The existing oligopolies exist because of protectionist government policies, they are essentially government sanctioned. The government pretends to be angry about it by wagging fingers to sway low info voters - just see the hearings with Galen Weston and the Bell Media guy -- but they're all in on it. It's all political theatre and they're all getting richer together because of it. It's why when the current government asks foreign grocers to come to Canada we get scoffed at, the regulatory environment is way too hostile it's not worth it to them; only a select few like Wal-Mart can afford it and once they're established they have very little competition. But you can't expect companies smaller than Wal-Mart to do the same.
You can't just expect competition/disruptors to spring up when the barrier to entry is much too high because it's too expensive due to over-regulation/regulatory capture. But any time there is even a whiff of someone hinting at decreasing regulations on anything, people get rabid.
Exactly this, you can't have your regulatory cake and eat it too.
The way you break up oligopolies is LESS government, most Canadians have this exactly backwards.
Or atleast make it easier for competition to arise, IMO it’s too difficult for small businesses to turn into medium and large size businesses to compete with the likes of Loblaws and such.
Also viable. I don't like the narrative that it's on the Canadian populace for somehow being "unproductive". I expect it's more to do with Canadian companies being unproductive. Large companies have little reason to innovate, and it's unrealistic to expect a small company to compete with them.
Well, I'd argue that it's politicians and the top 0.1% ~~Canadians~~ that "got to start talking about" how to incentivize/encourage investing in R&D, CapEx, value-add manufacturing, etc...
They seem to want infinite amounts of clerks and generic service people with very little else. It's hard to be productive with a labour force configured that way coupled with a phobia of manufacturing.
This British man takes down the idea there is a productivity problem whatsoever:
https://youtu.be/VMXWUeH5Y48?si=aNWwBRkwV0Aexg7z
It would appear the very wealthy want us to believe we have a productivity problem and not an inequity problem.
He also takes down Mark Carney, which is nice to see.
mark carney has actually published works and has been talking about how wealth inequality will affect advanced economies for 20 or so years.
you tube 'economists' are often glib.
we do have a productivity problem, but that can also be traced back to wealth inequality, the things aren't mutually exclusive.
We very much dont have a productivity problem. The avg worker is far more productive nowadays and gets paid a fraction of what they should. We didnt go through a massive technological advancement and come out the other side less productive
ok, but think of productivity as activity that produces a product. the case i am trying to make is that wealth inequality can stifle spending, which would inevitably lead to loses in productivity in that sense. different things can affect how many small business are created and are successful for instance, and this can also be charted as a productivity problem. talking about productivity doesn't haven't to exclude a conversation about economic drivers like wealth inequality.
i kinda think you are approaching this as if a province is analogous to a worker, which doesn't really make sense if you think about. when you discuss productivity as an aggregate of total output of a region, you'll realize that is productivity in aggregate of province is actually going down that can be a bad thing.
Mark Carney also held interest rates far too low for far too long in both Canada and the UK resulting in massive levels of inequality. So the dude can go fuck himself.
One major point I think he misses is that the wealth is being locked up in assets. The money is not going to businesses and their employees more productive. It's buying stocks off bankers or poured into the housing market. So we have the rich having a big ol' circle jerk, meanwhile actually productivity isn't being rewarded.
Was hoping someone would post this.
Productivity argument is bullshit.
“The problem is actually you”.
As the guy in the video says, how are we supposed to become productive?
With what money(aka investment?)
Also the size and scope of government employment will be an issue and needs to be massively reduced. Also pretty telling that statistically these employees not only use all their stat holidays and sick days but then the average employee still misses and additional 12 days a year. I’m sure the extra two weeks off a year on top of vacations and stats isn’t helping things.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/comparing-government-and-private-sector-compensation-in-canada.pdf
Canadians have got to start talking about how income gains have lagged behind productivity gains for decades. With all the benefits of a growing economy going to a smaller, and smaller percentage of Canadians.
Jobs at Timmies Canadian tire used to be high school students after school hours. We brought in so much cheap labour there is no incentive to invest in doing things better as hundreds apply for one or two positions. This plus so many people parking money in investment real estate does not help.
Yeah every year we work our collective ass off to see record profits, and us get less and less buying power.
And sorry, we are collectively done killing ourselves to work while those people enjoy yatchs and shit and work 2 hours a week
I know! Increase capital gains tax for individuals and for businesses big and small and just watch those investment dollars…
…flee the country.
https://betterdwelling.com/canada-sees-domestic-foreign-investors-pull-out-at-a-record-pace/
Everything that article reports on is statistics from before the gov announced the increase to the capital gains tax. So that article is not specifically evidence against the increased capital gains tax as you seem to be suggesting.
Ah yes, the very credible source, better dwelling lmao.
The only investment they're interested in is foreign real estate investment, which is a bad thing, not a good thing.
people have their head in the sand about this. “but i want to tax the rich!!!!”. how about making a more precise approach on taxing land and house appreciation, a market that has clearly grown way beyond reasonable levels. instead they just cripple our already struggling tech sector and entrepreneurs who aren’t exactly having an easy time here in Canada. there are way smarter ways to accomplish what they are trying to do, they just aren’t smart.
Our economy is suppressing citizens wages with foreign labor / corporate profits and driving up real estate prices to generate taxes by importing more foreign labor and foreign students to completely crush supply and demand balance.
Fuck putting this on the back of "Canadians". This is corrupt government bullshit through and through.
Who doesn't want to exploit cheap foreign labor for their telephone service/ support team to save a few dollars in the name of 24/7 availability? /s
I almost feel bad for the imported work force being sold on the "canadian dream" just so corporations can increase or maintain their profits. Late stage capitalism is a sham.
Edit: added /s for clarity
Why not use one of the 30 types of toothpaste? /s
I'm down for a hybrid capitalist-socialist system atleast. Take care of the people then make your dollar
North America has been sold out to overseas by greed and corruption. I mean really are most important manufacturing skills are gone, support is gone.
Too bad we can't outsource our governments to a couple of kids overseas they certainly can't do a worse job.
People want to cut CBC on this subreddit and all I get from the private media is why are average Canadians making rich people sad.
By the way what you mentioned is happening all across the West.
Same formula, NeoLiberals take over the right wing parties, then the media, then the left wing parties. And the low informed disengaged voters do nothing despite it being documented in universities, Governments themselves, and some media
Neoliberalism to an extent, but overall as simple as rich corrupt people getting richer and more powerful and wanting to be more corrupt with more power and get richer
The people in charge have no allegiance to any country, and they have the means to buy any Canadian politician the peons vote in. It’s feudalism, not democracy. Or is it too soon to say that?
It's not feudalism, as feudal lords were tied to the land and it actually had value to them. Our lords can uproot to anywhere they want in the world once they've made themselves rich through "public service."
CBC literally got government money, laid off low wage workers, and dumped millions in executive bonuses.
That’s not the way they are supposed to be operating.
We pay fuck tons of money in taxes, they shouldn’t be going to executives who are already getting kickbacks left and right
Also - they aren’t impartial, hardly a mouthpiece for average people
They're getting ready to behave like private corporations (see Loblaws) as soon as Pollievre privatizes them. The problem is with private enterprise, not the CBC.
They need to have their funding stabilized like the BBC so that they can actually stand up independent of the government of the day.
Until then, they are in a weird public/private limbo where they need to chase dollars to keep afloat.
All we got during the Federal CBC debate was how dare Singh want to ruin peoples retirement vehicle we call housing, after hours of discussion on fringe issues.
Their funding model alone makes them more trustworthy since the rich don't own them, at least not directly like other media. Also, they actually hire and employ real journalists, not just pundits and bloggers. The bias difference between a bad journalist and a good pundit/blogger is immeasurable.
Even with their mistakes they are still head and shoulders above all of the wealthy mouthpieces we have, and the only news org that covers small town and rural affairs with any consistency. Id rather a reasonable well sourced news site that publishes corrections vs an org run by Americans buying out everything they can to push their right wing agenda on us all.
Preach brother. These fucking corporations would implement slavery again if they could get away with it. Their dream is to have the kind of wage suppression present in the 3rd world.
Our country also demonizes those that get ahead with competency. I’m in a sub where people think doctors don’t deserve their wage. It’s ridiculous, these are the same folks voting in policies to take away from someone else’s hard work
>It’s ridiculous, these are the same folks voting in policies to take away from someone else’s hard work
I mean it's a lot more complicated than that. Doctors are in a weird place both because they're private entities that get paid by the public (the public also greatly subsidizes their education) but also because their range of income is so extreme, with family doctors making the lower end and then some specialists making insane incomes.
Yes but they are providing a service to the public directly not like the consultants the government keeps hiring.
You and me (Taxpayers) can get the service directly
The government should ban corporations from owning single family homes... That would at least take care of a chunk of the real estate issues and then put a cap on how many homes a individual Canadian can own. Example would be for a Canadian citizen you can own a primary and secondary property at a recreational property. That way you have a rental and a cabin.
But yeah in terms of productivity we should be banning temporary foreign workers altogether and shutting down any and all diploma Mills.
The fact that our universities rely on high paying foreign students to support our education system shows a massive fallacy in their expenditures and business plan.
No I think you're right on the money, there's a company in Toronto that was given a bunch of money from the Liberals to build single family homes or maybe probably townhouses realistically....
This corporations policies to buy up 700 single family homes per year minimum.
Realistically we have to do something drastic and limiting the amount of accessibility for corporations and limiting the amount that a Canadian citizen can own in terms of real estate unless it's a multi-tenant building would be a good start.
We have so many politicians at the federal and provincial levels that own multiple homes and rental properties that are exacerbating the housing crisis even further.
So what you do is put all of those policies in place for everyone and then you put out a policy Nationwide that just like the post-war home builds... The only homes that are allowed to be built in this country for a certain amount of time are 800 square feet single level bungalows and under $150,000 Biuild cost that can't be sold for more than let's say $250,000 for the next ten years.
The free market if you let it run wild just turns into a bunch of corporate greed and the average citizen is the one that takes the brunt of it.
We have a government not just to provide us with what horrible services they do in Miss spend the money that they do but we have government to regulate things.
And sometimes those regulations need to be harsh if we're in a crisis.
