41–50 of 160 posts
Canadians have been gorging themselves on debt for the past decade. Far higher than other OCED countries. That's left them in a very precarious situation.[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/canadas-household-debt-level...
Edit - also secured loans are less risky than unsecured loans. Your article includes housing in 'debt'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A huge chunk of our economy is real-estate and finance[1], so that's not too surprising. Everyone thinks the path to getting rich is to buy houses / condos. They're in for a nasty surprise I think. It's never a good idea to go crazy leveraging debt. When you combine that with all of the insane student loan debt people go into (I know someone on their 4th university degree!), then it's a recipe for disaster. https://w…
4 university degrees is probably cheaper than 1 private school degree from the US
and yet when clicking the link, the headline says "Canada’s household debt levels higher than any other country, report says"
I had the shittiest life in the USA, was born in Canada but parents moved to USA and when I was seven years old; parents were lower-middle class for context.
I've only managed to move back to Canada a few years ago and I wish I never would go to the USA ever again if I could live life over. Canada has free healthcare and I'm a transgender person; so that's awesome that people are taken care of medically. In USA I was denied healthcare by doctors based on their religious beliefs. I even suffered conversion therapy and multiple incidents of discrimination that would have easily ended with legal proceedings in my favour if it had occurred in Canada instead of the USA. The legal help for minorities in USA is a joke and they turn away people unless they feel like media will love the story.
Other benefits would be university cost in Canada is affordable compared to USA. In Canada tuition loans will not start collecting interest until after you have a degree and working (I believe). Also you can declare bankruptcy if you need to unlike in USA. Food here is way healthier than the USA. Social workers here care in helping people find jobs, get the resources they need and there is legal aid if you're jobless.
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I didn't downvote you, but I see no data, only anecdotes, poor forms of argumentation ("most of us ..."), and outright mistruths (your health care is in no way, shape, or form "free") ... and HN tends to downvote this sort of content.
Are you nitpicking over the definition of the word "free" because it's taxpayer-funded? You should know that "free healthcare" is shorthand for "you are unlikely to be bankrupted by, or forced to do without, necessary treatment because your insurance is not up to snuff."
Doesn't account for immigration. The US has lots of poor immigrants, which drives the median down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that simple, really. Although for some comparisons you are probably correct, in other ways they are a very natural pairing. For all their differences, in many other ways Canada and the USA are much more like each other than either are like any other country.
Canada and Australia are the only two countries with the population of over 20 million that are ranked higher than the USA in the OECD Better Life Index[1]. Therefore, it's safe to assume that the size of the country makes a huge difference in such rankings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD_Better_Life_Index