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The Decline and Fall of Canada. Prepare Yourself Accordingly.


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[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHZqXmTvojE]



Index


0 - Employment Numbers   

A - Public Vs Private

1 - Graphs

2 - Health Care

3 - Middle Class Wealth

    A - Reduced Standard of Living, Income and Savings

    B - Consumer Debt/Debt

    C - Class Polarization

4 - Poverty Rate

5 - General Economy and Inflation

A - Inflated prices in real estate

6 - Government Finances

7 - Expert Predictions

9 - Historical Similarities

10 - Cost of Regulations

11 - Cool Facts!


0 - Employment Numbers   




  • Link Canada’s job market is not recovering



Canada's economy has lost 26,000 jobs so far in 2013 as a whole.

Canada's economy lost 54,500 jobs in March.

Canadian economy shed 85,000 private sector positions (all of them full-time) in March.

The
public sector barely changed and the difference came from a growth in
self employment. Much of the losses came among those in the core
working-age group of those between 25 and 54.




  • Link Canada’s job market mirrors the U.S’s


    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/CWt-8iz-z1Ol3zg7BoCsPM9pIswFIxz1M4fpgwzOL8rSPQ42Km-rXebQnPbNemNK7dV6jxNJC_RHCgUgVAG8ceig4XDpiMBkQcNht5fr-24fQDGb0BHuv6Df




  • Link Job growth lags population growth



Job
growth has lagged population growth, making the recovery incomplete.
There are 1.4 million unemployed Canadians competing for jobs compared
to 1.1 million prior to the crisis.




  • Link The job losses pushed Canada's jobless rate higher to 7.2 per cent.



A - Public Vs Private




  • Link 12% more in salary alone



Canadian
public-sector workers are paid 12% more than their private-sector
counterparts, says a study released Thursday (2013) by the Fraser
Institute.


Although
the conservative think-tank said Statistics Canada did not record data
in enough detail to make a more rigorous comparison, public workers
probably also had better pensions and other non-wage benefits, such as
shorter work weeks and earlier retirement.




  • Link Staggering difference in benefits


If
you just look at the coverage rate, basically 88% of the public sector
has a registered pension, versus 24% in the private sector. Of those
that have a pension [in the public sector], 94% are defined benefits,
whereas only 53% are defined benefits in the private sector,” he said.





  • Link $14,620 each in Voluntary Severance



All told, taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1.5-billion in regular and voluntary severance to 102,589 public servants ($14,620 per person) in 2011-12, according to new federal numbers obtained by Postmedia News.

   

The
government also is projecting it will spend at least another
$850-million in the current 2012-13 fiscal year on accumulated severance
payouts.


Business groups and spending watchdogs say the voluntary payouts are both “staggering” and “outrageous”.




  • Link Laid off, but still paid $16,360 each


   

Along
with the more than $2-billion needed to cover the severance expenses
for 2011-12 and 2012-13, the government also has earmarked $900-million
to cover “workforce adjustment” payments owed to thousands of employees
who will be laid off due to federal budget cuts.




Link Population of the federal public service 2012: 278,092

   

Link
CCPA economist David Macdonald estimates that between 50,000 and 60,000
federal public sector jobs or private sector jobs funded by the
government will be eliminated by 2014.


So if we take 55,000 to be the future federal job cut number, the $900 million will result in $16,360 per person.




  • Link The number of Toronto city employees who earned more than $100,000 in 2012 has jumped about 30% over the previous year.



1 - Graphs




  • Link Public vs Private (2013)


    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/phxwgrhfgV9ddf0OWuGUbF8CrZI_6YKdBxn2kZz22cKn1O4t97uM0SSPn3M_A_EoheS6ZEJGJX3NqTrONXJzm5Hd-u_WvL66w2nudelfsO3Bq38kaiQB9rgI


2 - Health Care




  • Link Increasing expenditures, Increasing wait times


       

Consider
waiting lists. In 2011, the median wait time from general practitioner
referral to treatment by a specialist was 19 weeks in Canada. Despite
substantial increases in both health spending and federal cash transfers
to the provinces over the past 15 years, the 2011 wait time was 60 per
cent longer than the 1997 median wait time of 11.9 weeks. In 2011,
patients waited more than double the 9.3 weeks they would have waited in
1993. Our indicators are getting worse, not better.




