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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#501

Post by bombcar »

slothtrop wrote: post #411
mmooss wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of houses isn't fixed, nor are almost any other resource. The way economics works, each average person produces significantly more than they consume. Someone living alone in a cabin is (economically) poor. Someone in a small town may have customers, but not many, and it's going to be hard to expand. What you need is more people - more people buying, more people to work for you.

Housing supply is inelastic, in part because of zoning (but it's not the only reason). Know what doesn't change very quickly? Policy and law at the municipal level. Know what changes quickly because it's done at the very top level? Immigration rate.

The speed is the problem.

Nobody is willing to go “long” on housing when the government can go “short” on supply at any time.

So you have to normalize that somehow, and since the government controls immigration levels, it should subsidize housing construction to match, somehow.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#502

Post by bombcar »

Hammershaft wrote: post #136
ziofill wrote: post #15

Canada needs houses, not people.

We need both, without a healthier population density Canada will forever be a bunch of exploitative oligopolies in a trenchcoat hopelessly dependent on a benevolent USA.

If Canada doesn’t manage its population well it _will_ end up the 51st state in practicality if not reality.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#503

Post by slothtrop »

threeseed wrote: post #450
slothtrop wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not entirely misplaced. There's supply, and there's demand. You can't point to one and ignore the other. I'm all for the YIMBY and zoning reform push, but a) that's decided on the municipal level, b) change is slow, c) immigration rates can drastically change in very little time, if the feds decide. In Canada feds wanted to have their cake and eat it too: the population grew by over 3% in a year, but infrastruct…

We have a very similar situation in Australia which proves you wrong. Federal government gave billions of incentives to states to build more houses who in turn enacted higher density zoning and overrode the concerns of municipalities. And suddenly we have lots of houses being built. Less immigrants makes the house situation better but not does not solve the problem. Having a continuous system for building lots of hou…

> Federal government gave billions of incentives

Canada did this with a housing accelerator fund, for municipalities. Did not amount to much of anything. It's not clear if provinces can override but there's no political will for it. Without reading the numbers for Australia, I expect reform has been modest.

> Less immigrants makes the house situation better but not does not solve the problem.

You contradict yourself in the same sentence. The same result can be achieved whether improving elasticity or reducing the immigration rate. "the problem" is the affordability, not the elasticity. That is your just preferred vector.

Even if zoning is improved, you can't defy the laws of physics; housing will still be relatively inelastic, whereas immigration rate can be much higher.

Australia's population growth rate was less than 1% last year, basically on par with US. Canada's was 3%. Incomparable. No amount of zoning reform will be enough to handle that sustainably.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#505

Post by bombcar »

slothtrop wrote: post #413
threeseed wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada needs people and fast. Otherwise good luck affording a social net in future decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fer...

What will boomers, the richest generation, ever do? This is overstated. The alarm was sounded on this 2 decades ago for several east Asian countries, but they're not on fire. They're fine. Old people die. If the fertility rate mattered that much, they'd have scrambled to make any number of policy changes including better work-life balance (see: Japan, SK, China), or plain ol' immigration, but they don't because it si…

If people really cared about the fertility rate they’d ask those with two kids what it would take for them to have a third. The answers could be used to modify policy, but it’s more important to give tax credits for EVs, apparently.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#506

Post by boringg »

kypro wrote: post #483
rayiner wrote: post #385

Does the economist know what time it is? Nationalism is resurgent: nationalist parties now control the U.S. and Italy. Canada seems poised to Poilievre, who has made impassioned appeals to Canadian nationalism. And in Germany, France, and the U.K., nationalist parties have effectively rendered the governing coalitions impotent, even if they cannot yet command a majority. What a time to suggest that Canadians cede the…

The left-wing party in the UK has only just won its largest majority in history and we don't have another election for 5 years. That is largely because the right has split into populist right and centre-right parties though.

Yes but that isn't at all reflective of Canada and things in the UK aren't looking that great.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#507

Post by boringg »

adriand wrote: post #416
BJones12 wrote: post #8

> Europeans could learn from Canada how to allow immigration in a fashion that the population embraces rather than tolerates Clearly the author is ignorant. Canadians are sick of immigration. Young Canadians doubly so. Racism is becoming more acceptable by the day.

That’s not the full context of what is in the article. The full sentence is: > Europeans could learn from Canada how to allow immigration in a fashion that the population embraces rather than tolerates, though a housing crunch has frayed that consensus of late. Far from sounding ignorant, the author sounds well-informed.

Last I checked immigration isn't doing to well in the EU either.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#508

Post by slothtrop »

bombcar wrote: post #501
slothtrop wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing supply is inelastic, in part because of zoning (but it's not the only reason). Know what doesn't change very quickly? Policy and law at the municipal level. Know what changes quickly because it's done at the very top level? Immigration rate.

The speed is the problem. Nobody is willing to go “long” on housing when the government can go “short” on supply at any time. So you have to normalize that somehow, and since the government controls immigration levels, it should subsidize housing construction to match, somehow.

There are so many things wrong with that.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#509

Post by kbutler »

potato3732842 wrote: post #241
jimbob45 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expired: Northern California should become its own state I miss the wired/tired/expired lists greatly. Wired from 2000-2010 was a high-quality publication.

A bunch of states ought to get split into multiple because it would result in a better mapping of state governments to economic and cultural lines and result in better representation for all parties on the state level. Of course it will never happen for a multitude of reasons

I hear this, but it seems a shallow take.

You'd generally have to have the urban areas be one state, and everything else another. But those areas still have large numbers of people aligned with the other party, so those people will be even more disenfranchised.

And if a county "flips" parties in one election, do you then move it between state lines?

Just seems really unworkable.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#510

Post by 3vidence »

roncesvalles wrote: post #465
jt2190 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is in a demographic crisis: The birthrate is too low, the population is aging and the country can’t afford to provide people with all of the social benefits AND have no laborers paying in to the benefit system. Importing lots of young labor rebalances the demographics and bolsters funding of benefits, at the expense of a housing crisis and social tensions. The alternative is to deeply cut benefits, which is po…

Exactly. Immigration is largely a symptom of declining birth rates. If the birth rate is above replacement, guess what, no immigrants needed!

If that is the case why is Canadas population expanding almost faster than ever recorded???

You would think to combat birthdates you would increase immigration to an appropriate level not 10x it in 5 years.

Secondly immigration has a complicated affect on demographics since the people coming are generally 21 or older which is very clearly different than a birth which starts at 0 years old

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