Xref: utzoo can.general:1032 can.politics:1877
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!grant
From: grant@looking.UUCP (Grant Robinson)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics
Subject: Re: Free Trade: Why is there no 'Plan B'?
Keywords: debt, deficit
Message-ID: <2387@looking.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 88 16:08:39 GMT
References: <410@telly.UUCP> <1826@pembina.UUCP> <6761@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1988Nov22.164836.8598@watcsc.uucp>
Reply-To: grant@looking.UUCP (Grant Robinson)
Distribution: can
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 29

In article <1988Nov22.164836.8598@watcsc.uucp> trivia@watcsc.UUCP (Dave Nuttall) writes:
>
>One thing that people should look at, in my opinion, is that Canada has an
>annual deficit of about 30 million, while the States picked up over 1 billion
>dollars of additional debt last year.  Canada has around 25 million people,
>while the USA comes up with 250 million people.  Therefore, the States, with
>10 times the people, has over 30 times the annual debt.  (Hmm...)
>
The way economists prefer to look at it is the ratio of debt to total GNP,
ie. ultimate ability to pay.  Looked at that way, the US fares much better
that Canada (sorry I don't have the exact figures)  Much of current
economic theory deals with the idea of "outgrowing" the deficit, ie. if
the rate of growth of the GNP is consistently higher than the growth of the
deficit, the deficit (and hence total debt) will shrink as a percentage 
of total GNP.  Free trade will foster this process.  While this may not be 
the best method of managing debt, it currently seems the only workable method 
due to the inability of our goverments to cut spending and/or raise taxes to 
a level that will reduce the deficit.  Note that this method does not
reduce the debt, it increases our "ability to pay".
>
>Another point I've noticed involves the crime rate.  Toronto has about two
>million people while Ney York has about 10 million.  New York has a lot more
>than 5 times the murders than Toronto.  This is also valid with other crime
>types as well.
>
As several people have pointed out, we currently have 80% free trade.  Why
don't we have 80% of the crime rate?  Maybe crime isn't covered under the
GATT? :)
- grant