National Economy

[MonctonRad]

Just in time for PP to take all the credit.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Just in time for PP to take all the credit.

perhaps, but it could also reverse liberal fortune with strong economic growth, low inflation, low interest rates, cheaper housing, full implementation of the of $10 daycare plan, and millions more will be covered by the national dental plan all by the time of the next election.
Things can change fast in politics. Liberal support is probably at the nader right now and can only go up as the macroeconomic indicators improve.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Same as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Do you make minimum wage?

Since you brought up Sweden because it has no federally mandated minimum wage, I feel it's pretty important to expand upon what they actuallly do have:

Sweden operates without a nationally implemented minimum wage. However, the nation uses a Nordic model where minimum wages are set by sector or industry through collective bargaining using the krona.

Nearly all Swedish citizens belong to one of about 110 trade unions and employers' organizations that negotiate wage rates for regular hourly work, salaries, and overtime. Swedish law limits the workweek to 40 hours, just like in the U.S. However, it also dictates that all workers are entitled to 25 vacation days and 13 additional public holidays.

I would be in favour of Canada moving to something like that, where nearly everybody's a member of a trade union. But I'm guessing that's not what you would want, you'd just want no minimum wage so you can exploit workers and make more money for yourself.

[1overcosc]

The Nordic model is also famous for actually being very business-friendly with those countries ranking pretty high on ease of doing business lists. Business taxes are low and the sector-based bargaining approach works well for employers as it provides predictability and means individual employers don't have to worry about getting outcompeted by competitors that aren't unionized.

[craner]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

I would be in favour of Canada moving to something like that, where nearly everybody's a member of a trade union. But I'm guessing that's not what you would want, you'd just want no minimum wage so you can exploit workers and make more money for yourself.

That would be an absolute nightmare - might as well be communist.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The Nordic model is also famous for actually being very business-friendly with those countries ranking pretty high on ease of doing business lists. Business taxes are low and the sector-based bargaining approach works well for employers as it provides predictability and means individual employers don't have to worry about getting outcompeted by competitors that aren't unionized.

It's predictable and disappointing that both the left and right here only want to cherry pick from the Nordic model instead of recognizing that it succeeds as a whole package.

Those low business taxes and no minimum wage come with very high personal taxes, strong social safety net, and strong worker protections. They detest inequality there. They put everybody's income online and you can look it up. They make road fines scalable by income. They also have conscription which is in no small part responsible for developing discipline and some practical skills in their workforce. Funny how nobody wants to talk about all these other bits.

[lio45]

NHL players from Scandinavia/Finland sometimes make the news in Canada by getting some of these scalable fines:

https://www.wgrz.com/article/sports/...6-d9c07fec61ba

https://www.sportskeeda.com/us/nhl/n...e-dui-incident

I like the idea, it’s very much in the spirit of what a fine is supposed to be: just enough to be noticeable and annoying.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00[/quote

They also have conscription which is in no small part responsible for developing discipline and some practical skills in their workforce. Funny how nobody wants to talk about all these other bits.

And this model (conscription-discipline-skill) works only thanks to them having levels of nationalism that would be considered toxic in “blank slate” Anglo-Canada. As you say, the whole package getting emulated is not realistic here.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Build.It

I have always thought hybrid is stupid. Fulltime in the office is the best, with the ability to WFH when there is a legitimate reason why someone can't come into the office on a particular day.

Office >> Remote > Hybrid

Personally about every 10th business day I burnout and am mentally unable to commute. On those days I catch up on sleep and work from home (once every 2 weeks). I also live 75km from the office though and work much longer hours than most.

I wouldn't ask anyone to do my commute, but asking people who live 20 minutes away to come to the office everyday is entirely reasonable, especially when they can choose what time they want to start.

I'm pretty strongly in favour of hybrid, but I think it depends entirely on the job.

I'm a structural steel estimator. I spend days at a time just marking up PDF drawings to measure all the steel. For this, it's great to be at home with no distractions from other people. Head down, get'r done.

But then when I'm turning that takeoff into dollars, I need to talk to production, procurement, engineering, shipping etc. For all those it's better to be in the office.

There's also something to be said for learning by osmosis rather than a scheduled Teams chat. You pick up a lot of things from the conversations around you, and the reverse, you often can add a suggestion or idea if someone is discussing something you've come across before, that they may not have know you had knowledge about.

And less direct than that, having coffee break with others, playing cards, chatting about the weekend, etc. can build a lot of team cohesion which then helps when working together.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's predictable and disappointing that both the left and right here only want to cherry pick from the Nordic model instead of recognizing that it succeeds as a whole package.

