On Sat, 02 Nov 2024 16:29:27 +0000, Lee says...
At this point in the Trump presidency
unemployment was 6.9%.
Sorry, pole-puffer... that was the Democrats' fault for locking everything down, after their fellow colluders released their weapon of mass
infection.
=====
Canada:
'Worst In The World': Here Are All The Rankings In Which Canada Is Now Last
Most Unaffordable Housing, Highest Cell phone Bills And Worst Rate of Acute Care Beds, To Name A Few
If you spend any time on social media, it's likely that you've seen this
graphic compiled by columnist Stephen Lautens that assembles 11 international
indices which feature Canada near the top spot. "Canada is broken? I don't
think so. Neither does the world," reads a caption.
Next time someone rants on how about how "broken" Canada is; or how badly we
are doing on the international stage... share some facts.
Numbers don't lie, Felicia.
https://archive.is/o/LnFRL/https://twitter.com/DIGuideBradley/status/1554545079314010112
Naturally, it only tells a partial picture. While Canada may dominate abstract
indices such as "quality of life" and "peace," there are plenty of far more
empirical indicators in which we measurably rank as among the worst in the
developed world.
There's plenty to like about Canada, but below is a not-at-all comprehensive
list of all the ways in which we are indeed very broken.
WE HAVE THE MOST UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is essentially a
club of the world's 38 most developed countries. And when these 38 are ranked
against each other for housing unaffordability, Canada emerges as the clear
champion. OECD analysts rank affordability by comparing average home prices to
average incomes, and according to their latest quarterly rankings Canada was
No. 1 for salaries that were most out of whack with the cost of a home.
Housing by price to income ratio for the second quarter of 2022. That's Canada
on the extreme right.
https://archive.is/LnFRL/840da40d6fa3b7fef6fcccdfc1637d24e0786760.webp
WE HAVE THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE WIRELESS COSTS
Every year, the Finnish telecom analyst Rewheel ranks the world's most
expensive countries for wireless services. And last year, Canada once again
dominated. Across several metrics, Canada was found to be the most expensive
place in the world for mobile data. Analysts found that it would cost the
average Canadian the equivalent of at least 100 Euros to obtain a cell phone
plan with at least 100 gigabytes of mobile data. Across much of the EU, that
kind of cell phone plan could be had for less than 40 Euros.
https://archive.is/LnFRL/822bcfe750687b1ef6288ee7df5606fd15629289.webp
Canadian telecoms charge more than 10 times as much for 100 gigabytes of mobile
data as companies in France or Ireland.
Canadian telecoms charge more than 10 times as much for 100 gigabytes of mobile
data as companies in France or Ireland. Photo by Rewheel
WE HAVE THE LOWEST RATE OF ACUTE CARE BEDS AMONG PEER COUNTRIES
Canada's health system was particularly walloped by COVID-19 due to the simple
fact that most of our hospitals are at the breaking point even in good times.
Multiple times during the pandemic, provinces were forced into shutdown by
rates of COVID that had barely been noticed in better-prepared countries. A
ranking by the Canadian Institute for Health Information provides one clue as
to why. When ranked against peer countries, Canada's rate of per-capita acute
care beds was in last place, albeit tied with Sweden. Canada has two acute care
beds for every 1,000 people, against 3.1 in France and six in Germany.
TWO OF THE PLANET'S "BUBBLIEST" REAL ESTATE MARKETS ARE IN CANADA
For at least 15 years now, Canada has been a regular contender on rankings of
overheated housing markets. And the latest UBS index of world cities with
"bubbly" real estate markets is no exception. In their 2021 index, Toronto was
second only to Frankfurt in terms of bubble risk, while Vancouver ranked sixth.
Aside from Germany, Canada was the only country that saw two of its cities in
the top ten.
https://archive.is/LnFRL/1961e904e18e8cb533ff42c2eae7beb611827bd4.webp
Only two cities in the entire Western Hemisphere qualified as likely "bubble
risks," and they're both in Canada.
