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The severe rent seeking behaviors throughout the Canadian economy are making things too burdensome to try entrepreneurship. For a Main St type business, rents,

The severe rent seeking behaviors throughout the Canadian economy are making things too burdensome to try entrepreneurship. For a Main St type business, rents, costs and regulations are too high. Rents again come into play for the entrepreneur, being so insanely high that they discourage risk taking and encourage people to stay at their current relatively high paying company. As with so many things in Canada it all comes back to housing lol. We will not have more entrepreneurship until it is dramatically cheaper to live in Canada, and that means lowering one of the biggest costs that people have, which is housing.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
It's been this way since colonial times. It's either rip-it-and-ship-it extraction industries... or "I got there first, so give me $$" rent seeking & monopoly. I don't want to be a part of the US, I hate their culture and politics. But the local elites here benefit too much from having their own little closed market to monopolize and control.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  This comment, and the whole thread really, is such a mind fuck for me - someone who lives in a rich left-wing American city. Canada is idolized and worshipped here as the paragon of lifestyle - the perfect balance of capitalism, civil discourse, and welfare state support (in addition to Norway). I literally have friends making comfortable $500k+ family incomes musing about how much better it would be to move to Canada. The grass is always greener!
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Yea, American liberals don't really get Canada -- even when they come here, my friends from the US... they wear rose tinted glasses. Most of it is fantasy. Canada's social service programmes are really not great when compared to European social democracies; welfare and disability payments are actually quite low, and we have pretty bad homelessness in our major cities. Canada is no Scandinavian social democracy. It's really just a fusion of aspects of both the UK and the US. Universal healthcare is good but it's been underfunded for decades, slowly coming apart, and inconsistent across the country. Public education is definitely in a better state than the US, though. And I'd argue our higher education / university system is superior in both cost and quality. So far. Culturally, Canada might be in a better state. The culture wars not as pronounced (depending on where you are). Abortion rights etc. mostly a given. Gay marriage and rights pretty much unassailable at this point. Legal cannabis, etc. etc. But in terms of bread and butter supports for regular working people, it's not that great. Though of course, again, the health care thing is a big caveat. US healthcare is great if you're upper middle class, wayyyyy better than anything you'd get here. But the average working class person is definitely better off in Canada compared to the US, on the healthcare front. Anyways, housing prices here are way worse (relative to earning potential) than any American city other than I guess Manhattan, at this point. People in the Bay Area complain, but they really have nothing on the GTA or Vancouver lower mainland.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      I appreciate your perspective. I think another crucial aspect is that the Canadian population is only 10% of the US, and the variation among states here is just like Canadian provinces or even countries in the EU. The US is very decentralized, and one of its secrets is that during times of great internal division the federal government becomes paralyzed while the states becomes empowered, and conversely during times of national unity the federal government can move mountains while the states take a back seat. Currently it’s a paralyzation moment, but that doesn’t really prevent anything from moving forwards as the system is pretty decentralized and individual-focused already. On the healthcare aspect, there is no doubt the poorest people in Canada are the EU are treated better than the poorest in the US. I do have a suspicion that as the universal systems reach a breaking point they start to look a bit more like the US - where people pay more if they use more - to encourage better economization of scarce healthcare resources. I have heard some really fucked stories of cancer treatment delays leading to death which I don’t think is as common here (they will treat you in the US, but you might go bankrupt). It’s like, would you rather be rationed and die or get treatment and be bankrupt? I’d prefer to live myself.
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        Canada's population only appears low if you're not looking at its geographical distribution. Toronto is as big as Chicago, and the population density in southern Ontario is as high as any of the US eastern states, and mostly contiguous with them and part of the same shipping routes, etc. etc.. It's a population clustered near the border and really should be seen as one that is culturally and economically contiguous with the US, just not politically. In terms of metropolitan regions, much of Canada is really much the same as the US. On healthcare / public services, I will give you examples of where the US liberal biases about Canada just don't line up. At the tail end of the COVID-19 crisis, spring 2021 I went across to go skiing with a friend from Albany. I needed a test to get back across the border to get home. I was able to just go to a US pharmacy and get a molecular test for free, with almost instant results. I was told that if I tested positive I could get anti-virals, for free, immediately, without even showing citizenship. Meanwhile in Ontario all public testing for COVID-19 was cancelled before the end of 2020. My elderly parents in Alberta just tested positive but had to fight to get anti-virals because despite being 1 year shy of 80 they didn't qualify unless they had pronounced comorbidities. So... a country without a universal public health care system was able to offer much better universal coverage (where it mattered) than here. Another example: say you wanted a blood test for your kid to test blood lead levels. No doctor will offer that here, really. You'd have to really lobby for it and have a serious acute reason for it-- despite all the older cities here being full of lead pipes. I was down in the Finger Lakes a few years ago and there were signs for public clinics all over offering this as a free service. It is by no means a black and white situation. There are many aspects in which many liberal US states outdo Canadian provinces on certain social programs.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Graz in Austria with its Marxist mayor is an example of a wealthy, left-wing city. No such cities exist in the US. Just look at the recent scandals with the LA city council, the place people would probably describe as the “far left” of the USA. The leading Democrats were recorded spewing racism, plotting to screw over renters, and destroy the “left wing” council members who are in favor of what would at best be centrist policies in Europe. People idolize Canada because it seems to have a slightly more pragmatic baseline than the US, although in reality both places are pretty far to the right.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      "Left wing" in the US (and TBH much of Canada) is just reduced to being about a bunch of cultural issues. Nobody on the so-called left in North America actually espouses any real socialist economic program. It's blasphemy, and "going too far" even among people who wear the t-shirt.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