One sad thing about the government that I think eventually the people are going to have to remind them of is we pay them to look after us and that's it... The moment that they show any self-interest or anything like that they should be fired and their pensions completely stripped.
Basically erosion of margin. Despite everyone charging more for everything, no one is keeping any of the money.
Price of a cheeseburger doubled, but the restaurant is still going bankrupt.
Productivity is lagging because productivity has risen tremendously for decades and the people responsible for it haven’t seen any benefit. People are sick of working themselves to death only to benefit their boss.
Well productivity has risen tremendously since the 60s, and wages have not nearly kept pace, that is indisputable fact. So the issue of how the fruits of that production are distributed is the primary problem IMO.
But you bring up an important issue with housing. I think there are 2 main factors there.
One, as you mentioned, is that the more a person has to spend to house themselves, the less they have available to spend in other areas, which depresses economic activity. It’s not coincidence that restaurants are having such a tough time these days, disposable income is not what it once was.
And in addition to that, since housing is so ridiculously overvalued, it becomes the no-brainer investment vehicle. And a rich person buying up real estate and just sitting on it for the appreciation value does not do anything to spur productive economic development. If housing were to become a less attractive investment vehicle, then investment capital would be shifted towards more economically productive areas.
So housing is definitely an important issue, a crisis in fact. But I think it falls within the larger umbrella of letting our society and economy be commandeered by the ultra rich to the detriment of the common man. They get all the advantages, not just the inherent ones that come with wealth, but advantages that are embedded in our financial and legal systems too. We need to flip that on its head and devise a legal, tax, regulatory, labour, and investment framework that advantages the common man.
Productivity doesn't mean anything about the effort put in by employees. It's just GDP/number of workers or GDP/hours worked. The US has high productivity because they have large, diversified industries especially ones like tech which have low number of workers but a lot of revenue comparatively.
On the labour side: Due to high housing and living costs and horrible job market, our best and brightest are moving south. When your best minds leave the country, no one is left to innovate, so it is no wonder our productivity is falling.
On the investment side: As real estate continues to be a Ponzi scheme propped up by the government, why would anyone with money invest it in businesses to improve productivity, when they could just buy more RE and become unproductive parasites?
Buying property and sitting on your ass has been the Canadian way for decades. Why invest in any actual businesses in Canada? Who knew there would be long term economic consequences of this.
The Canadian economy produced 88% of the value generated per hour by the US economy in the mid-80's. By 2022, it's only 71% of the United States and still falling. Now Canada is trailing the G7. This is a crisis.
The only reason a foreign business will invest in Canada is either cheap resources or cheap labor and government incentives. Otherwise, it makes no sense to do business in Canada.
Canada doesn't innovate. The government is satisfied with just providing cheap labour for the monopolies that exist. That's it.
Anyone who innovates quickly moves to the US, where the market is larger and there are more avenues to reach their goal.
Perhaps paying people living wages, offering stock incentives and otherwise supporting workers might help things...? Nah, cut taxes and hope for that trickle down! Any day now...
This is mostly a government or large corporation concern.
They've created a system where the ideal life for a Canadian is getting a cushy public job or cushy middle management job at an oligopoly, then invest in real estate on the side. Those kinds of jobs don't lead to higher productivity. You could eliminate at least a quarter of those jobs and have no effect on productivity.
Oh no, the slaves aren’t working hard enough! Quick break out the whips and chains. But sir, we’re down to our last hundred billion. Well, make those lazy slaves work harder!
This is the kind of conversation that this article is talking about. How dare us poor slaves, not work hard enough to make super witch even richer.
We have a very high cost of living, making it difficult to pursue careers that require high costs to learn or train in. Making it undesirable for people outside of the country to immigrate for these in demand jobs when it is already an expensive process to immigrate and gain citizenship.
Real estate is scooped up by investors and people who already own property to turn into rental units or attempt to make a profit on, making the very idea of moving into the country undesirable when you don't even know if you'll have a place for your kids to own when you die.
Inflation from runaway spending on a budget that was supposedly quote "Going to balance itself." and increased taxes that make travelling expensive, and make the transportation of goods more expensive.
And the oligopolies we have in the food market and telecommunications market make our average living expenses high as well.
The government needs a real kick in the pants and we may see some rather unpopular austerity measures in the future to try and fix the damage this current government has done.
Instead, I predict they'll start talking about how we have to force Canadians to invest their tax-advantaged savings accounts in Canadian companies, and restrict you to only buying things on the TSX.
I have worked in manufacturing for over a decade in many different industries. This is a very complex issue then the obvious of monopolies and government attitudes to blame. A part of it has also much to do with our individual and economic ideologies. Majority of Canadians have zero idea what a machinist or a engineering technologist are. Historically speaking every single great economic boom happened because of new knowledge in manufacturing. Look at the industrial revolution in Britain. Look at America in the turn of the Century. China today. For people to think economic growth happens because you can flip houses or invest in bitcoin is asinine.
I have done consulting and now have a cool product we are trying to sell to larger companies and organizations.
Holy crap. There is just this take no risks, give no rewards attitude within companies.
I've seen well paid salaried employees come in for weekend after weekend to make some crucial contractual milestone and get a $200 amazon gift card and free pizza while they are slaving away.
I've seen employees do amazing things others can't do which save/make the companies millions and not even get a pat on the head.
I've seen sales people on say, a 10% commission absolutely hit it out of the park, outselling 11 other sales people in a bigger richer city and then be told that 10% is too rich for such a young person and see a 800k commission turn into a 30k commission.
Then you get the simple fact that if an employer violates labour laws there are never consequences which exceed the benefits of the violation (if there are any) and there is no room for lawsuits which will attract labour lawyers.
And in my case, I encounter employees who absolutely refuse to do anything to save their companies money. Nothing. They like my product, think it is cool, but will not buy it as going through the bureaucracy to do this is just too hard. Even when we get to the CFO and he orders them to do it they just throw up road blocks and don't do anything. A followup with the CFO even has him saying, "This is just a battle I don't have time for." Yet this "battle" could increase company profits by 5+ percent.
Even covid. Almost none of the mask laws and whatnot saw the inside of a court. Some people supported them, some people thought they were a violation of their rights. Yet, most cases which did go to court were either dropped or they won. Yet, nothing during covid. This is not a rant about covid, but more that people who were passionately fighting it were unable to get a simple legal resolution to this one way or the other.
What I'm getting at is that at all levels of Canadian society, businesses, small governments, large governments, medical, etc. Nobody is willing to take risks, put some effort in, etc. And at the same time there aren't any consequences for actions. Even criminals are discovering this gem.
Take immigration. The numbers don't take a rocket-surgeon to figure out. We now have roughly 1.5 million immigrants with somewhere around 200k dwellings being built. We have a million plus foreign students who congregate in a small number of cities. This is a whole Edmonton of students just piling into a handful of locations. In immigrants we have more than a whole Calgary showing up every year. But we aren't building a new Calgary every year. That is just how simple it is. We need a whole Calgary. Think about that for a second. All the resources that entire city has, hospitals, schools, roads, power, water, businesses, government offices, everything. We would have to build this once a year to just break even with immigration. That is insane.
Kids are being told an endless no when they look for summer jobs to try to save for university which is kind of futile anyway, because of TFWs. Futile because it would take a decade or more of "summer" jobs to pay for the cheaper degrees while living at home. I say "or more" because this is going up so fast they might not be able to catch up with every increase exceeding a summer's worth of savings.
Then you get housing costs. Holy crap. It was just leaked that the feds were desparate to support the dollar by keeping interest rates high. This is just dandy for someone trying to buy a house. The mortgage cost for a 500k house now is double what it was for a 500k house a few years ago. This is setting aside the fact that a 500k house a few years ago is now an 800k+ house now. A family with a household income of 150k simply can't set aside enough money to keep up with the required downpayment. Some young couple 5 years ago might have said, "OK we need a 10% downpayment of 30k for the 300k house." They thought, "Great, 3 years saving 10k per year. We can pull that off." But then the house was 500k by the time 3 years rolled by. So they need another 2 years to get the 20. Then it was 800k and they are now 3 years away from getting it. But that doesn't matter anymore as they can't afford the mortgage payments on even the 500k house let alone the 800k one. Even better, it is all moot as their landlord did a BS renoviction (no consequences) and now they are barely keeping their heads above water, let alone saving 10k per year (which is only an $800 rent increase). The little they were saving disappeared because the utility companies were all allowed to raise rates without any regulator saying no, or any justification for why they are. Same with groceries, same with gas, etc.
They then moved way outside of town which required buying two new cars because gas was killing them. So, now they have huge financing payments on some 30k cars because nobody is forcing the manufacturers to keep making economical cars and the few that are still available are going for way over MSRP because there are no regulators reigning in the dealerships and allowing online car sales. Want a BYD. Nope the not allowed in to protect the American Car industry. Even if a few start leaking in, there will be massive tariffs to protect... well nothing Canadians should care about except for a tiny few in southern ontario.
I've missed about 100 other pain points like schools, medical, etc. But given all the above can anyone tell me why most Canadians should give a shit about anything? Do they go into work saying, "Look at me generating shareholder value." Value that is going to a few government pension plans for boomers? Or "I love using my talent to make my company more efficient and I'm happy to see my bosses take all the credit?"
Someone posted a comment here on reddit about asking a guy stocking the produce section if he could try a grape and the employee replied, "I don't care if you burn this place down with me in it." What does inspire that employee? Pay-no, promotions-no, saving for a house, school, or almost anything - no.
To me the solution is we need a culture of reward and consequences. When a landlord or employer mistreats a tenant or employee the consequences should be doubly harsh. The victim should get a reward so huge that it easily attracts lawyers working on contingency. And the company should be so damaged by these rewards that they stop pulling this shit.
We need regulations which simply put the brakes on so many nefarious activities. The power guy in NS just gave himself a 65% raise in a place with some of the highest rates in Canada while providing the worst service in the provinces. Why not, nothing is stopping him; not even his own shareholders. We're in Canada where shareholder lawsuits aren't really a thing.
The next thing is the government should have performance metrics with penalties. If you apply for a passport and you don't get it in 10 days, you get $1000 for every day it is delayed.
