Canadian Money becomes Real Money

September 20, 2007 9:39 AM

Parity - The Canadian Dollar is (almost) at equal value to the American Dollar for the first time since 1976.
posted by SansPoint (80 comments total)

Cue the "amero" tin foil brigade.
posted by boo_radley at 9:40 AM on September 20, 2007

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?
posted by j-urb at 9:41 AM on September 20, 2007

Wow, eh?
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:41 AM on September 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

Man, you guys are screwed. Now who's going to buy your maple syrup?
posted by Pollomacho at 9:41 AM on September 20, 2007

I think this is all part of a massive worldwide conspiracy to keep Americans home.
posted by psmealey at 9:41 AM on September 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?

The Montreal Olympics and Rush's 2112.
posted by psmealey at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2007 [5 favorites]

a massive worldwide conspiracy to keep Americans home

That's no conspiracy, that's global gentrification!
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2007

We're all living in Amerika!
posted by malaprohibita at 9:50 AM on September 20, 2007

I can't wait to start complaining about those fucking US quarters.
posted by cardboard at 9:55 AM on September 20, 2007 [20 favorites]

Well, for this Northern Ontarion, this is not good news.

Our forest industry has been devasted - many companies counted on that extra 25-40% boost to their bottom line.

The atmosphere in my town is pretty doom and gloom. Most of the one-industry towns are understandably frightened about the future at this point.

Not fun times for us.
posted by davey_darling at 9:57 AM on September 20, 2007

And yet we still pay way too much for retail items.
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya at 10:06 AM on September 20, 2007

November 15, 2005 - 1.00:1.194, 5.00US=5.97CDN

September 20, 2007 - 1.00:1.0016, 5.00US=5.01CDN

You owe me 96¢, Haughey!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:06 AM on September 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

54-40 or fight!
posted by rocketman at 10:07 AM on September 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

No! Not yet! I just sold my US house! Go down, dollar, go down! At least for a few months!
posted by the dief at 10:08 AM on September 20, 2007

54-40 or fight!

54 40 or fight, 54 40 or fight, 54 54 54 54 or fight??

ALL RIGGGGGHHHHHT!!
posted by psmealey at 10:11 AM on September 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

See? I knew keeping that bag of Canadian change from '02 around was a good idea! I've made, like, four dollars (Canadian) just by having it sit there!
posted by klangklangston at 10:13 AM on September 20, 2007

I just got back from a vacation along Lake Superior in Ontario and I heard quite a few Canadians lament the rising value of the Canadian Dollar. My understanding is that it makes it more difficult for Canadian exports to compete with American (and others) exports and reduces American interest in moving jobs to Canada. I would love to hear some thoughts for Canadians or Economists.

On a more personal note this will make it more expensive for me to take weekend trips to Toronto. I wonder how the tourism industry is handling this. As far as I can recall the exchange rate has held fairly steady for close to 10-15 years.
posted by kscottz at 10:26 AM on September 20, 2007

The billions saved from no longer having to print two prices on the backs of books alone make this worth it.
posted by DU at 10:28 AM on September 20, 2007

I can't believe John Candy's last name was Candy.
posted by four panels at 10:31 AM on September 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

Now they won't be so quick to ditch their quarters here.
posted by drezdn at 10:33 AM on September 20, 2007

The atmosphere in my town is pretty doom and gloom. Most of the one-industry towns are understandably frightened about the future at this point.

I am from Saskatchewan and until recently we always seem to get the worst end of any economic swing. The thing about the Canadian economy and Canadian resources is that the most powerful economies in the world have always needed us to provide raw materials. In the 19th century we were cozy with the UK, in the 20th it was the US and in the 21st - well we have been exchanging meaningful glances at the Asian economies for a while. We just have to manage our resources so that we don't become a dried up bar hag among nations.

That said, paper, pulp, and timber may not be a big part of our economy again. Trees grow much faster in other parts of the world.

With all that said, I am not sure recent economic trends really mean anything - I can recall a time, not so long ago - when Saskatchewan people were saying things like "would the last person to leave please turn out the lights". Now I am pretty sure our population is dramatically undercalculated and our government seems to be swimming in money. Anyone who lived through the 80's can remember people saying we'd "all be speaking Japanese".
posted by Deep Dish at 10:41 AM on September 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

It's going to be just like when Canada's Donovan Bailey won the Olympic 100m and set a new world record; all of a sudden according to the US it was the 200m race that determined the world's fastest man (ie Dennis Mitchell).

