My wife Ashley cashed a cheque for $93 USD today (a deposit from a timeshare rental we made for some friends) and came back with less than $93 in Canadian dollars. I was puzzled. Last I checked, there was still a 3% difference. It seems that a lot can happen in a short period of time. Even if, on paper, the US and Canadian dollar has reached parity, the banks alway screw you over just a little bit extra. Here’s what the Royal Bank of Canada has to say about the exchange rate:
Simply…amazing. For the first time in my 32 years on this planet, the US dollar is now the weaker currency. And for someone such as myself that gets paid primarily in US dollars, that’s just depressing. I know Canada’s surging natural resource industry is partly to blame, but there are a lot of things very wrong with the US economy that, if fixed, would make a big difference. This just sucks.
The problem with trying to fix the US economy is that the medicine is going to be almost as bad as the disease – and everybody else will suffer at the same time. There’s no easy way out of this unfortunately.
For us in the UK the US $ is worth 50p. This is probably why people are going to Florida and New York so much right now, because the pound (£) is so strong against the dollar (£1=$2) that we effectively get everything half-price…. apart from the iPhone, obviously.. that’s more expensive for no real reason..
Yeah, whoever the new administration is will have an awfully hard time cleaning up all the messes left by the current administration.
Funny thing, as a kid, I remember being scammed at a garage sale by a couple that paid with travelers checks denominated in Canadian money. I seem to recall getting about half of what I should have. It is comforting to know that 30 years later, their scam will no longer work.
Some Canadian scammed a *kid* at a *garage sale*? That’s shameful. I apologize for Canadians everywhere. 🙂
I doubt they were Canadians. Traveling to Miami to pull a scam at garage sales would be pretty stupid. They came back to another sale a few years later and tried to pull the same scam, they were running for their car as soon as they realized they were busted.
Ah yes…you’re probably right. No Canadian would do that anyway. 😉