Also, at the risk of opening a can of worms, Canada enjoys substantial "free rider" benefits to the tune of 3-6% of their GDP by not maintaining a first world military or medical and scientific research industry. Good deal, if you can get your uncle to pay for it. -XC
The U.S. military is not a "first world" anything it like when your uncle blowing the medical insurance money and rent on Mexican fireworks. [It is awesome ] of the big four medical research firms and by big I mean bigger than most economies
Pfizer is the only "american" one but by their nature they are all transnational, Novartis[Swiss], Sanofi [French] and GlaxoSmithKline [British]. the biggest research grant giver in america is DARPA [the pentagon] I see it as a military distortion of academic life. I see economies in a evo-eco mode. The buffet [Not Buffet] style of picking and choosing what you like from an economy rarely works. High capital gains and low corporate taxes is integral to how the Canadian economy works. -oh and the cato institute is run by easy answer magic bullet dummies :)