After decades of the US lording their $1.25 dollar over Canada ('how much is that in real money, hur hur'), all of a sudden we're going to be hearing a whole lot out of the States explaining that a weak dollar doesn't mean a thing.
posted by Flashman at 10:45 AM on September 20, 2007 [5 favorites]

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?

My parents took us cross border shopping in Michigan. Worst holiday ever.

We just have to manage our resources so that we don't become a dried up bar hag among nations.


Mulroney gave that right away.
posted by srboisvert at 10:46 AM on September 20, 2007

And yet, we're still getting fucked.
posted by SassHat at 10:49 AM on September 20, 2007

Book cover prices continue to be pegging the Canadian dollar around 76 cents U.S.
posted by acro at 10:52 AM on September 20, 2007

And the British pound is now worth two US dollars.
posted by exogenous at 10:52 AM on September 20, 2007

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?

The Montreal Olympics and Rush's 2112.

Also, I think the Sex Pistols released Anarchy in the UK, but I'd have to check. I spent the summer frolicking, all hippie-like, on Long Beach, swimming naked and taking acid. Ah, youth.
posted by jokeefe at 10:56 AM on September 20, 2007

Erm, Long Beach, British Columbia, not Long Beach California.
posted by jokeefe at 11:00 AM on September 20, 2007

sucks to be me. i live in canada and get paid in US dollars.

it's like a >$10k pay cut and i didn't even get demoted :(
posted by klanawa at 11:04 AM on September 20, 2007

This was front page news in upstate New York, because local retailers hope that more Canadians will take the short trip to do shopping here. Hopefully my local mall will re-fill some of the gaping, empty stores it has.
posted by saffry at 11:05 AM on September 20, 2007

That makes me spit nails every time I walk into a Chapter's acro. Amazon.com (not Amazon.ca) is only a click away though.
posted by bonehead at 11:14 AM on September 20, 2007

$1.00 CAD = $1.0002 USD @ 12:07 Eastern today.

we missed the party...parity...parity party?
posted by spish at 11:26 AM on September 20, 2007

Lumber is a commodity, its worth a certain amount in absolute terms regardless of which currency it's paid for in - well, not completely so like gold, but the lumber industry is hurting more from the clobbered US housing market than by the dollar. If no one's building anything, it doesn't matter how much you're charging for lumber.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:29 AM on September 20, 2007

Another interesting effect I've heard is that the Loonie's growth over the USD has basically wiped out Canadian investors' gains in US stocks: the USD has slipped more than the market has gained recently, so if you had your money invested even in relatively well-performing US stocks, you actually lost money, compared to just keeping it stuffed in a mattress in Canada.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:30 AM on September 20, 2007

klanawa: Same here. It hurts to watch... 16% reduction in pay since the beginning of the year.
posted by Emanuel at 11:34 AM on September 20, 2007

So does this mean that the strippers at the Sundowner aren't going to be as frisky when I pull out my roll of greenbacks next time?
posted by de void at 11:44 AM on September 20, 2007

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?

1976: Oh G*d. I broke my spine in five places in May, spent the summer bedridden in a body cast, then spent most of my freshman year of HS in a back brace. I had to re-learn how to walk. Ever seen a ninth grader using a cane?

We were all abuzz about the Energy Crisis when we weren't getting distracted by the Bicentennial, but the ongoing concerns about recession and stagflation had my Dad growling. Nobody seemed wildly enthusiastic about Gerald Ford. And Jimmy Carter's MEOW was in the offing.
posted by pax digita at 11:57 AM on September 20, 2007

i can no longer use that old janine garofalo joke;

"The other day I picked a bill up off the street - it was 5 canadian dollars, which is like... [long pause while feigning mental calculation] trash."
posted by kickback at 12:01 PM on September 20, 2007

See? I knew keeping that bag of Canadian change from '02 around was a good idea! I've made, like, four dollars (Canadian) just by having it sit there!

Sadly, I was toying with the idea back in '01 of moving to Canada for a while, and putting my money in Canadian banks. Had I done so, it would have been a near-doubling of my money. *sigh*

Turns out those people threatening to move north when Bush was elected weren't raving hippies- they were canny financial geniuses!
posted by hincandenza at 12:03 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

So does this mean that the strippers at the Sundowner aren't going to be as frisky when I pull out my roll of greenbacks next time?

You should see what they do for Canadian Tire money!
posted by Pollomacho at 12:03 PM on September 20, 2007

For once we canucks are going to be able to joke about the US greenback being "mickey mouse money"!
posted by clevershark at 12:09 PM on September 20, 2007

I would love to hear some thoughts for Canadians or Economists.

