If You Build It....

  ...but you didn't, Mr. President, and that's the problem.

Doer did say there are still some minor "irritants" that the two countries need to work on. First and foremost is U.S. President Barack Obama's delay of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oilsands bitumen from Alberta through several states to Texas for refining.

"We are disappointed with the delay in both Nebraska and in the White House on Keystone (XL). We see that as disappointment, but a work in progress," Doer said.

Doer did not go as far as Premier Brad Wall did earlier in the week at the summit in directly criticizing the Obama administration on the issue.

Obama has sided with the Nebraska legislature to delay sections of the Keystone XL pipeline project until 2013, while more research in done on the environmental impact of the pipeline.

In other news, Canadians are now richer than Americans:

 

 

While Americans might enjoy throwing politically-charged barbs at their neighbors to the north, Canadians now have at least one reason to be smug.

For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American, according to a report cited inToronto’s Globe and Mail.

And not just by a little. Currently, the average Canadian household is more than $40,000 richer than the average American household. The net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, compared to around $320,000 for Americans.

If you’re thinking the Canadian advantage must be due to exchange rates, think again. The Canadian dollar has actually caught up to the U.S. dollar in recent years.

“These are not 60-cent dollars, but Canadian dollars more or less at par with the U.S. greenback,” Globe and Mail‘s Michael Adams writes.

To add insult to injury, not only are Canadians comparatively better-off than Americans, they’re also more likely to be employed. The unemployment rate is 7.2 percent—and dropping—in Canada, while the U.S. is stuck with a stubbornly high rate of 8.2 percent.

We built this, Obama.

To see other things built or not, please go here and here.

 

(Gracias and merci)