Save Your Pennies

"I found a dollar on the sidewalk the other day. But it was Canadian. So it was kind of like picking up garbage."

-Ellen Degeneres, about 10 years ago.

There was once a time when you could get $1.50 Canadian for $1 US. 30 some-odd years ago though, the Canadian dollar (long before it became "The Loonie") was worth more than the greenback. Then the gold standard was dropped and a floating rate vs USD was adopted. Since that time, our humble Loonie has become the butt of jokes. We've lamented the huge price differences between US and Canadian retail purchases. Trips south of the border cost 50% more than we really wanted.

Today, at 10:59am, the mighty Loonie was dead-even with the US dollar. Hell, it flashed 1.0001 at one point. Hellllloooooo parity.

Of course, this hurts Canadian exporters and anyone else getting paid in US dollars in Canada (including my best friend), but it's a psychological point of pride. Now if only the damned retail prices would fall in line. I think we're all getting a bit tired of paying 20-50% more for something in Canada than it is in the States. Somebody's making a mint off the slow catch-up. Don't feed me any crap about market response time either, because those prices move the other way plenty quick when the dollar drops.

Regardless, Vegas is now a lot cheaper than it was in June.