I said this in the AskMe thread on this same topic... the classical view is that we get to load up on heavy equipment and make productivity investments to try to offset the losses in trade dollars. All of a sudden that fancy manufacturing equipment (or software or whatever) is 25% off the price from a few years ago.

Heavy exporters will get hit - and don't whine about Northern Ontario, high-tech is even more export dependent than resources. At least people in Canada buy lumber and oil. Every software company I've worked for had 1% or less domestic sales. Canadian software sales reps would rather get Louisana as a territory versus Canada. But the CAD hasn't dropped as much against overseas markets (Europe, China) so it won't be a total wash.

For the short term, the news is good. It takes longer to feel the impact of lower exports than it does to feel the rush of increased buying power. I, for one, am putting LL Bean on speed dial.
posted by GuyZero at 12:26 PM on September 20, 2007

Most large Canadian retailers have the power, but not the will, to push for quick retail price adjustments. Most books in North America are printed in Canada. Most books sold at retail in Canada are sold by one company. Basically, if by this time next month the cover prices aren't at par, it's because at least one link in the chain is greedy. And how about companies which own their operations on both sides of the border, like Apple? There's really no reason for there to ever be any kind of lag behind the exchange rate, particular for online sales. Why should an iBook be $1099 US at apple.com but $1249 Cdn at apple.ca?

So the old "support Canadian business!" canard won't wash with me. I can walk across the border to Blaine and buy my fill at the Borders in Blaine, WA. There's no duty on printed matter. I can order online from amazon.com or whomever. And I'm going to. Canadian retailers will complain about how they're tanking due to cross-border shopping. No, it's because you were too greedy to normalize retail prices.

As for the strong loonie hurting Canada's resource-based economy: tough shit. Look for other markets. Cut costs. Stop selling raw logs, and make money on the value-add. Increase prices if you have to; it's not like the US has any other volume source for the kind of dense, quality softwood Canada provides. I'm just getting tired of exporters whining about losing profits. Adapt to the marketplace! You're not losing money because of the dollar, you're losing money because you're too lazy or stupid to work on innovative solutions.

Our greed and laziness comes to the forefront when the dollar is strong, sadly.
posted by solid-one-love at 12:26 PM on September 20, 2007 [8 favorites]

Thanks Bush.
posted by banished at 12:34 PM on September 20, 2007

Stop selling raw logs, and make money on the value-add.

Preach on, brother. Anyone selling raw logs gets what they deserve. The IKEA furniture I buy in Toronto was made halfway around the world. There's no reason to ship nothing but raw timber. Make some fricking value-added products and then the north won't be such a wasteland.

And like I said, RIM and ATI (now nVidia) will lose more from the strong dollar than lumber mills. But thay're not dumb-shits and will do something about it.
posted by GuyZero at 12:50 PM on September 20, 2007

Hm...if each dollar is worth the same amount, we can now roll out the "North American dollar" without anyone griping of lost change. One dollar to rule them all...or something.
posted by Atreides at 1:09 PM on September 20, 2007

5 American 6 Canadian?

RIP.
posted by mazola at 1:22 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Back in 1965 the Canadian dollar was worth $1.10 US. What was happening then? Well, America was unable to extricate itself from a small military action that turned into a major war. Politicians were unwilling to raise taxes or quit spending, in fact they ran up huge deficits resulting in inflation and a weak dollar. So...
posted by CCBC at 1:33 PM on September 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

i ordered something from canada last week and was all excited about how C$180 was gonna be like US$100. But oh, I was wrong. When you move out of MI, you no longer know the exchange rate off the top of your head. I was pissed. I paid about US$176. Well. At least I saved though $4.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:37 PM on September 20, 2007

solid-one-love wrote: Stop selling raw logs, and make money on the value-add.

Amen to that. I live in a forestry town in Northern BC, and I am incensed every time I see a truck full of raw logs heading south. We should be doing much more value-added stuff right here in this community, and we're not.

As for book prices, I was speaking recently to a friend who used to work in publishing, and he said the reason we're being charged CDN $40 for a hardback that's got a printed price of US $30 (for example) is pure greed on the part of the publishing companies. They have been VERY slow to correct the pricing since the Canadian dollar first started going up. But, he said, when the Canadian dollar went down in the early '80s, the publishers were mighty quick to change the prices to reflect that.

In what other developed country do people lament when their currency goes up? For heaven's sake.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:21 PM on September 20, 2007

In what other developed country do people lament when their currency goes up?

