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If we go by another Peter, Peter Lynch in this case he would say no one can predict inflation or interest rates long term. Secondly his words is there is always

by quags 4y ago

If we go by another Peter, Peter Lynch in this case he would say no one can predict inflation or interest rates long term. Secondly his words is there is always something to worry about when investing - like when oil went to 40 and there would be a depression or when Japan was going to take over the world leading to Americas downfall - or when Japan was crashing and going to cause a depression. Or when oil went from 40 to 10 and would cause a depression. Or when in 82 the prime rate went to 20 and there was stagflation that no one predicted in 80 or 81. Now Schiff may be right and we are heading for this finally after years of slow growth from 2010-2018 when inflation was lower than the feds target of 2% something no one would have predicted in 2008. Schiff may be right after predicting multiple large depressions to finally get one right.

safety1st 4y ago
Over the years as my perspective has become more global I've come to realize what a privileged position the US is in, economically: * Ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific * A very effective transportation system in between * In the big growth sector where points 1 and 2 don't matter, tech, it's still #1 in the world anyway * A market of 350 million high income people (by global standards) under one regulatory framework No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. There will be crises but the key insight for me was that because of these advantages the US is almost always going to be better prepared to weather those crises than the rest of the world. That is why it enjoys such a huge inflow of capital and immigration (currently #1 recipient of FDI in the world, most immigrants of any country in the world). It's just a big risk to bet your money against the success of the US, no matter how dumb its leaders get. It probably also helps that Americans tend to flip out and go full doomsday mode when anything goes wrong inside of their borders, I mean it's stressful, it's not very well planned, but it does make problems hard to ignore.
- ciconia 4y ago
  > No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. You left out the most important advantage: the US has plenty of oil and gas;
  - bandrami 4y ago
    It's weird how people keep forgetting the US is the world's largest petrostate
    - TheAlchemist 4y ago
      It's quite mind blowing ! Quite frankly, I always knew oil / gas was big in US, when I realized it's THE largest petrostate, it felt weird.
    - Armisael16 4y ago
      The US is not a petrostate. Petrostates are defined not just by the large amounts of oil and gas they extract but the relative absence of other economic activity and the dependence of the state on that money. 42% of Saudi GDP is petroleum. 35% of Kazakh GDP is petroleum. 8% of US GDP is petroleum.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  > A market of 350 million high income people (by global standards) under one regulatory framework China almost has the same number of millionaires. Per capita it’s not as good, but in terms of volume. And I’d say they’re closer to a single regulatory framework than the US which has all sorts of conflicting state laws which get in the way of interstate commerce (despite the commerce clause). Sure there are a lot of advantages as you say. But they’re not indefinitely insurmountable.
  - bburnett44 4y ago
    Yeah but there’s all sorts of weird business dynamics w china. For the most part, government exists to enforce business/personal rights in the us versus the reversed in china. Like I’d say the single regulatory framework is actually a bad thing there
  - safety1st 4y ago
    For sure China has a ton of people and a huge economy. Fair point that the regulatory framework there may be more homogenous, but it's also weaker. And it lacks all the other inbuilt advantages I mentioned. Remember, the USA can ship goods back and forth between itself and what... 90% of the ex-US global economy? With very little geopolitical interference. This is largely a function of geography, plop a cargo ship in the water, sail it, boom you arrive in Western Europe, or East Asia, without getting anywhere near some other country's sphere of influence. China can't say the same. To ship cargo to America they have to sail near multiple political rivals (and they seem to enjoy antagonizing America itself as well). To ship cargo to Europe they need to do the same. So there are all these countries and political forces that could disrupt Chinese trade at any time. In the long run they have inbuilt geographic risk, the US has inbuilt geographic immunity.
