National Economy

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Except Sweden (no mandates) and Switzerland (minimal stimulus) turned out fine, so...

Cool story bro. You're still ignoring the reality on the ground and making up alt-history fantasy.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Cool story bro. You're still ignoring the reality on the ground and making up alt-history fantasy.

It's this type of gaslighting which has caused myself and so many others to abandon the left, in case you're curious.

It takes all of 2 seconds for anyone reading this to google Sweden and Switzerland's Covid response/stimulus and find out that I'm in fact correct.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Except Sweden (no mandates) and Switzerland (minimal stimulus) turned out fine, so...

I'm very supportive of the less mandate approach of Sweden but the impact was essentially the same. Society and commerce shut down to a very similar extent at least as the rest of Europe which had a much quicker return to normal than Canada.

Switzerland had a minimal stimulus? By what measure? It's first wave stimulus was 10% of GDP. It's true they ended up with much smaller deficits than most countries but their economy was resilient as a lot less is dependent on services to the public. Moving the worlds money and making their medicine is largely immune to pandemic measures.

[Build.It]

Switzerland M2 money supply grew by 6% from 2020-2022. Canada' M2 money supply grew by 35% over the same timeframe.

Switzerland experienced a total of 5% inflation, and Canada experienced a total of 14% inflation (2021-2023).

Switzerland income inequality improved before/after covid: in 2019 their GINI coefficient was 0.331, and in 2023 it was 0.315.

Meanwhile Canada's income inequality got worse. In 2019 our GINI coefficient was 0.299 and 2023 it was 0.33

So in other words, Switzerland printed less money, had less inflation and improved their income inequality.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by ZTrade

You posted relevant data and your theory is plausible in my opinion. Keep sharing.

Appreciate the feedback.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Switzerland M2 money supply grew by 6% from 2020-2022. Canada' M2 money supply grew by 35% over the same timeframe.

Switzerland experienced a total of 5% inflation, and Canada experienced a total of 14% inflation (2021-2023).

Switzerland income inequality improved before/after covid: in 2019 their GINI coefficient was 0.331, and in 2023 it was 0.315.

Meanwhile Canada's income inequality got worse. In 2019 our GINI coefficient was 0.299 and 2023 it was 0.33

So in other words, Switzerland printed less money, had less inflation and improved their income inequality.

Sure but treating this as a policy choice is erroneous. They had a huge stimulus package. They are just much richer and less reliant on consumer spending than we are. They started in better fiscal shape which we can put on Trudeau. A Harper 2015-2019 4th term we would arguably be in balance with a bigger resource sector. But we can adopt every Swiss policy wholesale and we aren't going to suddenly become the world's banker and have the industry they have.

[Build.It]

You keep proving my point.

They are richer because they consistently elect fiscally conservative governments and have the best democracy in the world.

It's an embarassment that a tiny landlocked nation surrounded by mountains and with no natural resources is substantially wealthier than us.

That is the difference that disciplined fiscal conservatism makes, and allowing citizens to veto stupid bills. We should be much wealthier than Switzerland with our massive environmental and geographic advantage. We only need to make a couple small changes to how our government is allowed to spend and we would rapidly become a much wealthier nation.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Build.It

It's this type of gaslighting which has caused myself and so many others to abandon the left, in case you're curious.

It takes all of 2 seconds for anyone reading this to google Sweden and Switzerland's Covid response/stimulus and find out that I'm in fact correct.

Do you even know what gaslighting means? Spare me the sob story about how you were a card carrying NDP member prior to 2019. That's BS.

First off, nobody talked about mandates. You've already tried to push Sweden and been shown how much higher their mortality rates were. But we aren't talking about that.

We're talking about handing out cash to people because we told them not to go to work. The vast vast vast majority of advanced economies all did some form of this.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Build.It

We only need to make a couple small changes to how our government is allowed to spend and we would rapidly become a much wealthier nation.

That's pure fantasy. "Be the best economy in this world with one simple trick!"

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Build.It

You keep proving my point.

They are richer because they consistently elect fiscally conservative governments and have the best democracy in the world.

It's an embarassment that a tiny landlocked nation surrounded by mountains and with no natural resources is substantially wealthier than us.

That is the difference that disciplined fiscal conservatism makes, and allowing citizens to veto stupid bills. We should be much wealthier than Switzerland with our massive environmental and geographic advantage. We only need to make a couple small changes to how our government is allowed to spend and we would rapidly become a much wealthier nation.

This is nonsense. There are natural advantages. The top 10 richest countries in the world skew a lot more socialist than not. Norway, Denmark, Netherlands all make us look radically right wing.

Not to say we need a course correction. We are next to the US so trying to adopt socialism is always difficult and the inefficient and haphazard way Trudeau instilled it wasn't helpful either. I fear PP's slash and burn approach to being pro business won't be the answer either though.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Do you even know what gaslighting means? Spare me the sob story about how you were a card carrying NDP member prior to 2019. That's BS.

