Thursday, January 16, 2025

Oh, Canada


The guy who has vanished from elected public office while other, unknown people--a small, anonymous cabal---stepped in to run this country in his stead and hid their power assumption and his debilities has just given a national farewell address warning of rising, dark, power-hungry oligarchies opposed to democratic principles.
The bad news is that, while mendacity and hypocrisy are disfiguring, they are not fatal.

***

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched carrying two Japanese moon landers.
Blue Origin's massive New Glenn orbiter launched early today and achieved orbit. Apparently, its boosters were not immediately recovered.
It is designed to conduct regular flights using reusable boosters, lifting commercial and national-security satellites into orbit. The rocket is eventually meant to launch astronaut crews.

***


Oh, Canada

A lot of fuss about Canada.

If Canada were to become a state, it would be the third poorest in the country, right behind Alabama.

Everybody talks about the American debt issue, but Canadian households bear more debt relative to their income than any other G7 country. The average Canadian now spends 15% of their income on debt servicing.

This is a stark shift from 2008 when Canada emerged from the global financial crisis with a healthier balance sheet than any other G7 nation.

Every year, businesses invest in growth – new technology, new projects, new employees or products. If you take the total number that businesses invest during a calendar year, and divide that by the number of active workers in the country, you get the corporate investment per worker.
In the U.S., businesses invest about $28,000 per worker. In Canada, that number is only $15,000—nearly half.
Corporate investment is what drives future productivity, economic growth, and opportunity. The higher the number, the brighter the future.

What is Canada’s comparative advantage?

They have vast natural resources, with easy-to-navigate geography, the world’s longest coastline that spans three oceans – allowing direct access to every global market, and the largest shared international land border, on the other side of which is the worlds wealthiest, hungriest customer.

They have product. And a direct line to the consumer.

Canada is not capitalizing on these advantages because they have been sold a narrative discouraging investment in the industries where they could outperform the world.

The narrative that Canada should abandon its resource sector to pursue conceptual industries like hydrogen power or electric vehicle production is both misguided and damaging. These are fields where Canada has little experience or infrastructure, where they are not competitive, and the evidence is in their economic data.

No comments: