The headline for this article once won an award - for the most boring headline! The article I pulled it from was re-published on the "Invest in Edmonton Real Estate Blog" today and it is absolutely worth reading. It is an article that appeared in Newsweek last month, that talks about the global financial crisis and how Canada is fairing better than the rest of the industrialized world.
A few excerpts:
"Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk."
I remember many people crying during the recent real estate boom that we were being held back by the fact that mortgage interest isn't deductible here….
"…the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest onyour mortgage isn't deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are "non-recourse," which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it's mostly the bank's problem. In Canada, it's yours. Ah, but you've heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs-interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year-because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent."
The article also compares our health care systems and immigration policies. It's definitely worth a read.
Amen Brother!!
Makes you realize that we’re pretty lucky up here not be hit as hard as the majority of the world