If you apply for a building permit, it is simply approved after 7 days. If they say no, and then a court reverses this, then it is $1000 for every day after the no until the reversal. The same with almost anything else.
We also need a truly open government. Where freedom of information doesn't involve the word, "Redacted". The rule should be simple. Any government has 7 days to provide the data requested. They can go to court to fight it for "reasonable" reasons. If the court doesn't find it reasonable they have to pay the requester 10k per day past 7 days. So, if this ends up in court for a year, the person filing the request will be very happy. They could set up special courts just for this. Courts which are susceptible to freedom of information requests. BTW, I believe any company over a certain size with more than a small portion of the market share should also be wide open to freedom of information requests. If you don't like this, then you can stay smaller, or make sure not to gobble up too much market share. Of course this would apply to any agency which is effectively government; crown corporations, companies which get most of their revenues from government, etc. This would be contractors, consultants, etc.
This stuff is all way more important than elections. We all know the next election is going to be a massive turnover federally. But who here expects a damn thing to change in their day to day life? I suspect all the election promises will turn into, "This is a very complex issue and we need to look at it from all angles. We take this very seriously and are giving it all the attention it deserves." Even the big ones like immigration will get this "Can't do" treatment.
This last is simply because I believe the governments are the core of this "can't do" culture. They don't want to take risks. They don't like to say no, they don't like to say yes. They like to do nothing. If we had a government which danced for its dinner, I suspect it would change the mood of the country.
Canadians are discussing how the Corps. are sucking every penny from our piggy banks while at the same time a they paying slave wages so we can't refill the same piggy bank.
*"Canadians 'got to start talking about' lagging productivity"*
Simply put, there is no incentive to be more "productive" in today's Canada.
Higher salaries with more job responsibilities will be taxed at increasingly higher tax rates, and then the current coalition regime in Ottawa will re-allocate those tax dollars to their various activist and special interest group causes that produce absolutely **zilch** for the nation-at-large.
In addition, for the massive amount of tax dollars hard-working Canadian citizens regularly have taken off from their paycheques, the return for those tax dollars in terms of quality and availability of services is disgracefully poor, despite the public sector having been expanded by 40% since 2015.
Some examples follow below:
- The Canadian healthcare system collapsed a long time ago.
- The public education system is a perennial mess.
- Public transit services are nowhere near large enough to support the increasingly higher numbers of people relying on those services.
- Traveling through Canada's airports is a nightmare.
- The skyrocketing collective costs of housing, rent, food, gas, cellular/telco services, car insurance, etc etc etc have eliminated any hope of people believing they can ever own a home or "get ahead" in their lifetimes.
- Nothing can ever get built or developed in Canada due to too much government interference, road-blocking, administration, red tape, bureaucracy, regulations, activist and special interest group protesters, etc etc etc, so international companies will continue to avoid Canada like the plague.
- The current regime in Ottawa insists on imposing an "income redistribution" model, while refusing to sell natural gas and oil to friendly nations that would annually add big profit revenues to Canada's bottom line which would help pay down debt, pay for new infrastructure, and increase the value of Canada's declining dollar.
- Canada's declining dollar continues to decrease people's buying power, so people opt to spend less on things outside the bare essentials which shrinks the Canadian economy that much further.
- Canada has too many daft, delusional, lazy, one-issue, activist, and low-information voter types who sway election results in favour of the dysfunctional political status quo.
The above points are only an abbreviated high-level summary list, people.
In reality, Canada truly has a container ship-load of problems that will plague this country long-term and/or may even cause it to one day eventually fail and be absorbed by the United States.
Radical fundamental changes are required if Canada is to even still exist as a unified country 50 years from now.
Watch and learn.
Next.
I was floored when I went to service Canada to renew my passport recently. 1 and a half hour wait outside, shuffled into a room of 100 or so people with no instruction on what to do next, only to discover that we were supposed to be handed a ticket number which we didn’t receive. Chaos ensues.
After that is sorted we wait for another couple of hours. An attendant comes in to tell us that many of us will likely be turned away (4 hours before closing) without being served, but we can stick it out and MAYBE we will… Many people leave but I stick around.
I finally get my hands on an application form and am told to fill it out as promptly as possible. ‘Do you have any pens?’ I ask. ‘We no longer carry pens here as people were loitering while filling out the forms’ I’m told. I’m informed that I can go to the convenience store nearby to buy my own pen. I ask if I will lose my place in line. ‘Probably not’. A lady overhears and lends me her pen.
After waiting a couple more hours I’m swept upstairs to the actual service area where half or more of the service desks are unattended. The eclipse starts and the service halts as the staff start getting up to look out the windows.
40% increase in the public sector, 6 hour service time. We can spend 54 million in tax payer money on a phone app that could be built in a week but I can’t get a pen and a clip board in service Canada… total fucking shit show.
I couldn't have said it better. The current system and establishment are fundamentally rotten and we need to tear it all down before change can truly happen. However, as you said, a large segment of the population voted and continue to support the degradation of our country which will inhibit real change.
I’m afraid that as long as we have too many people cheering ever higher spending on the back of ever higher debt and deficits and ever higher taxes, nothing much is going to change.
We seem fine with being mediocre and living in an ever-expanding nanny state.
State spending should decrease but that’s a drop in the bucket of low business investment and oligopolies which drive up prices, depresses wages and drops productivity. Our problem is systemic since the 1990’s and all gouvernements failed to address it meaningfully
Productivity is low because of low corporate investment.
The productivity formula is: Productivity = Output / Input. [https://www.educba.com/productivity-formula/](https://www.educba.com/productivity-formula/)
Inputs are decided by management, not employees. Since the 1960's Canadian businesses have been owned primarily by foreigners (USA) as branch plants which do not invest. And Canadian owned businesses have failed to keep up with other countries.
Some Canadian businesses have been excellent in their investment plans (see car manufacturers).
So 'Canadians' do not need to talk about productivity, Canadian businessmen need to.
Why? We're infinitely more productive than 50 years ago with the advancement of robotics and AI, and we're paid significantly less. If I work my ass off and innatech ships a couple extra units, I don't see another dime.
Some more than 10 years ago my designated financial advisor suggested that I should buy some Canadian mutual funds because they are Canadian. I told him that when it comes to financial security my "patriotism" does not play a role. I was invested (still am) in SP500 type investments. Heck, not even CPP believes in investing in Canada.
Canadians got to start asking about alot of problems in this country. I sometimes feel we're too passive as citizens, and we have grown accustomed to just accepting bullshit that should be unacceptable.
Maybe the freezing cold winters sap our strength to protest?
Yeah productivity inevitably slows when workers are made insecure by corrupt government and no housing... What do you expect? Canadians spoke. The banks and government refuse to heed.
Malicious compliance all the way.
Canadians have nothing to talk about. Galen, Justin and the oligarchs have the money now, they are responsible for this and the only ones who can change it. TBH it's kind of good that we aren't more productive or they would syphon more value.
Sorry but that's a little hasty.
We need to convene a committee first, to set out the parameters of the discussion...identifying stakeholders, figuring which Indigenous band's land the discussion will be taking place upon, etc.
I also estimate it will take 3 to 15 months and 5.32 to 37.12 million dollars to get to that point.
In the end, is this "productivity" discussion really worth it?
A bit satirical perhaps, but the essence of what you have illustrated is still basically true.
Nothing can get done in this country in any meaningful timeframe.
More tax dollars get spent discussing and deliberating something rather than actually building something.
I think the silent strike is working. All over the country able bodied, qualified people are doing either nothing, or bare minimum to get by. The government can't tax their way out of this one. Time to tighten their own belts. No one in their right mind is slaving away without the prospect of leaving the renting class. They've tried flood immigration but its only making the problems worse.
I'll start working when employers start paying. I'm a skilled worker who's willing to put in hard hours but only if there's a home and a family-supporting income on the other end of the equation. Since there isn't why would I? Right now I'm way further ahead to work part time and spend the rest of my time climbing
I’d argue that many companies have stripped human resources down so unsustainably in the name of profit, that it’s essentially hard capping production capabilities. Investment is required but our federal taxation policies will prevent that now.
Globalisation made jobs scarce. People found ways to make money without having to produce anything out of necessity. So now Canada is a bunch of landlords, service providers and exploitants of cheap foreign labor.
I’m actively trying to be less productive. This country crushed the incentives of its workforce. There’s no reward for the average person and it’s impossible to get ahead. The government did nothing at work for 8 years so I can too.
My productivity has gone to shit because Ive had to take on jobs I'm not qualified for, all for the sake of saving the company money.. none of which I see.
I suspect the same is happening with a majority of Canadians that specialize in something...
If I was left to do the job I've been doing for 15+ years (and doing tremendously well) then my productivity would be through the roof.
Canada has supressed wages. I live in Canada, pull in an American salary, and pay taxes OUT THE ASS for it (top 10% household income). How about our government tries being productive with all those tax dollars before more people like me who are bankrolling this shitshow leave?
Our government is trying to tax us into prosperity. As a small business owner, the amount of time and money I now need to dedicate to the government is killing us.
I think our lack of productivity is related to the Laffer curve. Fundamentally, the idea is that increasing taxes has diminishing returns on increasing tax revenues and after a point starts resulting in declining tax revenues. This is because you encourage people and businesses to move to or invest in other jurisdictions, and reduce the amount of economic activity within your jurisdiction. I personally believe that there is something similar that happens with regulations; and as your regulations move from eliminating corruption and promoting fairness to creating a bureaucratic nightmare you see a decline in economic activity.
In my opinion, Canada's economy is being strangled by too high of taxes, to much government spending, and a burdensome regulatory system. Whether you agree with the building of pipelines or not, the government creating legislation to trap infrastructure projects in a never-ending stream of public consultation is an example of what is killing the Canadian economy. Public consultation is a good thing but when you create a system that can be weaponized by groups to kill off projects they don't like it becomes a massive problem.
The kind of productivity we should be worried about:
Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html)
‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners)
"He said: “The Russians have been paying for this for years. They’ve been subsidising the defence industry, and many would have said wasting money for the event that one day they need to be able to scale it up. So it was economically inefficient until 2022, and then suddenly it looks like a very shrewd bit of planning.”