  • Link Very slow system, even by socialist standards



Canada’s
waiting lists are also among the longest in the developed world. For
example, the 2010 findings from a survey of individuals in 11 nations,
10 of which maintain universal access health insurance programs.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, among the 10 universal access
nations surveyed (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK):



  • Canadians
    were the most likely to wait four months or more for elective surgery;
    and were less likely to wait less than one month for elective surgery
    than all but Sweden;



  • Canadians
    were the most likely to wait six days or longer to see a doctor or
    nurse when sick, and were the least likely (tied with Norway) to receive
    an appointment the same day or next day;



  • Canadians
    were the most likely to wait two months or more for a specialist
    appointment and least likely to wait less than one month for a
    specialist appointment; and



  • Canadians
    were the least likely to wait less than 30 minutes and most likely to
    wait four hours or more for access to an emergency room.





  • Link Socialist Universal Health Care doesn’t mean quick universal access to the best equipment but does mean high costs


Access
to medical technologies is also relatively poor in Canada. In a recent
comparison of inventories of medical technologies per one million
people: in MRI machines, Canada ranked 15th of 26 OECD nations for whom
data was available; 17th of 27 nations in CT scanners; 11th out of 24 in
PET scanners; and 19th of 21 in lithotripters. Research also shows that
Canada’s relatively small inventory of medical technologies consists of
many old and outdated machines. Clearly, Canada’s relatively high
expenditures neither buy quick access to care, nor do they buy high tech
health care equipment and services for the population.




  • Link Socialist Universal Health Care does not mean universal health care


    1.9 million Canadians can’t find a family physician

Government
restrictions on medical training, along with a number of other policies
that affect the practices of medical practitioners, have also taken
their toll on Canadians’ access to health care. A recent comparison
found Canada ranked 26th of 32 OECD nations for which data was available
in the number of physicians per thousand population. It should come as
no surprise that Statistics Canada determined that nearly 1.9 million
Canadians aged 12 or older could not find a regular physician in 2009.




  • Link 2/3rd of Income tax going completely to paying for health care


While
income taxes make up just 30 per cent of the tax bill for the average
Canadian family, the amount of money spent on health care by Canada’s
governments is equivalent to about two-thirds of all personal income
taxes.




  • Link Socialized
    healthcare does not mean healthcare immune from market forces but
    instead a system more poorly equipped to deal with them - no such thing
    as free


The
United Kingdom is the latest to tighten its belt. The National Health
Service (NHS) — the centralized public agency that runs Britain’s
government healthcare system — is being forced to shave $31 billion from
its budget by 2015.




  • Link Universal Health Care doesn’t mean no upfront charge service


The
Health Council of Canada recently surveyed over three thousand patients
and found that those with chronic illnesses like high blood pressure or
heart disease were largely dissatisfied with the medical care they
received. Less than half of respondents with such conditions reported
that the care they received was excellent or very good.

But aren’t they getting it for free? Shouldn’t they be grateful?

Not
really. Despite the massive taxes Canadians remit to finance universal
care, they still must pay out of pocket for some services. Nearly a
quarter of chronically ill respondents said that they had skipped their
medications or neglected to fill a prescription because it was too
expensive.


Number of Canadians receiving medical treatment outside of Canada in 2010.



  • Link Number of Canadian traveling abroad for medical treatment increases as median wait times increase


A
significant number of Canadians—an estimated 44,794 in total—received
treatment outside Canada in 2010. This is a notable increase from the
41,006 Canadians estimated to have received treatment outside Canada in
2009. The national increase in the estimated number of patients treated
outside Canada occurred at the same time as a national increase in the
median wait time for medically necessary treatment. Specifically, the
national median wait time for treatment after consultation with a
specialist was 8.0 weeks in 2009 and 9.3 weeks in 2010.

In
2011, a significant number of Canadians—an estimated 46,159—received
treatment outside of the country. At the same time, the national median
wait time for treatment after consultation with a specialist increased
from 9.3 weeks in 2010 to 9.5 weeks in 2011

3 - Middle Class Wealth

   

A - Reduced Standard of Living, Income and Savings




  • Link Retirement is becoming an unaffordable luxury for an increasing number of people



More
and more seniors are working longer. The percentage of those aged 60-64
who are employed rose from 34% in 1989 to 47% in 2011 ... a new record.
The percentage of those aged 65-69 who are still working jumped from
11% in 1989 to 23% in 2011 ... another new record. The percentage of the
70 and over group who are still working increased to 6% in 2011 ... one
more record high.


