I just read this little blurb from some guy who went to Montréal. Kind of irks me.

I have to think about this. What could possibly explain it? The profoundly reduced buying power of the dollar, especially since the Canadians haven’t lowered their price tags? Has national shame finally reached a critical delimiter? Dare we show our faces outside our borders ever again? Even in “friendly” Canada?

Yeah, do a little more “thinking”, it might help. He got the exchange rate part right. Yup, Canada is not the “deal” it once was. A great example of why competing with price point is not strategically viable. I prefer to think that other currencies are being overvalued in comparison to the US Dollar, rather than our currency “weakening”. This is a good thing. We are less inclined to buy foreign products, they are more inclined to buy ours. When looking at the Canadian example, the real sucky part is for them. Sure, they can have a great time here, but at home they are being taxed and the price of “local” goods keeps increasing. That’s called inflation. The Euros are not having any better time.

Shame? American’s are ashamed of going to Canada? Personally, I’ve never found an American ashamed of going anywhere. On the other hand, there are plenty of Americans simply ashamed at being American. Friendly Canada? With this logic, the recent influx of Canadians here must be a result of some unexplained increase in Canadian national pride. I’m not seeing it.

Maybe, similarly, millions of U.S. passports expired at once.

Seems to me that passport applications are at an all time high. Getting us to use them at the Canadian border is a marketing issue. Being “like France” is not good enough for me.