First off, nobody talked about mandates. You've already tried to push Sweden and been shown how much higher their mortality rates were. But we aren't talking about that.

We're talking about handing out cash to people because we told them not to go to work. The vast vast vast majority of advanced economies all did some form of this.

Sweden experienced 11.3% excess mortality between 2020 and 2022.

Canada doesn't report excess mortality, but it's not difficult to calculate for ourselves:
- The three years prior to COVID (2017-2019) Canada had 842K deaths.
- The three COVID years (2020-2022) Canada had 961K deaths.
- This is a difference of 14%

This means during COVID Canada had rough 14% excess deaths versus 11% for Sweden.

---

Oh and for the record I've never been a NDP member, or a member of any political party for that matter. But I have voted for the Liberals in every federal election.

This year I will be voting CPC for the first time though, as will the majority of other millennial and Gen Z men in this country.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Is that directed at me?

were you in the Karen Konvoy? If not, then no. If yes, well...

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

That's pure fantasy. "Be the best economy in this world with one simple trick!"

Axe the Tax!!
Axe the Tax!!
Axe the Tax!!
Axe the Tax!!

(it gets old fast)

[1overcosc]

I mean build.it is right. Almost all of our challenges are artificial. It would not be hard to significantly improve our economy with better policy choices.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I mean build.it is right. Almost all of our challenges are artificial. It would not be hard to significantly improve our economy with better policy choices.

What specifically is the easy choice that would suddenly make our economy better. Mostly we have made choices. A few virtue signal own goals in the resource sector but even those are hard to unwind and are complex.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

What specifically is the easy choice that would suddenly make our economy better. Mostly we have made choices. A few virtue signal own goals in the resource sector but even those are hard to unwind and are complex.

Deregulation in key sectors like housing (esp. zoning reform), manufacturing, and natural resources extraction, increased infrastructure investment, tax reform to shift taxation away from income and towards consumption, opening up protected markets to competition, reduced administrative spending, and a generous policy towards immigration of skilled workers while avoiding mass influx of unskilled workers.

None of that is hard. And it basically solves the problem.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Deregulation in key sectors like housing (esp. zoning reform), manufacturing, and natural resources extraction, increased infrastructure investment, tax reform to shift taxation away from income and towards consumption, opening up protected markets to competition, reduced administrative spending, and a generous policy towards immigration of skilled workers while avoiding mass influx of unskilled workers.

None of that is hard. And it basically solves the problem.

Let's check back in on this in 4 years. Most won't happen because it is hard. A bit of de-regulation you will find isn't the panacea it's made out to be.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

This is nonsense. There are natural advantages. The top 10 richest countries in the world skew a lot more socialist than not. Norway, Denmark, Netherlands all make us look radically right wing.

Not to say we need a course correction. We are next to the US so trying to adopt socialism is always difficult and the inefficient and haphazard way Trudeau instilled it wasn't helpful either. I fear PP's slash and burn approach to being pro business won't be the answer either though.

I honestly have a difficult time explaining the Scandinavian countries' high tax burden models. The only explanation I can come up with is they have universal citizen buy-in (where most citizens agree that high taxes = a good thing), and they have competent politicians representing these values.

That being said, Switzerland is a significant outlier (low tax, small government Euro country) and also happens to beat the Scandinavian/Netherlands countries in GDP/capita and R&D/capita while having similar income inequality. Switzerland also has a significant geographic disadvantage versus Scandinavian/Netherlands, being landlocked, surrounded by mountains (making trade extremely difficult) and not much in terms of natural resources (especially compared to Norway).

Both Switzerland and Scandinavia has high buy-in from its citizens despite the very different models. I think at the end of the day, buy-in is what truly matters the most. If everyone is on the same page then it's a lot easier for a system to work, whatever that system may be.

That being said, the Swiss model does appear to work better, even if it's only marginally.

Coming back to Canada, since we have people from all over the world living here, from different backgrounds, and different political beliefs, different values, etc, we have some work to do to find a system that works for everyone to get that buy-in. I don't see Canada ever becoming a high-tax nation though for a variety of reasons, but mainly 1. We live next to the US so have to compete with their capitalist system, and 2. The people who move here generally come from corrupt countries and believe in more limited governments.

[Acajack]

Switzerland benefits greatly from a look-the-other-way attitude as to where money comes from that transits through its banking system.

A lot of European Jews who died in the Holocaust had much wealth placed in Switzerland, and which was never claimed.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

We're talking about handing out cash to people because we told them not to go to work. The vast vast vast majority of advanced economies all did some form of this.

If we had just done what you describe (compensate people who could not work for their lost income) then the COVID bill would have been a fraction what it was.

People still don’t understand this, but COVID was a supply crisis, not a demand crisis. The vast majority of people had their full incomes/pensions and were flush with cash because much of what they used to spend money on was unavailable. Not only was fiscal stimulus for the 90% of the population still working unnecessary, it led to high inflation, particularly in the housing sector.