Over
the 1989 to 2011 period, the labour force aged 45-54 more than doubled
(+108%), those aged 55-64 also more than doubled (+133%) while those
aged 65 and older grew even faster (+180%).




  • Link The middle class is being completely hollowed out in Canada


    https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/7JJ9y8Og-yzNaExyooW0c2xCzLuYUUr1DolaWl_OLQvkGXz_1Sf3nSpie1kRGrP1zTHNmwAj4jMN8agN9E-ZndYdiDtM_4PjACNHrIX3tK-V48B7mw4kyDQt




  • Link Absolute wage stagnation



The
median earnings of full-time Canadian workers increased by just $53
annually—that's right, $53 annually—between 1980 and 2005


    B - Consumer Debt/Debt




  • Link High Household debt



Experts
say nervous consumers won't spend enough to provide a significant boost
to the economy, especially as households have a record C$1.65 of debt
for every dollar earned.




  • Link Spending money soon to become a luxury to an increasing number of people



Canadian household debt has reached an all-time high, but in 2012 Canadians still took on more. Consumer debt jumped 6 per cent last year.
Analysts are growing concerned that Canadian consumers are
over-leveraged and will eventually have to make steep cuts to their
spending.




  • Link Companies hide money in war fund due to unfunded liabilities



Business
investment remains slow and outgoing Bank of Canada Governor Mark
Carney wants the private sector to unleash some of what he has called
the "dead money" to stimulate the economy.

But
companies need to put cash in a "war fund" until better times, said
Betty Lou Pacey, founder and chief executive officer of BL Innovative
Lighting, a small Vancouver-based business that exports optical fiber
for lighting.

She
cites the massive U.S. fiscal deficit as the biggest external threat
for exporters, whose sales growth depends on healthy U.S. demand. Her
own company has a couple of costly projects "percolating" that would be
easier to commit to if circumstances were better.




  • Link As
    the middle class of Canada stagnates while inflation continues, the
    difference helps keep canadian household numbers in check with the rest
    of the failing world.


    https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/tPZ0jqzsGafJIVPpsEb_CBju4nNltXpLan2qUMCYivPwq1g9-L3tEbCq25hryd2U4EqidW1VeZV2wCKuA3Cf3XifHzj4BkMKcPJOf46H5vFbVaqtfIhs3LtH




  • Link Massively terrible debt and saving numbers


    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/mlkNHr3zIF6a5mxN1AxuO38DO4LCZf-5QUUgEQxSEoQKsZev42l_arXOPUQE2dKRrgStiqyKjRdrykpcfBI7bfWgG8bIhQeJCv2OFn_oXCcbASScgWVfmd1K




  • Link Skyrocketing inflation in cost of living in a house


    https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/VxR3gU2USEzD9K0-mAMZrD4xRmnF-A4NJsRv8tAkwwv53sXQfnJ7cPirgjb76krlRMx9GU4cayOxflk0purAtnOAkIMj-cUQ7hDLpfOcz9BEpHMAJMlVLE8g


    C - Class Polarization




  • Link Higher than average and Increasing income inequality in Canada


   

The
report from the OECD said the top 1% of Canadians saw their share of
the country’s total income increased to 13.3% in 2007 from only 8.1% in
1980. And the very richest of Canadians, the top 0.1%, had their share
of income more than double, to 5.3% from 2%.

Overall,
the top 10% of Canadians in 2008 earned $103,500 on average, 10 times
higher than the bottom 10%, who made an average of $10,260. This is up
from a ratio of 8 to 1 in the early 1990s and higher than the overall
OECD average.



  • Link Multi-Decade increase in income inequality


The
higher up the income scale, the more dramatic the gains. For the
richest one per cent, the share of all Canadian incomes almost doubled
between the late 1970s and 2007. For the richest 0.1 per cent of tax
files, their total share almost tripled during those 20 years. And for
the creme-de-la-creme — the richest 0.01 per cent making more than
$640,000 a year — their share of total incomes more than quintupled.