    - paganel 4y ago
      I think this is a skewed perspective. In case of a war the Chinese leaders won't care about the fact that they won't be able to sell their plasticky stuff to Europe or the US, they'll only care to have enough food for their population and enough raw materials for their Army (it takes lots of iron and access to cheap energy to make lots of artillery shells). Lack of enough food for their population was what brought the Germans down in WW1, partial lack of raw materials helped bring down the same Germans in WW2. By itself China won't be able to feed its people in case of a US naval blockade, but that's where the alliance with Russia comes into place. Transporting grains by rail instead of by sea is not as cost effective but will do the trick, and Russia has lots of grains. The same Russia has also lots of raw minerals. That's why throwing Russia into China's open arms is such a geo-strategic stupid thing to do from the West's point of view, really, really stupid.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  All that but most of all, the fact USD is the world reserve currency is the biggest privilege. Every other countries have to stock up on USD/ have swaps in place and follow US when they raise fed interest rates instead of doing what’s best for the domestic economy. For example, South Korea’s USD reserves has been sharply going down as they’ve been trying to resist following the recent rate hikes to soften the blow to the economy. This is happening all across the globe. However, US can do (and seems to be doing) whatever they want.
  - Beached 4y ago
    within reason of course. it's a position of privilege, but that position used to below to the UK. they lost that position over/after the world wars, and we got it. it is possible that doing whatever we want could push people to the euro as the reserve or the pound. it seems far fetched, but I could see a world where the euro the the world's reserve currency
    - TexanFeller 4y ago
      The yuan may be the competition we should fear. Since we disconnected Russia from our financial systems, Russia is willing to do business with our biggest rival, China, in their currency.
      - 64bittechie 4y ago
        Well, what do you expect? The US over the past several decades has effectively crippled economies for its own interests by cutting off USD access. When you do this to a non-trivial number of countries they get around it by trading among themselves and dumping the USD for their own currencies. There are many countries including India, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, etc who are opening up bilateral or trilateral agreements to trade in their own currencies bypassing the USD. The US has pissed off a significant portion of the world that its days as reserve currency are certainly numbered. However, unbelievable it might sound today but the world is inching closer to non-USD centric future.
- kirse 4y ago
  No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. It's why it's on our currency - "e pluribus unum". It's also why Russia and China are constantly working to erode the unity of the American people, whether it's through false narratives that "we're more divided than ever", driving a wedge into political parties, fomenting rage-mode across social media, utilizing Twitter for propaganda or TikTok to keep American minds drained of their creative motivation while they ban the apps in their own countries... the list really goes on. A cord of many stands is not easily broken, but others will do their damnedest to try.
  - quesera 4y ago
    > "e pluribus unum" It's been a while, but I translate that as "From many, one". I think it's an allusion to the thirteen British colonies becoming one United States.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    > It's why it's on our currency - "e pluribus unum". "United we stand, divided we fall."
  - fijiaarone 4y ago
    “A cord of many strands is not easily broken” is literally Fascism.
    - Armisael16 4y ago
      The idea people can get more done by working together is literally older than writing.
    - pfannkuchen 4y ago
      The "cord" in fascism is usually an ethnic group. I believe that is the problem with fascism, not the fact that there is a cord.
- quesera 4y ago
  You left out: * Issues the global reserve currency * Maintains the largest military * Has the widest media reach * Has significant natural resources There are problems too, but the unfair advantages are quite strong, and self-perpetuating. Which is fortunate for Americans, because very few countries could be so haphazardly managed, without failing.
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    I would argue the perceived haphazardness is an advantage. The more centrally planned the economy, the more likely an incompetent government takes power and mucks it up. Part of America’s genius is the (fairly) restricted powers and decentralized nature of responsibility.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
      Is this why the US financial system blows up so regularly?
      - ptero 4y ago
        That may be. But whatever those blowups are they tend to be a lot less damaging than at other places. I lived through two growing up, and both times almost everyone lost almost all money. I will take the risk on my US bank account over those any time. My 2c.
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        And why it recovers so quickly.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Asian financial crisis? Euro crisis? It’s not unique to the US. It just makes headlines.
  - mike_d 4y ago
    Whenever the "what actually backs the US dollar" discussion comes up I remind them: 11 aircraft carriers.