China. I would assume.
posted by GuyZero at 2:38 PM on September 20, 2007

...when the Canadian dollar went down in the early '80s, the publishers were mighty quick to change the prices

In fact, I vividly recall seeing price stickers on the backs of books for the first time in my memory. They lasted until the early ninties in most places. No argument then about stock having been purchased six-months prior at a different price either.

The Canadian book retailers, distributors and publishers can't go out of business fast enough for me. They're all culpable in my view.

A question for any published authors out there: are your Canadian residuals 40% higher per book sold than for your US sales? If not, I suggest you put that question to your publisher.
posted by bonehead at 2:41 PM on September 20, 2007

A question for any published authors out there: are your Canadian residuals 40% higher per book sold than for your US sales? If not, I suggest you put that question to your publisher.

I'll address this, if only to disabuse all and sundry of the notion that there exists now (or ever in the nation's history) a fat-cat Canadian publishing industry.

My "residuals" (by which you mean royalties) in both the US and Canada are calculated from the suggested retail price. Were that price to decrease substantially across the board in Canada, it is a veritable certainty that Canadian publishers - which operate on shoestring budgets and razor-thin margins compared to their US counterparts, whose potential market is ten times the size - would be forced to decrease the size of advances paid on book contracts accordingly in order to stay in business. A pay cut, in other words.

Understand that advances - which are the "salaries" that allow you to occasionally concentrate just on your book and not on a dozen freelance assignments to keep your creditors at bay - are repaid against royalties. (I.e. you pay off your advance as if it were a debt, book by book, at the predetermined royalty rate until it's gone, at which point - so I'm told by the half-dozen Canadian residents of that magic land - you begin to reap actual royalties and dance naked in champagne fountains and the rest.)

Your royalty rate, in other words, is mainly a sort of loan-repayment scheme. It doesn't matter how it's doing in absolute terms compared to your US rate (presuming you're in the miniscule minority of Canadian writers with a US publisher); it only matters how quickly it's eroding your advance. And since fully repaying that advance is mostly a distant fantasy - one agent once told me to think of royalty cheques, if and when they come, as akin to lottery winnings - the only thing that matters as a writer is your publisher's ability to pay you the advances in the first place.

The main thing to recognize here is that Canadian books - unlike the Canadian timber they're printed on - do not easily cross the border. With the possible exceptions of Margaret Atwood and Naomi Klein, the Canadian literary business would cease to exist without its publishers working their tiny margins. (Pop quiz: Why did Mordecai Richler decamp to England in the '50s? Answer: It was the only way he could get published. And the only reason that isn't still the case is because the Trudeau government recognized that Canada's cultural industries could not survive if they were completely governed by market forces, and legislated accordingly.)

I frankly don't know how all this is affected by currency parity, though my guess is that large Canadian chains don't want to cut their prices unless and until they absolutely have to. This really only matters on import titles; cross-border shopping for Canadian books is essentially impossible. The only thing that matters to a Canadian author is that Canadian publishers and booksellers remain viable enterprises.
posted by gompa at 3:26 PM on September 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

Tax the smart!
posted by furtive at 3:35 PM on September 20, 2007

large Canadian chains don't want to cut their prices unless and until they absolutely have to

It's funny how you use that word "chains"... there's only one major book wholesaler in Canada, Pegasus. Just like there's really only one retailer, Indigo (who owns Chapters and Coles). Oh, and Chapters used to own Pegasus. When they got bought by Indigo, Indigo may have divested it. But I'm not sure.

Anyway, the entire retail book trade in Canada is really just one company, retail and wholesale. So they pretty much do what they want.
posted by GuyZero at 3:49 PM on September 20, 2007

NYT just reported that the Euro has hit $1.40USD. That is the highest it's been so far. Looks like the dollar is getting dumped.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:52 PM on September 20, 2007

And *of course* my US daughter just started at a Canadian university!!!! I better pay the tuition bill quick before the US currency slips any further!
posted by jasper411 at 3:53 PM on September 20, 2007

With all due respect gompa, while I can appreciate the bind that you are in, I don't appreciate having paid premium of up to 40% for the past five years for living a hour's drive north of the NY border. Through both my leisure reading habits and my needs at work, I can spend in excess of $5k/year just on books. (Work books go for up to $400 a pop. I spent over a thousand dollars last week alone.)

If the Canadian publishing industry is trying to strip mine me for $2-3k/yr, can you understand why I wish a pox on all their houses right now? This hasn't been a short-term one-off thing, it's been going on for more than five years.

