MUST'VE BEEN THE SURGE IN VULCANIZED RUBBER PRICES:

Canada's budget surplus C$8.9 bln for 2001/02 (Reuters, 10.15.02)

The final figure for Canada's federal budget surplus for the fiscal year that ended on March 31 was a higher-than-expected C$8.9 billion ($5.6 billion).

The Finance Department said on Tuesday that as usual, since the money was not spent, the surplus all went towards paying the debt, which stood at C$536.5 billion after the paydown.

The department said the ratio of debt to gross domestic product stood at 49.1 percent at the end of March. That is down from almost 71 percent in 1995-96.

That's pretty staggering debt considering that they're going to have to fund a massive health care system despite a declining worker-age population and that the U.S. doesn't have a much higher ratio despite essentially funding the entire Cold War by ourselves. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 16, 2002 6:17 PM