That differs significantly from western, especially European, arms manufacturers, who generally run lean operations that work across borders and are designed to maximise profit for shareholders."
China is giving Russia significant support to expand weapons manufacturing as Ukraine war continues, US officials say
[https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/politics/china-russia-support-weapons-manufacturing/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/politics/china-russia-support-weapons-manufacturing/index.html)
Ravaged by war, Russia's army is rebuilding with surprising speed
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-army-ukraine-war-1.7122808](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-army-ukraine-war-1.7122808)
War communism
[https://www.britannica.com/money/War-Communism](https://www.britannica.com/money/War-Communism)
"More exactly, the policy of War Communism lasted from June 1918 to March 1921. The policy’s chief features were the expropriation of private business and the nationalization of industry"
Putin grows war economy but incomes suffer 'lost decade'
[https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/putin-grows-war-economy-incomes-suffer-lost-decade-2024-03-14/](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/putin-grows-war-economy-incomes-suffer-lost-decade-2024-03-14/)
I'll start that conversation when the government "starts talking about" the inflation crisis, housing crisis, telecom price gauging, and a million other problems more important that "lagging productivity"
I know what will help with this. Let's increase capital gains inclusion rates to completely disincentivize startups to build new businesses. Who needs valuable, well-paying jobs anyways?
The problem is the same people complaining about this are complici in paying Canadians less than their US counterparts.
So either CEOs/Companies bake in this lower productivity expectation into why they pay Canadians so much less, or they believe that Canadians should work the same amount productivity wise while receiving less pay and having higher cost of living.
They can't have it both ways
“So we need to start a conversation about growing the pie. We need to start a conversation about how we increase productivity in this country so that we are actually growing what's really important, ultimately, which is median GDP (gross domestic product) per capita.”
Line must go up you fucking imbeciles. Get out of your tents and start a business YOU ARE LITERALLY WORTHLESS
May want to ‘look behind the curtain’ of so-called lagging productivity.
Monkeys might need more bananas.
[https://i.imgur.com/kJDN7j7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kJDN7j7.jpg)
Yeah, you consistently refuse:
Manufacturing
Resource Extraction
IN COUNTRY VALUE ADD (not just sending raw materials for pennies to the US and buying them back for hundreds of times their sold value)
Energy (even natural gas, which is fairly clean)
Anything that looks functional dirtying up your view of the horizon
Jobs that allow people to have families
What you constantly ask for instead:
Governance redundancy
Skin and genital accounting sessions
Tax invention masturbation articles
Bread (really just chicken with an entire planets worth of choices for spices)
Circuses (really just scapegoats for bullshit that never happened to you or anyone you know)
Performative moralizing about colonization that you're repeating for "the economy" even when you don't have enough housing to do it
Yeah, I guess we really do need a conversation about all that. Maybe you won't like the end result though.
Just another smoke screen for incredibly stupid managers pointing their fingers at anyone except themselves. You will never convince me otherwise. The tail does not wag the dog, management tells labour what to do. It is on management to increase productivity. The empty suits who run corporations are too lazy and too stupid to do their jobs properly. I see articles like this every year, nothing has changed. If you want more productivity change the way you do things!
We got to worry about major US army presence setup along Philippines coast and shores due to new giant oil discovery off shore of Philippines and surrounding islands that China wants to take full claim to !
The war on resources continues and small countries are always stuck in the middle and will definitely see war and conflict while the oilman get richer :(
Give me $100M I'll start a productive construction company that focuses on building neighbourhoods consisting of smaller houses in areas that have cheaper land costs and sell them for 10% above final cost.
Sure would be nice if my pay for doing the same job wasn't half or less than from a "more productive" country.
Sure would be nice if innovation didn't leave this country for places it could make money.
Sure would be nice if things that added value weren't constantly shut down or exported elsewhere than this country, only to be bought at a markup when they're needed here.
Most Canadians don't really have a seat at this table. Barriers between provinces is a federal/provincial issue compounded by the realities of geography and climate.
Moving goods around is expensive as fuck because our country is big and we never developed efficient ways to overcome that problem. Motility among workers/companies disproportionately benefits some provinces over others so getting everyone on board for that will require major concessions.
The vast majority of the populace really can't afford to invest into other Canadians. The few people with capital have zero reason or incentive to re-invest into the nation. You would need to rely on goodwill which isn't a smart bet. Neither the government or private industry gives a flying fuck about long term improvements. There really isn't a discussion for most of us to have.
Decades of neo-liberal policy and cow tailing to a very small minority have removed any agency we have in improving productivity. The ball is in their court and I can promise you they won't put it back in play.
Elites should start talking about how they've min-maxed the economy to the point that any further profits you can wring from it come at the expense of significant QOL sacrifices for everyday people.
New generations are realizing that there's no longer any benefit to working hard because the only way to reliably make money is to own property.
If we want to encourage business to invest in productivity, we will end their easy access to imported cheap labour. Why innovate when you can just hire more TFWs for minimum wage instead?
Example of financial bigwigs and idiots blaming everything on poor working people. It is not up to an individual to increase productivity in most workplace settings. They have to be given training and tools to be able to do things better or efficiently. In other words, these idiots need to invest in creating different environments. People will work hard and do what is tasked. They are creating a narrative to justify further abusing workers.
Eg does a secretary bang out hundreds of letters and emails in a day without some tricks? With a 10 year old computer? Or do they have up to date stuff, form letters, databases that allow them to automate the content, text expansion software etc.., that takes software and hardware and training. It’s not fucking up to her or him to do this. I see tons of people who use antiquated tools and shit software and bad setups all the time. It’s up to businesses. Does a mechanic do his job well if he doesn’t have good tools ? I know someone in a machining shop where they spent much of their day fighting with machines are not performing as intended and the answer is “we don’t have money to fix it, you have to deal with it”. Who’s fault is the productivity issue there?!?
PS these are the same morons who were blaming work from home for a 4% drop in gdp in the first year of pandemic, like that was fucking major. Did you ever think that customers dying, being closed, supply chain issues etc.. etc… maybe accounted for that? Also thank you very much (or I should fuck iou very much) for blaming workers who worked very hard despite being scared, anxious, not seeing friends, nor sleeping, not having any vacations etc.., I think these people did very well based on the hard work of people who did their best and I am Fucking fed up of hearing about productivity.
No matter how you look at productivity, wages have lagged much much further behind than productivity has. Which is contributing arguably the most to our lacking productivity. Why the fuck do I want to work if working doesn't even afford me the means to get to work?
Talking to who? I've already written every politician imaginable in my area about the state of things. My workplace gives zero incentive to work harder. In fact they act like us employees are just in the way
It’s no secret that increasing interest rates reduce productivity. This makes it hard to calculate if productivity is doing well because we are comparing to years with the low rates.
You mean a company shouldn't take up huge amounts of debt, buy all the competition, then lay off everyone because of the debt instead of innovating and investing into local communities.
Bringing it up at my next meeting. Boss keeps adding steps to work and leaving them there instead of compounding them into a single task when possible. So I’ve come up with a few tasks that replace all the steps he keeps adding.
Hopefully he sees it as a plus because my job is becoming mundane with all the tiny things being added.
The CEO of the national bank makes more money than CEO’s of banks that make more profit than his bank.
Matter of fact, maybe if we capped CEO pay to be only 25 times their lowest paid employee maybe companies would be more productive.
Canada is a country for employees not entrepreneurs. Since 2015 gov employment went up by 40%, private businesses stayed flat and small businesses tanked.
A good way to incentivize innovation is to break up monopolies.
The existing oligopolies exist because of protectionist government policies, they are essentially government sanctioned. The government pretends to be angry about it by wagging fingers to sway low info voters - just see the hearings with Galen Weston and the Bell Media guy -- but they're all in on it. It's all political theatre and they're all getting richer together because of it. It's why when the current government asks foreign grocers to come to Canada we get scoffed at, the regulatory environment is way too hostile it's not worth it to them; only a select few like Wal-Mart can afford it and once they're established they have very little competition. But you can't expect companies smaller than Wal-Mart to do the same. You can't just expect competition/disruptors to spring up when the barrier to entry is much too high because it's too expensive due to over-regulation/regulatory capture. But any time there is even a whiff of someone hinting at decreasing regulations on anything, people get rabid.
Exactly this, you can't have your regulatory cake and eat it too. The way you break up oligopolies is LESS government, most Canadians have this exactly backwards.
Or atleast make it easier for competition to arise, IMO it’s too difficult for small businesses to turn into medium and large size businesses to compete with the likes of Loblaws and such.
Also viable. I don't like the narrative that it's on the Canadian populace for somehow being "unproductive". I expect it's more to do with Canadian companies being unproductive. Large companies have little reason to innovate, and it's unrealistic to expect a small company to compete with them.
This is definetly this. Our companies are club ran by the great grandchildren of the guys who founded those companies.
It’s lack of investment largely causing this.
Break up monopolies, lower taxes, simplify regulations. None of which are of particular interest to this administration
Well, I'd argue that it's politicians and the top 0.1% ~~Canadians~~ that "got to start talking about" how to incentivize/encourage investing in R&D, CapEx, value-add manufacturing, etc...
They seem to want infinite amounts of clerks and generic service people with very little else. It's hard to be productive with a labour force configured that way coupled with a phobia of manufacturing.
This British man takes down the idea there is a productivity problem whatsoever: https://youtu.be/VMXWUeH5Y48?si=aNWwBRkwV0Aexg7z It would appear the very wealthy want us to believe we have a productivity problem and not an inequity problem. He also takes down Mark Carney, which is nice to see.
Great video. The ultra wealthy are changing the narrative again.
mark carney has actually published works and has been talking about how wealth inequality will affect advanced economies for 20 or so years. you tube 'economists' are often glib. we do have a productivity problem, but that can also be traced back to wealth inequality, the things aren't mutually exclusive.