Link

Between
1980 and 2005, median earnings among Canada's top earners rose more
than 16 per cent while those in the bottom fifth saw their wages dip by
20 per cent.



  • Link Subsidizing to the hilt for decades results in extreme levels of poverty for children



In
its report, called Oh Canada! Too Many Children in Poverty for Too
Long, the advocacy group Campaign 2000 says First Nations children are
suffering the greatest levels of poverty of all children in the country.






  • Link The gap is classes is so great it shaves off up to 21 years of life


   

McMaster University study (2010)
finds a 21-year difference in life expectancy between the poorest
neighbourhood and the wealthiest neighbourhood in Hamilton, Ontario.


4 - Poverty Rate




  • Link Poverty Soaring in recent years



In 2012, a record 882,000 Canadians used food banks each month, the highest level of food bank usage ever (Food Banks Canada), in 2011 the number was only slight lower at 851,014 – which is still 26% above the 2008 levels (Hunger Count 2011).




  • Link Welfare numbers soar in largest Canadian province (state)



The number of Ontario residents on welfare jumped by more than 63,200 last year.

The
social assistance caseload increased by about 20% between November 2008
and November 2009, according to the latest government figures
available.



  • Link Massive Increase in Welfare in B.C, another large Canadian province 2009


The
number of people on welfare in B.C. has risen significantly, as the
slumping economy takes its toll leaving many who could work unable to
find jobs.

The
latest numbers from the Ministry of Housing and Social Development show
the number of people on social assistance who were able and expected to
work has increased 49.8 per cent in the last six months.



  • Two-parent families rose by 71 per cent to 1,695 cases.



  • Single men rose by 61 per cent to 17,090 cases.



  • Couples with no children rose by 53 per cent to 929 cases.



  • Single women rose by 39 per cent to 7,148 cases.



  • Single-parent families rose by 27 per cent to 5,152 cases.



  • Overall the number of people on welfare rose 26.2 per cent to 50,537 cases.



  • People
    defined as unable to work because of persistent multiple barriers fell
    nearly four per cent in the past 12 months to 6,715 cases.





  • Link Socialist Policy does not equal quality


   

Out of 25 developed countries, Canada ties for last place for failing to attain nine of UNICEF’s ten benchmark indicators of quality and access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision.




  • Link Staggering product of massive, decade long government subsidization


   

- One aboriginal child in eight is disabled, double the rate of all children in Canada.

- Among First Nations children, 43 per cent lack basic dental care.

- Overcrowding among First Nations families is double the rate of that for all Canadian families.

- Mould contaminates almost half of all First Nations households.

- Almost half of aboriginal children under 15 years old residing in urban areas live with a single parent.

- Close to 100 First Nations communities must boil their water.

- Of all off-reserve aboriginal children, 40 per cent live in poverty.




  • Link Primary source of income for the first nation people is federal money


What revenue sources do First Nations have?


The biggest revenue source is transfers from the federal government.



  • Link Subsidization through no taxes since 1988


In
1988, amendments to the Indian Act empowered First Nations with their
own tax authority and today, according to Wilson, about one-sixth of
bands collect taxes.



  • Link Isolated to reserves through government force


There
are exemptions under the Indian Act. The act says that the "personal
property of an Indian or a band situated on a reserve" is tax exempt.
Métis and Inuit are not eligible for this exemption.

The act says that a Status Indian working on a reserve is exempt from income taxes.

And
Status Indians do not generally pay the federal goods and services tax
or provincial sales tax if they buy something on a reserve or if it is
destined for a reserve.

"Off-reserve, we all get stuck with it," notes Restoule.




  • Link Clusterfrack of violent government intervention results in, you guessed it, terrible quality of life.


One
must remember that every time someone leaves the reserve, the cost and
obligation of the federal government for each of those individual is
reduced by about 80%. What would motivate the federal government to make
things better on reserves? Aboriginal leaders tell me the on-reserve
population is continuing to grow despite the number of people leaving.
We know that from the Department of Indian Affairs spending reports that
for every $8.00 spent on reserves only $1.00 is spent on services to
those 60% of the band membership that lives off reserve. Seems a little
backward to me.

