The advantage Canada has with being metric is they don't have to depend on the US for all of their trade. With the global economy, Canada can sell metric goods to everyone, just like the Europeans and Asians do. Depending on one market as your key source is tantamount to putting all your eggs in one basket. Thus when the US market comes to a point where it can't import anymore, where does that leave Canada?
Countries that take advantage of the global market place and make efforts to sell everywhere are not at a disadvantage when one market goes kaput. When some markets are up and others are down, a country can minimize the effects of the down turn in one market by selling to the markets that are up. The only thing sustaining the US market right now is the subsidy the US receives from China and Japan. As I wrote yesterday, China is forming an investment company to look for other ways to invest its huge foreign reserves. China has already indicated many times it will diversify its reserves out of US dollars. The days of the cheap subsidy are over, and either the US will have to find ways to earn money by exporting more to pay for imports, or the US will be unable to import. One of the fears on the US side of this is that interest rates will have to rise, making the US debt situation even more unbearable. You can't export service. You have to make something others will buy and can use. The world is only buying metric goods, so if America wants to sell exportable goods they will have to be metric. So, where does this leave Canada? If Canada is astute, they will see the handwriting on the wall and use their metric advantage to be able to sell their products to the rest of the world while the US suffers the effects of either hyperinflation or a depression. Canada has the advantage in that they can make metric goods that the world wants to buy. However, if Canada refuses and continues to see the US as their only market, then it will be more then time changes Canada will share with the US. Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Stephen Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 1:12:24 PM Subject: [USMA:38142] Re: Label Typo We need to stop looking for excuses when it comes to rounded metric sizes and just do it. Whatever happens will be led by industry, not just because it's the right thing to do. Just like most of the US, most of Canada moved ahead one hour early this morning by implementing daylight saving time. What's unusual is that up to now, this would have taken place on the first Sunday in April. The US Congress implemented a change to the 2nd Sunday in March starting in 2007. Within months of the US announcing the change, Canada's provinces announced that where they observed daylight saving time, they would coordinate their change to the same date as the US. Many Canadians asked why we were blindly following along and said that there was no valid reason to change. The answer given was that was that it was essential to remain coordinated with the US so as not to disrupt trade. Of course, if Canada had wanted to be the ones to implement an earlier daylight saving time, the US would have followed along for the same reason, right? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097
