‘Very concerning’: Canada’s standard of living is lagging behind its peers, report finds. What can be done? (poor gdp per capita)

[CdnFox]

https://www.thestar.com/business/very-concerning-canada-s-standard-of-living-is-lagging-behind-its-peers-report-finds-what/article_1576a5da-ffe8-5a38-8c81-56d6b035f9ca.html

“In 1967, on Canada’s 100th birthday, we were the third richest country in the world when measured by GDP per capita,” said Hejazi, who is unaffiliated with TD’s report. “Today, we’re 15th — which means 12 countries have passed us.”

Without major economic reforms, the future looks bleak. A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projecting the global economy from now until 2060 placed Canada’s economic growth over the next decade — and the next three after that — as among the slowest out of 47 countries.

After the pandemic, the nation’s growth in real GDP (GDP when adjusted for inflation) beat out many of its peers, including the U.K., Germany, France and Japan. This swift recovery was buoyed by “supercharged immigration and robust population,” Ercolao wrote.

But when adjusted for Canada’s swelling population, the figures tell a different story. One of sagging per capita growth that’s been deteriorating since the 1980s, when Canada last enjoyed an edge over its peers and kept pace with the U.S. By the 2000s, this edge “had all but evaporated,” the report reads — and it’s only “gone from bad to worse” following the oil price crash of 2014-15.

“In 2012, 30 per cent of Canadians felt that their kids would be less well off than they are. That number is now 75 per cent,” Hejazi said.

“The fact that Canadians are resigned to the fact that their kids are going to be worse off is pretty remarkable.”

 

 

 Despite the headline they don't actually mention what can be done about it,  But i do believe we're going to have to get VERY serious.

Cut the frills we don't need from gov't spending - no 'lesbian dance theory' classes as the saying goes.  Kill the cbc and let attrition reduce the size of the public sector and increase automation and web based service.

Dump that money into tax breaks and incentives as well as funding research. People working from home should be allowed to buy or upgrade their gear and write it off in the year of purchase, not depreciate it.  Target industries and companies should get breaks for upgrading their stuff.  Unions should be told that it's illegal to strike for any terms that involve reducing productivity, such as 'no automation' clauses etc.  Lower business tax rates and abaondon this !DIOTIC agreement of trudeau's to match the us's high tax rate to protect biden.

 

[Moonbox]

So there's a real problem here, but your suggestions are all over the place and many of them are ridiculous and unreasonable. I'm not sure what sort of discussion you're hoping to provoke with that sort of rhetoric.  

[CdnFox]

10 hours ago, Moonbox said:

So there's a real problem here, but your suggestions are all over the place and many of them are ridiculous and unreasonable. I'm not sure what sort of discussion you're hoping to provoke with that sort of rhetoric.  

well they'd seem that way to an uninformed !diot of course

You'll have a tough time suggesting things like defunding the CBC or cutting back on unnecessary programs is "rediclous'.  I think  you'll find its entirely plausable and practical.

I think further you'll find that the idea of giving tax breaks to incentivize businesses to invest is also a very practical and common thing to do.

As to the discussion obviously the invitation is for intelligent people to point out their opinons on what they feel would or woudn't work specifically. Of course you'll also get the odd tard who just whines about it without contributing anything useful, but what can you do.

And there's nothing "all over the place' about the fairly simple and concise idea of cutting back on unnecessary spending and putting that revenue towards tax incentives to bring business investment to Canada as well as research funding. That's pretty straight forward and practical.

[RedDog]

$7.00 for a. Big Mac. Canada.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, RedDog said:

$7.00 for a. Big Mac. Canada.

and the person making it isnt' making all that much, nor is the person who owns the place on a per burger basis.

As long as our productivity is in the crapper our quality of life is going to go down.  we'll work more and get less.

[myata]

20 hours ago, CdnFox said:

“In 2012, 30 per cent of Canadians felt that their kids would be less well off than they are. That number is now 75 per cent,” Hejazi said.

Is it realistic to expect that a lazy and disenfranchised politically population would create a dynamic and prospering economy? The answer isn't necessarily no, but it's rather no in the long run. Yes you can come cut down everything in sight drain all the seas around, and it could very well create a burst of sell/buy activity. Would it be sustainable though? Would a foundation remain for long term shared prosperity and advancement as a society? You may know the answer. Miracles won't heal all the problems. Changing a sticker on the tired and grumbling old thing won't do miracles. The carefree ride will run its course.

