of appropriate procedure/technology,” according to the Institute. “In others, their departure will have been driven by a desire to return more quickly to their lives, to seek out superior quality care, or perhaps to save their own lives or avoid the risk of disability.” . . .

On a related note:
Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

The DPMA, a non-partisan association of doctors and patients, surveyed a random selection of 699 doctors nationwide. The survey found that the majority have thought about bailing out of their careers over the legislation, which was upheld last month by the Supreme Court. . . .

Men are much more likely than women to want legalized prostitution in Britain and Canada

Men are much more likely than women to want legalized prostitution in Britain and Canada

From a new Angus Reid Public Opinion survey:
As was observed in a Canadian study on this topic conducted last year, there are some marked gender differences in Britain. Women are more likely to call for an approach that punishes both prostitutes and “clients” (44%) than to support a move towards consensual prostitution (30%). Conversely, men are more likely to believe that nobody should be punished (49% to 33%). The notion of decriminalisation is definitely more popular with men (52%) than women (29%).
Canadian member of parliament resigns from NDP over gun registration issue

Canadian member of parliament resigns from NDP over gun registration issue

Interesting story about how the NDP yanked Hyer's speaking time before the House so that he couldn't make a public statement on his decision to resign.

Bruce Hyer has quit the federal New Democrats, electing to sit as an Independent member of Parliament, weeks after being at odds with his party about the end of the long-gun registry.
The decision by one of the party's northern Ontario MPs marks the second time this year the party has suffered a resignation, the first being Lise St-Denis who now sits as a Liberal. . . .
Hyer was one of two New Democrats to vote with the government to end the long-gun registry, a move for which he was disciplined. His departure leaves the NDP with 101 seats.
Washington Examiner piece: "Ask Canada -- gun registration won't make D.C. safer"

Washington Examiner piece: "Ask Canada -- gun registration won't make D.C. safer"

My piece with Gary Mauser in the Washington Examiner starts this way:


The D.C. Council will soon vote on a new law that would eliminate several obstacles for gun buyers -- a five-hour training course, ballistics testing, a vision test, and a ban on certain types of ammunition. But they will leave unchanged the registration requirement for gun owners. D.C. could learn a lot from Canada's decision to finally rescind its gun registry in February.Beginning in 1998, Canadians spent a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a registry for long guns -- in the U.S., the same amount per gun owner would come to $67 billion. For all that money, the registry was never credited with solving a single murder. Instead, it became an enormous waste of police officers' time, diverting their efforts from traditional policing activities. . . .

Some relevant links are here:

 D.C. Council panel agrees to discard some gun rules

 Fox Can't Keep Story Straight On D.C. Gun Laws


"Democrats in the United States more likely to believe in Bigfoot (33%) than Republicans or Independents."



Apparently Americans are more likely than Canadians to believe in Big Foot, and Democrats are responsible for pulling up this average. The results are from a new Angus Reid survey. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is outside the margin of error.
Newest Op-ed piece: Death of a Long-Gun Registry

Newest Op-ed piece: Death of a Long-Gun Registry

My piece with Gary Mauser at National Review Online starts this way:

Despite spending a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a long-gun registry, Canadians never reaped any benefits from the project. The legislation to end the program finally passed the Parliament on Wednesday. Even though the country started registering long guns in 1998, the registry never solved a single murder. Instead it has been an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from patrolling Canadian streets and doing traditional policing activities.
Gun-control advocates have long claimed that registration is a safety issue, and their reasoning is straightforward: If a gun has been left at a crime scene and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link the crime gun back to the criminal.
Nice logic, but reality never worked that way. Crime guns are very rarely left at the crime scene, and when they are left at the scene, they have not been registered — criminals are not stupid enough to leave behind a gun that’s registered to them. Even in the few cases where registered crime guns are left at the scene, it is usually because the criminal has been seriously injured or killed, so these crimes would have been solved even without registration.
The statistics speak for themselves. . . . .
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