[kEiThZ]

Impractical. But thought provoking:

Why Canada should join the EU

Europe needs space and resources, Canada needs people. Let’s deal

www.economist.com

 

[kEiThZ]

There were launch viewing events for this today:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1879282084319309829

 

[Admiral Beez]

We need to stop lying to potential immigrants. I am amazed that a class action lawsuit hasn't been filed on behalf of immigrants we've scammed.

She immigrated to Canada nearly five years ago with a master’s degree. Why can’t she find full-time work?

As of December, the unemployment rate for newcomers rose to 9.6%, nearly double the 5.4% rate for Canadian-born individuals.

www.thestar.com

Paywall free: https://archive.is/GEsDB

The country and its employers do not care or value that you have a MA in business or anything else. Credentials, outside of those from the US or western Europe are worthless here. The reason Canada targeted south Asia for immigrants is for cheap workers to keep the cost of labour down and to negate the need to investment in innovation and productivity tech. We need you to throw away your Indian MA, put on an apron and swing coffee at Singh Hortons.

Canada has a long history of lying to those who are considering emigrating here. In the 19th and early 20th centuries we would offer "free farms" to entice eastern Europeans to come, like my wife's Ukrainian grandparents. But the land was untenable at first, plots too small, and you'd freeze to death if not for the goodwill of your neighbours.

 

[kEiThZ]

The country and its employers do not care or value that you have a MA in business or anything else. Credentials, outside of those from the US or western Europe are worthless here. The reason Canada targeted south Asia for immigrants is for cheap workers to keep the cost of labour down and to negate the need to investment in innovation and productivity tech. We need you to throw away your Indian MA, put on an apron and swing coffee at Singh Hortons.

There's more than one aspect to this story. At least initially the idea was to get the immigrants who would normally have gone to the US, where Indian immigrants have the highest incomes of any diasporic community in the world. This was true pre-Covid. However, this all got hijacked by the student wave. Particularly, the low quality strip mall wave during COVID. People like the woman mentioned are victims too. It particularly sucks for skilled and educated Indians that all Indians are seen as only useful as service sector workers.

Canada has a long history of lying to those who are considering emigrating here. In the 19th and early 20th centuries we would offer "free farms" to entice eastern Europeans to come, like my wife's Ukrainian grandparents. But the land was untenable at first, plots too small, and you'd freeze to death if not for the goodwill of your neighbours.

Do you know what Chernozem is? Here's a hint to why Ukrainians were recruited as immigrants:

 

[kEiThZ]

If you want to know why deals like AUKUS are important, just look at how much got wiped off the market with Deepseek reveal yesterday. And these are the kinds of tech that are covered under deals like AUKUS.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Canada needs to move more trade to other countries.

 

[kEiThZ]

Canada needs to move more trade to other countries.

And maybe, just maybe we should be moving our economy higher up the value chain and away from selling real estate to each other and resources to foreigners.

 

[Northern Light]

And maybe, just maybe we should be moving our economy higher up the value chain and away from selling real estate to each other and resources to foreigners.

I agree.

Though not unlike a discussion I'm engaged in over at SSP; the question is........what policy tools can/should government utilize in order to incent or compel said shift?

I can think of many that might work.......but I'm interested to hear from others........(yourself included) .....on what the best choices are....

We can't simply wish people and businesses making decisions in their narrow, short-term, self-interest will spontaneously see the light.

How do we make that shift happen?

 

[Richard White]

I agree.

Though not unlike a discussion I'm engaged in over at SSP; the question is........what policy tools can/should government utilize in order to incent or compel said shift?

I can think of many that might work.......but I'm interested to hear from others........(yourself included) .....on what the best choices are....

We can't simply wish people and businesses making decisions in their narrow, short-term, self-interest will spontaneously see the light.

How do we make that shift happen?

Increase interest rates to 15% in order to encourage investment in Canadian banks?

At the same time, restrict exports of certain goods.

 

[afransen]

Increase interest rates to 15% in order to encourage investment in Canadian banks?

At the same time, restrict exports of certain goods.

This would crater investment in Canada as few projects would hurdle a 15% discount rate.

 

[Richard White]

This would crater investment in Canada as few projects would hurdle a 15% discount rate.

It would encourage bond purchases, etc due to the higher rates.

Higher interest rates mean higher ROI which is not necessarily a bad thing.

It would also discourage people from using real estate to prop up the economy.

 

[afransen]

It would encourage bond purchases, etc due to the higher rates.

Higher interest rates mean higher ROI which is not necessarily a bad thing.

It would also discourage people from using real estate to prop up the economy.

I think you need to do a bit more reading to understand why we don't do this today. It would cause an economic collapse. No one would spend or invest, everyone would try to save.

 

[kEiThZ]

I agree.

Though not unlike a discussion I'm engaged in over at SSP; the question is........what policy tools can/should government utilize in order to incent or compel said shift?

I can think of many that might work.......but I'm interested to hear from others........(yourself included) .....on what the best choices are....

We can't simply wish people and businesses making decisions in their narrow, short-term, self-interest will spontaneously see the light.

How do we make that shift happen?

I have talked about this before. At its core, investment needs to be moved away from housing speculation and into industrial development. And there's only one way to do that: tax policy. Why haven't we done this? Because we want to preserve asset values.

Next, we need to consider how to leverage our resources and assets to move up the value chain. Instead of constantly fantasizing about how to get Alberta gas to Europe, let's send it to Ontario to power energy intensive industry like steel, glass manufacturing, etc. We can and should take marketshare in those sectors from Europe, making all that stuff with Russian gas.

Finally, defence spending has to go up. That spending sustains a heavy industrial base. It also means more military personnel who have technical skills, that industry can use. It's no accident that Israel is an industrial powerhouse with such a small population. Or that Silicon Valley is in California, home of a large proportion of the American nuclear fleet, space forces and the advanced part of the US Air Force. It's unfortunate that military spending has been seen as optional in Canada for so long. Or that our generally left leaning culture sees only evil in the Military Industrial Complex. We're going to have to put on our big boy pants and start thinking like a real G7 country. A foreign idea to most in Canada I'm sure.

Increase interest rates to 15% in order to encourage investment in Canadian banks?

This would crater investment in Canada as few projects would hurdle a 15% discount rate.

Yep. They really need to make basic economics mandatory in high school. Economic illiteracy is rampant. And they makes it really hard to have voters who are informed on basic economic policy.

 

[afransen]

Yep. They really need to make basic economics mandatory in high school. Economic illiteracy is rampant. And they makes it really hard to have voters who are informed on basic economic policy.

It would also cause the Canadian dollar to rise, as investors pursue the carry trade to earn higher real yields in Canada....

I think many people don't understand that these things are all connected in one dynamical system. You can't just tug on one lever and expect nothing to change but what you are targeting.

 

[goreckm]

Finally, defence spending has to go up. That spending sustains a heavy industrial base. It also means more military personnel who have technical skills, that industry can use. It's no accident that Israel is an industrial powerhouse with such a small population. Or that Silicon Valley is in California, home of a large proportion of the American nuclear fleet, space forces and the advanced part of the US Air Force. It's unfortunate that military spending has been seen as optional in Canada for so long. Or that our generally left leaning culture sees only evil in the Military Industrial Complex. We're going to have to put on our big boy pants and start thinking like a real G7 country. A foreign idea to most in Canada I'm sure.

Yeah, but the military is just an extremely inefficient government jobs program. You can create public works programs for all those things without having to pay for the guns part. Of course, if we become an enemy of the states, it changes the dynamic slightly.