"That's What Will Happen If Canada Stays On This Path" - Jordan Peterson

I've been tracking

economic statistics in relationship to

Canada and sort of left me open-mouthed

in amazement at our dismal condition.

So, from what I've been able to

understand, the richest people per

capita in terms of GDP per person,

um, gross domestic product per person,

so that's total productivity, is

Ontario.

And, uh,

Ontario inhabitants are now poorer per

capita than inhabitants of Mississippi,

and that's the poorest American state.

So, the inhabitants of Canada's richest

province are poorer than the inhabitants

of the United States' poorest state, and

that's actually occurred

primarily

in the last 10 years.

>> Yes. And

because we were basically at parity

before that. Yes.

>> And had historically been not quite as

rich as the Americans with some, you

know, blips above them, but pretty much

tracking them one-to-one. And now it's

60% something like that. And that's And

that's not all the bad news because it's

60% in terms of

absolute wealth and a real estate market

that's twice as expensive approximately

on average.

>> Yeah. Right. So, now and

>> bad. It's really incredible. Like 10

years ago, the New York Times wrote an

article,

"Welcome to Canada, we're home of the

world's most affluent middle class." And

in that article, the Times had

calculated that median American and

Canadian incomes were tied, and that

Canadians were slightly better off. And

now part of that was because of the '09

'08 '09 financial crisis hit them harder

than it hit us, but still

now per capita GDP in the states is

$22,000

higher than in Canada

measured in USD. So, that's about almost

30,000 measured in

>> Right. So, that's a whole other income

essentially. That's a whole other

part-time income.

>> Exactly. And, um,

and then as you correctly point out,

their real estate is significantly

cheaper than ours. So, their their

dollars go a lot further even when you

match up the exchange rates. Um, and

what's worse than that is that the

leading indicators are even more

horrific. And leading indicators, for

example, are investment dollars because

your wealth tomorrow is determined by

your investment today. So, if your

employer, for example, is buying lots of

new tools and technology, you're going

to be able to crank out more widgets.

Um, so you crank out those widgets, then

you can ultimately make more income down

the road.

If you take business investment and

divide it by the number of workers, the

American worker gets $28,000

of investment measured in US dollars.

This is per capita? Per worker.

>> Per worker. Per member of the labor

force. So, you take the total business

investment of the United States divided

by the total number workers in America

is 28 grand. In Canada, it's 15 grand.

So, we got a the Canadian worker gets

about 55 cents

for every dollar of his American and

they're both measured in USD. So,

how is the Canadian worker

>> in future productivity?

>> That's investment in, um,

in machines and technology, and

warehouses, factories,

um,

>> I see. any any capital investment that

businesses make divided by the number of

workers. That's the measurement. So, now

that means they're getting better

technology, better, um,

new machines, uh, better tools than our

workers, and they will be able to crank

out even greater wages for their people

than we will unless we catch up with

that.

Um, our productivity is another major

problem. Like right now,

and that's productivity sounds

complicated, it's actually extremely

simple. You just take the GDP and you

divide it by the hours worked in the

country.

So, American GDP is $80. So, for every

hour an American worker works on

average, he he or she produces $80 of

GDP of GDP. Mhm. In Canada, it's 50.

So, that's every hour. So, that means we

have to work 60% more just to make the

same amount uh, and have the same level

of, uh, income to buy food and housing.

So, that that's the Now, that sounds

like a bunch of wonk speak that should

only might seem like it it only matters

to someone staring at a spreadsheet or a

graph or a chart, but in fact, that's

reflected in the fact that our 2 million

people are lined up at food banks cuz

they can't afford food, and

80% of youth can't afford homes, and,

um, our quality of life is and the

things we can afford to provide our kids

have fallen back so much. There's real

real life.

>> and easily comprehensible statistic. I

mean, if you work and you produce $80

worth of goods and services in an hour

compared to working and producing 50,

obviously that's a substantial

shortfall.

>> Yeah. So, and is that Is there a starker

indicator of the economic disparity

between the US and Canada than that? Or

do you think that's the primary

statistic?

I mean, I think housing costs are

another one. I mean, there was a study

out just, uh,

10 days ago that has Toronto and

Vancouver now by far the most

unaffordable housing markets in North

America.

And so, you know, housing costs are

50% higher in Toronto than they are in

Chicago, even though Chicago workers

make 50% more money.

Uh, the same is true between Vancouver

and Seattle. Seattle workers make way

more than Vancouver workers,

but housing is 60 or 70% more expensive

in Vancouver. So, uh, on on all of the

measures

>> by a lot. Yeah. By a lot. By a lot.

>> Yeah.

>> And we're And we're paying more.

>> more by a lot. Right. And most of that's

transpired in the last 10 years.

>> Yes. And we're paying the difference by

accumulating enormous quantities of

debt. Our our households are by far the

most indebted in the G7. Uh, when you

take you divide total household debt by

GDP, we now have a bigger stock of of

household debt than our entire economy.

Um, we are more indebted as households

than the Americans were right before the

'08 financial crisis.

Yes. And, um,

so what we have as a model in Canada is

we have artificial scarcity imposed by

very heavy and restrictive state,

confiscatory state. So, that suppresses

production. Mhm.

But in order to allow for consumption,

we print money and borrow money, and

then flood the economy with that money.

>> Okay. So, that's another problem. So,

that's the inflationary problem. Now,

the problem with inflation Just many

problems with inflation, but one of them

is that it particularly punishes people

who are thrifty and who save.

>> Yes. Right. Right. So, inflation

punishes the people who forego

gratification to invest in the future.

That's right.

>> Right. So, that's a very bad idea.

>> It's a horrible I Inflation is the

single most in immoral tax for so many

reasons. One, it takes from savers and

people who are trying to be be

responsible, thus making it impossible

to be responsible because you will If

you If you refuse to to play the