It's been this way since colonial times. It's either rip-it-and-ship-it extraction industries... or "I got there first, so give me $$" rent seeking & monopoly. I don't want to be a part of the US, I hate their culture and politics. But the local elites here benefit too much from having their own little closed market to monopolize and control.

monero-xmr 3y ago
This comment, and the whole thread really, is such a mind fuck for me - someone who lives in a rich left-wing American city. Canada is idolized and worshipped here as the paragon of lifestyle - the perfect balance of capitalism, civil discourse, and welfare state support (in addition to Norway). I literally have friends making comfortable $500k+ family incomes musing about how much better it would be to move to Canada. The grass is always greener!
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Yea, American liberals don't really get Canada -- even when they come here, my friends from the US... they wear rose tinted glasses. Most of it is fantasy. Canada's social service programmes are really not great when compared to European social democracies; welfare and disability payments are actually quite low, and we have pretty bad homelessness in our major cities. Canada is no Scandinavian social democracy. It's really just a fusion of aspects of both the UK and the US. Universal healthcare is good but it's been underfunded for decades, slowly coming apart, and inconsistent across the country. Public education is definitely in a better state than the US, though. And I'd argue our higher education / university system is superior in both cost and quality. So far. Culturally, Canada might be in a better state. The culture wars not as pronounced (depending on where you are). Abortion rights etc. mostly a given. Gay marriage and rights pretty much unassailable at this point. Legal cannabis, etc. etc. But in terms of bread and butter supports for regular working people, it's not that great. Though of course, again, the health care thing is a big caveat. US healthcare is great if you're upper middle class, wayyyyy better than anything you'd get here. But the average working class person is definitely better off in Canada compared to the US, on the healthcare front. Anyways, housing prices here are way worse (relative to earning potential) than any American city other than I guess Manhattan, at this point. People in the Bay Area complain, but they really have nothing on the GTA or Vancouver lower mainland.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    I appreciate your perspective. I think another crucial aspect is that the Canadian population is only 10% of the US, and the variation among states here is just like Canadian provinces or even countries in the EU. The US is very decentralized, and one of its secrets is that during times of great internal division the federal government becomes paralyzed while the states becomes empowered, and conversely during times of national unity the federal government can move mountains while the states take a back seat. Currently it’s a paralyzation moment, but that doesn’t really prevent anything from moving forwards as the system is pretty decentralized and individual-focused already. On the healthcare aspect, there is no doubt the poorest people in Canada are the EU are treated better than the poorest in the US. I do have a suspicion that as the universal systems reach a breaking point they start to look a bit more like the US - where people pay more if they use more - to encourage better economization of scarce healthcare resources. I have heard some really fucked stories of cancer treatment delays leading to death which I don’t think is as common here (they will treat you in the US, but you might go bankrupt). It’s like, would you rather be rationed and die or get treatment and be bankrupt? I’d prefer to live myself.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Canada's population only appears low if you're not looking at its geographical distribution. Toronto is as big as Chicago, and the population density in southern Ontario is as high as any of the US eastern states, and mostly contiguous with them and part of the same shipping routes, etc. etc.. It's a population clustered near the border and really should be seen as one that is culturally and economically contiguous with the US, just not politically. In terms of metropolitan regions, much of Canada is really much the same as the US. On healthcare / public services, I will give you examples of where the US liberal biases about Canada just don't line up. At the tail end of the COVID-19 crisis, spring 2021 I went across to go skiing with a friend from Albany. I needed a test to get back across the border to get home. I was able to just go to a US pharmacy and get a molecular test for free, with almost instant results. I was told that if I tested positive I could get anti-virals, for free, immediately, without even showing citizenship. Meanwhile in Ontario all public testing for COVID-19 was cancelled before the end of 2020. My elderly parents in Alberta just tested positive but had to fight to get anti-virals because despite being 1 year shy of 80 they didn't qualify unless they had pronounced comorbidities. So... a country without a universal public health care system was able to offer much better universal coverage (where it mattered) than here. Another example: say you wanted a blood test for your kid to test blood lead levels. No doctor will offer that here, really. You'd have to really lobby for it and have a serious acute reason for it-- despite all the older cities here being full of lead pipes. I was down in the Finger Lakes a few years ago and there were signs for public clinics all over offering this as a free service. It is by no means a black and white situation. There are many aspects in which many liberal US states outdo Canadian provinces on certain social programs.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Graz in Austria with its Marxist mayor is an example of a wealthy, left-wing city. No such cities exist in the US. Just look at the recent scandals with the LA city council, the place people would probably describe as the “far left” of the USA. The leading Democrats were recorded spewing racism, plotting to screw over renters, and destroy the “left wing” council members who are in favor of what would at best be centrist policies in Europe. People idolize Canada because it seems to have a slightly more pragmatic baseline than the US, although in reality both places are pretty far to the right.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    "Left wing" in the US (and TBH much of Canada) is just reduced to being about a bunch of cultural issues. Nobody on the so-called left in North America actually espouses any real socialist economic program. It's blasphemy, and "going too far" even among people who wear the t-shirt.