Dateline: Great Falls, Montana. A quick amendment to my comment about there being few mobile homes in Alberta. Leaving Lethbridge this morning we passed one active mobile home lot and another that may still be semi-active. So, if people are selling them somebody must be buying them. However, driving south from Calgary to Lethbridge I saw very few. For whatever reason they are less popular in Alberta than in the States.
Once again we had a trouble-free passage through customs. I hear horror stories but they haven't happened to us, I am pleased to say. Unlike when we crossed this border a few years ago, there was no concern about our having meat carrying "mad cow" disease.
You may remember that on our way north I reported seeing a thousand or more empty flatcars designed to carry shipping containers parked on the tracks between Great Falls and Helena. Today, on the rail line which parallels the Canadian road we drove south from Lethbridge we saw an engine pulling a whole line of such empties north. I wonder if this means the economy is picking up?
Just because the economy is doing better doesn't mean unemployment will drop anytime soon. The economics boffins say it will be another year or more before employment rises, employment being what they call a "lagging indicator." Firms put existing workers on overtime for some months before finally hiring new workers.