[Nationalist]

Take the shackles of our resource industry and the farmers and things will begin to improve.

[Michael Hardner]

17 hours ago, Moonbox said:

So there's a real problem here, but your suggestions are all over the place and many of them are ridiculous and unreasonable. I'm not sure what sort of discussion you're hoping to provoke with that sort of rhetoric.  

On 'ignore' so I assume it's about burger prices...

How much is a Whopper and a Big Gulp in N. Korea or the libertarian dream country Somalia ?

[Moonbox]

7 hours ago, CdnFox said:

well they'd seem that way to an uninformed !diot of course

Says the guy who brought up lesbian dance theory and defunding the CBC first when discussing Canada's productivity lag.   ?

7 hours ago, CdnFox said:

And there's nothing "all over the place' about the fairly simple and concise idea of cutting back on unnecessary spending and putting that revenue towards tax incentives to bring business investment to Canada as well as research funding. That's pretty straight forward and practical.

Nothing that you write is concise.  Whatever reasonable points you may occasionally bring up are drowned out in windbag responses, your boilerplate partisan rhetoric and general belligerence.  

As I've said many times before, nobody derails their own threads like you do.  ?

Edited July 26, 2023 by Moonbox

[Tony Hladun]

There are three factors that have stifled growth:

1. We're a federation of provinces with populations ranging from 145k to 14 million.  Besides Ontario and Quebec the other provinces don't count and are treated like colonies.  Capital investment is sucked to the middle.

2.  Toronto is close to Detroit and not just by proximity.  Canada pours money into a dying auto industry and the international car companies milk the largess.  Immigration buoys the Ontario economy but mainly with low paying jobs.  

3.  Quebec always has to get a special deal.  In their defence, French culture isn't about cut-throat competition, but capital is drained into projects to get Quebec votes.

So Canada is a very economically dysfunctional country.  Equalization is supposed to make everyone equal, but when everyone is equal then everyone is poor.  When Federal Liberals came in I remember one year where the reduction of capital investment in Alberta due to Liberal policies equaled the total annual capital investment in Quebec.  Lastly, we're now a joke in the eyes of the rest of the world so there's little outside investment.

We've committed to carbon reduction which is a high-cost endeavour.  The floods in Nova Scotia may be caused by global warming, but that is because the world is using a record 101 million barrels of oil a day and not by Fort McMurray.  The world has to solve global warming, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.  So a strong economy is our best defense to deal with catastrophe and transition.  Righteous poverty won't get us anywhere. 

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Tony Hladun

[Michael Hardner]

Any concern about growth has to be balanced with a discussion on equity.  Our real GDP is so much better than in the years a lot of boomers consider the 'good times'...

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

On 'ignore' so I assume it's about burger prices...

How much is a Whopper and a Big Gulp in N. Korea or the libertarian dream country Somalia ?

Sorry michael - didn't mean to scare you so bad    I get that you're intimidated by those who don't fall for your cheezy debate tactics and sticking  your head in the sand is the only way to cope

"On ignore" but still feel the need to post to them indirectly  Pathetic  

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Says the guy who brought up lesbian dance theory

Yeah. It's becoming a fairly common phrase for any left of center educational or gov't program that is an appeal to the 'woke' rather than an actually useful program.   Not that hard a concept to grasp.

I'm sorry - is your brain a little too soft to grasp abstract ideas?  I'll try to be more literal next time   LOL

 

Quote

and defunding the CBC first when discussing Canada's productivity lag.   ?

Yeah.  Defunding the cbc frees up well over a billion dollars.  And the cbc is a massive waste of money.  Further it would knock several hundred million dollars of ad revenue back into the private market for other news agencies. 

Now -  if you don't like the idea make a counter argument, but just whining makes you look like a child who's angry mommy and daddy are right about something.

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

Nothing that you write is concise. 

Ohhh NOES!!!  Did i use too many words for you again?  Why there must have been DOZENS of words in that reply - how cruel of me! No wonder your brain overheated LOL!!!

And still no counter argument, still nothing intelligent to add, all you've got is "Fox say something me no like!!!"

 

Thanks for playing kiddo You're a perfect example of how the left drags down productivity

[CdnFox]

53 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Any concern about growth has to be balanced with a discussion on equity.  Our real GDP is so much better than in the years a lot of boomers consider the 'good times'...