The
deteriorating circumstances include grinding poverty, tainted water not
suitable for drinking or bathing in more than 100 communities at any
given time, major housing crisis, loss of language, extreme crime rates,
rampant health epidemics, youth suicide rates eight times the national
average. For Inuit youth, living in the remote and rugged Arctic, the
suicide rate is 40 times the national average.




  • Link Aboriginal children more likely to die relative to rest of population


   

Aboriginal
children in Canada die from unintentional injuries at rates three to
four times higher than the national average, new research shows.

While
injuries are the leading cause of death for all Canadian children, they
affect aboriginal kids disproportionately, according to the Canadian
Paediatric Society.

In
some areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, the
injury-related death rate for First Nations children is 6.5 times that
of the general population. For certain injuries, the death rate is as
high as 22 times the Canadian average.


The
study, written by Toronto pediatrician Dr. Anna Banerji, also found
that it's not just children who are dying at a disproportionate rate.
Unintentional injuries cause 6% of deaths in Canada, but 26% of all
aboriginal deaths.




  • Link The quality of life of aboriginal children is not improving 20 GODAM YEARS LATER


   

To
commemorate the 20th anniversary of Parliament’s resolution to end
child poverty in Canada, Campaign 2000 released its annual report card
on child and family poverty in Canada. Today in 2009 an Aboriginal child
is 12.3 times more likely to be in foster care than a non-Aboriginal
child. While comprising only 3.8 per cent of the Canadian population,
poverty has resulted in Aboriginal children accounting for a staggering
30 per cent of children in foster care. The situation is so grave that
the number of Aboriginal children in the child welfare system today is
three times the number enrolled in residential schools at the height of
their operation.




  • Link Much poorer than rest of population


                              

In
Canada, being Aboriginal often means being poor, or even very poor. In
2005, 3.8% of the country’s population identified as Aboriginal, either
as North American Indians (or First Nations peoples; 60% of the total),
Métis (33%) or Inuit (4%).1 Of these, 21.7% had incomes below
Statistics Canada’s low income cut-off after tax, compared to 11.1% for
the non-Aboriginal identity population

               




  • Link Less employed than rest


                       

Employment
rate of Aboriginal peoples being almost ten percentage points below
that of the non-Aboriginal population (53.7% compared to 62.7% in 2005)




  • Link Basic education is lower   


                          

Basic
education, for instance, was not as likely to be achieved, 43.7% of
Aboriginal Canadians having less than a secondary education, compared to
23.1% for the non-Aboriginal population.




  • Link Welfare since 1945


                          

The
Poor Law relief system, not the welfare state, then inspired social
policy toward Indians, and until the introduction of universal family
allowances in 1945, relief came mostly from the provision by the
Department of Indian Affairs.




  • Link Massive number of aboriginals received social assistance since 1990


   

By
1990, 28.6% of Aboriginal identity persons over 15 years old received
social assistance. For Indians on reserve, the rate was even higher, at
41.5%


Social
assistance, noted with regret the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples “has become the staple of many Aboriginal communities” and
“contributed to the persistence of individual and community economic
dependency”




  • Link Social assistance rates relative to non-aboriginal population


                          

In
2003, 34.8% of Indians on reserve received social assistance, compared
to 5.5% for the country’s general population (excluding Indians on
reserve). In Manitoba, this rate for on-reserve Indians was 43.9%




  • Link The most innocent bear the consequences


   

52.1%
of all aboriginal children were poor, the highest rate of the three
equity groups above. Aboriginal people had a disability rate that was
more than twice the national average. Aboriginal children were four
times more likely to be hungry.




  • Link A clue as to WHY: The family


   

Fewer Aboriginal children aged 14 and under lived with two parents in 2001 than did non-Aboriginal children.

32%
of Aboriginal children living on reserves, and 46% of Aboriginal
children in the census metropolitan areas, lived with a lone parent.

Only 17% of non-Aboriginal children lived with a lone parent

Twice the proportion of Aboriginal children lived with a lone parent in 2001 as did non-Aboriginal children.

5% of Aboriginals living in large urban areas lived with a relative other than their parent(s), or lived with a non-relative.


Link


12% of Aboriginal families are headed by parents under the age of 25 years;

27% of Aboriginal families are headed by single mothers;

40% of single Aboriginal mothers earn less than $12,000 per year;




  • Link Upwards of 40% entrenched in welfare since 1988


                     

One
report revealed that the average number of Aboriginal welfare
recipients has risen from 40 to 41 percent over a 10 year period
beginning 1988-89.