Those low business taxes and no minimum wage come with very high personal taxes, strong social safety net, and strong worker protections. They detest inequality there. They put everybody's income online and you can look it up. They make road fines scalable by income. They also have conscription which is in no small part responsible for developing discipline and some practical skills in their workforce. Funny how nobody wants to talk about all these other bits.

You also leave out culture. They are until fairly recently humongenous protesant work ethic cultures. People rarely leech off the system because they aren't inclinded to. Work is highly valued. Even when they bring in refugess their strong education system allows for cultural assimliation of this attitude. There is a tipping point that leads to a backlash against a lot of these supports. Denmark stopped their backlash by harshly limiting immigration. Sweden is on the same track politically.

[niwell]

IIRC about 60% of Nordic workers are unionized in some capacity. When I was in Copenhagen a Polish chef I met and spent a day cycling with was explaining how he was able to join a broader union that helps ensure his high pay and other benefits in an industry notorious for abusing workers in many places. Knowing a lot of people in that industry in Toronto it was very interesting to hear. And also how places like Noma in Cph were able to bypass a lot of these labour expectations due to clout.

As others have mentioned there are other factors in Scandinavian countries that allow for their quality of life that may not be as readily applicable here. Still, a lot of these principles are something I'd personally consider worth aspiring for within a Canadian context. Not just rote copying as our society is quite different.

[Build.It]

Conveniently ignoring Switzerland. Lower taxes than Canada, no minimum wage, half as many unionized employees/capita as Canada, and some of the highest incomes in the world.

If there's a country to emulate, it's Switzerland.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Conveniently ignoring Switzerland. Lower taxes than Canada, no minimum wage, half as many unionized employees/capita as Canada, and some of the highest incomes in the world.

If there's a country to emulate, it's Switzerland.

Yup, we just need to get tiny and have some naturally defensible borders

[niwell]

Home / flat ownership in Switzerland is less than 40%, which I don't think would fly in Canada, much less other developed nations including the EU (70% home ownership). I've known enough people who've lived there for stints and/or have family there to not be exactly enamoured with their system unless you're lucky enough to have a long lineage there.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Yup, we just need to get tiny and have some naturally defensible borders

And be surrounded by high tax states that somehow let people hide their wealth there.

But there is a lot of good examples. They have low taxes. Lowish social expenditures but excelent infrastruture education and everything that helps a young person whatever their background suceced.

We know what works across economies. High qualitu education, medical care and support for especially poor children combined with reasonable spending an regulation that allows moderate levels of taxation.

[lio45]

India is more successful than Switzerland: greater total GDP as well as greater (population-based) clout on the world stage.

It’s why it’s the one we’re emulating

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Build.It

Conveniently ignoring Switzerland. Lower taxes than Canada, no minimum wage, half as many unionized employees/capita as Canada, and some of the highest incomes in the world.

If there's a country to emulate, it's Switzerland.

Having just travelled in Switzerland, you are conveniently ignoring the shocking prices people for everything there.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by lio45

India is more successful than Switzerland: greater total GDP as well as greater (population-based) clout on the world stage.

It’s why it’s the one we’re emulating

Emulation by immigration.

[hipster duck]

Switzerland is one of the most exceptional countries in the world. Maybe the most.

We can learn and apply a few things that the Swiss do here and there, but you can't emulate the Swiss. Their whole society is a complex and completely foreign mix, stretching back 700 years. If I were a crazed conspiracy theorist, I'd spread a rumour that they're alien replicons living amongst us.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Switzerland is one of the most exceptional countries in the world. Maybe the most.

We can learn and apply a few things that the Swiss do here and there, but you can't emulate the Swiss. Their whole society is a complex and completely foreign mix, stretching back 700 years. If I were a crazed conspiracy theorist, I'd spread a rumour that they're alien replicons living amongst us.

Is it that mysterious that their economy is so successful though? They're top ranked in economic complexity, champions of R&D, active specialisation in high value industries and carving out exclusive niches, ruthless homegrown MNCs (which is what a small Western country with limited resources would do, and is really no more impressive than the Asian miracles of Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan which started from a much smaller economic base post-WW2), and their governments aren't remotely as beholden to oligopolic interests.

Residential real estate and resources doesn't dominate their discourse when it comes to powering Swiss business and economy.

Originally Posted by Nite

Canada set to be fastest growing economy in G7 in 2025, IMF forecasts

With both interest rates and house prices falling in 2024, i can see a big rebound in housing in 2025 and it's related activities and more borrowing in the rest of the economy to fuel growth in 2025.

Nite effectively summarized everything wrong with the Canadian economy, where we're putting all bets on residential real estate to save the national economy in 2025.