As teh article explains - that's meaningless if the gdp PER CAPITA is down.

 

Let me make this simple for those who don't understand how money works.   Imagine a company makes 10 dollars and share it with ten  people.  Over a few years the company grows and now it makes 15 dollars.  That's more, so that's better right?  BUt - now it has to share that among 20 people -  so even tho  the profit went up everyone is actually poorer.

This is the same.  If gdp goes up but the population goes up faster - then the people have a lower quality of life. That wold be bad.

[Michael Hardner]

Just now, CdnFox said:

As teh article explains - that's meaningless if the gdp PER CAPITA is down. 

Except the article talks about 'growth' being slow.  So "down" isn't what they are talking about.

Equity is very much a concern, even the WTO says so.

[Moonbox]

7 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Yeah. It's becoming a fairly common phrase for any left of center educational or gov't program that is an appeal to the 'woke' rather than an actually useful program.   Not that hard a concept to grasp.

I'm sorry - is your brain a little too soft to grasp abstract ideas?  I'll try to be more literal next time   LOL

 

Yeah.  Defunding the cbc frees up well over a billion dollars.  And the cbc is a massive waste of money.  Further it would knock several hundred million dollars of ad revenue back into the private market for other news agencies. 

Now -  if you don't like the idea make a counter argument, but just whining makes you look like a child who's angry mommy and daddy are right about something.

Ohhh NOES!!!  Did i use too many words for you again?  Why there must have been DOZENS of words in that reply - how cruel of me! No wonder your brain overheated LOL!!!

And still no counter argument, still nothing intelligent to add, all you've got is "Fox say something me no like!!!"

 

Thanks for playing kiddo You're a perfect example of how the left drags down productivity

If you think that one billion to the CBC makes any meaningful dent in Canada's productivity, you have no sense for numbers, or scale.  Math is a hand-waving exercise for you, it seems.  

The rest of your post?  Paragraphs and paragraphs of you carrying on like an angry muppet.  

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Except the article talks about 'growth' being slow.  So "down" isn't what they are talking about.
 

Except It IS shrinking at the moment and is expected to through 2024.  And then after that it's expected to grow more slowly than 40 plus other countries for decades.

Meaning instead of having one of the best qualities of life in teh world, as people in teh 70's did, we will have far less than average.  Estonia is expected to have a higher quality of life by 2050 than we are.

So "down" is indeed what we're talking about at the moment.   And when it does go up - we'll still be going down in our quality of life relative to other countries.

Simple facts. I know it doesn't make your liberals look good but that doesn't change the facts.

 

 

[CdnFox]

12 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

If you think that one billion to the CBC makes any meaningful dent in Canada's productivity, you have no sense for numbers, or scale.  Math is a hand-waving exercise for you, it seems. 

Well if it's such a small amount than the CBC won't miss it will they   LOL

It all makes a difference.  You save a billion here, you save a billion there and you've got some real money to play with.  Only a liberal would suggest that cutting the fat isn't worth it if its "only" a billion or so

And of course a billion dollars on it's own actually still does make a difference. Used correctly it can make a reasonably big one. For example - working from home  (for those jobs where you could) has been found to increase productivity and quality of life.   A billion dollars could  pay for a tax break for people working from home for about 500 - 1000 dollars in improvements to do so for pretty much every single person who would be able to work from home.

That's a big difference. Not enough to solve the problem but it IS in fact a difference. Keep cutting the fat and you can make far bigger differences as well.  And it sends a message to business that you're serious about attracting and supporting them.

 

Is this going to turn out like your  "doesn't affect inflation" thing where you insisted it made no difference and then when we did your math it made a huge differece? LOLOL!!!!!

[Moonbox]

52 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

It all makes a difference.  You save a billion here, you save a billion there and you've got some real money to play with.  Only a liberal would suggest that cutting the fat isn't worth it if its "only" a billion or so

Everything makes a difference, but this would be insignificant.  For the record, I'm pro-defunding the CBC as well, but when you make this one of your keynotes for discussing productivity increases, you're just another baboon screeching slogans.  

54 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Is this going to turn out like your  "doesn't affect inflation" thing where you insisted it made no difference and then when we did your math it made a huge differece? LOLOL!!!!!

All that I remember is you telling us you had sources for claims that you never ended up providing, and that you pulled some arbitrary numbers out of your ass and did some hand-waving napkin math that made absolutely no sense.  That's par for the course for you!  ?

