Continuing an informal competition between Canada and the United States of America, based on a series of completely arbitrary, wildly unfair and predictably mean-spirited criteria.

#2: IKEA Uldum Rug Pricing

Evidence:

Price (USA): $249.00 ($281.83 CAN at 13 July 2003 conversion rates)

Price (CAN): $349.00 ($369.94 including 6% Federal Goods & Services Tax)

Canadian Markup: 31.26% ((369.94 - 281.83) / 281.83)

Thirty-one fucking percent?!?! Isn’t Canada closer to Sweden than is America?  This is but one example of zillions.  What’s the real difference between amazon.com and amazon.ca? They’re not really different companies, are they? Then why a markup of 36.28% on The Prisoner DVD Megaset from dot-com to dot-ca?

Of course, I can hear you thinking “yeah, but in Canada you don’t have assy politicians and you have health care and you have gay marriage!”  To which I would reply: our politicians are only 0.03% less assy, we pay higher taxes and don’t hold your breath, buddy, Stephen Harper and his minions will be doing everything in their power to change that, come autumn…”

Advantage: USA

Bonus Points: USA (The Canadian IKEA website returns no results when searching on the “Uldum” rug.)