Because Johnny can't read

[unixronin]

(Snagged from james_nicoll)

CBC reports that Toyota will be building a new 1,300-worker auto manufacturing plant in Woodstock, Ontario, starting in 2008, instead of in the US, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered by several US states.  Why?

"[Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association president Garry Fedchun] 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."

Hey, is that the sound of pigeons coming home to roost that I hear?

Fedchun also commented that Ontario workers are $4 to $5 per hour cheaper to employ because they're covered by Canada's socialized healthcare system, instead of by the US morass of health-insurance-for-profit.

"What we have done for auto we would like to be able to do for biotech," he said. "That's where we're lending some real focus to at the present time."

Similarly, Emmerson said Ottawa is looking to help out industries that create "clusters" of jobs around them - such as in aerospace, shipbuilding, telecommunications and forestry - where supply bases build around a large manufacturer.

I don't know about you, but this sounds like Canada's fixing to eat America's economic lunch.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good system, if it could be made to work over the screams of the healthcare-for-profit industry.

Additionally, I think a lot of the cost problem could be alleviated simply by requiring that all healthcare providers operate as not-for-profit operations. Apart from anything else, it would reduce the incentive to perform "sexy", high-profit procedures that have dubious medical benefits or don't actually provide any better long-term prognosis for the patient than other, less glamorous but less profitable procedures.

I personally think there's also a great deal to be said for a single-payer setup, but I'm not sure immediately how to fit that into a two-layer system like this.