this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Canada’s living standards alarmingly on track to be the lowest in 40 years: study (nationalpost.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Keep in mind that our standard of living while at its lowest point in 40 years is still among the top two or three in the world. The propagandist never mention that while they're pushing their grievance politics.

And to be very clear, electing a Conservative government that will cut taxes on the rich and cut services to everyone else to pay for it will crash or standard of living. Never trust s politician who says, "Elect me because I'm not the other guy and I'll fix everything" but never tells you how. The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is the fact that he's not going to fix everything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

“never tells you how”. Regardless of right or left politics, this is damn good advice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've been alive for decades and at no point in my life has a conservative politican ever done anything to actually make my life better.

At best, they do some temporary tax cut bullshit that ends up just fucking us worse in 3-4 years time.

Liberals aren't perfect by any stretch, by at least it seems like two steps forward one step back.

With conservatives it's always somersaults backwards.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Conservatives always do the same thing. They cut taxes giving billions of dollars to the rich and cut services for everyone else. (Just a note, here...if you don't use a million dollar yacht as a runabout for your billion dollar yacht you are the poor that they are referring to when they say, "We don't want our tax dollars going to support the poor." They're taking about you, not for you.) They cut revenue and try to cut spending to make it up but always fail, running up the deficit and the debt, neglecting the military, government, and infrastructure leaving not only a fiscal debt but also an operational/maintenance debt until they are voted out of office. Then the next Liberal government has to pay that debt by spending and the Conservatives complain that they are spending money like drunken sailors, run on, "We're not them and we're going to fix everything" without ever having a plan for HOW they're going to fix everything let alone the intention to fix everything, win, and start the cycle over again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I highly doubt the average canadian standard of living is higher than the average in countries like Switzerland, the scandinavian countries and some other well developed countries. They all have better social services, better access to public transit. Finland almost comepletely solved homelessness. We might still be in the top 10, but I doubt the top 3.

Edit: it can be difficult to gauge exactly how to measure QOL. This website tries to break down a few different metrics. Canada has a high QOL when reading US based news, otherwise well developed European countries dominate the list.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

15th? Out of 204? Yes pretty good.

This website says no. 3.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You've linked a US based site which my source implies tends to bias towards ranking Canada higher.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Perhaps we look better by comparison to their own country.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

Forty years... forty... years... I wonder if there was something *new *that our liberal democracy started forty years ago, where the focus shifted towards expanding economic growth at all costs.

New and different but still liberal. Neo maybe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Is that in Canadian Dollars?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

To be clear it's on track to be worse than the worst period led by a Conservatives without a pandemic.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Beyond the issues of it being NaPo and the Fraser Institute being the main interviewee, using per person GDP as a measure of living standards seems.... Wildly out of touch. There are no comments on consumer pricing index (with all its flaws).

Literally they hinge their proof of "living standards" on average GDP.

I don't even know how to begin addressing that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Per capita GDP is far better than what the government is using, which is total GDP that is technically slowly rising but not faster than our population growth rate.

CPI doesn't give near a good picture as per capita GDP does. CPI increases can be at or below target levels but if per capita GDP growth is negative it's still very bad. Having good per capita GDP data and bad CPI data and way, way less common, I'm even actually sure it's ever happened in modern times.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Interesting.

I wound up doing more of a dive into per capita GDP as a metric, and see more of the benefits of it, as well as why its used. I'm still not entirely sold on its benefits overall due to concerns over wealth inequality and "living standards" being averaged.

Thanks for pointing out CPI vs GDP/C differences!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

In theory wealth inequality can be getting worse as GDP per capita gets better, for sure.

But conversely, if wealth inequality is getting better while the GDP per capita is going down, most people will still be worse off which definitely isn't good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

The broad association with GDP per person is fine as a aggregate measure and the data is from Statcan.

Their interpretation of the data is clearly bias. I think anyone bothering to even skim the actual report data would come to a different conclusion.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5be97d4a-0894-4fa8-b99c-7d1bdcaeb03b.png

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure that’s a global problem.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

But if media can't blame the liberals for any issue, who can they blame? The conservatives? Not according to their owners, no siree, not this conservative mouthpiece.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago (2 children)

National Post is a US far right owned propaganda rag

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

They’re just saying things you don’t want to hear /s

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

For real.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Welp, better lower the taxes on the wealthy some more, then. Surely it will help this time

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It’ll trickle down any decade now.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I can hear something trickling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Oh that's just a billionaire peeing down.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Hopefully it’s blood off a guillotine blade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

All I hear is grunting and plopping.