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How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

palladiummag.com

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Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#2
I don't understand the Brezhnev analogies (first I've seen that metaphor applied to Canada), but this matches my experience:

"Many startups and tech companies I know are having a hard time hiring developers, especially with Amazon moving in. Their salaries are way too low. On a few occasions, I’ve gotten to ask if they’d consider raising compensation, but I get the same reply every time: “This is how much a developer should make. We’re not paying a penny more.”

Luckily, Canada will be one of the biggest winners of global warming. Most of their land mass is not arable today, but it will be tomorrow.

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#3
As an electrical engineer in the vancouver area this article rung true to me. It is too bad Canada's hi tech industry died with nortel, RIM, corel. Bombardier's aerospace division is the latest casualty. I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end for tech in Canada. What do we do other than resources and real estate?

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#4

As an electrical engineer in the vancouver area this article rung true to me. It is too bad Canada's hi tech industry died with nortel, RIM, corel. Bombardier's aerospace division is the latest casualty. I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end for tech in Canada. What do we do other than resources and real estate?

answering my own question: the 100 largest companies in canada [0], banking, insurance, oil and gas, and the telecommunications provider oligopoly fill out the top 13 and then we get the odd retail, railroad, auto parts, mining player in the mix.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_C...

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#5

As an electrical engineer in the vancouver area this article rung true to me. It is too bad Canada's hi tech industry died with nortel, RIM, corel. Bombardier's aerospace division is the latest casualty. I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end for tech in Canada. What do we do other than resources and real estate?

Those companies are usually listed on the nasdaq like shopify.

The whole hardware hi tech industry has moved to China. The Avro wasn't going to change this. It is not like building planes is a great business either currently.

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#6
post #5

As an electrical engineer in the vancouver area this article rung true to me. It is too bad Canada's hi tech industry died with nortel, RIM, corel. Bombardier's aerospace division is the latest casualty. I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end for tech in Canada. What do we do other than resources and real estate?

Those companies are usually listed on the nasdaq like shopify. The whole hardware hi tech industry has moved to China. The Avro wasn't going to change this. It is not like building planes is a great business either currently.

Shopify is larger than Royal Bank by market cap. Kudos to them.

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#7
Qualify of life is pretty high there, right? Are there many poor people? Do median people have access to good education and healthcare?

They don't produce new billionaires via cutthroat competition, so?

Please let me live in that sort of "late soviet pessimism", safety, stability, work, leisure. Oh the horrors.

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#8
post #7

Qualify of life is pretty high there, right? Are there many poor people? Do median people have access to good education and healthcare? They don't produce new billionaires via cutthroat competition, so? Please let me live in that sort of "late soviet pessimism", safety, stability, work, leisure. Oh the horrors.

Not everyone is happy to be a comatose loser like you.

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#9

As an electrical engineer in the vancouver area this article rung true to me. It is too bad Canada's hi tech industry died with nortel, RIM, corel. Bombardier's aerospace division is the latest casualty. I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end for tech in Canada. What do we do other than resources and real estate?

I didn't realize the cancellation of the avro arrow was the beginning of the end

See also the cancellations of TSR2 and Black Arrow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow#Cancellation

“Prior to the cancellation of Black Arrow, NASA had offered to launch British payloads for free; however, this offer was withdrawn following the decision to cancel Black Arrow”

Re: How Not to Build a Country: Canada’s Late Soviet Pessimism(2019)

#10
post #7

Qualify of life is pretty high there, right? Are there many poor people? Do median people have access to good education and healthcare? They don't produce new billionaires via cutthroat competition, so? Please let me live in that sort of "late soviet pessimism", safety, stability, work, leisure. Oh the horrors.

The gist of the article is that things are not bad, but have been in slow but steady decline for some time now. This brings a lot of discontentment, because people psychologically can care more about first derivative that the actual value of their quality of life - i.e. a poor guy who just got a job which pays median wage can be happier than a billionaire who just lost $100m.
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