With the invention of this internet, cross-border shopping is easy. I spent a chunk of this afternoon checking the price differences between Amazon.com and Amazon.ca, for crying out loud. With free shipping from the US Amazon, there's almost no reason to buy from a domestic Canadian retailer now at all.
posted by bonehead at 3:54 PM on September 20, 2007

The book industry is a complete scam on the CDN rates, no doubt, but they're hardly the only offenders. A good one whom I had a recent brush with is Palm. A couple of months ago my business partner's Treo got run over, so we had to replace it. On the Palm US store website it was 33% less than the Canadian Palm store site. And the US store won't take orders for Canada.

Now my Tungsten T5 is acting up and the screen is partly screwed due to an unfortunate incident involving a pear (long story short, don't leave a Palm handheld anywhere that a pear might get squished on it as the pear juice seeps in and plays hell with things), so this morning, hearing we're about to hit parity, I go to see if Palm's gotten their crap together on the exchange rate yet. Nope. The Tungsten T|X I would replace this one with is $299 US in the US store, and $399 CDN in the Canadian store.
posted by barc0001 at 4:13 PM on September 20, 2007

I think the Competition Bureau would be a very good place to direct complaints about price gouging of goods sold in Canada for so much higher than the exchange rate.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:26 PM on September 20, 2007

The pegs are getting knocked out from under the US dollar one by one -- it's as much the US dollar weakening as it is the loonie strengthening. Look $US value against the euro at the moment, or better, its lack thereof.

I'm firmly in the camp that the Funny Games that have been played with the American economy over the years are coming home to roost, that this latest rate cut on Thursday (Korea time) is prolonging and therefore worsening the Coming of the Hammer, that the awareness is spreading how rotten and junktastic are CDOs and their ilk and with it the understanding of how deep the problems go, that China is holding the financial testicles of America in its great dirty hand and getting ready to squeeze, and that once the US dollar gets to that magical, not-far-off-point where any lower means going into freefall, the yen carry trade and the American economy (along with that of most of the world) is going to land hard. Canada will suffer too, unfortunately, but perhaps not to the Great Depression point that I see a reasonable if small chance of happening in America.

I'm actually looking forward to it, in a way. Armageddon schadenfreude [self-link]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:43 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's cheaper to buy on Amazon.com and pay shipping/duty than it is to buy books at Chapters.

Stop buying books at Chapters.
posted by Jairus at 4:44 PM on September 20, 2007

O Canada!
Ill-omened rate is panned!
Blew eighteen thou to visit Newfoundland.

With groaning hearts we see fees rise,
The new North conquered me!

Sums par decried!
O Canada, remand dinar to me!

God lend your hand to penurious bourgeoisie!
O Canada, remand dinar to me!

O Canada, remand dinar to me!
posted by bigskyguy at 5:03 PM on September 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

It's cheaper to buy on Amazon.com and pay shipping/duty than it is to buy books at Chapters.

But Chapters has free shipping if you buy over C$39 whereas shipping to Canada from Amazon.com I think is still not free.
posted by storybored at 6:27 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Maybe now the smart people will actually stay and work in Canada rather than go to the U.S. so we don't have to care about what happens to our manufacturing jobs so much.
posted by dobie at 6:28 PM on September 20, 2007

barc0001... If you can afford to risk it, try soaking your palm in distilled water, before letting it completely dry (I'd recommend under an incandescent light) -- that should remove the sugar water screwing up the electronics...
p.s. hi eh:-)
posted by acro at 7:28 PM on September 20, 2007

Acro, actually I got it mostly working again by draining the battery completely, and then submerging it for 2 days in isopropyl alcohol. Then dried it out for 3, powered it up, and it works again. The only side effect of all this was I now have a splotch on the screen that I am guessing was caused by the initial juice exposure. It doesn't affect the functionality of the Palm at all, but it does make it difficult to read anything under the splotch in certain lighting conditions. Fortunately the splotch covers only the bottom quarter of the screen, where the graffiti area can be brought up on. And when using the Palm in the dark, the backlight cuts through the splotch well. I was just hoping it was finally time to get a replacement without getting hosed. Oh well, there's always Craigslist..
posted by barc0001 at 8:23 PM on September 20, 2007

But Chapters has free shipping if you buy over C$39 whereas shipping to Canada from Amazon.com I think is still not free.

...so?
posted by Jairus at 9:04 PM on September 20, 2007

With free shipping from the US Amazon, there's almost no reason to buy from a domestic Canadian retailer now at all.

