# Thoughts from a dying man



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I was listening to this CBC podcast, and near the end there's an interview with a man named Mike Sloan. He has terminal cancer and has been given just a few months to live. He's been preparing his funeral and talking about his experience on Twitter.

Mike suffers from PTSD due to abuse he suffered as a child. He has severe depression, anxiety, and has not been able to work. Based on what I read here, his CPP+disability totals just 16K a year.

This part of the interview caught my attention:


_Interviewer_: What _won't_ you miss about being alive?

_Mike_: Quite frankly, I've been on Canada Pension and Ontario disability for 22 years and I will not miss poverty.​

Notice his answer wasn't the horrible experience of having cancer, or being abused as a child. He said that living in poverty (not having enough money) was the worst part of his life. I found this very interesting. It's a statement of just how horrible it is being trapped in poverty, only having enough to just scrape by with the absolute minimums.

In the interview, he also regrets being so harsh and angry on the internet.


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## Topo (Aug 31, 2019)

The biggest downside of poverty at that age is loss of hope. When one is young living on a low income (for example as a student), there is always that hope and expectation that things will change for the better. For someone in the situation of Mike, that hope is gone. Even under better circumstances, people get "midlife crises", which is basically a realization of the hope and potential that is fading away.

Another aspect is that most people are better adept at dealing with acute and short-lived difficulties. Something such as long-lasting poverty ultimately wears them down.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

It’s not the age that matters, true poverty sucks. I was there at a fairly early age, but also had a family to support making it worse. I didn’t qualify for any social safety nets either being self employed. It’s very depressing, I remember the doctors wanting to put me on meds, but the meds wouldn’t change my situation and I was depressed because of my situation. I didn’t see a way out as I was injured and couldn’t work...I had to think outside the box. Everyone around me kept saying just suck it up and get a job...wasn’t an option. My company was in free fall without me there, I didn’t have systems in place to replace me if I wasn’t available, So I learned investing, which everyone thought was nuts, too risky, unsafe, can’t be done, I also had no money...I was bleeding money personally and corporately. 

Time changed a lot of things...but I was also willing to change based on my situation, I didn’t give in to only one solution, getting a job. I went a different path, got out of poverty and debt a lot faster than I ever thought possible and now will never worry about that ever again. Still have chronic pain and stuff, but the worst Moments in my life often also proved to be the start of the path to the great parts of my life.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Too bad there isn't some easy obvious solution.
Simply handing over billions doesn't seem to be working.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

If it didn't suck, no one would be motivated to improve their lives. It is that motivation, and health of course, that one needs for a better life.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

There is an obvious solution. A sufficient universal basic income that replaces the myriad of conflicting benefit programs.

Take all the money that is spent on all the different benefits, add in the cost of administration of all those benefits, and provide one benefit to all below a specified income level.

Successive governments at different levels added their own election platform goodies to attract votes, instead of developing programs that actually work.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Another solution is to provide the necessities of shelter and food in a way that the current benefits are sufficient.

If the Ontario government allows $479 a month for lodging.........there should be lodging available for $479 a month.

I favor governments of all levels becoming involved in building micro homes so people can have their own secure residence. There could be a community kitchen set up at the site.

If there is an opportunity for the poor to work together to pool their resources, they can all benefit from it.

One example is tiny house villages where the cost of the individual homes are as low as $5000.

https://charterforcompassion.org/pr...he-homeless-an-affordable-solution-catches-on


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> There is an obvious solution. A sufficient universal basic income that replaces the myriad of conflicting benefit programs.
> 
> Take all the money that is spent on all the different benefits, add in the cost of administration of all those benefits, and provide one benefit to all below a specified income level.
> 
> Successive governments at different levels added their own election platform goodies to attract votes, instead of developing programs that actually work.


There isn't enough money.
People will just keep voting themselves more money until it goes bankrupt.

The second one is people don't want to live within their means.
It's like people complaining they can't live in Trendy Downtown Toronto neighbourhoods on Minimum wage.


Finally there is the basic concept of fairness, I spent a lot of time in my teens working hard at school, working a job to save for school, I then spent years living in "poverty" at university, while working.
Then I got a job, and half my paycheck goes to taxes, while there are people who demand more services and handouts.

The most offensive thing with UBI is the idea that people think everyone should just get a handout, and that people have no responsibility for taking care of themselves.

Just to pick on the subject of the article and podcast, this guy can put out over 60k tweets, but can't find ANYTHING he can do to generate value and earn some money? 
At 10 words/tweet he could have written 7 full length novels.
naw, lets just complain.


It's easy to sit on the sidelines and whine about what OTHER people should do, when you yourself don't do anything.

When I coached kids sports and had complaining or loud/bossy parents I'd suggest they become a coach, handing them the coach coordinators email was the QUICKEST way to get them to shut up.