- riffraff 4y ago
  You missed one massive advantage: the US has a good and reliable legal system. It can not be overstated how good this is for an economy, and it's something emerging markets struggle with, and even some of the advanced economics. It'll always be easier to start and run a business where you can rely on tribunals to solve problems quickly and somewhat fairly.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wodenokoto 4y ago
    Who are we calling an "advanced economy", but also considering having an unreliable legal system? Contenders, in my mind: - China, second largest economy, but generally still considered developing, so I don't think it counts as "advanced" - Russia? They've been a big player in the world economy long enough it is hard to call it a developing country.
    - riffraff 4y ago
      Italy for example (second exporter in Europe, tenth by GDP in the world) has notorious issues with its legal system (for a variety of reasons) where trial may take many years to be concluded.
      - dtech 4y ago
        That export sounds like a suspicious claim, do you have sources? afaik DE, FR and NL are much bigger exporters, and a random Google result seems to back that, placing Italy 5th in EU absolutely and almost last by GDP [1] [2] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.KD?locations=EU&most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.KD?location... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=EU&most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?location...
        riffraff 4y ago
- FredPret 4y ago
  The other advantage is the total net worth as opposed to GDP. You hear a lot about GDP and the US has the biggest economy by far. But the total net worth per person in the States is even further ahead of the rest of the world. Only Switzerland is ahead of the US in per-capita net worth (only by a hair though) and one suspects that’s partly due to so many Americans parking their money there. Having had the biggest GDP for decades led to a amazing amount of wealth being concentrated in the USA.
  - tfourb 4y ago
    Actually the U.S. in 3rd place behind Switzerland and Luxembourg in terms of mean wealth per adult and Hong Kong is not far behind. But you are right that the other countries on the upper ranks are mostly smaller nations with large banking sectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... While I agree that the U.S. has an enormous built-in advantage over other countries, I would really highlight one other piece of data: In terms of median wealth, the U.S. is eclipsed by half the E.U. and many Asian countries including diverse economies like France. This points to a terrifying concentration of wealth, which has also been highlighted by researchers like Picketty and this could (or arguably already does) put the social fabric of the U.S. under enormous strain.
    - FredPret 4y ago
      While it is true that the US mean is much higher than the median, the median person still benefits greatly from that wealth. The rich invest their wealth in business, real estate for rent, and real estate for themselves, making all these things better. I'm currently in the EU, in a country that outperforms the US in median wealth by about 20%. While it's clear that life here is good, I'm also struck by how much worse everything looks here, from the rental real estate where I'm staying, to the generally unprofessional standard of business. So just looking at the slightly-higher median and ignoring the 2-3x higher mean also skews the picture.
      - ljf 4y ago
- mo_42 4y ago
  I like these kind of comments. They’re much more analytical than the ones predicting recessions and what not. Seems like in economics it’s also useful to analyze qualitatively. Of course you cannot run doomsday headlines with that.
- pjc50 4y ago
  > It probably also helps that Americans tend to flip out and go full doomsday mode when anything goes wrong inside of their borders Indeed. American doomerists are just ridiculously parochial. Panicking about the dollar when it's the currency that everyone else runs to as a safe haven. The biggest risk to America is its debt ceiling mechanism; the opportunity to completely destroy America's credit and economy to own the libs is very tempting to some people.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >> No other country can compare. Except canada. The coasts. The transportation system, the tech industry... and canada has a far better-regulated banking sector, one that surfed past 2008 almost without incident. And for every natural resource, from water to uranium, Canada has more than it will ever need. I would far rather ride out the comming climate/economic crisis in calgary/vancouver than LA/SF.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    Well tech and banking are clearly eclipsed by the US. And much of Canada has no transportation infrastructure. Are you sure you’re not comparing select Canadian cities to select American cities?