For 45 percent of Canada's First Nations people, social assistance is their only source of income.

   

Link Including aboriginal population the percentage of the Canadian population on welfare in March 2005 was 5.2%.


Community destruction: "Welfare
isn't a part of First Nation culture" I've heard many Elders say. They
can recall the first person in their community to get welfare. "Our
community has never been the same," they say and add, "We used to help
each other out, support ourselves, not any more, not after welfare."


Professional development destruction: Welfare
becomes the family tradition like Sunday dinners. Instead of the
children adopting the role of community hunter or healer or fisher or
weaver, as their ancestors once did, the occupation becomes welfare. A
new family tradition is formed. Children learn from their parents.
Social assistance has become an acceptable way of life for too many
people and their families. While for centuries children have been
encouraged to adopt the occupation of their parents, children of social
assistance parents are too following in the footsteps of their parents
creating inter-generational welfare families.

   



  • Link A clue as to WHY: Government education



For more than a century, education for on-reserve Aboriginal children was primarily provided through church-run residential schools designed to assimilate Aboriginal children into both Caucasian culture and the churches.


Church-run: Not really > Link (The Indian residential schools of Canada were a network of "residential" (boarding) schools for Aboriginal peoples of Canada (First Nations [formerly "Indians"],Metis, and Inuit [formerly "Eskimos"]) funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs, and administered by Christian churches)


The
children were forbidden to speak their own languages, practice their
spiritual traditions, or maintain their cultural traditions. Schools
were usually too far from reserves to enable contact with parents.
Siblings were separated in residence. Sexual and physical abuse and
death from disease were common.                       

Children
in residential schools did not en-counter healthy parental role models
and, as adults, frequently had diminished capacity to care for their own
children.


The last residential school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996




  • Link The abuse of the residential schools flows to the present generations through the produced poorer quality parents



National
statistics document an 80.9 percent increase in the number of days that
First Nations children spent in group or institutional care during this
period. This increase is dramatic when compared to the corresponding
figure for the number of days spent in foster care (37.4 percent
increase).


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/n9Bwcb759FTCTX32nzxVcQfKD9aIsVO1C1NRyIOVHsS9seHiDcnjGcuhU2eEJYkKkpmOQhymWFQjMsA_TetbBxANSquRmlHIiWCL_EQCcISA2dXjE7aEJ27D

                   

Look at where the income is coming from https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/5qjelm6dYv6iKPOZGyZh7OAZop1IYYeVB_jQtmzIxIjo07FIftWxS9PSDhijD6F_v3gZXUaGL44jofxcSnXBY0WQ5byjgFKmg8QU8NYQf7vtjQtsDCbdFB2u

               

           

5 - General Economy and Inflation




  • Link Terrible recent factor numbers February 2013


Factory
sales plunged 3.1% to 48.02 billion Canadian dollars (US$47.94
billion), marking the deepest one-month decline in 43 months, or since
the midst of the great recession.


Much
of December’s weakness was due to auto-plant shutdowns in Ontario, but
even excluding that sector Canadian factory shipments fell 1.8%.




  • Link Retail slowing under massive and ever increasing consumer debt load 2013


   

The
flipside of Canadians' explosive debt burden is consumer spending,
which is now showing weakness as debt loads continue to grow.
Retail sales over the crucial holiday season posted an unexpected 2.1-per-cent decline this past December, signalling that the Canadian consumer may be running out of steam, and finally reigning in those debts.




  • Link Government cuts will slowdown GDP at least in the short term



A recent CIBC study estimated that austerity measures will shave 0.9 per cent off government spending, which in turn will translate into a 0.2 per cent drag on Canada's GDP.




  • Link Business ramping down investments



Canadian companies' business investment plans are at their lowest non-recession point since 1995, an alarm bell for the economy because investment is so important to the creation of new jobs and future profits.



Canadian exports fell 2.8 per cent in the last month of 2012,
a sign that Canada's largest trading partner, the U.S., is still
struggling to sustain growth. But with Asia experiencing a slowdown and
Europe continuing to muddle through its debt crisis, the odds of a
pick-up in demand for Canadian exports are slim.




