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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter
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- Oct 07 (28) - Choosing the most
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Our economic dependence on high health care spending. Review of
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Responsibility:
Tom Sgouros
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Sat, 09 Jul 2005
O Canada
Read this,
and then let's talk about real economic development.
For those too lazy to click, the story is about how Toyota is about
to open a huge new factory in Ontario, rather than in Alabama or
Mississippi, because of the quality of the education there, and
because health care costs are cheaper there.
The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and
provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover
research, training and infrastructure costs.
Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double
that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money
would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary
for the Woodstock project.
He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new
plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and
Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In
Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate
workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.
"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is
so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.
In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to
$5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care
system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.
Via dailykos.
16:54 - 09 Jul 2005 [/y5/jy]
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