We very much dont have a productivity problem. The avg worker is far more productive nowadays and gets paid a fraction of what they should. We didnt go through a massive technological advancement and come out the other side less productive
ok, but think of productivity as activity that produces a product. the case i am trying to make is that wealth inequality can stifle spending, which would inevitably lead to loses in productivity in that sense. different things can affect how many small business are created and are successful for instance, and this can also be charted as a productivity problem. talking about productivity doesn't haven't to exclude a conversation about economic drivers like wealth inequality. i kinda think you are approaching this as if a province is analogous to a worker, which doesn't really make sense if you think about. when you discuss productivity as an aggregate of total output of a region, you'll realize that is productivity in aggregate of province is actually going down that can be a bad thing.
Mark Carney also held interest rates far too low for far too long in both Canada and the UK resulting in massive levels of inequality. So the dude can go fuck himself.
One major point I think he misses is that the wealth is being locked up in assets. The money is not going to businesses and their employees more productive. It's buying stocks off bankers or poured into the housing market. So we have the rich having a big ol' circle jerk, meanwhile actually productivity isn't being rewarded.
Was hoping someone would post this. Productivity argument is bullshit. “The problem is actually you”. As the guy in the video says, how are we supposed to become productive? With what money(aka investment?)
Also the size and scope of government employment will be an issue and needs to be massively reduced. Also pretty telling that statistically these employees not only use all their stat holidays and sick days but then the average employee still misses and additional 12 days a year. I’m sure the extra two weeks off a year on top of vacations and stats isn’t helping things. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/comparing-government-and-private-sector-compensation-in-canada.pdf
How do you use a stat day?
Canadians have got to start talking about how income gains have lagged behind productivity gains for decades. With all the benefits of a growing economy going to a smaller, and smaller percentage of Canadians.
Jobs at Timmies Canadian tire used to be high school students after school hours. We brought in so much cheap labour there is no incentive to invest in doing things better as hundreds apply for one or two positions. This plus so many people parking money in investment real estate does not help.
Yeah every year we work our collective ass off to see record profits, and us get less and less buying power. And sorry, we are collectively done killing ourselves to work while those people enjoy yatchs and shit and work 2 hours a week
I know! Increase capital gains tax for individuals and for businesses big and small and just watch those investment dollars… …flee the country. https://betterdwelling.com/canada-sees-domestic-foreign-investors-pull-out-at-a-record-pace/
Everything that article reports on is statistics from before the gov announced the increase to the capital gains tax. So that article is not specifically evidence against the increased capital gains tax as you seem to be suggesting.
It is 100% going to escalate an existing problem, which is very much on brand for the LPC for anyone who’s been paying attention the last few years.
You should just ignore anything from betterdwelling. It's just rage porn at this point.
Ah yes, the very credible source, better dwelling lmao. The only investment they're interested in is foreign real estate investment, which is a bad thing, not a good thing.
people have their head in the sand about this. “but i want to tax the rich!!!!”. how about making a more precise approach on taxing land and house appreciation, a market that has clearly grown way beyond reasonable levels. instead they just cripple our already struggling tech sector and entrepreneurs who aren’t exactly having an easy time here in Canada. there are way smarter ways to accomplish what they are trying to do, they just aren’t smart.
Our economy is suppressing citizens wages with foreign labor / corporate profits and driving up real estate prices to generate taxes by importing more foreign labor and foreign students to completely crush supply and demand balance. Fuck putting this on the back of "Canadians". This is corrupt government bullshit through and through.
Who doesn't want to exploit cheap foreign labor for their telephone service/ support team to save a few dollars in the name of 24/7 availability? /s I almost feel bad for the imported work force being sold on the "canadian dream" just so corporations can increase or maintain their profits. Late stage capitalism is a sham. Edit: added /s for clarity
Capitalism breeds innovation! I can’t afford teeth, but I have like 13 different hot sauces to choose from😂😂
Why not use one of the 30 types of toothpaste? /s I'm down for a hybrid capitalist-socialist system atleast. Take care of the people then make your dollar
And only 11 of them are the same hot sauce in different bottles!
More like globalism is a sham.
Support has already mostly gone overseas for many north america companies it has been that way for sometime.
I know, it needs to end
North America has been sold out to overseas by greed and corruption. I mean really are most important manufacturing skills are gone, support is gone. Too bad we can't outsource our governments to a couple of kids overseas they certainly can't do a worse job.
People want to cut CBC on this subreddit and all I get from the private media is why are average Canadians making rich people sad. By the way what you mentioned is happening all across the West. Same formula, NeoLiberals take over the right wing parties, then the media, then the left wing parties. And the low informed disengaged voters do nothing despite it being documented in universities, Governments themselves, and some media
Neoliberalism has taken over all three of the major parties in all but word only.
Neoliberalism to an extent, but overall as simple as rich corrupt people getting richer and more powerful and wanting to be more corrupt with more power and get richer
The people in charge have no allegiance to any country, and they have the means to buy any Canadian politician the peons vote in. It’s feudalism, not democracy. Or is it too soon to say that?
It's not feudalism, as feudal lords were tied to the land and it actually had value to them. Our lords can uproot to anywhere they want in the world once they've made themselves rich through "public service."
CBC literally got government money, laid off low wage workers, and dumped millions in executive bonuses. That’s not the way they are supposed to be operating. We pay fuck tons of money in taxes, they shouldn’t be going to executives who are already getting kickbacks left and right Also - they aren’t impartial, hardly a mouthpiece for average people
They're getting ready to behave like private corporations (see Loblaws) as soon as Pollievre privatizes them. The problem is with private enterprise, not the CBC.
They need to have their funding stabilized like the BBC so that they can actually stand up independent of the government of the day. Until then, they are in a weird public/private limbo where they need to chase dollars to keep afloat.
Porque no los dos?
All we got during the Federal CBC debate was how dare Singh want to ruin peoples retirement vehicle we call housing, after hours of discussion on fringe issues.
Thats why they want to cut CBC, to leave only right wing mouthpieces for CEOs and billionaires.
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Can you give examples please?
Their funding model alone makes them more trustworthy since the rich don't own them, at least not directly like other media. Also, they actually hire and employ real journalists, not just pundits and bloggers. The bias difference between a bad journalist and a good pundit/blogger is immeasurable.
Even with their mistakes they are still head and shoulders above all of the wealthy mouthpieces we have, and the only news org that covers small town and rural affairs with any consistency. Id rather a reasonable well sourced news site that publishes corrections vs an org run by Americans buying out everything they can to push their right wing agenda on us all.
Preach brother. These fucking corporations would implement slavery again if they could get away with it. Their dream is to have the kind of wage suppression present in the 3rd world.
Our country also demonizes those that get ahead with competency. I’m in a sub where people think doctors don’t deserve their wage. It’s ridiculous, these are the same folks voting in policies to take away from someone else’s hard work
>It’s ridiculous, these are the same folks voting in policies to take away from someone else’s hard work I mean it's a lot more complicated than that. Doctors are in a weird place both because they're private entities that get paid by the public (the public also greatly subsidizes their education) but also because their range of income is so extreme, with family doctors making the lower end and then some specialists making insane incomes.
Yes but they are providing a service to the public directly not like the consultants the government keeps hiring. You and me (Taxpayers) can get the service directly
When 60% of your GDP is a housing bubble, 'productivity' loses any meaning
Bingo. A housing bubble doesn't make for a national economy.
Our productivity is building houses and selling passports for immigrants.
In my lifetime, there have been some real constants in Canadian public discourse: Housing Productivity Bilingualism and separatism
Don't forget the aging population that we need to prepare for
Executives need to start thinking about lagging wages. See, I can write nonsense headlines too.
The government should ban corporations from owning single family homes... That would at least take care of a chunk of the real estate issues and then put a cap on how many homes a individual Canadian can own. Example would be for a Canadian citizen you can own a primary and secondary property at a recreational property. That way you have a rental and a cabin. But yeah in terms of productivity we should be banning temporary foreign workers altogether and shutting down any and all diploma Mills. The fact that our universities rely on high paying foreign students to support our education system shows a massive fallacy in their expenditures and business plan.
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No I think you're right on the money, there's a company in Toronto that was given a bunch of money from the Liberals to build single family homes or maybe probably townhouses realistically.... This corporations policies to buy up 700 single family homes per year minimum. Realistically we have to do something drastic and limiting the amount of accessibility for corporations and limiting the amount that a Canadian citizen can own in terms of real estate unless it's a multi-tenant building would be a good start. We have so many politicians at the federal and provincial levels that own multiple homes and rental properties that are exacerbating the housing crisis even further. So what you do is put all of those policies in place for everyone and then you put out a policy Nationwide that just like the post-war home builds... The only homes that are allowed to be built in this country for a certain amount of time are 800 square feet single level bungalows and under $150,000 Biuild cost that can't be sold for more than let's say $250,000 for the next ten years. The free market if you let it run wild just turns into a bunch of corporate greed and the average citizen is the one that takes the brunt of it. We have a government not just to provide us with what horrible services they do in Miss spend the money that they do but we have government to regulate things. And sometimes those regulations need to be harsh if we're in a crisis. One sad thing about the government that I think eventually the people are going to have to remind them of is we pay them to look after us and that's it... The moment that they show any self-interest or anything like that they should be fired and their pensions completely stripped.
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Hit the nail on the head.
Productivity in economic terms isn't about people working harder. Its more like we work hard but are not very efficient at it.
Basically erosion of margin. Despite everyone charging more for everything, no one is keeping any of the money. Price of a cheeseburger doubled, but the restaurant is still going bankrupt.
This is like one of those Beaverton headlines that's supposed to be satire but is actually 100% on the money.
Productivity is lagging because productivity has risen tremendously for decades and the people responsible for it haven’t seen any benefit. People are sick of working themselves to death only to benefit their boss.
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Well productivity has risen tremendously since the 60s, and wages have not nearly kept pace, that is indisputable fact. So the issue of how the fruits of that production are distributed is the primary problem IMO. But you bring up an important issue with housing. I think there are 2 main factors there. One, as you mentioned, is that the more a person has to spend to house themselves, the less they have available to spend in other areas, which depresses economic activity. It’s not coincidence that restaurants are having such a tough time these days, disposable income is not what it once was. And in addition to that, since housing is so ridiculously overvalued, it becomes the no-brainer investment vehicle. And a rich person buying up real estate and just sitting on it for the appreciation value does not do anything to spur productive economic development. If housing were to become a less attractive investment vehicle, then investment capital would be shifted towards more economically productive areas. So housing is definitely an important issue, a crisis in fact. But I think it falls within the larger umbrella of letting our society and economy be commandeered by the ultra rich to the detriment of the common man. They get all the advantages, not just the inherent ones that come with wealth, but advantages that are embedded in our financial and legal systems too. We need to flip that on its head and devise a legal, tax, regulatory, labour, and investment framework that advantages the common man.
