Canada: As the GDP has increased, the quality of life has decreased

[marmar]

from the Toronto Star:



Jim Coyle
Feature Writer


By the measure of a sophisticated new yardstick to be released Thursday, Canadian prosperity is poorly shared, our workers are run ragged, and we generally “are not having as much fun” as we once did.

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing, a dozen years in the making, is intended to do what standard economic tools such as Gross Domestic Product cannot — namely, to measure not just the economy, but how people and communities, the environment and our democracy are faring.

Roy Romanow, former Saskatchewan premier and chair of the CIW advisory board, told the Star the project puts “scientific underpinning” to a widespread, intuitive sense that though the GDP might rise, circumstances for the majority of Canadians have not been keeping pace.

In fact, the report says that while the GDP increased by 31 per cent from 1994 to 2008, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing rose just 11 per cent. Moreover, the wealthiest 20 per cent of people received the lion's share of that growth, while the gap to the bottom 20 per cent grew even larger. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1072744--new-canadian-index-of-wellbeing-reveals-how-canadians-are-really-faring?bn=1

[Kat45]

1. I didn't realize Canada was going in the same direction as we are.

At least the negative impact is being noticed and articulated. Don't tend to hear that from many people in government here.

>He called the report a “major wake-up call” to governments at all levels that “we've got to rebalance our social and economic programs in order to give more meaning to >individual lives.”

[roamer65]

2. The price of maintaining a Canadian dollar at par with the US dollar.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. I think the high prices of natural resources has a lot to do

with the strength of the Canadian dollar (just like with the Aussie dollar). I'm not sure if Canada actually wants to maintain their dollar at its current level. Certainly, in the case of Japan, the Japanese government doesn't like the current heights of the yen, and the Bank of Japan has tried market intervention to bring it down, but to no avail.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. I just read where the Bank of Japan is considering a 5 trillion yen intervention

(5 trillion yen = $60+ billion) to bring the yen down a bit. Sometimes the markets price a currency higher than the issuing country wants it to be.

[snot]

3. The oligarchs have been working on doing the same things there that they've done here.

Seriously; I first noticed the trend a few years ago, and suspect it started much earlier.

[glinda]

4. Yes. The conservatives and also American bizzos are now ruining Canada.