What If Canada Actually Joins the U.S.??

We're going to start with you, Matthew.

Who is making and losing money that is interesting to you this holiday season?

Well, it sort of pains me to talk about this, but I think we have to.

The biggest question rolling around on the Internet over the last week or so was how much money Canada would make or lose and whether it was a good or a bad deal for it to become the U.S. 51st state after, of course, Donald Trump made that tweet and started another faux controversy.

Yeah, you know, he set us up, and of course we took the bait, like we always do.

So he suggested that Canada become the 51st state, which is like, you know, a little offensive.

Sarah, do you think maybe not the most helpful comment?

Not the most helpful, a little mean, but I have a hot take about this, which is I think the U.S. should let Canada in so we can vote in your elections because your country has so much influence over ours already, whether it is trade, the fact that we're reliant on your military for defense.

I say give each of our provinces a bunch of those little electoral college votes.

Let us participate.

Yeah,

if you have to deal with the results in a very real way, you should have some representation, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the thing about this conversation, though, was like people on the internet were acting like people on the internet and they got on and were basically like, you know what? Canada would be a terrible 51st state.

Like they should be so lucky.

The audacity.

Yeah, the thing that really got me, it brought back up This chart that people love to throw around of how productivity in Canada and the U.S. were like rising similarly.

And then a couple of years ago, they diverged.

And like the implication being that like Canada is now some unproductive and poor waste plant.

And like America would like not want it as a 51st state.

I've hated that chart for a while.

And so it really got me a little riled up.

And so I called my friend ChachiBT and I started doing what I like to do.

And I asked him to make me a chart and say, like, if Canada was the 51st U.S. state, how would it stack up in terms of things like population, production, wealth, quality of life? And the results are pretty interesting.

I love that we're a podcast where you don't have to use AI.