Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I thought the debt clock started higher then 20k per person.
Its interesting that the Canadian dollar increases should significantly increase the effectiveness of the debt repayment as long as it holds, but it the long term might actually negatively effect the ability to pay the debt down due to the impact on some of Canada's key industries.
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Why? I'm about 99.9% sure Canada denominates all of its debt in Cdn$$, so the exchange rate does not matter.
Debt per person means little - it is debt as a portion of the economy that is generally held as the most important variable. Same as with a person - if you make $125k per year and have $50k in debt its a lot different than if you make $30k per year and have that same debt.
By most measures, Canada is now in a superior position to the US, although the US problem is not really all that bad. Our net debt is now running at about 25% of GDP while the US is starting to push towards 40%. See Chart A2 in this link - Canada has improved from about 71% in 1995 to 25% today. Note that the chart includes all levels of government.
http://www.budget.gc.ca/2007/bp/bpa2e.html