Not as big of a news story as the CAN=USD story, but still noteworthy. Can anyone who knows where to look dig up any other times the 2-dollar bill was like this before?

A couple of years ago the Pound briefly slipped below one dollar Canadian. I am very hazy on this, but stories from my family seem to ring a bell that there was a time when the Pound was only worth about a buck. Could be wrong on that one, but I seem to remember that...

Reading it up:

April, 1990 = 1.90623
June, 1991 = 1.88716
February, 1993 = 1.81411
February, 1985 = 1.4804

Furthermore, the highest it peaked in the last 36 years was in January of 1981 at a monthly average of 2.8614

It has practically crippled British manufacturing.

Haha, they still use pounds! How antiquated of them!!

It has practically crippled British manufacturing.

Yes, to a large extent this is true, but that is one side of the story. The manufacturer's that survived are world beaters. You can have a prosperous manufacturing sector if you produce products that aren't price sensitive.

Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mini, Lotus, Morgan, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, British Aerospace, GKN, BAT, Imperial Tobbacco, Scottish & Newcastle, Tate & Lyle, Cadbury Schweppes, Unilever, Diageo, SAB Miller, Burberry, Ben Sherman, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca,etc. There are many others in machine tools, industrial equipment, scientific equipment, electronic machinery, chemicals, and shipbuilding. Yes, they still manage to build ships there.

You can have a dollar worth double ours and still prosper. 16% of British GNP comes from manufacturing. They produce high value added products and global brands that people will pay extra for. Burberry: are you really going to pass on the Burberry tie when the price goes from $100 to $200? Same goes for a Land Rover.

Manufacturing has gone high end, and ultra efficient by necessity. There are huge lessons to be learned here for Canada.

Some of what you mention is no longer British owned... in fact are any of those auto manufacturers British owned any more? Canada still is the eighth largest producer of automobiles in the world, and is churning out 2.6 million cars per year compared to Britain's 1.4 million. There is no doubt that Canada needs to modify its manufacturing to stay competitive, and it is in the process of changing right now. Most economic experts are surprised how well that manufacturing is doing here considering the rapidity of the currency exchange. The upside of the strong dollar is that manufacturers can upgrade their equipment to modernize and become more efficient. Also now is the time for high tech industries to shine...

Jaguar is the last automaker that is still British-owned.

Hmm... I thought even Jag had been bought out, but I could be wrong. It seemed to me that about 5 years ago there was great consternation in Britain that there were no British owned auto makers left.... but I am glad to hear Jaguar is still British! :cheers:

Jaguar is the last automaker that is still British-owned.

I'm almost positive that Jaguar was bought out by Ford, about 10 years ago!

Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mini, Lotus, Morgan, Bentley, Rolls-Royce,

I know that Mini Belongs to BMW and that Rolls-Royce belongs to the Volkswagen group.

^^ I am pretty sure, as well.. the "domestic" car industry in Britain is no more
"domestic" than the one in Canada, yet it still puts bread on the table for a lot of workers!

Yes, they still manage to build ships there.

They provide all kinds of protection to their shipbuilding industry that Canada does not. Some of those other examples may also be protected.

I don't think it's true that the dollar directly affects competitiveness to the degree that most people seem to think. It's prices that matter, and pricing is independent of currency values. There can be a lag between changes in currency values and pricing but companies can also make agreements on fixed prices or use other currencies.

Shifting currencies are hard to deal with but the people who claim that a Canadian dollar worth $1 US makes it impossible to do business long-term remind me a bit of people who claim that Fahrenheit is a better scale than Celsius because the units are "more accurate".

when i was in London in 1985 i think to convert prices we just had to double them

so if something was 10 GBP we knew itwas $20 CDN

the last time i was in london in 2002 to convert the price i had to double it and than add 25% or so if something was 10 GBP it was about $24.00 CDN

Is this good or bad for the Canadian economy?

It means its cheaper to be a tourist there :)

no idea

Some of what you mention is no longer British owned... in fact are any of those auto manufacturers British owned any more? Canada still is the eighth largest producer of automobiles in the world, and is churning out 2.6 million cars per year compared to Britain's 1.4 million. There is no doubt that Canada needs to modify its manufacturing to stay competitive, and it is in the process of changing right now. Most economic experts are surprised how well that manufacturing is doing here considering the rapidity of the currency exchange. The upside of the strong dollar is that manufacturers can upgrade their equipment to modernize and become more efficient. Also now is the time for high tech industries to shine...

You are correct. The British auto industry, like ours, is foreign owned. Ours is much bigger and a huge success, but it is insightful to study their industry. Almost all of their surviving brands are relatively autonomous from their foreign parent companies and produce high-end luxury vehicles. Their survival despite a currency double ours shows that we can maintain a vibrant manufacturing industry, but we need to adapt.

We don't have autonomous luxury brands like Land Rover, so the journey ahead is much harder. For auto manufacturing (and manufacturing in general) to continue prospering, high value added is the direction to go. We need more firms like RIM or Jaguar and fewer firms like Inglis or Ford.

You will get few arguments there.... manufacturing does have to upscale and
employ more computerization. Also now is the time for high tech companies and pharmaceuticals to shine.

I agree that our high tech and pharmaceutical firms need to step up to the plate and prosper, but which firms are you referring to? Besides RIM, a resusitation of Nortel, and tiny Biovail, we have nothing large enough to make a dent. We have many interesting firms, but they are the size of a flea relative to their peers and miniscule relative to the size of our economy. They are much too small to have an impact on our GNP growth even if they boom.

Biovail is, by far, our largest drug firm, but not even in the top 50 globally. $1.07 Billion USD for fiscal 2006. One firm, Novartis (#4 in the world) is the equivalent of having 37 Biovails based in Canada. Novartis is just 1 of 4 Swiss companies in the top 50 and Switzerland is the size of Quebec. Switzerland is very rich in drug firms, but this gives you an indication of how far behind the leaders we are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companies

I wasn't referring to individual superstar companies.. I was referring to the economy as a whole. Companies like RIM are extremely important, but only part of the fabric.