    - sandworm101 4y ago
      Nope. Canadian populations live closer to their transport infrastructure than American populations. Canadian people actually live closer together than Americans, mostly in relatively tight cities. The big empty parts of the US are in reality inhabited by thousands of small towns. Drive any highway in the US and there is a town every dozen miles. The big empty parts of Canada are actually empty. Highways can go for hundreds of miles in some areas between towns. This is largely a result of historic land laws, crown ownership and mining in Canada v. frontier land grabs and farming in the US.
bandrami 4y ago
It's like how Zerohedge has predicted 7 of the last 2 recessions.

by quags 4y ago

safety1st 4y ago

Over the years as my perspective has become more global I've come to realize what a privileged position the US is in, economically: * Ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific * A very effective transportation system in between * In the big growth sector where points 1 and 2 don't matter, tech, it's still #1 in the world anyway * A market of 350 million high income people (by global standards) under one regulatory framework No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. There will be crises but the key insight for me was that because of these advantages the US is almost always going to be better prepared to weather those crises than the rest of the world. That is why it enjoys such a huge inflow of capital and immigration (currently #1 recipient of FDI in the world, most immigrants of any country in the world). It's just a big risk to bet your money against the success of the US, no matter how dumb its leaders get. It probably also helps that Americans tend to flip out and go full doomsday mode when anything goes wrong inside of their borders, I mean it's stressful, it's not very well planned, but it does make problems hard to ignore.

ciconia 4y ago
> No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. You left out the most important advantage: the US has plenty of oil and gas;
- bandrami 4y ago
  It's weird how people keep forgetting the US is the world's largest petrostate
  - TheAlchemist 4y ago
    It's quite mind blowing ! Quite frankly, I always knew oil / gas was big in US, when I realized it's THE largest petrostate, it felt weird.
  - Armisael16 4y ago
    The US is not a petrostate. Petrostates are defined not just by the large amounts of oil and gas they extract but the relative absence of other economic activity and the dependence of the state on that money. 42% of Saudi GDP is petroleum. 35% of Kazakh GDP is petroleum. 8% of US GDP is petroleum.
vlovich123 4y ago
> A market of 350 million high income people (by global standards) under one regulatory framework China almost has the same number of millionaires. Per capita it’s not as good, but in terms of volume. And I’d say they’re closer to a single regulatory framework than the US which has all sorts of conflicting state laws which get in the way of interstate commerce (despite the commerce clause). Sure there are a lot of advantages as you say. But they’re not indefinitely insurmountable.
- bburnett44 4y ago
  Yeah but there’s all sorts of weird business dynamics w china. For the most part, government exists to enforce business/personal rights in the us versus the reversed in china. Like I’d say the single regulatory framework is actually a bad thing there
- safety1st 4y ago
  For sure China has a ton of people and a huge economy. Fair point that the regulatory framework there may be more homogenous, but it's also weaker. And it lacks all the other inbuilt advantages I mentioned. Remember, the USA can ship goods back and forth between itself and what... 90% of the ex-US global economy? With very little geopolitical interference. This is largely a function of geography, plop a cargo ship in the water, sail it, boom you arrive in Western Europe, or East Asia, without getting anywhere near some other country's sphere of influence. China can't say the same. To ship cargo to America they have to sail near multiple political rivals (and they seem to enjoy antagonizing America itself as well). To ship cargo to Europe they need to do the same. So there are all these countries and political forces that could disrupt Chinese trade at any time. In the long run they have inbuilt geographic risk, the US has inbuilt geographic immunity.
  - paganel 4y ago
    I think this is a skewed perspective. In case of a war the Chinese leaders won't care about the fact that they won't be able to sell their plasticky stuff to Europe or the US, they'll only care to have enough food for their population and enough raw materials for their Army (it takes lots of iron and access to cheap energy to make lots of artillery shells). Lack of enough food for their population was what brought the Germans down in WW1, partial lack of raw materials helped bring down the same Germans in WW2. By itself China won't be able to feed its people in case of a US naval blockade, but that's where the alliance with Russia comes into place. Transporting grains by rail instead of by sea is not as cost effective but will do the trick, and Russia has lots of grains. The same Russia has also lots of raw minerals. That's why throwing Russia into China's open arms is such a geo-strategic stupid thing to do from the West's point of view, really, really stupid.
