mr the teapots said:

The taxi driver's brother.

I took a "taxi tour" in Belfast and his brother moved to Toronto. (He says that a lot of them have.)

death2me said:

Insulin.

. said:

I just find it amazing that you can travel around the world, and you'll never see anything Canadian.

You can be in any city in the world, and you'll see British pubs, Swiss Rolex watches, German beer gardens, German BMWs & Mercedes, American Nikes, Coca-Cola, iPhones, Microsoft Windows, Starbucks, Walmart, Brazilian restaurants, Korean LG & Samsung phones, Japanese Honda & Toyota cars, Japanese Nintendo Wii, Japanese sushi restaurants, Ethiopian restaurants, French Louis Vuitton bags, products, services, stores, restaurants, bars associated with countries all over the world.

But you'll never see anything that people would identify as Canadian.

. said:

. said:

I just find it amazing that you can travel around the world, and you'll never see anything Canadian.

You can be in any city in the world, and you'll see British pubs, Swiss Rolex watches, German beer gardens, German BMWs & Mercedes, American Nikes, Coca-Cola, iPhones, Microsoft Windows, Starbucks, Walmart, Brazilian restaurants, Korean LG & Samsung phones, Japanese Honda & Toyota cars, Japanese Nintendo Wii, Japanese sushi restaurants, Ethiopian restaurants, French Louis Vuitton bags, products, services, stores, restaurants, bars associated with countries all over the world.

But you'll never see anything that people would identify as Canadian.

That''s simply because Canada's largest corporations tend to produce intermediary or semi-processed goods purchased by other corporations. They tend not to be producers of end-consumer products that the average sepp would be aware of.

. said:

And Egypt used to build pyramids.

But look at Canada & Australia today. All you hicks do is export natural resources. You guys don't contribute anything to the tech sector. You guys are no better than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Nigeria, except that you have lighter skin.

. said:

That''s simply because Canada's largest corporations tend to produce intermediary or semi-processed goods purchased by other corporations. They tend not to be producers of end-consumer products that the average sepp would be aware of.

. said:

ok, so if you yourself owned a piece of real estate that happened to contain a massive oil reservoir or a rich vein of valuable minerals, what would you do? Ignore all that and start manufacturing cell phones or cars or some such increasingly low-margin business ? Only a fucking sepp would be this stupid.

. said:

Same with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Canada, Australia all basically have the same type of economy. They export natural resources. That's it. No engineering or science needed. No creative thinking needed. No globally competitive business needed.

Canada tried being a thinking-person's economy. But after Nortel and RIM Blackberry failed, they've come to accept the fact that they just can't compete in engineering & science, and they should just sit back, export natural resources, and play hockey.

. said:

. said:

ok, so if you yourself owned a piece of real estate that happened to contain a massive oil reservoir or a rich vein of valuable minerals, what would you do? Ignore all that and start manufacturing cell phones or cars or some such increasingly low-margin business ? Only a fucking sepp would be this stupid.

I would do both. Which is what USA did, in building America into the world's super power. USA was the largest producer of oil in the world. At the same time, USA was the global center of industrial production and technological innovation.

mr the teapots said:

You think you don't need engineering to mine diamonds in the high arctic

Looks like Canadians are using American (Caterpillar) and Japanese (Hitachi) equipment for their artic mining.









With the collapse of Nortel & RIM Blackberry, I think it's safe to say that Canadian engineering is dead.

. said:

Israel is a developed country with a GDP over $100 billion. They don't need to leech anything.

.

. said:

This line of thinking made sense a hundred years ago when resource prices were cheap and the US effectively had first-mover advantage. Now the whole world is becoming developed, manufacturing margins are being squeezed to the vanishing point by the chinks and others

. said:

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Canada, Australia. Countries that just export natural resources.

. said:

Comparing Israel to countries of 100 million people just shows how impressive Israel is.

30 mill for Canada and 20 mill for the Aussies so about thethe same asthe world jewery total

db said:

OEM is very Canadian. So polite that we'll make you something and you can put your logo on it.

The USA uses you as our africans. I hope we shut more plants down in your barren wasteland.

. said:

. said:

This line of thinking made sense a hundred years ago when resource prices were cheap and the US effectively had first-mover advantage. Now the whole world is becoming developed, manufacturing margins are being squeezed to the vanishing point by the chinks and others

And this is a GOOD thing for companies like Apple, since they enjoy HUGE profit margins, while their contract manufacturers in China have razor thin profit margins.

Tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft enjoy huge profit margins.

Exporting natural resources works in the short-term. But you better have something to build upon when that dries up. And if your country has a massive brain drain, with all the best engineers & scientists leaving, then your country will end up as a barren wasteland full of morons.

. said:

The premise of the question is flawed.

It's like asking why does Tokyo or Paris produce so much of what comes out of Japan or France.

Talented people born in Canada move to cities like NYC and LA all the time. It's not because America is "better," it's because Canadians speak the same language and the country is too small to have any Alpha level cities of their own.

More and more talented people are ending up in Beijing and Shanghai these days though. When China overtakes the US in terms of economic power in the next couple decades, it's going to be interesting to see what happens when the "brain drain" starts moving out of the US instead of in, as it has for most of the country's history.