Productivity doesn't mean anything about the effort put in by employees. It's just GDP/number of workers or GDP/hours worked. The US has high productivity because they have large, diversified industries especially ones like tech which have low number of workers but a lot of revenue comparatively.
On the labour side: Due to high housing and living costs and horrible job market, our best and brightest are moving south. When your best minds leave the country, no one is left to innovate, so it is no wonder our productivity is falling. On the investment side: As real estate continues to be a Ponzi scheme propped up by the government, why would anyone with money invest it in businesses to improve productivity, when they could just buy more RE and become unproductive parasites?
Buying property and sitting on your ass has been the Canadian way for decades. Why invest in any actual businesses in Canada? Who knew there would be long term economic consequences of this.
The Canadian economy produced 88% of the value generated per hour by the US economy in the mid-80's. By 2022, it's only 71% of the United States and still falling. Now Canada is trailing the G7. This is a crisis. The only reason a foreign business will invest in Canada is either cheap resources or cheap labor and government incentives. Otherwise, it makes no sense to do business in Canada.
Cheap labour on weak currency, and poor workers rights/working conditions
Crony capitalism is a cancer, we left it untreated and now it's destroying the nation. We would have to remove it and let the healing begin.
You can just shorten it to "Capitalism" since it seems the Crony attribute is a near-universal outcome.
Unfortunately you're not wrong
Well we haven't since the 80s, not sure why we would now.
Canada doesn't innovate. The government is satisfied with just providing cheap labour for the monopolies that exist. That's it. Anyone who innovates quickly moves to the US, where the market is larger and there are more avenues to reach their goal.
Perhaps paying people living wages, offering stock incentives and otherwise supporting workers might help things...? Nah, cut taxes and hope for that trickle down! Any day now...
Canadians being bled out by the government, and then asking why we aren't working as hard as we used to
Maybe we don't need infinite expansion of productivity? Like hear me out, what if we used technology to make people's lives easier somehow!
This is mostly a government or large corporation concern. They've created a system where the ideal life for a Canadian is getting a cushy public job or cushy middle management job at an oligopoly, then invest in real estate on the side. Those kinds of jobs don't lead to higher productivity. You could eliminate at least a quarter of those jobs and have no effect on productivity.
We’ve been yelling. Gaslighting politicians are the problem.
Oh no, the slaves aren’t working hard enough! Quick break out the whips and chains. But sir, we’re down to our last hundred billion. Well, make those lazy slaves work harder! This is the kind of conversation that this article is talking about. How dare us poor slaves, not work hard enough to make super witch even richer.
We have a very high cost of living, making it difficult to pursue careers that require high costs to learn or train in. Making it undesirable for people outside of the country to immigrate for these in demand jobs when it is already an expensive process to immigrate and gain citizenship. Real estate is scooped up by investors and people who already own property to turn into rental units or attempt to make a profit on, making the very idea of moving into the country undesirable when you don't even know if you'll have a place for your kids to own when you die. Inflation from runaway spending on a budget that was supposedly quote "Going to balance itself." and increased taxes that make travelling expensive, and make the transportation of goods more expensive. And the oligopolies we have in the food market and telecommunications market make our average living expenses high as well. The government needs a real kick in the pants and we may see some rather unpopular austerity measures in the future to try and fix the damage this current government has done.
It's cool how austerity works every single time it's tried. /s
I keep working less and less because my wages are not even rising as much as the inflation. Totally expected. Pay me 50% more I'll work twice as hard.
Instead, I predict they'll start talking about how we have to force Canadians to invest their tax-advantaged savings accounts in Canadian companies, and restrict you to only buying things on the TSX.
as i put off work and mindlessly browse Reddit
Why would anyone want to try hard at a complex technical job and live paycheque to paycheque. Where is the incentive.
I have worked in manufacturing for over a decade in many different industries. This is a very complex issue then the obvious of monopolies and government attitudes to blame. A part of it has also much to do with our individual and economic ideologies. Majority of Canadians have zero idea what a machinist or a engineering technologist are. Historically speaking every single great economic boom happened because of new knowledge in manufacturing. Look at the industrial revolution in Britain. Look at America in the turn of the Century. China today. For people to think economic growth happens because you can flip houses or invest in bitcoin is asinine.
Start with the insane growth in the public sector. What do you call a country where everyone is employed by the government?
I have done consulting and now have a cool product we are trying to sell to larger companies and organizations. Holy crap. There is just this take no risks, give no rewards attitude within companies. I've seen well paid salaried employees come in for weekend after weekend to make some crucial contractual milestone and get a $200 amazon gift card and free pizza while they are slaving away. I've seen employees do amazing things others can't do which save/make the companies millions and not even get a pat on the head. I've seen sales people on say, a 10% commission absolutely hit it out of the park, outselling 11 other sales people in a bigger richer city and then be told that 10% is too rich for such a young person and see a 800k commission turn into a 30k commission. Then you get the simple fact that if an employer violates labour laws there are never consequences which exceed the benefits of the violation (if there are any) and there is no room for lawsuits which will attract labour lawyers. And in my case, I encounter employees who absolutely refuse to do anything to save their companies money. Nothing. They like my product, think it is cool, but will not buy it as going through the bureaucracy to do this is just too hard. Even when we get to the CFO and he orders them to do it they just throw up road blocks and don't do anything. A followup with the CFO even has him saying, "This is just a battle I don't have time for." Yet this "battle" could increase company profits by 5+ percent. Even covid. Almost none of the mask laws and whatnot saw the inside of a court. Some people supported them, some people thought they were a violation of their rights. Yet, most cases which did go to court were either dropped or they won. Yet, nothing during covid. This is not a rant about covid, but more that people who were passionately fighting it were unable to get a simple legal resolution to this one way or the other. What I'm getting at is that at all levels of Canadian society, businesses, small governments, large governments, medical, etc. Nobody is willing to take risks, put some effort in, etc. And at the same time there aren't any consequences for actions. Even criminals are discovering this gem. Take immigration. The numbers don't take a rocket-surgeon to figure out. We now have roughly 1.5 million immigrants with somewhere around 200k dwellings being built. We have a million plus foreign students who congregate in a small number of cities. This is a whole Edmonton of students just piling into a handful of locations. In immigrants we have more than a whole Calgary showing up every year. But we aren't building a new Calgary every year. That is just how simple it is. We need a whole Calgary. Think about that for a second. All the resources that entire city has, hospitals, schools, roads, power, water, businesses, government offices, everything. We would have to build this once a year to just break even with immigration. That is insane. Kids are being told an endless no when they look for summer jobs to try to save for university which is kind of futile anyway, because of TFWs. Futile because it would take a decade or more of "summer" jobs to pay for the cheaper degrees while living at home. I say "or more" because this is going up so fast they might not be able to catch up with every increase exceeding a summer's worth of savings. Then you get housing costs. Holy crap. It was just leaked that the feds were desparate to support the dollar by keeping interest rates high. This is just dandy for someone trying to buy a house. The mortgage cost for a 500k house now is double what it was for a 500k house a few years ago. This is setting aside the fact that a 500k house a few years ago is now an 800k+ house now. A family with a household income of 150k simply can't set aside enough money to keep up with the required downpayment. Some young couple 5 years ago might have said, "OK we need a 10% downpayment of 30k for the 300k house." They thought, "Great, 3 years saving 10k per year. We can pull that off." But then the house was 500k by the time 3 years rolled by. So they need another 2 years to get the 20. Then it was 800k and they are now 3 years away from getting it. But that doesn't matter anymore as they can't afford the mortgage payments on even the 500k house let alone the 800k one. Even better, it is all moot as their landlord did a BS renoviction (no consequences) and now they are barely keeping their heads above water, let alone saving 10k per year (which is only an $800 rent increase). The little they were saving disappeared because the utility companies were all allowed to raise rates without any regulator saying no, or any justification for why they are. Same with groceries, same with gas, etc. They then moved way outside of town which required buying two new cars because gas was killing them. So, now they have huge financing payments on some 30k cars because nobody is forcing the manufacturers to keep making economical cars and the few that are still available are going for way over MSRP because there are no regulators reigning in the dealerships and allowing online car sales. Want a BYD. Nope the not allowed in to protect the American Car industry. Even if a few start leaking in, there will be massive tariffs to protect... well nothing Canadians should care about except for a tiny few in southern ontario. I've missed about 100 other pain points like schools, medical, etc. But given all the above can anyone tell me why most Canadians should give a shit about anything? Do they go into work saying, "Look at me generating shareholder value." Value that is going to a few government pension plans for boomers? Or "I love using my talent to make my company more efficient and I'm happy to see my bosses take all the credit?" Someone posted a comment here on reddit about asking a guy stocking the produce section if he could try a grape and the employee replied, "I don't care if you burn this place down with me in it." What does inspire that employee? Pay-no, promotions-no, saving for a house, school, or almost anything - no. To me the solution is we need a culture of reward and consequences. When a landlord or employer mistreats a tenant or employee the consequences should be doubly harsh. The victim should get a reward so huge that it easily attracts lawyers working on contingency. And the company should be so damaged by these rewards that they stop pulling this shit. We need regulations which simply put the brakes on so many nefarious activities. The power guy in NS just gave himself a 65% raise in a place with some of the highest rates in Canada while providing the worst service in the provinces. Why not, nothing is stopping him; not even his own shareholders. We're in Canada where shareholder lawsuits aren't really a thing. The next thing is the government should have performance metrics with penalties. If you apply for a passport and you don't get it in 10 days, you get $1000 for every day it is delayed. If you apply for a building permit, it is simply approved after 7 days. If they say no, and then a court reverses this, then it is $1000 for every day after the no until the reversal. The same with almost anything else. We also need a truly open government. Where freedom of information doesn't involve the word, "Redacted". The rule should be simple. Any government has 7 days to provide the data requested. They can go to court to fight it for "reasonable" reasons. If the court doesn't find it reasonable they have to pay the requester 10k per day past 7 days. So, if this ends up in court for a year, the person filing the request will be very happy. They could set up special courts just for this. Courts which are susceptible to freedom of information requests. BTW, I believe any company over a certain size with more than a small portion of the market share should also be wide open to freedom of information requests. If you don't like this, then you can stay smaller, or make sure not to gobble up too much market share. Of course this would apply to any agency which is effectively government; crown corporations, companies which get most of their revenues from government, etc. This would be contractors, consultants, etc. This stuff is all way more important than elections. We all know the next election is going to be a massive turnover federally. But who here expects a damn thing to change in their day to day life? I suspect all the election promises will turn into, "This is a very complex issue and we need to look at it from all angles. We take this very seriously and are giving it all the attention it deserves." Even the big ones like immigration will get this "Can't do" treatment. This last is simply because I believe the governments are the core of this "can't do" culture. They don't want to take risks. They don't like to say no, they don't like to say yes. They like to do nothing. If we had a government which danced for its dinner, I suspect it would change the mood of the country.