creakingstairs 4y ago
All that but most of all, the fact USD is the world reserve currency is the biggest privilege. Every other countries have to stock up on USD/ have swaps in place and follow US when they raise fed interest rates instead of doing what’s best for the domestic economy. For example, South Korea’s USD reserves has been sharply going down as they’ve been trying to resist following the recent rate hikes to soften the blow to the economy. This is happening all across the globe. However, US can do (and seems to be doing) whatever they want.
- Beached 4y ago
  within reason of course. it's a position of privilege, but that position used to below to the UK. they lost that position over/after the world wars, and we got it. it is possible that doing whatever we want could push people to the euro as the reserve or the pound. it seems far fetched, but I could see a world where the euro the the world's reserve currency
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    The yuan may be the competition we should fear. Since we disconnected Russia from our financial systems, Russia is willing to do business with our biggest rival, China, in their currency.
    - 64bittechie 4y ago
      Well, what do you expect? The US over the past several decades has effectively crippled economies for its own interests by cutting off USD access. When you do this to a non-trivial number of countries they get around it by trading among themselves and dumping the USD for their own currencies. There are many countries including India, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, etc who are opening up bilateral or trilateral agreements to trade in their own currencies bypassing the USD. The US has pissed off a significant portion of the world that its days as reserve currency are certainly numbered. However, unbelievable it might sound today but the world is inching closer to non-USD centric future.
kirse 4y ago
No other country can compare. No one else has this. These in-built advantages are incredibly hard to beat. It's why it's on our currency - "e pluribus unum". It's also why Russia and China are constantly working to erode the unity of the American people, whether it's through false narratives that "we're more divided than ever", driving a wedge into political parties, fomenting rage-mode across social media, utilizing Twitter for propaganda or TikTok to keep American minds drained of their creative motivation while they ban the apps in their own countries... the list really goes on. A cord of many stands is not easily broken, but others will do their damnedest to try.
- quesera 4y ago
  > "e pluribus unum" It's been a while, but I translate that as "From many, one". I think it's an allusion to the thirteen British colonies becoming one United States.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > It's why it's on our currency - "e pluribus unum". "United we stand, divided we fall."
- fijiaarone 4y ago
  “A cord of many strands is not easily broken” is literally Fascism.
  - Armisael16 4y ago
    The idea people can get more done by working together is literally older than writing.
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    The "cord" in fascism is usually an ethnic group. I believe that is the problem with fascism, not the fact that there is a cord.
quesera 4y ago
You left out: * Issues the global reserve currency * Maintains the largest military * Has the widest media reach * Has significant natural resources There are problems too, but the unfair advantages are quite strong, and self-perpetuating. Which is fortunate for Americans, because very few countries could be so haphazardly managed, without failing.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  I would argue the perceived haphazardness is an advantage. The more centrally planned the economy, the more likely an incompetent government takes power and mucks it up. Part of America’s genius is the (fairly) restricted powers and decentralized nature of responsibility.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Is this why the US financial system blows up so regularly?
    - ptero 4y ago
      That may be. But whatever those blowups are they tend to be a lot less damaging than at other places. I lived through two growing up, and both times almost everyone lost almost all money. I will take the risk on my US bank account over those any time. My 2c.
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      And why it recovers so quickly.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Asian financial crisis? Euro crisis? It’s not unique to the US. It just makes headlines.
- mike_d 4y ago
  Whenever the "what actually backs the US dollar" discussion comes up I remind them: 11 aircraft carriers.
riffraff 4y ago
You missed one massive advantage: the US has a good and reliable legal system. It can not be overstated how good this is for an economy, and it's something emerging markets struggle with, and even some of the advanced economics. It'll always be easier to start and run a business where you can rely on tribunals to solve problems quickly and somewhat fairly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  Who are we calling an "advanced economy", but also considering having an unreliable legal system? Contenders, in my mind: - China, second largest economy, but generally still considered developing, so I don't think it counts as "advanced" - Russia? They've been a big player in the world economy long enough it is hard to call it a developing country.
