myata

Please don't tell me as I have a relative in the system. She is a great student and gets scholarships and still it doesn't cover anywhere near everything. Then there are those who were less fortunate going through high school and / or having relatives who could foot bills and for them it's a question of juggling part time work and serious studies or going waste deep in student debt. Of course neither of it encourages change of career, reeducation, continuous education and so on, just what we need in this century of knowledge and information.

As said, one only needs eyes and a brain. For example I knew a colleague from Switzerland who was horrified by an 8 hour wait in an emergency room with a broken ankle and that was long before Covid. One can ignore reality, stubbornly and deliberately but only at the price of departing from it even further.

Society is a part of nature and I find nothing depressing or emotional in observing it. There are societies that try to encourage positive management feedback; there are those that ignore it by choice and we call them authoritarian. And there are curious ones that believe that they can sprinkle negative feedback, feudal management hierarchies with democratic icing and that would make a difference. I find that amusing and worthy of attention and mentioning. Nothing personal and nothing emotional.

No, the results are not make up. One can see them in the reality, it only takes eyes and what they are normally connected to. Excuses, commentaries and redirections is a different story. Some think that they amount to results but it's only an obvious misconception. What you have you can show, and what isn't there no point babbling about.

What a nice advise, from a land overlord to a lowly peasant. Grateful, to who? And for what though? For an in permanent crisis crumbling system with outrageous management packages and a fraction of ICU a normal country has? For hallway medicine over decades "fix it for a generation"? For skyrocketing tuition and housing prices? For steadily edging up inflation? Wait, with that logic it's not the end of the road yet it can take you all the way to Mexico. Just watch us.

And of that who knows how much is going to surreal and obscene management compensation consistently producing substandard results. See? Suck and proud of it and that's all the reason!

Yes there are places on this planet where effective management of the epidemics did not require crying, jumping, wringing hands and shutting everything down, repeatedly. Only good quality system, competent professionals and effective and competent management. No you don't get it with a negative feedback feudal bureaucracy where status and compensation are completely detached from the delivered result. To each, their own.

If someone is paid outrageously for producing any, including dismal results there's certainly something wrong with it, on the scale where wrong means bad result and good means excellent. Your questions were answered many times before and repeating them will be ignored for the obvious reason. Failure, substandard and incompetent performance is not an: explanation; excuse; rationale; justification. It's only a failure to deliver what one was hired and paid for by the society. And as long as we accept mediocre and substandard results with ever more obscene compensations what kind of system do you think we will have, logically: Finland and Austria system? Or Mexico system?

on public dime with no relation to delivered result (fixed it for you).

Wouldn't it be logical to expect that replacing ridiculously paid bureaucrats who delivered substandard if not dismal results with no relation to their compensation with reasonably paid (relative to the reality of country see e.g. "median salary, Canada") competent professionals would make a difference, eventually?

Question has no relation to the comment that is a bored reiteration of non-existent rationale already discussed at length. Failure is not an explanation nor justification, only a failure. That looks even more dismal given the amounts of public money spent and obscene compensations of the management. Another chat bot sigh.

A question for the young and curious economists here: are automatic annual raises of our great MPs and other similar arrangements for the top PS talent only following the inflation or also contributing to it? With a $30K (right, no mistake our frontline heroes) monthly paycheck why wouldn't I go for an $10 gourmet croissant with $8 coffee? Did I hear, chicken and egg?

The number of ICU and equivalent beds in Finland (population 5 million) is 450-500 (source). Proportional to population of Ontario, that would be equivalent to approximately 1,500 beds, of which the recent Covid admissions peak would reach around 20%. So what did the public get in return for ridiculous compensations of the top PH management? Looks like in decades of blissful ignorance and looking the other way we've made it quite a way down to the third-world condition. And barely even noticed. And not like even interested to notice and know. Are we edging toward the state where nothing more is going to happen here, and every trivial jerking of a bum or lifting hand by the public bureaucracy will cost the society more and more, until with a screech the whole thing ceases and halts? Destination: Mexico.

And, lets guess our highly skillful and trusted PH professionals go to such lengths in determination of each and every case, or just check mark it, done? And of course, in a vaccinated case, if there's any possibility of a correlation with a pre-existing condition. Let's guess...

In Austria (population 8.9 million) the total ICU capacity is 2,000 beds. In Quebec (population 8.9 million) with 95 patients the "the system is running at 155%" (minister). That would be less than 5% (five) of Austria's capacity. In Ontario (population 14.7 million) ICU utilization of around 300 earlier this fall caused cries of doom and catastrophe. In Austria, it would have been 15% of the total capacity. Can you see the difference? Spend uncounted amounts of public dollars on yourself; for decades, dive and swim in public money; appoint yourself obscene multi-hundred-thousand compensations and million-dollar golden parachutes; but when the system is actually needed, all you can produce is aiiii! and oiiii!!! and let's have another lockdown! Sounds like effective management of public resources, Canada style.

I wouldn't use same terms but the country does feel dull, dim and hopeless empty like deflated. "Let's defeat it forever", clowns cap and stickers on all bums, watch the Holy Number really that's worth living for? Work your a.. to pay outrageous prices for everything and line up for a stamp check in a bland mediocre eating place with outrageous ($9 beer) prices not seen anywhere on this planet? Nah thanks. I'll pass that incentive, and without much anguish. I'm not sure it has much attraction left other than for the desperate who would take just anything. Even many migrants prefer Europe. And sure, this state of affairs doesn't sound like a great inspiration for the next phase, from some angles at least. I'm sure $400K PHO and other CEO may believe differently.

No there's no point in lifting restrictions in six months if cases stay in the low place and the populace behave. That only shows that these folks are, very clearly now, in an accomplished denial of the reality. They think that they manage something but in fact they manage only pens they push on voiceless peasants. The cases will go up and down; Covid is here to stay. Normal, sane people are learning how to have life with Covid. The insane ones think that they can play scare and promise game with the Nature. With the virus. To each, their own.

The diagnosis for the country seem to be clearer as this event progresses: runaway bureaucracy. And I'm afraid it's an irreversible process. Few if any problems will be solved, essential issues addressed at ever rising cost till something happens. Something will have to happen simply because there isn't a good exit from this spiral process. Not the first time of course, and we could have known. But didn't want to.

Is it possible that someone very smart has been testing a chat bot here?

A common ploy for a machine to imitate intelligent conversation is to rephrase a statement or part of it as a question.

Here's an interesting piece about patriotic "ziganwu" social media bloggers guess where. Note the part where they target a scientists who suggested learning to live with Covid instead of glorious war to "defeat it for good" (that's from another ad, in a different geographical location, you can guess). Reminds of anything?

An average salary in Norway is about $US 70,000. An MP gets about twice that. Now check the state of the public health system, Covid statistics and shutdown record. There's a difference between responsible democratic governance and feudal-style government. And now, thanks strange as it sounds to the pandemic we can see it with our own eyes.

Has anyone noticed that some participants here appear to be in training for their Turing test (that is, for a machine to pass for a human)? Wonder if someone misplaced a bot recently.

In a feudal system there's no relation between the the compensation of the ruler and the results they deliver, that is, the condition of the country. Why should there be?

Median income for a single individual in Canada is $33,800 (StatCanada) The salary of a chief PHO is close to $400,000 with benefits and allowances. Public hospital CEO can have up to and over a million. At that level of compensation, does it still look like an "in crisis" "crumbling" system, or already somewhat like a third world, Latin American system? A system where rulers get obscenely rich without any relation to the reality of the country or the results they produce, for the country. Who said that these folks merit 10 times and more, median wage or a regular Canadian? Is it because of outstanding service and contribution, what is it, where can it be seen? In the permanently in crisis mode, don't blow on it "crumbling" system? We ended up with a bizarre mix of democratic phraseology and feudal management system. Is it going to work in this century, and for how long?