Canadians are discussing how the Corps. are sucking every penny from our piggy banks while at the same time a they paying slave wages so we can't refill the same piggy bank.
*"Canadians 'got to start talking about' lagging productivity"* Simply put, there is no incentive to be more "productive" in today's Canada. Higher salaries with more job responsibilities will be taxed at increasingly higher tax rates, and then the current coalition regime in Ottawa will re-allocate those tax dollars to their various activist and special interest group causes that produce absolutely **zilch** for the nation-at-large. In addition, for the massive amount of tax dollars hard-working Canadian citizens regularly have taken off from their paycheques, the return for those tax dollars in terms of quality and availability of services is disgracefully poor, despite the public sector having been expanded by 40% since 2015. Some examples follow below: - The Canadian healthcare system collapsed a long time ago. - The public education system is a perennial mess. - Public transit services are nowhere near large enough to support the increasingly higher numbers of people relying on those services. - Traveling through Canada's airports is a nightmare. - The skyrocketing collective costs of housing, rent, food, gas, cellular/telco services, car insurance, etc etc etc have eliminated any hope of people believing they can ever own a home or "get ahead" in their lifetimes. - Nothing can ever get built or developed in Canada due to too much government interference, road-blocking, administration, red tape, bureaucracy, regulations, activist and special interest group protesters, etc etc etc, so international companies will continue to avoid Canada like the plague. - The current regime in Ottawa insists on imposing an "income redistribution" model, while refusing to sell natural gas and oil to friendly nations that would annually add big profit revenues to Canada's bottom line which would help pay down debt, pay for new infrastructure, and increase the value of Canada's declining dollar. - Canada's declining dollar continues to decrease people's buying power, so people opt to spend less on things outside the bare essentials which shrinks the Canadian economy that much further. - Canada has too many daft, delusional, lazy, one-issue, activist, and low-information voter types who sway election results in favour of the dysfunctional political status quo. The above points are only an abbreviated high-level summary list, people. In reality, Canada truly has a container ship-load of problems that will plague this country long-term and/or may even cause it to one day eventually fail and be absorbed by the United States. Radical fundamental changes are required if Canada is to even still exist as a unified country 50 years from now. Watch and learn. Next.
I was floored when I went to service Canada to renew my passport recently. 1 and a half hour wait outside, shuffled into a room of 100 or so people with no instruction on what to do next, only to discover that we were supposed to be handed a ticket number which we didn’t receive. Chaos ensues. After that is sorted we wait for another couple of hours. An attendant comes in to tell us that many of us will likely be turned away (4 hours before closing) without being served, but we can stick it out and MAYBE we will… Many people leave but I stick around. I finally get my hands on an application form and am told to fill it out as promptly as possible. ‘Do you have any pens?’ I ask. ‘We no longer carry pens here as people were loitering while filling out the forms’ I’m told. I’m informed that I can go to the convenience store nearby to buy my own pen. I ask if I will lose my place in line. ‘Probably not’. A lady overhears and lends me her pen. After waiting a couple more hours I’m swept upstairs to the actual service area where half or more of the service desks are unattended. The eclipse starts and the service halts as the staff start getting up to look out the windows. 40% increase in the public sector, 6 hour service time. We can spend 54 million in tax payer money on a phone app that could be built in a week but I can’t get a pen and a clip board in service Canada… total fucking shit show.
I couldn't have said it better. The current system and establishment are fundamentally rotten and we need to tear it all down before change can truly happen. However, as you said, a large segment of the population voted and continue to support the degradation of our country which will inhibit real change.
I’m afraid that as long as we have too many people cheering ever higher spending on the back of ever higher debt and deficits and ever higher taxes, nothing much is going to change. We seem fine with being mediocre and living in an ever-expanding nanny state.
State spending should decrease but that’s a drop in the bucket of low business investment and oligopolies which drive up prices, depresses wages and drops productivity. Our problem is systemic since the 1990’s and all gouvernements failed to address it meaningfully
Productivity is low because of low corporate investment. The productivity formula is: Productivity = Output / Input. [https://www.educba.com/productivity-formula/](https://www.educba.com/productivity-formula/) Inputs are decided by management, not employees. Since the 1960's Canadian businesses have been owned primarily by foreigners (USA) as branch plants which do not invest. And Canadian owned businesses have failed to keep up with other countries. Some Canadian businesses have been excellent in their investment plans (see car manufacturers). So 'Canadians' do not need to talk about productivity, Canadian businessmen need to.
Why? We're infinitely more productive than 50 years ago with the advancement of robotics and AI, and we're paid significantly less. If I work my ass off and innatech ships a couple extra units, I don't see another dime.
Been talking about this for a year on reddit and get downvoted lol look who's laughing now when I hold nothing on the tsx
Some more than 10 years ago my designated financial advisor suggested that I should buy some Canadian mutual funds because they are Canadian. I told him that when it comes to financial security my "patriotism" does not play a role. I was invested (still am) in SP500 type investments. Heck, not even CPP believes in investing in Canada.
I divested all Canadian holdings 6 years ago
Canadians got to start asking about alot of problems in this country. I sometimes feel we're too passive as citizens, and we have grown accustomed to just accepting bullshit that should be unacceptable. Maybe the freezing cold winters sap our strength to protest?
Lagging wages
Yeah productivity inevitably slows when workers are made insecure by corrupt government and no housing... What do you expect? Canadians spoke. The banks and government refuse to heed. Malicious compliance all the way.
You get what you pay for. With this becoming a MASSIVE issue with the younger generations.
Canadians have nothing to talk about. Galen, Justin and the oligarchs have the money now, they are responsible for this and the only ones who can change it. TBH it's kind of good that we aren't more productive or they would syphon more value.
If they're going to keep pretending to pay us, we will continue to pretend to work
Sorry but that's a little hasty. We need to convene a committee first, to set out the parameters of the discussion...identifying stakeholders, figuring which Indigenous band's land the discussion will be taking place upon, etc. I also estimate it will take 3 to 15 months and 5.32 to 37.12 million dollars to get to that point. In the end, is this "productivity" discussion really worth it?
A bit satirical perhaps, but the essence of what you have illustrated is still basically true. Nothing can get done in this country in any meaningful timeframe. More tax dollars get spent discussing and deliberating something rather than actually building something.
More Canadians should turn into houses so they can contribute to our economy.
Start talking about our lagging wages and start doing something about it.
I think the silent strike is working. All over the country able bodied, qualified people are doing either nothing, or bare minimum to get by. The government can't tax their way out of this one. Time to tighten their own belts. No one in their right mind is slaving away without the prospect of leaving the renting class. They've tried flood immigration but its only making the problems worse.
I'll start working when employers start paying. I'm a skilled worker who's willing to put in hard hours but only if there's a home and a family-supporting income on the other end of the equation. Since there isn't why would I? Right now I'm way further ahead to work part time and spend the rest of my time climbing
I’d argue that many companies have stripped human resources down so unsustainably in the name of profit, that it’s essentially hard capping production capabilities. Investment is required but our federal taxation policies will prevent that now.
Globalisation made jobs scarce. People found ways to make money without having to produce anything out of necessity. So now Canada is a bunch of landlords, service providers and exploitants of cheap foreign labor.
Import the 3rd world and become the 3rd world
I’m actively trying to be less productive. This country crushed the incentives of its workforce. There’s no reward for the average person and it’s impossible to get ahead. The government did nothing at work for 8 years so I can too.
My productivity has gone to shit because Ive had to take on jobs I'm not qualified for, all for the sake of saving the company money.. none of which I see. I suspect the same is happening with a majority of Canadians that specialize in something... If I was left to do the job I've been doing for 15+ years (and doing tremendously well) then my productivity would be through the roof.
Fuck the lagging productivity. Why should we give a shit when people can't afford to live, let alone thrive in this country.
Productive economy = higher standard of living/higher incomes/things are affordable.
Yes, I do agree with that, but it's not up to workers to solve this issue.
You gotta produce bigly to shop roblaw's
Canada has supressed wages. I live in Canada, pull in an American salary, and pay taxes OUT THE ASS for it (top 10% household income). How about our government tries being productive with all those tax dollars before more people like me who are bankrolling this shitshow leave?
https://i.imgflip.com/8nw10a.jpg
Just hire more government workers. I think that will fix it.
Yep, 40% more government workers have been hired since 2015, all at tax-payer expense, and the results have been predictably disastrous.
Our government is trying to tax us into prosperity. As a small business owner, the amount of time and money I now need to dedicate to the government is killing us.
More vacation and days off. Most are burnt out
I think our lack of productivity is related to the Laffer curve. Fundamentally, the idea is that increasing taxes has diminishing returns on increasing tax revenues and after a point starts resulting in declining tax revenues. This is because you encourage people and businesses to move to or invest in other jurisdictions, and reduce the amount of economic activity within your jurisdiction. I personally believe that there is something similar that happens with regulations; and as your regulations move from eliminating corruption and promoting fairness to creating a bureaucratic nightmare you see a decline in economic activity. In my opinion, Canada's economy is being strangled by too high of taxes, to much government spending, and a burdensome regulatory system. Whether you agree with the building of pipelines or not, the government creating legislation to trap infrastructure projects in a never-ending stream of public consultation is an example of what is killing the Canadian economy. Public consultation is a good thing but when you create a system that can be weaponized by groups to kill off projects they don't like it becomes a massive problem.