  - riffraff 4y ago
    Italy for example (second exporter in Europe, tenth by GDP in the world) has notorious issues with its legal system (for a variety of reasons) where trial may take many years to be concluded.
    - dtech 4y ago
      That export sounds like a suspicious claim, do you have sources? afaik DE, FR and NL are much bigger exporters, and a random Google result seems to back that, placing Italy 5th in EU absolutely and almost last by GDP [1] [2] [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.KD?locations=EU&most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.KD?location... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=EU&most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?location...
      - riffraff 4y ago
FredPret 4y ago
The other advantage is the total net worth as opposed to GDP. You hear a lot about GDP and the US has the biggest economy by far. But the total net worth per person in the States is even further ahead of the rest of the world. Only Switzerland is ahead of the US in per-capita net worth (only by a hair though) and one suspects that’s partly due to so many Americans parking their money there. Having had the biggest GDP for decades led to a amazing amount of wealth being concentrated in the USA.
- tfourb 4y ago
  Actually the U.S. in 3rd place behind Switzerland and Luxembourg in terms of mean wealth per adult and Hong Kong is not far behind. But you are right that the other countries on the upper ranks are mostly smaller nations with large banking sectors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... While I agree that the U.S. has an enormous built-in advantage over other countries, I would really highlight one other piece of data: In terms of median wealth, the U.S. is eclipsed by half the E.U. and many Asian countries including diverse economies like France. This points to a terrifying concentration of wealth, which has also been highlighted by researchers like Picketty and this could (or arguably already does) put the social fabric of the U.S. under enormous strain.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    While it is true that the US mean is much higher than the median, the median person still benefits greatly from that wealth. The rich invest their wealth in business, real estate for rent, and real estate for themselves, making all these things better. I'm currently in the EU, in a country that outperforms the US in median wealth by about 20%. While it's clear that life here is good, I'm also struck by how much worse everything looks here, from the rental real estate where I'm staying, to the generally unprofessional standard of business. So just looking at the slightly-higher median and ignoring the 2-3x higher mean also skews the picture.
    - ljf 4y ago
mo_42 4y ago
I like these kind of comments. They’re much more analytical than the ones predicting recessions and what not. Seems like in economics it’s also useful to analyze qualitatively. Of course you cannot run doomsday headlines with that.
pjc50 4y ago
> It probably also helps that Americans tend to flip out and go full doomsday mode when anything goes wrong inside of their borders Indeed. American doomerists are just ridiculously parochial. Panicking about the dollar when it's the currency that everyone else runs to as a safe haven. The biggest risk to America is its debt ceiling mechanism; the opportunity to completely destroy America's credit and economy to own the libs is very tempting to some people.
sandworm101 4y ago
>> No other country can compare. Except canada. The coasts. The transportation system, the tech industry... and canada has a far better-regulated banking sector, one that surfed past 2008 almost without incident. And for every natural resource, from water to uranium, Canada has more than it will ever need. I would far rather ride out the comming climate/economic crisis in calgary/vancouver than LA/SF.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Well tech and banking are clearly eclipsed by the US. And much of Canada has no transportation infrastructure. Are you sure you’re not comparing select Canadian cities to select American cities?
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    Nope. Canadian populations live closer to their transport infrastructure than American populations. Canadian people actually live closer together than Americans, mostly in relatively tight cities. The big empty parts of the US are in reality inhabited by thousands of small towns. Drive any highway in the US and there is a town every dozen miles. The big empty parts of Canada are actually empty. Highways can go for hundreds of miles in some areas between towns. This is largely a result of historic land laws, crown ownership and mining in Canada v. frontier land grabs and farming in the US.

bandrami 4y ago

It's like how Zerohedge has predicted 7 of the last 2 recessions.