Only two cities in the entire Western Hemisphere qualified as likely "bubble
risks," and they're both in Canada. Photo by UBS Global Real Estate Bubble
Index 2021
WE RACKED UP COVID DEBT FASTER THAN ANYONE ELSE
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in the most feverish global accumulation of debt
in the history of human civilization. So it's rather remarkable that amidst
this international monsoon of debt, Canada still managed to out-debt everyone
else. Last year, analysts at Bloomberg tracked each country's rate of public
and private debt accumulated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada came in with an overall debt burden equivalent to 352 per cent of GDP.
While a handful of countries (Japan, France and Hong Kong) came out of the
pandemic with higher overall debt burdens, Canada outranked all of them when it
came to how quickly that debt had been accumulated.
Containers on rail cars waiting to be shipped east by rail at the Port of
Vancouver Tuesday, June 21, 2022. Photo by (Photo by Jason Payne/ PNG)
https://archive.is/LnFRL/5b7e25218f55d343b998db94c6748b57312dafaf.webp
THE PORT OF VANCOUVER IS (ALMOST) THE MOST INEFFICIENT IN THE WORLD
Last year - just as the global supply chain crisis got going - the World Bank
decided to rank the performance of the world's 370 major ports. Authors weighed
factors such as how long the ports kept ships waiting, and how long crews took
to unload a vessel. And when everything was added together, the Port of
Vancouver ranked 368 out of 370. The only places with worse scores were the
Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. And it's not like our other
ports are much better. If Vancouver is too gummed up, you can always sail north
to Prince Rupert, which ranks 339 out of 370.
https://archive.is/LnFRL/ac861be6fb2f37d1463e7670c232b5cd548d5395.webp
Take that, Los Angeles and Long Beach. Photo by World Bank Group
Queues at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Photo by Peter J.
Thompson/National Post
https://archive.is/LnFRL/b32f7be38081069e5e696a0029996f6f3adaa760.webp
TORONTO PEARSON IS THE WORLD'S MOST-DELAYED AIRPORT
Flight delays are another category in which basically the entire world is
feeling the pinch. And yet, Canada still managed to outdo all of them. Last
month, CNN used data from the website FlightAware to figure out which airports
were seeing the highest rates of flight delays. In the number one spot was
Toronto Pearson, with 52 per cent of all flights out of the airport
experiencing some kind of delay. And it was a commanding lead; the second-place
finisher, Frankfurt, only managed to see 45.4 per cent of its flights delayed.
Toronto was also a contender in flight cancellations; with 6.9 per cent of its
scheduled flights never getting off the ground, it ranked fourth worst in the
world.
WE'RE ONE OF THE WORLD'S WORST ECONOMIES FOR FOREIGN INVESTMENT
A 2020 study out of the University of Calgary tracked foreign investment flows
into a cross-section of developed countries between 2015 and 2019. Virtually
every country on the list saw a surge in foreign cash during that period;
Ireland topped out the ranking thanks to its foreign investment climbing by
more than 115 per cent. Only four countries actually saw a reduction in foreign
investment: Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Canada. A report by the Business
Council of Canada noticed the same trend. "Canada is the second-worst in the
OECD on openness to foreign direct investment," it concluded.
https://archive.is/LnFRL/222c5fba154990485338650dcb55e413d85e080c.webp
WE DRIVE THE MOST FUEL-INEFFICIENT VEHICLES IN THE WORLD
In 2019, the International Energy Agency examined the fuel economy of the
world's private car fleets. On almost every measure, Canada led the pack in
driving unnecessarily huge, gas-guzzling vehicles. Per kilometre driven, the
average Canadian burned more fuel and emitted more carbon dioxide than anyone
else. Canadian cars were also the largest and (second only to the U.S.) the
heaviest. While it would be convenient to blame this on Canada being a sparse,
cold country with lots of heavy industry, our ranking was well beyond plenty of
other countries where that was similarly the case.