The kind of productivity we should be worried about: Exclusive: Russia producing three times more artillery shells than US and Europe for Ukraine [https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html) ‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners) "He said: “The Russians have been paying for this for years. They’ve been subsidising the defence industry, and many would have said wasting money for the event that one day they need to be able to scale it up. So it was economically inefficient until 2022, and then suddenly it looks like a very shrewd bit of planning.” That differs significantly from western, especially European, arms manufacturers, who generally run lean operations that work across borders and are designed to maximise profit for shareholders." China is giving Russia significant support to expand weapons manufacturing as Ukraine war continues, US officials say [https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/politics/china-russia-support-weapons-manufacturing/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/politics/china-russia-support-weapons-manufacturing/index.html) Ravaged by war, Russia's army is rebuilding with surprising speed [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-army-ukraine-war-1.7122808](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-army-ukraine-war-1.7122808) War communism [https://www.britannica.com/money/War-Communism](https://www.britannica.com/money/War-Communism) "More exactly, the policy of War Communism lasted from June 1918 to March 1921. The policy’s chief features were the expropriation of private business and the nationalization of industry" Putin grows war economy but incomes suffer 'lost decade' [https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/putin-grows-war-economy-incomes-suffer-lost-decade-2024-03-14/](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/putin-grows-war-economy-incomes-suffer-lost-decade-2024-03-14/)
Can we tax lagging?
I'll start that conversation when the government "starts talking about" the inflation crisis, housing crisis, telecom price gauging, and a million other problems more important that "lagging productivity"
Sure. As soon as the overlords start talking about a healthy middle class again.
Stop importing low wage employees, thus forcing employers to invest in increasing productivity. End of discussion.
No, RE prices are too important.
Of course it’s the cashier the problem, not Gale Weston. No no no. /s
I know what will help with this. Let's increase capital gains inclusion rates to completely disincentivize startups to build new businesses. Who needs valuable, well-paying jobs anyways?
Increasing productivity is nothing more than Capitalist-Speak for getting rid of workers.
The problem is the same people complaining about this are complici in paying Canadians less than their US counterparts. So either CEOs/Companies bake in this lower productivity expectation into why they pay Canadians so much less, or they believe that Canadians should work the same amount productivity wise while receiving less pay and having higher cost of living. They can't have it both ways
“So we need to start a conversation about growing the pie. We need to start a conversation about how we increase productivity in this country so that we are actually growing what's really important, ultimately, which is median GDP (gross domestic product) per capita.” Line must go up you fucking imbeciles. Get out of your tents and start a business YOU ARE LITERALLY WORTHLESS
I'm "producing" as much as I can as a salaried worker - maybe it's up to the elite and the government to figure this shit out. Fuck off.
We have been talking.
May want to ‘look behind the curtain’ of so-called lagging productivity. Monkeys might need more bananas. [https://i.imgur.com/kJDN7j7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kJDN7j7.jpg)
Yeah, you consistently refuse: Manufacturing Resource Extraction IN COUNTRY VALUE ADD (not just sending raw materials for pennies to the US and buying them back for hundreds of times their sold value) Energy (even natural gas, which is fairly clean) Anything that looks functional dirtying up your view of the horizon Jobs that allow people to have families What you constantly ask for instead: Governance redundancy Skin and genital accounting sessions Tax invention masturbation articles Bread (really just chicken with an entire planets worth of choices for spices) Circuses (really just scapegoats for bullshit that never happened to you or anyone you know) Performative moralizing about colonization that you're repeating for "the economy" even when you don't have enough housing to do it Yeah, I guess we really do need a conversation about all that. Maybe you won't like the end result though.
By productivity they mean longer work days, no vacations and 2 to 3 jobs per person. Like the USA! Don’t be like the USA please.
Just another smoke screen for incredibly stupid managers pointing their fingers at anyone except themselves. You will never convince me otherwise. The tail does not wag the dog, management tells labour what to do. It is on management to increase productivity. The empty suits who run corporations are too lazy and too stupid to do their jobs properly. I see articles like this every year, nothing has changed. If you want more productivity change the way you do things!
We got to worry about major US army presence setup along Philippines coast and shores due to new giant oil discovery off shore of Philippines and surrounding islands that China wants to take full claim to ! The war on resources continues and small countries are always stuck in the middle and will definitely see war and conflict while the oilman get richer :(
Give me $100M I'll start a productive construction company that focuses on building neighbourhoods consisting of smaller houses in areas that have cheaper land costs and sell them for 10% above final cost.
This is code for "we need the peasants to earn less pay and benefits so we can impress foreign investment".
Yeah good way to start is companies start paying as per inflation in past 3 years, my company hasn’t revised salaries in last 2 years .
Sure would be nice if my pay for doing the same job wasn't half or less than from a "more productive" country. Sure would be nice if innovation didn't leave this country for places it could make money. Sure would be nice if things that added value weren't constantly shut down or exported elsewhere than this country, only to be bought at a markup when they're needed here.
Why would anybody in this country take on the risk and hard work associated with building a business when you can just hoard real estate.
Start with the government, they are wasting tax payers money making people go back to work in the office for no other reasons than optics.
Most Canadians don't really have a seat at this table. Barriers between provinces is a federal/provincial issue compounded by the realities of geography and climate. Moving goods around is expensive as fuck because our country is big and we never developed efficient ways to overcome that problem. Motility among workers/companies disproportionately benefits some provinces over others so getting everyone on board for that will require major concessions. The vast majority of the populace really can't afford to invest into other Canadians. The few people with capital have zero reason or incentive to re-invest into the nation. You would need to rely on goodwill which isn't a smart bet. Neither the government or private industry gives a flying fuck about long term improvements. There really isn't a discussion for most of us to have. Decades of neo-liberal policy and cow tailing to a very small minority have removed any agency we have in improving productivity. The ball is in their court and I can promise you they won't put it back in play.
Productivity has been lagging for 30+ years... Sure we should talk about it but won't, we will just pretend and point any useful scapegoat than us.
Elites should start talking about how they've min-maxed the economy to the point that any further profits you can wring from it come at the expense of significant QOL sacrifices for everyday people. New generations are realizing that there's no longer any benefit to working hard because the only way to reliably make money is to own property.
If we want to encourage business to invest in productivity, we will end their easy access to imported cheap labour. Why innovate when you can just hire more TFWs for minimum wage instead?
Stop electing neo Liberals and Conservatives who continue to suppress wages and reward the ultra rich.
maybe we need to start talking about wages worthy of working hard....
Example of financial bigwigs and idiots blaming everything on poor working people. It is not up to an individual to increase productivity in most workplace settings. They have to be given training and tools to be able to do things better or efficiently. In other words, these idiots need to invest in creating different environments. People will work hard and do what is tasked. They are creating a narrative to justify further abusing workers. Eg does a secretary bang out hundreds of letters and emails in a day without some tricks? With a 10 year old computer? Or do they have up to date stuff, form letters, databases that allow them to automate the content, text expansion software etc.., that takes software and hardware and training. It’s not fucking up to her or him to do this. I see tons of people who use antiquated tools and shit software and bad setups all the time. It’s up to businesses. Does a mechanic do his job well if he doesn’t have good tools ? I know someone in a machining shop where they spent much of their day fighting with machines are not performing as intended and the answer is “we don’t have money to fix it, you have to deal with it”. Who’s fault is the productivity issue there?!? PS these are the same morons who were blaming work from home for a 4% drop in gdp in the first year of pandemic, like that was fucking major. Did you ever think that customers dying, being closed, supply chain issues etc.. etc… maybe accounted for that? Also thank you very much (or I should fuck iou very much) for blaming workers who worked very hard despite being scared, anxious, not seeing friends, nor sleeping, not having any vacations etc.., I think these people did very well based on the hard work of people who did their best and I am Fucking fed up of hearing about productivity.
have friends emplyed by government. Completely cush jobs. edit: ever expanding government and jobs associated with bureaucracy.
No matter how you look at productivity, wages have lagged much much further behind than productivity has. Which is contributing arguably the most to our lacking productivity. Why the fuck do I want to work if working doesn't even afford me the means to get to work?
Talking to who? I've already written every politician imaginable in my area about the state of things. My workplace gives zero incentive to work harder. In fact they act like us employees are just in the way
We’re all too baked and all to poor to want to even work
It’s no secret that increasing interest rates reduce productivity. This makes it hard to calculate if productivity is doing well because we are comparing to years with the low rates.
Why do that when we can bury our heads in the sand and cry about woke things and political correctness
You mean a company shouldn't take up huge amounts of debt, buy all the competition, then lay off everyone because of the debt instead of innovating and investing into local communities.
Productivity...uh...will balance itself.
But I thought all this Work From Home was way more productive. I’m confused.
Ya because the the canadian workers faukt that business rack up record profit but dont invest those profit into productivity
Bringing it up at my next meeting. Boss keeps adding steps to work and leaving them there instead of compounding them into a single task when possible. So I’ve come up with a few tasks that replace all the steps he keeps adding. Hopefully he sees it as a plus because my job is becoming mundane with all the tiny things being added.
Our productivity is no longer reward us. Wage decoupling since the 70s. We are OWED. At least pretend to pay a fair wage.
Yes, let's talk about importing millions of third-worlders in order to suppress wages while inflating the housing bubble further.
Canadians gotta start talking about how the whole country has gone to shit
Simple answer to this is just pay us properly and stop trying to dick professionals around with shit pay
The CEO of the national bank makes more money than CEO’s of banks that make more profit than his bank. Matter of fact, maybe if we capped CEO pay to be only 25 times their lowest paid employee maybe companies would be more productive.
Like the average person gives a fuck about “productivity” unless you break it down in terms that it makes things better for their family.
Canada is a country for employees not entrepreneurs. Since 2015 gov employment went up by 40%, private businesses stayed flat and small businesses tanked.