  • Link Continued decline in manufacturing


After
eight years of decline, the manufacturing sector created only 15,900
jobs in 2011. Employment in 2011 was about where it was in 1993 and down
by 532,200 jobs since the peak in 2004.




  • Link A single but scary and telling case (Reuters)



The
50-year-old was laid off last year from his job of 22 years at a
bus-assembly plant northwest of Toronto, and has since applied for 130
jobs. His best offer: A job at $12 an hour, half his previous wage and
not enough to pay his bills.




  • Link Deflating housing prices -- also should mean deflating wealth as we’ve seen from recent history


   

House prices in Canada suffered six straight months of declines before leveling off in April, according to Teranet. But sales volumes have dropped sharply over the past year —down 15.3 per cent from a year earlier, according to the latest numbers — and the supply of homes available on the market is growing relative to the number of buyers -- a bad sign for future prices.


Capital Markets predicting a 25-per-cent drop in house prices, and The Economist indicating Canada has one of the most overvalued housing markets in the world.


Link https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/jjQbulzYzv6oWaB68jy5JFbZce-rvhLJMPFavMM7peFHD8IaJkAzNfilrXJr--JGn1l2IyLelPqGeqAIVoJ-_g2dpF28WTTN3vgjs9kRVQ-e0ZULz6x1eFXq




  • Link Projected housing slowdown means bad news for general economy


   

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. predicts construction of new homes will fall 11 per cent this year.
That could be bad news for the economy, as Canada has come to be more
reliant on real estate and construction-related activity than it has
been in recorded history. The "FIRE" industries -- finance, insurance
and real estate -- amount to 27 per cent of the economy, up from a long
term average of 24. A construction slowdown could translate into big job
losses.


6 - Government Finances

7 - Expert Predictions




  • Link Investors bet against Canadian economy 04/29/2013


Global
investors are turning against Canada’s economy, placing some of the
largest bets on record that the country’s housing market, financial
sector and currency are in for a rough ride.

A report Monday in The Financial Post indicates that a near-record amount of money is being placed against Canada’s major banks.

The
length of time it would require investors shorting Canadian banks to
cover their debts if the stock went up is now at 10.3 days, compared to
just 1.3 days for U.S. banks. Any ratio above five suggests investors
are pessimistic.

That follows a report last week that the Canadian dollar has become the second-most shorted major global currency, after the Japanese yen, suggesting investors widely expect the Canadian dollar to keep sliding.

Several
trends appear to be behind the negative sentiment, including a
weakening housing market and falling prices for commodities such as oil
and gold. Both of these trends could impact the country’s economy, given
Canada’s well-known reliance on commodities, and given that housing now
supports a greater percentage of Canadian jobs than it has in recent
history.


San
Francisco-based Hyphen Partners LP is putting 95 per cent of its
clients’ assets into bets against Canada’s housing market and banks.

“Canada
faces two risks,” Hyphen Partners head Vijai Mohan told the Globe,
referring to housing and banks. “Very few people are looking at those
risks simultaneously. That collectively presents a lot of opportunity”
for those who wish to make money off the Canadian’s economy’s expected
decline.


9 - Historical Similarities

10 - Cost of Regulations




  • Link Canadian companies pay more for regulation than American ones


       

Most
Canadian small businesses pay much more than their U.S. counterparts to
comply with regulatory requirements, according to CFIB’s 2013 version
of
Canada’s Red Tape Report.


The
smallest businesses in Canada (fewer than five employees) pay 45% more
per employee ($5,942) to comply with government regulation than their
U.S counterparts ($4,084).

The total cost of regulation to Canadian businesses is $31 billion a year.

    Link

In
addition, Canadians spent more hours a year to comply with regulations
compared with the U.S. (171 hours for companies with fewer than five
employees versus 130).



  • Link With all this time spent dealing with red paper, Canadian business fall behind in productivity growth


Productivity
growth in Canada was 0.7% between 2001 and 2011, well below the U.S.
with 1.8% and OECD average of 1.4%, data from the Organization of
Economic Co-operation and Development shows.


11 - Cool Facts!




  • Link Early investment really pays off


$1 invested in early years (before the age of 6) saves $9 in future spending on health, welfare and justice systems (Report on Public Health in Canada).




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