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Originally Posted by Burkex The US dollar is now equal to the Canadien Dollar. When I was a kid the Canadien Dollar was less than .5 to 1. Now it is 1 to 1. |
No. The Canadian dollar has never gone below about $.62USD or so, and that was quite recently. For the most part the Loonie has traded in the $.70 to $.85 range. It went into a free fall in the late 90's, and then has rocketed back in the past 4 years because it's largely viewed as a petro/resource currency.
Everything else aside, if you're talking only about the effects of parity with the Canadian dollar, it's actually a big benefit to the US. It takes away competitiveness of Canadian manufacturing (can you say 300,000 job losses in Ontario?), brings more Canadian tourists, and a whole slew of other things. And the strong dollar doesn't do many favors for Canadian businesses, because we're largely an exporting country. Yay, oil is at an all-time (or near) high in US dollars. That does Alberta very little good, because most of the costs associated with production are in Canadian dollars. And consumers are getting bent over a barrel and fucked in the ass, because prices are not coming down as fast as they should be for pretty much everything. Nothing quite as pleasant as seeing the $6.99USD price on your $10.99CDN book.
But at the end of the day, Canada has consistently been the most fiscally responsible developed country for the past 10 years, and while we largely missed the tech boom we also largely missed the bust. It's surprising the Loonie took so long to take flight; it's been a largely undervalued currency for awhile.
Back on topic: any time I'm flying internationally, I avoid going through the US like the fucking plague. It's a gigantic pain in the ass, and I've missed flights because of it. I'd rather fly 5 hours to Toronto or a couple to Vancouver even if I'm going the opposite way, just to avoid going through LAX or Denver.
