National Economy

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Very true.

Services can create a lot of jobs, but, they do not actually create wealth. You only create wealth by building (or extracting) things and then exporting them. This brings external wealth into our national economy and boosts our GDP. The only thing services does is to recirculate pre-existing wealth within the economy. The effect of a service economy on national GDP is essentially zero.

To create wealth, Canada needs to selling goods internationally. You can do this purely extractively, but, if you want to boost the value of our exports, we should be selling manufactured goods created using the bounty of our natural resources.

Unfortunately, the only thing we have exported is our actual manufacturing capacity. It lives now in China.

Not a strategically wise choice, either militarily or economically. Canada gets poorer and weaker every year.

A service economy is great my point is more the 5% measure is off in terms of measuring importance. I think the entire Canadian banking sector is also 5-6%. In terms of wealth generation both are important and 5% is misleadingly low. Granted without resource sector a lot of the banking industry isn't there. Same with manufacturing.

A value added service economy is ideal. But at the same time when you have a wealth generation engine by just digging stuff out of the ground only absolute idiots would try and actively stiffle it. That is my only point.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

....when you have a wealth generation engine by just digging stuff out of the ground only absolute idiots would try and actively stiffle it....

Yes, but sometimes we learn that the stuff we dig out of the ground harms us and the planet, and we must adapt. Or would you suggest we start mining asbestos again?

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Yes, but sometimes we learn that the stuff we dig out of the ground harms us and the planet, and we must adapt. Or would you suggest we start mining asbestos again?

Lithium… cough cough

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Lithium… cough cough

Lithium is not mined in Alberta Its extracted from wells. But I see your point. One issue with the Diamond mines was the amount of dust generated. Harming the pristine areas around them.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Airboy

Lithium is not mined in Alberta Its extracted from wells. But I see your point. One issue with the Diamond mines was the amount of dust generated. Harming the pristine areas around them.

The inability/refusal to distinguish between air and ground pollution and local vs global effects is quite disingenuous, especially coming from the side that never really cared about any type of pollution.

At the end of the day, most human activity comes with a secondary effect. The challenge is to distinguish between which effects are the least negative for us (as a species) and biosphere as a whole, while not destroying our economic capacity (which guarantees our freedom of action on priority issues like climate). It's not like oil sands extraction is substantially cleaner than Lithium extraction on ground effects. But oil extraction comes with a whole lot of climate altering air pollution which can't be attributed to lithium extraction.

All that said, oil is going to be around for a while. Hopefully we peak and start the slow decline this decade.