[CdnFox]

18 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

Everything makes a difference, but this would be insignificant. 

As i've already demonstrated it would be quite significant.  Not nearly enough to solve the problem entirely but definitely significant.  And considering that's PER YEAR that means after 5 years (say, a term in office) that would be 5 billion dollars.

 

Quote

For the record, I'm pro-defunding the CBC as well, but when you make this one of your keynotes for discussing productivity increases, you're just another baboon screeching slogans.  

Well that's just about as stupid a comment as it gets     IF the cbc is defunded - then over a billion dollars PER YEAR will be freed up.  That is a simple truth.  Over time that adds up to many billions of dollars. That is a simple truth.  THat is enough to make a difference.  And that is also a simple truth.

And it is YOU who is making it 'central' to my argument.  For me it was one of many things i said should be cut or reduced for savings. Including the civil service and ALL unnecessary 'woke' programming.

 

Sigh - you've done it again.  Blurted crap out - realized you're wrong, and now are trying to desperately pick apart one point hoping you can somehow manage to be right on SOMETHING.  But you're not.

Cut the cbc.  that's OVER a billion dollars a year.  Cut other unnecessary programs. That's probably another 4 - 10 bilion depending where you draw the lines.  Reduce the civil service through attrition, and automation - billions more as that progresses.

put those savings into tax breaks and other inititives to promote investment in productivity and also research.

Simple, straight forward, and it works .

 

 but hey - what's your plan?    Or are you just here to look stupid railing against mine?

[Moonbox]

8 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

As i've already demonstrated it would be quite significant. 

No you didn't, you just claimed it was.  Repeating it isn't demonstrating anything.

11 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Sigh - you've done it again.  Blurted crap out - realized you're wrong, and now are trying to desperately pick apart one point hoping you can somehow manage to be right on SOMETHING.

?

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

1. Except It IS shrinking at the moment and is expected to through 2024.  And then after that it's expected to grow more slowly than 40 plus other countries for decades.

2. Meaning instead of having one of the best qualities of life in teh world, as people in teh 70's did, we will have far less than average.  

3. Simple facts. I know it doesn't make your liberals look good but that doesn't change the facts.

 

 

1. No.   https://www.oecd.org/economy/canada-economic-snapshot/#:~:text=Economic Outlook Note - Canada,run potential rate at 1.4%.
"Real GDP growth will decline to 1.4% in 2023. Higher borrowing costs will weigh on activity. Lower commodity prices have unwound last year’s terms of trade gains. Demand will strengthen through 2024, but annual output growth will remain below the economy’s long-run potential rate at 1.4%."

2. I already pointed out that GDP size is only one part of it.  You seem to agree that the 1970s were a good standard and yet we were far less wealthy then.  That is because of equity.

3. Not a Liberal.  That's another fact you have wrong.  You would leap fathoms in my appreciation if you acknowledged/corrected as I would do in this situation.

[myata]

31 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Simple, straight forward, and it works .

Except the system will never cut itself. A minor detail that makes all the difference. And we cannot have anything else. Because it's exactly as it was at the time of the pharaohs and so has to stay that way forever because it's absolute best we could have ever.

How many times has this been tried already I wonder? Romanow commission again, anybody? Fantasies can be pretty even absorbing. But they have little impact on the real world.

Edited July 26, 2023 by myata

[CdnFox]

15 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

No you didn't, you just claimed it was.  Repeating it isn't demonstrating anything.

Of course i did. Showed the math and everything.    But - if you disagree then lets see your numbers proving it's insignificant  

You havent'  looked THIS stupid since the last time we did math together   go on then.

 

Well that's the thing isn't it -  id don't have to tell you you're wrong. You very obviously know you're wrong.  What we're talking about here is how badly you handle being wrong.  

Swing and a moss big guy

[CdnFox]

Just now, myata said:

Except the system will never cut itself. A minor hiccup sure but makes all the difference.

There's no reason to beleive a gov't won't cut back on expeditures. Many have. Hell, chretien did so it's not even just conservatives.  Harper tightened spending.

Remember it isn't 'austerity' cuts - tho i'm sure the libs will claim it is.  Austerity is where you try to cut SO much that you balance the budget,  That's often a bad idea.  This is to create business investment and research to improve productivity.  Do that and you'll increase gov't revenues and have funds to deal with the deficit.