A Tale of Two Economies...

[touchring]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

I agree with your observation. In China (and many, many other countries around the world) the State owns and controls a very large part of the economy, and the game becomes one of increasing spending on State sponsored or State supported projects and skimming a slice of that spending. The larger the contract the larger the amount that can potentially be extracted by the influential - which is why purchases of armaments and related services, or large orders for commercial airliners for the national carrier are so popular in such places as the Middle East. In the USA and Canada where, as you point out, property such as railroads, pipelines, real estate are all privately owned the game becomes one of using regulations, rules, and MSM influence of public opinion to discourage change or competition. People over here used to refer to NIMBY (not in my back yard) but the latest acronym is BANANA (build absolutely nothing, anywhere, anytime). While governments are running around trying to boost our moribund economy with "infrastructure spending" we can't even get a pipeline to move oil from the west side of the country to refineries on the east side of the country approved. A while back someone made the observation that we probably couldn't get approval to build the transcontinental railway (the CPR) in Canada if we tried today.

A lot of people talk about Democracy vs Communism, this is a sham that MSM want everyone to believe in. Pure Communism does not exist any more (not even in North Korea), and Democracy is dying.

It's now Oligarchy vs "Privatized" Big Government.

[Chris Coles]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

A lot of people talk about Democracy vs Communism, this is a sham that MSM want everyone to believe in. Pure Communism does not exist any more (not even in North Korea), and Democracy is dying.

It's now Oligarchy vs "Privatized" Big Government.

Which is why I keep bringing the conversation back to free enterprise. We have all lived within an economic system driven by the idea that a banker, (one of two in 1994 asked to interview me by the then governor of the Bank of England, Eddie George), described to me; "It is the governments responsibility to create jobs"). Ergo, we moved from what was a generally prosperous economy driven by many to one where only a small group have full access to funding, either from the Venture Capital/banking industry or from the use of government spending. That the creation of the FIRE economy was driven by the needs for funding by government. They changed the rules for the savings institutions to suite their own internal funding needs; which in turn has brought us to where we are today.

Having for several years now been right at the heart of the debate, attending financial conferences, (still am as I am attending an IFLR conference January 28th for example), I can attest that my view is everyone is like the rabbit caught in the headlights; unable to move, trapped within the conundrum of their careers being totally locked into the present economic system and thus, not being able to take hold of the levers of change. That at the highest levels of government there is not the slightest sign of any intent to even start to accept the need for change; instead acting out the classic bankrupt, keep spending, sell anything, tell everyone their financial problems will soon be relieved by another input of cash..........

So, how do you finally bankrupt government? For here in the private industrial world, we fail, we go bankrupt, all parties are dumped into the street and the entire edifice is forced to change direction; but with government they just keep pretending everything will be OK tomorrow. So, again, how do we bankrupt government, because as I see it, until we figure out how to do that; nothing will change.

[Chris Coles]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

One of the defining differences between Canada and the USA is who are the enduring "national heroes".

In the USA these have historically come from three areas: prominent entertainers (singers like Sinatra & Ella, actors like Brando & Bogart, Fonda and Hepburn), sports personalities (like The Babe, Vince Lombardi, Muhammed Ali, Palmer, Hogan and Nicklaus ) and the world of discovery, invention & business (Wright brothers, Edison, Ford, Alfred P. Sloan, Bill Boeing, Neil Armstrong and more recently perhaps Bill Hewlett, Andy Grove, Steve Jobs). Public sector figures in the USA have great difficulty getting into that pantheon; the few whom have are generally from the military (such as Washington, Eisenhower), and even many of those tend to fade quickly (witness the short lived lionizations of MacArthur, Patton, Schwartzkopf and Colin Powell). The notable exceptions that come to mind are Lincoln and Dr. King, and that's about it.

By contrast, in Canada our "heros" come almost entirely from the public sector (such as Macdonald, Pearson, Tommy Douglas, David Suzuki and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the father of the current Prime Minister). Canadians seem to think there is something unseemly about excessive admiration of sports stars (okay, maybe Gretzky is an exception) and entertainers (maybe we could put guitar pickin' astronaut Chris Hadfield in that category?). People associated with business in Canada are to be viewed with universal suspicion and distrust - unless of course you were a Cabinet Minister like C.D. Howe setting up a government owned company such as Trans-Canada Airlines.

I suppose all this should seem perfectly reasonable coming from a nearly 150 year old nation that considers its defining achievement to be its Medicare system.

I have to say, your comment above was very thought provoking, you were looking at the debate from an entirely unexpected direction; the success of the individual within the US sporting and creative industries.

Whereas, I was focused upon an entirely different view; that China is a classic feudal nation that in turn purports to reject the whole idea of feudalism. For example their move into Tibet was entirely based upon the need to remove feudalism from Tibet.

Historically, feudalism was always associated with Lords and Ladies, Knights and such. In my view, today, we have almost the entire world running some form of feudal government system and that needs to be exposed for what it is to allow us to move towards a new beginning for the use of the term;

Freedom.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

8-dollar cauliflower and re-importing its oysters...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/bu...ml?src=me&_r=0

[GRG55]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

8-dollar cauliflower and re-importing its oysters...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/bu...ml?src=me&_r=0


"...Sal Howell, the owner of two Calgary restaurants, River Café and Boxwood, said she was placing a renewed focus on locally available produce, not easy during Canada’s winter. “There’s a lot to do to wean yourself off of head lettuce from California,” she said. “I think root vegetables will definitely be the kind of thing people are talking about.”

We Canadians have given up on "dining". Now we just eat. A gourmet meal is carrots, turnips and bread.

[GRG55]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

8-dollar cauliflower and re-importing its oysters...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/bu...ml?src=me&_r=0

One Chart That Shows Why Canadians Were Freaking Out About Cauliflowers

Prices are going bananas in the produce aisle. Here's why.

