Blackrock continues to demonstrate that they’re a bunch of idiots living in a financial delusion.
Yep, read it as “Blackrock needs 100 million people in Canada by 2100 to steal money from so that our line go up”.
It’s like, these folks are stuck looking at the economy through its metadata, which is known to be inaccurate, sometimes severely. If you think about the real resources needed to provide a basic living for the aging population, it’s pretty obvious that we have no significant problems doing it.
Isn’t the world’s population supposed to peak by 2070 and then decline? Sounds like a capitalist going on about the need for endless growth to make him billions. Has anyone thought about what Canada would be like to live in if there were 70 million extra people?
From Wiki
Mark Wiseman (born 1970)[1] is a Canadian businessman and financier. He is currently the chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation.[2] He was formerly a manager at BlackRock. Prior to 2016, Wiseman was President and CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
somehow I dont think this guy really gives a shit about a single one of the people in Canada, other than how much money we can make him
Well, Canada is a vast country with only 40 million people in it. Honestly pretty much everything said in the article is pretty reasonable. If you read through he points out the economic benefits of a growing population, but cautions that there needs to be a coordinated build-out of housing, transit, and social infrastructure like childcare. It’s not really anything crazy. The article was put out in 2019 and states a population of 37 million, it’s 2024 and we’ve ticked past 41 million. It’s more or less on track, except for all that infrastructure of course.
It’s more or less on track, except for all that infrastructure of course.
Infrastructure is the key part. Our lives are worse since 2019, as shown by our record low fertility rate. I don’t think the population growth of the last five years was the cause of our polycrisis, but it certainly exacerbated it.
Sounds reasonable if you think of the country as big. Attracting migrants is necessary as the birth rate in most educated countries is negative so the population, if left to itself, is declining. Migrants will mostly want to live in cities and probably the bigger ones with more opportunities. The infrastructure will mostly be needed to expand the big cities which will make them a lot less inviting. That might be less of an issue as everything electrified on the way to a low carbon economy, the smog will reduce as will some of the noise.
If we need 100 million people to sustain the economy, we need a different economic system. We have over 40 million people now and I can only stand to be around about six of you.
Hi :)
If we stop growing we will have a smaller economy. If we stop growing, we’ll be less important in the world, as the rest of the world grows around us.
The planet will not sustain human life in 2100 if every country believes in this crap.
Stop rewarding growth and start rewarding sustainability.
Sustainability isn’t as profitable
Wiseman added that a larger population means greater contributions into social programs like health care and education. However, he also cautioned that an eye towards large-scale growth will also require immediate action to build out transit, housing, education and – crucially – child care, which would allow a greater number of women to contribute to the workforce.
Our governments can’t plan a few years ahead, let alone decades. We haven’t been able to line up healthcare, child care, transit, or housing improvements to cover the relatively small population increase of the last ten years.
If we want to have 100 million people, we need to build a country that can support them. We struggle to adequately support our existing population.
We need to build more and denser housing. We need a better transportation plan than everyone driving a SUV down the 401. We need a healthcare system that can support everyone.
he also cautioned that an eye towards large-scale growth will also require immediate action to build out transit, housing, education and – crucially – child care
That’s nice. You going to pay the taxes needed to do it, uncle moneybags?
Because right now, you and your crew are lobbying to reduce funding so that none this happens. You want childcare and transit and housing? Fucking pay for it.
Jesus, these twits are tone-deaf…
So if we need to grow our population to 100M by 2100 in order to have nice things, what happens when we reach that goal? Would we finally be able to have nice things with that population or would Mr Wiseman Prime say we need to grow our population to 200M by 2200 in order to have nice things? If yes, then it’s clearly not possible to have nice things under this model. If no, then we don’t need to grow our population to 100M in order to have nice things. And by we I mean the majority of Canadians, the workers. I do understand that Mr Wiseman cannot get a lot more nice things from the current population.
I’m loosing my fucking mind when listening to people able to ignore so much of reality while making sweeping policy agendas that will drastically affect the reality of most Canadians.
Mr Wiseman Prime say we need to grow our population to 200M by 2200
That wouldn’t keep the line going up. He would probably say 1B by 2200.
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Edit: okay, that turned into a bit of a ramble :)
TLDR: at some point, we have to come to terms with the fact that Earth has not got infinite space or an infinity of resources. The sooner we start acting on that knowledge, the better for everyone.
Why would we ever want even more people when we struggle to properly serve the current population? And we’ve struggled for many years. Immigration is critically important, not for population, but for diversity. Monoculture in all forms is weakness.
