do people who live in Canada or know a lot about it have an opinion?
here in the US regulatory capture (where people who benefit from a particular private industry take over or bribe the government agencies that regulate these industries to pass laws that keep prices high, quality low and limit competition) is a problem.
I always considered Canada more mature and centered on their citizens well being, but in Canada housing has been priced out of the reach of most native born middle class citizens.
I’ve also heard telecommunications isn’t good there (high prices, poor service, lack of options).
is it a serious problem there too? does it apply to anything other than housing or telecommunications?
It’s a problem here for sure, telecom is one of the worst. They claim geography is a limiting factor but most people don’t believe it. We have 3 major players nationally, one of the big 3 is currently trying to takeover a smaller regional network (Rogers>Shaw) but it hopefully won’t be approved.
You can probably tell by looking at the portion of the economy controlled by the richest. In the U.S., for example, it’s said that the richest 20 pct own almost 90 pct of the country’s wealth. In places like Singapore, crony capitalism is ranked among the highest. In the Philippines, the richest 40 families earn the equivalent of 75 pct of the country’s annual earnings. Worldwide, only around 500 (mostly financial) corporations control much of the global economy. And in Canada, something like a quarter of the country’s wealth is owned by the top 1 pct.
In which case, if regulatory capture is also the phenomenon where gov’t works in favor of the rich, then it becomes inevitable in such economies.