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.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by acottawa

NRCan says 19%

https://natural-resources.canada.ca/...sources/25653#

They also include "indirect" economic impacts. Industries that supply the "main" ones that are the focus, but probably also have connections to many others. This is where economic contributions start to get more murky (nevermind the full accounting of environmental and social impacts, which is a mug's game in itself)

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

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.

The local effects of oil sands are much smaller in terms of intensity though the scale dwarfs any Lithium mining for sure.

As for global effects. A battery in a TSLA might produce up to 40 tons of carbon emissions though most estimates are much lower as low as 2.5 tons and a Canadian mine and battery plant would be on the lower end especially if it had green energy nearby.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

They also include "indirect" economic impacts. Industries that supply the "main" ones that are the focus, but probably also have connections to many others. This is where economic contributions start to get more murky (nevermind the full accounting of environmental and social impacts, which is a mug's game in itself)

The discussion was how much of our economy just doesn’t scale with population, so the indirect benefits of our resources should be included too (and as I said, with lumber + agriculture + fishing and I may even forget others, it’s got to be at least 30%+ that’s physical and finite / doesn’t scale.)

At the other end of the reliant-on-resources spectrum, when your economy is all about human ingenuity (South Korea and Japan being decent examples of that), then inflating the per capita denominator to the moon isn’t actually that bad (provided the newcomers aren’t on average too much dumber than the existing population, of course.)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

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.

I get your point but this isn't that accurate in general. It's somewhat true for Canada and much less true in the USA with their large internal economy. Service jobs can help generate wealth too, and they're necessary for other productive sectors.

That being said we don't seem to have very good or affordable services here (actual service in businesses is awful and declining, costs have gone way up) and I doubt the fake education economy produces much value or enables efficient use of skilled labour. I don't think an exploitative wage slave economy with people paying for fake degrees to work at McDonald's is an effective or moral economic strategy.

I believe if we want to improve our productivity and standard of living we need business investment, real education, R&D, lower costs (e.g. build lots of cheap housing, create true competition), and better infrastructure. I think the fake TFW program is meant to generate dollars for big companies, temporarily juice up weak economic figures, and temporarily boost certain demographics that are already relatively well off in Canada.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by lio45

The discussion was how much of our economy just doesn’t scale with population, so the indirect benefits of our resources should be included too (and as I said, with lumber + agriculture + fishing and I may even forget others, it’s got to be at least 30%+ that’s physical and finite / doesn’t scale.)

At the other end of the reliant-on-resources spectrum, when your economy is all about human ingenuity (South Korea and Japan being decent examples of that), then inflating the per capita denominator to the moon isn’t actually that bad (provided the newcomers aren’t on average too much dumber than the existing population, of course.)

My comment was just about the initially quoted impact of Natural Resources Canada.

It's a far more complex issue. So I agree with you.

[Build.It]

The way I think about is that there is physical stuff (manufacturing), and then there is the process of getting the stuff (service).

As manufacturing shifted overseas, our economy became more focused on fine-tuning the process of getting stuff, rather than making the stuff. Wholesale, legal, accounting, drop-shipping, trades, engineering, designers, etc

It's still money changing hands, and a lot of our services get "exported" where Canadians do the work in Canada for an International customer.

Basically Canada is very good at the beginning of the supply chain (natural resources), and we process the steps between each step of the supply chain (services).

Just in our sector there are a lot of Canadian-owned factories in China who make products specifically for the Canadian market. All the service work is done in Canads, but the manufacturing is done in China.

When you break a supply chain down you basically have:
Mining
Processing of mined goods
Manufacturing
Assembly
Wholesale
Retail
End user
Maintenance
Resale
Disposal/recycling

Canada is very good at the beginning and end of the supply chain, but the middle of the supply chain gets done in countries with cheaper labour and looser regulations.

Of course there are also little microsteps in hetween the major steps which Canadian service compa ies can handle.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by whatnext

What resources are we becoming more dependent on? BC’s gov’t is handling forestry and mining disastrously, and we know the Feds are virtue-signalling us out of mining nationally.

I've never heard of the federal government as being against mining. I live in a mining city. There are an incredible number of geologists and related people here for exploration. Gold is at $2400 an ounce which is making things crazy and I have never heard of any government getting in the way.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Build.It

The way I think about is that there is physical stuff (manufacturing), and then there is the process of getting the stuff (service).

As manufacturing shifted overseas, our economy became more focused on fine-tuning the process of getting stuff, rather than making the stuff. Wholesale, legal, accounting, drop-shipping, trades, engineering, designers, etc

It's still money changing hands, and a lot of our services get "exported" where Canadians do the work in Canada for an International customer.

Basically Canada is very good at the beginning of the supply chain (natural resources), and we process the steps between each step of the supply chain (services).

Just in our sector there are a lot of Canadian-owned factories in China who make products specifically for the Canadian market. All the service work is done in Canads, but the manufacturing is done in China.

When you break a supply chain down you basically have:
Mining
Processing of mined goods
Manufacturing
Assembly
Wholesale
Retail
End user
Maintenance
Resale
Disposal/recycling

Canada is very good at the beginning and end of the supply chain, but the middle of the supply chain gets done in countries with cheaper labour and looser regulations.

Of course there are also little microsteps in hetween the major steps which Canadian service compa ies can handle.

I'm looking forward to the tariffs that will end business models like yours.