This is the second time I've run across this claim today. Is there something I'm missing? I'm paying around $3.99 per order plus $2.49 a book, and I'd sure love not to... (Not that it isn't still cheaper this way almost all the time.)
posted by antigreg at 9:14 PM on September 20, 2007

Hooray! Now we are only paying 3x as much per capita for health care instead of 4x.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:20 PM on September 20, 2007

The dollars last met each other as equals a week after Darryl Sittler scored ten points against the Boston Bruins. Going by that, I'm hoping the Leafs will have a good season this year.
posted by salishsea at 9:45 PM on September 20, 2007

I got interviewed by the Toronto Star about how out of whack camera equipment prices are here in Canada. The canadian retail prices are so high that you can, for example, get a canon 28-135is lens brand new retail from the states for cheaper than you can find it used on craigslist in Toronto. $650C vs $400US vs $450C used: which would you choose?
posted by thecjm at 9:53 PM on September 20, 2007

barc0001 writes "The book industry is a complete scam on the CDN rates, no doubt, but they're hardly the only offenders. A good one whom I had a recent brush with is Palm."

Games Workshop prices are 25-50% higher in Canada than the States. Have been for years. It wasn't so bad when C$1=US$0.80 but it's been irking more and more in the last five years. I'm buying a couple thousand points of Warhammer 40K this week and you probably don't need two guesses to figure out which side of the border if I tell you American discounters will ship to the states. This'll be fixed pretty soon now I imagine as GW is a British company. The howling from south of the border over the price increases is going to be impressive.

Worst of course is the stuff being made here, like cars and woodworking tools, that is then shipped over the boarder and is cheaper than we can buy it locally.
posted by Mitheral at 11:05 PM on September 20, 2007

If it wasn't for the paperwork and warranty issues, every Candian that's looking at a new car would gladly by in the U.S.

A Lexus RX 330 that's made in Ontario, Canada has a MSRP of US$38,000 in the States.

In Canada the same vehicle's MSRP is C$52,000!
posted by disgruntled at 5:35 AM on September 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

Apparently Toronto's Silver Snail comics have been selling their funnybooks at the American cover price - anyone know of other LCSs doing the same?

/Cheap nerd
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:25 AM on September 21, 2007

After decades of the US lording their $1.25 dollar over Canada ('how much is that in real money, hur hur'), all of a sudden we're going to be hearing a whole lot out of the States explaining that a weak dollar doesn't mean a thing.

The mass market paperback version of The Da Vinci Code will cost you $7.99 from Amazon in the U.S. It costs $9.34 in Canada. The newest Harry Potter is $19.24 in the U.S. and $22.50 in Canada.

A liter of gas costs 76¢ in the U.S. It costs about $1.05 in Canada. An 80-gig iPod is $279 in Canada but only $249 down here. Half a gallon of milk is significantly more in Canada. Cars have price differences in the thousands of dollars, all higher in Canada. A pair of Dockers is $50 or so in the U.S. and $20 more in Canada.

(Also, the posts above complaining about how much more expensive it is to buy things in Canada.)

So, yes, a weak dollar apparently doesn't mean that much. At least not for Canadians as consumers.
posted by oaf at 12:07 PM on September 21, 2007

In what other developed country do people lament when their currency goes up?

Guy Zero wrote: China. I would assume.

True, but I'd consider China an only partially-developed country. And NOT a country I'd want Canada to start using as a role model.

oaf wrote: The newest Harry Potter is $19.24 in the U.S. and $22.50 in Canada.

I paid a lot more than $22.50 for it. More like $40.

Alvy Ampersand wrote: Apparently Toronto's Silver Snail comics have been selling their funnybooks at the American cover price - anyone know of other LCSs doing the same?

I heard there are other comic book stores doing the same (don't know names though). I know that some magazines have also changed cover prices to reflect the current state of the CDN dollar as well. They've been quicker about it than book publishers.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:22 PM on September 21, 2007

A liter of gas costs 76¢ in the U.S. It costs about $1.05 in Canada.

Neat Google calculator trick: Google calculator does unit conversions. Google calculator does currency conversions. Google calculator can do both at once.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:21 PM on September 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

I need to remember that Google's calculator seems to like natural language rather than symbols.
posted by oaf at 2:34 PM on September 21, 2007

The last time this happened was '76, anyone remember what has happening then?

I was born, so basically, my life is at net zero, in at least one measure.
posted by smackfu at 11:48 AM on September 22, 2007