Is the Canadian Prime Minister (Conservative) right about the "looming economic collapse" in the U.S.?

Question

"OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is warning Canadians to brace for fiscal belt-tightening as a looming economic collapse in the U.S. threatens to make waves north of the border."

"The government used up all its "fiscal room" in the fall mini-budget, which knocked another point off the GST and offered broad-based tax cuts for families, individuals and businesses.

"We did it very consciously. We didn't wait for the spring. We were concerned about the American economy and we thought we had to act quickly," Harper said. "We don't have big additional fiscal room now and there's nothing that's going to cause us to have big additional fiscal room between now and the spring, because even if things go reasonably well, they're not going to go so well that we're going to find ourselves suddenly overflowing with money again."

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/12/20/4734576-sun.html

Answer 1

Horrible. I believe it--look at the weak dollar, all those home foreclosures, closing businesses that were very successful for all these decades, and inflation that's causing people to spend less.

Answer 2

The subprime crisis and weakness of the dollar points to a impending recession in the US economy. Collapse or crash might be a bit extreme to describe the situation that will likely occur over the next 18-24 months.

Answer 3

Considering prices are increasing globally because of our housing market catastrophe, if the U.S. goes down then so does the world. The only countries doing ok is China and India. They are more self-sufficient so obviously they wouldn't be as badly economically impacted as other countries whose economies are made through manipulation of the economic web that covers the globe.

Supposedly the U.S. is heading for a recession, I think we have already been in one for some time. Is recession now code for depression?

Answer 4

I think fears of a "looming economic collapse" in the US are premature. I saw recent figures stating that the US economy grew by around 4.5% over the summer. Although, since US markets can be quite volatile, perhaps the prime minister chose to err on the safe side of speculation.

Answer 5

the new housing industry in America is in free fall and hasn't found bottom yet. to the extent Canadian exports of lumber, plywood, etc to America are dependent on that market [and they surely are], there'll be hard times in the lumber belt.

this'll mean lesser tax flows for the Canadian and affected provincial governments and they'll have to tighten their belts.


[Portland and Oregon, too -- plus other selected US locations]

Answer 6

I have a hard time believing in a "Bush recession" much less a "Bush economic collapse".

To PM Harper: Stop trying to talk down the US Economy, LOSER!

Answer 7

Wow I missed that one - What about the opposition parties?

Answer 8

Well, If anybody can collapse the economy, our Conservative party sure can. They have done it before, so it is not as if they don't have practice.

Answer 9

Not likely, but Possible

Answer 10

He must foresee a hillary presidency.

Illegals + Nationalized Health = Economic Disaster