February 19, 2016 — 9:24 AM MST

January's monthly report on Canadian inflation may help explain why the Great White North is up in arms about lofty produce prices.

At the beginning of the year, Canadians flocked to social media to express outrage at soaring fruit and vegetable prices. The lower loonie, a factor of easier monetary policy and softening oil prices, made it more expensive to import produce. This, coupled with a supply shortage in the case of cauliflower, made the price spike quite severe.

In January, the price of fresh fruit and vegetables rose a whopping 15.7 percent year-over-year as the Canadian dollar sank to its lowest level relative to the greenback in more than a decade...

...Narrowing our focus, fresh vegetable prices rose 18.2 percent year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada, while the "other fresh vegetables index" (which counts cauliflower among its constituents) rose 22.7 percent compared with January 2015, the largest jump since April 2009...

[jk]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

One Chart That Shows Why Canadians Were Freaking Out About Cauliflowers

Prices are going bananas in the produce aisle. Here's why.

February 19, 2016 — 9:24 AM MST

January's monthly report on Canadian inflation may help explain why the Great White North is up in arms about lofty produce prices.

At the beginning of the year, Canadians flocked to social media to express outrage at soaring fruit and vegetable prices. The lower loonie, a factor of easier monetary policy and softening oil prices, made it more expensive to import produce. This, coupled with a supply shortage in the case of cauliflower, made the price spike quite severe.

In January, the price of fresh fruit and vegetables rose a whopping 15.7 percent year-over-year as the Canadian dollar sank to its lowest level relative to the greenback in more than a decade...

...Narrowing our focus, fresh vegetable prices rose 18.2 percent year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada, while the "other fresh vegetables index" (which counts cauliflower among its constituents) rose 22.7 percent compared with January 2015, the largest jump since April 2009...

iirc the fuss was over cauliflower costing $8cad. at the time, for a brief time, cauliflower in my local supermarket was us$5.99. btw at the current exchange rate, cad$8= us$5.81, so i think you canadians were getting a slight break on the price.

[santafe2]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

One Chart That Shows Why Canadians Were Freaking Out About Cauliflowers

Prices are going bananas in the produce aisle. Here's why.

February 19, 2016 — 9:24 AM MST

January's monthly report on Canadian inflation may help explain why the Great White North is up in arms about lofty produce prices.

At the beginning of the year, Canadians flocked to social media to express outrage at soaring fruit and vegetable prices. The lower loonie, a factor of easier monetary policy and softening oil prices, made it more expensive to import produce. This, coupled with a supply shortage in the case of cauliflower, made the price spike quite severe.

In January, the price of fresh fruit and vegetables rose a whopping 15.7 percent year-over-year as the Canadian dollar sank to its lowest level relative to the greenback in more than a decade...

...Narrowing our focus, fresh vegetable prices rose 18.2 percent year-over-year, according to Statistics Canada, while the "other fresh vegetables index" (which counts cauliflower among its constituents) rose 22.7 percent compared with January 2015, the largest jump since April 2009...

Ah, you Canadians are much to honest for your own good. Here in the US we use substitution metrics, geometric pricing models and hedonics to manage inflation. If cauliflower is too expensive maybe lima beans are in good supply. If vegetables are generally too expensive, change from a simple arithmetic model to geometric weighting. That is, the more something rises, the less weighting it has. We also adjust inflation for hedonics. That is, the more we think a consumer will enjoy a product, the less we count inflation. If half the price increase for your new and improved, genetically modified cauliflower can be attributed to how much more you enjoy it, then cauliflower inflation has fallen by half.

I suspect real cauliflower inflation in Canada is no more than 3-4%...

[jk]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

given increasing understanding of nutrition in the population, i think a cauliflower index will eventually replace the economist's big mac index.

[GRG55]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

A thread for Canucks (and displaced Canucks), on a USA centric site, to watch the Canadian economy, and see if we really are all that independent from our cousins south of the border after all...
[As I like to remind my English-born mother-in-law, Canada will never be a truly independent nation until we get the Queen off our money ]

...

Well, well. Here we are with allegedly booming economies on BOTH sides of the border. But under the surface maybe not so much:


From the "Look Ma, No Carbon to Tax" file:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4782095/exxon-mobil-imperial-oil-prince-rupert-lng-withdrawl/

Exxon Mobil withdraws application to approve $25B LNG project on northern B.C. coast

From the "I Fought the Fed, and the Fed Won" file:

Exhibit 'A'

https://business.financialpost.com/i...omic-statement

David Rosenberg: Bank of Canada makes 90-degree turn with its latest economic statement
Erases rate-hike expectations planted six weeks ago, the fundamentals for which have now disappeared over the horizon

Exhibit 'B'

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/market-news/article-canadian-dollar-hits-19-month-low-as-falling-oil-prices-offset-gdp/

Canadian dollar hits 19-month low as falling oil prices offset GDP gain

At 8:58 a.m., the Canadian dollar was trading 0.2 per cent lower at 1.3539 to the greenback, or 73.86 U.S. cents. The currency touched its weakest level since May 2017 at 1.3564.

From the "Party Like it's the '90s" file:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...ts-until-2040/

Federal deficits won’t be erased until 2040, Finance Department projects

...The Liberal Party campaigned in 2015 on a pledge to run short-term deficits of no more than $10-billion a year before balancing the books in 2019. However actual deficits have come in around $19-billion a year over the past two years and Mr. Morneau’s latest five year fiscal plan did not include a timeline for when the deficit would be erased...

[Mega]

Re: A Tale of Two Economies...

Don't worry Canada is a joyful happy post modensit state..............

We can look forward to the revolution