I have no problem with urban lifestyles and actually miss some aspects of it. But we are rapidly losing our ability to support alternative lifestyles. Small cities that once thrived now struggle. Towns and villages are becoming less viable. Yet campgrounds are collapsing under the weight of demand.
I’ve lived my whole life, 67 years, in Saskatchewan. Our population grew by 10-20 percent during the time that Canada’s population grew by 50 percent or more. In the 1960s an 70s it was rare to not be able to find openings at any campground on the spur of the moment. That started changing in the 80s and 90s when popular places would fill up on long weekends. By 2000, we had to start making reservations. Today, all but the most out of the way campgrounds require weeks or even months of planning and, often, all but the earliest of birds are shut completely out.
It may seem strange to focus on campgrounds, but I think that this demand is at least partly driven by the loss of non-urban choices in lifestyle. To a first approximation, it was never the villagers and farmers and ranchers who were driving campground demand, but the residents of cities. If everything is to be urbanised, what is left for those for who would choose something different? If we cannot serve the variety of human needs or even such a simple and basic human need to occasionally escape, what hope is there for anything else?
At some point, whether in 50 years or 500, we are going to have to find ways to deal with steady or even falling populations. Nothing about this little rock is infinite. The sooner we recognize that and start building our economies, societies, and institutions accordingly, the less aggressively we need to act. And the less aggressively we need to act, the easier it will be on people, businesses, and nature.
Speaking of resources, I do not recall the exact number, I believe it was around half of Earth’s population today is fed by artificial fertilizer production.
Which I guess would mean that a whole lot of people would go hungry if we stopped doing that.
I’m not suggesting that there is something inherently evil about artificial fertilizers, but the scale of use is likely a problem.
Keep in mind this is an American opinion site and they don’t often understand how America is different from other G7s.
Or how canada is really only a G7 because we are America’s +1
God, save us from our own stupidity, we seem unable to do it ourselves
If BlackRock thinks that population growth in Canada is important, it seems to me they’re actually in a far better position to make that happen than the average Canadian.
BlackRock owns a fuck ton of property in Canada, they are in a strong position to make rents and housing, much more affordable. Which will drive the economy up significantly.
Families will be more willing to “grow the population’ if they’re not allocating 50+ percent of their income towards housing.
Affordable housing also makes us a better destination people immigrating to Canada.
But that would require BlackRock to be less greedy… so
I think you’re mixing up Blackrock and Blackstone… Blackstone is the one that’s far, far more heavily into real estate.
BlackRock owns a fuck ton of property in Canada, they are in a strong position to make rents and housing, much more affordable
Do they, though? Managing funds doesn’t actually mean owning the assets in those funds
“Cells must continue to divide uncontrollably!” says cancerous tumour.
So we have a smaller economy, so fucking what!? Does line always have to go up? Can we not just make a reasonable profit and cover expenses with a little bit left over for a nice dinner out? Are you fuckers not already rich enough?
Tell you what, here’s the deal: you have have a hundred million people if we can have marginal tax rates like it’s 1960 again.
The problem is world power. Economic power is the power of the day, and to have it, you need population. The biggest powers in the world have hundreds of millions of people. Our closest ally and neighbour has over 400,000,000 people.
we can either, grow our population and therefore our basic economic engine capabilities with that, or, not participate in the leadership at a world stage (like the G7).
That’s the existential question you have to ask. what do you want for Canada?
1990s: “Holy shit, we have to do something about population growth!”
2020s: “Holy shit, we have to do something about population shrink!”
Welp, a bigger economy is how we can increase the feasibility of having HSR built in Canada so bring it on.
Wiseman added that a larger population means greater contributions into social programs like health care and education.
If you’re loosing 5c per unit on an item you can’t make up for it with more volume. 40M people already can’t cover the costs of government services for 40M people.
40M people already can’t cover the costs of government services for 40M people.
Can’t cover it when so much of the produced surplus is diverted to a few large pockets even before the tax man has a go.
There is more than enough overall wealth in this country to pay for all that. If we’re just willing to be honest and fair with what taxation should look like.
I think the issue that most people are missing is that we need to increase our tax-paying population because our social safety net is going to be drained by the aging boomers. We’re not having kids so if we still want to fund things like CPP, EI, healthcare, etc, we need to replace that population and then some.
We could choose not to allow an influx of immigration but then we may be sacrificing some of those social services I mentioned.
