You are right for the most part. It is not luck.  It does have to do with the fact that Americans get to keep more of their money (we complain about taxes, but are generally taxed less than the other western governments).  When you allow people to keep more of their money, they spend it. On what is their decision. Not the government's.

Business taxes in the USA are already the highest, and private taxes are set to rise a whole lot once we get our very own VAT.

I guess that is when american "luck" would coincidently and "unexpectedly" run out.

You have a geographical feature that supports large population, very easy internal transportation in the form of the Missouri/Mississipi rivers, allowing for cheap internal food supply and trade, where European powers have to rely on their road networks. You have weak neighbours, and haven't had the need to spend a lot of money on your land army for most of your history, and have been able to focus on Air and Naval power. You got no border to heavily guard like Russia, and you don't have to keep your citizens in check all the time like China.

Patent developpers in Canada go directly to the U.S. as it will be easier to find a huge customer base right away and then adapt your sales for Canada than the other way around. Same thing when you go into business, it's simply easier to reach a bigger pool of American customers than Canadian, meaning that the economical/cultural elite generally migrates to the U.S..

So, you are lucky. You built on that luck, and achieved great things. But you are lucky. Your landmass ain't in majority iced most of the year, which allow a big ennough population to draw investors.

Which is, at some point, not a bad thing in itself. Better competition for everybody. A canadian entrepreneur can easily move over to become rich, and compete directly against your own people. It just means that we might sometime have the economical short end of the stick.

It's the kind of model we used in the past 90 years, and it ain't worked badly. But it doesn't mean that the american people or culture are in themselves of any brand of superiority.

China does not NEED to do that.  They CHOSE to do that.

Plus the prices are not artificially capped to prevent recouping of R&D costs.

You bring up some interesting points (some of which are easily explained as I have done), but you neglect one big aspect of the proof of the difference.  Not all of Canada is a frozen wasteland 9 months of the year.  Yet the areas that are very livable and relatively un-touched do not have the population the US area does.  Why?  Well, yes the lack of people does explain it partially, but then that is due to the fact that not a lot of people want to move there (unlike the US).  And why do they want to move here (all the natural advantages you attribute to us are also attributable to Canada)?  because of what America did with those advantages, and Mexico and Canada have not done.  And that is purely the people.

You probably meant "WANTED" to move there. We were part of the British Empire, we did not had any big incentive to ask people to come over the way the USA did. Also, it was easier to get lost once in the USA compared to Canada. We were part of the whole, you weren't. You were your own whole.

And we don't share as much natural advantages as you. The Mississipi/Missouri river network is simply incredibly amazing blessing from luck (the Louisiana Purchase probably have been the best investment evar). The closest we got is the St-Lawrence river, but it doesn't reach as much into fertile heartlands as you, and until recently, has been very difficult to navigate past Montreal.

Climate. As simple as that. Cold climate lands still have some large population when people have the time to grow organically there. But given the choice, in the 1800's and early 1900's, I am sure more than a few people were quite happy to pick California, Carolina, Michigan over Ontario, Quebec or Newfoundland.

Specially if they came from Mediterranian states with warm climates.

there was that whole independence war thing. Americans didn't get their freedom cheap.

Not relevant at all, especially in current times.

Political climate to be specific.

That whole capitalism thing... Turns out inventors and businessmen appreciate it. Businessmen and inventors the world over come to the USA... they do so for a reason. Or rather, did. The communist party might have actually ruined that these past few years they have been in power.

Because they don't practice freedom and capitalism as much.

So, are you saying that the canadian army and mexican army cost more then the american army?

Which canada and mexico could not do because?

You mean alaska? because that is part of the USA...

http://maps-world.cn/map/world_map.GIF

Spoken like a true liberal... I like Doc Guy's response to that one... "China does not NEED to do that.  They CHOSE to do that."

??? Most European countries have access to the sea. There are also rivers there that carry goods, The Rhine, Rhone, and Danube come to mind off the top of my head. Europe has a much more extensive rail network. So you won't mind if I find your comparison lacking.

Yeah, we tend not to do that anyway, at least in a competent manner.

But they did not.  They chose the Rust belt (Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, NY, Indiana, etc.).  So it was not climate (the sun belt did not explode until AC was made economical).

No, the answer lies in Occam's Razor.  America did not recruit immigrants.  Immigrants came because of a perception, right or wrong, of what America was.  Canada never had that perception, even with all the same natural assets, because of what you alluded to...the mind set of the the government.  We were different, Canada was Europe East.

So does Europe, but on average the land in Europe is better. Southern Germany and France make for far better farming land than the vast majority of American land.

Europe has the Danube, the Rhine, and a very convenient ocean that can be travelled around the entire thing west of Russia.

We can load goods onto a ship in Greece and transport them to Sweden without building a canal and locks and without navigating through Cape Horn or looking for a northwest passage.

The US didn't have weak neighbours in the beginning. Europeans were dumb enough to keep fighting among each other. In the last few hundred years very few wars were fought between Europe and outside Europe. Instead we mostly fought among each other (if you count the UK as part of Europe).

I assume the latter is one of those "coincidences" Taltamir was talking about, like capitalism.

I love the way you phrase it

Yes, it is just a happy "lucky" "coincidence" that American's don't have to be "kept in line" by the government unlike the wonderful soviet "utopias" where they "unfortunately" "have" to be...

wow, I think I broke my sarcasm muscle on that.

You probably know that whenever one of his lieutenants did something that Stalin didn't like, he had not only the lieutenant killed but also his likeness erased on photographs taking years earlier. The same picture that once showed Stalin and twelve other people suddenly showed Stalin and only eleven other people with clear blue sky where it looks as if someone might have been standing.

Stalin did this so often, cynics would claim that at the end of his rule there existed several group pictures of the Soviet leadership that depicted Stalin alone.

Americans are lucky because they are ruled by Americans. You got the government you deserve.

Don't worry, that particular muscle regenerates at an utterly astounding rate.

My 2c on this discussion is that the climate and natural benefits of the land actually have very little to do with the success of the USA as a country.  In fact, it's a bit insulting that you act as though the US was just handed its prosperity on a platter, because it most certainly wasn't.

For one, you have the founding of Jamestown and other early settlements, all of which had trouble with or nearly died from starvation.

Then there was the Revolutionary War fought to free the US from Britain.  The fact that the US won was really nothing short of a miracle considering that at the time, Britain was either #1 or #2 on the world's military superpower list.

This was followed by the government system, drafted and re-drafted and revised for a very long time by some of the most brilliant political minds the world has ever seen.  The Constitution slaved over to create as equal and balanced a government as possible, where anyone can move themselves ahead with their own hard work.

Then you have people who saw how well this government system worked, and decided it would be more worth their time to work here instead of in Europe - so they moved here.  Because of the competition between people trying to better themselves, the average consumer enjoyed lower prices and higher quality products, which further increased the desirability of immigration.

All told, the USA became the world's economic leader through the hard work of its founders and the people living in it up until today.  Unfortunately that desire to work has been slackening recently, probably in part due to how strongly our government feels about helping the "disadvantaged," so who knows how long our "luck" will last.

Very well put!  And I agree.  The government has changed from "helping" to "enslaving" for political power purposes.  And that is the problem we face today.  We have a generation of people that never knew different.