Even here with UBI, people are calling for the government to take my money and give it away, I don't see anyone running a donation based trial with their money.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Taxpayers are already spending the money in a myriad of programs.

Issuing the money is only half of the problem. The other half is where the recipients have to spend the money to live.

In the article the guy gets $1300 a month in benefits. He pays $700 a month for apartment rental.

If the government built a mico-home for $10,000 he could pay $300 a month for utilities and a $50 a month repayment to the $10,000 cost.

That would put $350 a month into his pocket without increasing his monthly benefit.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> Taxpayers are already spending the money in a myriad of programs.
> 
> Issuing the money is only half of the problem. The other half is where the recipients have to spend the money to live.
> 
> ...


The problem is that government housing turns into an unmaintained disaster. Some people don't treat the homes with respect or care.
Forget the government building the micro home for $10k, allow private investors to build and rent microhomes.

Oh and you forgot property tax.

If the government didn't make it so risky to be a landlord, we'd have far more rental housing, at better rates. But the government has worked to systematically destroy the supply of affordable housing in this province.


I love how the proponents of UBI are promising that they'll find the needed billions in "efficiencies". Did they drink the Doug Ford Kool-Aid?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> There is an obvious solution. A sufficient universal basic income that replaces the myriad of conflicting benefit programs.
> 
> Take all the money that is spent on all the different benefits, add in the cost of administration of all those benefits, and provide one benefit to all below a specified income level.
> 
> Successive governments at different levels added their own election platform goodies to attract votes, instead of developing programs that actually work.


No lets not do that to them. Let's give them a chance. Apart from this guy, the other people's lives are not over yet. Let's not end them. Let's keep them motivated so they can obtain a better life.


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

sags said:


> Another solution is to provide the necessities of shelter and food in a way that the current benefits are sufficient.
> 
> If the Ontario government allows $479 a month for lodging.........there should be lodging available for $479 a month.
> 
> ...


The government could not even run a bubble gum machine. The native reserves are a complete mess from all the free handouts. The government already does to much enabling providing shelter, food & millions & millions of free needles that are showing up everywhere on the streets. Each fox each wolf each rabbit provides for their own existence or is granted none @ all. It is not a right for someone not to take responsibility for themselves & force someone else to do it that is not their parents.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

I just love the lefts idea that they'll be able to implement UBI and fire >100k administrators?

Yeah, the unions will love that.
Heck the teachers are digging in to fight online courses, and online courses are where education is today.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> No lets not do that to them. Let's give them a chance. Apart from this guy, the other people's lives are not over yet. Let's not end them. Let's keep them motivated so they can obtain a better life.


Motivate them by trapping them on welfare, disability, etc... Great idea.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> No lets not do that to them. Let's give them a chance. Apart from this guy, the other people's lives are not over yet. Let's not end them. Let's keep them motivated so they can obtain a better life.


You make the assumption that people collecting benefits are able to work. 

In order to collect CPP disability a person has to provide substantial medical proof they are unable to work. They also have to have paid CPP contributions for a number of years before applying for disability. These are people who were working before they became permanently disabled.

The WSIB "deems" people who have reached maximum medical recovery and have severe work limitations to have a fake job with fake earnings. 

They then deduct the fake earnings from the benefit. In many cases, it means the injured person collects no benefit from WSIB at all.

This forces those people onto social assistance. It is another example of people who cannot work even if they wanted to and who previously worked before applying for benefits.

I doubt a lot of seniors collecting OAS/GIS are able to continue to work. The only social benefit where I see there is fraud is among able bodied people collecting welfare.

I doubt the number of fraudulent claims is worth basing government policy on it.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Motivate them by trapping them on welfare, disability, etc... Great idea.


I said NOT to trap them on welfare and disability. You quoted Sags suggestion.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> You make the assumption that people collecting benefits are able to work.
> 
> In order to collect CPP disability a person has to provide substantial medical proof they are unable to work. They also have to have paid CPP contributions for a number of years before applying for disability. These are people who were working before they became permanently disabled.
> 
> ...


I agree that our current support system is a disaster.
We should fix it, simplify it and streamline it.

I think it should be more fair and more level.

However as it is, it's a very expensive, widely ineffective poverty trap, and there are powerful entities who are enriched by the poverty industry. 
The idea of a UBI as a way to cut out all the waste and expensive administration is very appealing.
However the unions that do all that administration will NEVER let go of those jobs.

I do think most people are able to do something of value that someone would be willing to pay for.
This is good for them, it's good for their health, and gives their lives purpose. This is very well documented in research.

My biggest concern is that UBI, if implemented as suggested by many.
1. Won't be fair - The Ontario trial was flagrantly discriminatory in selection, and payment amounts.
2. Won't result in any significant reduction in overhead, red tape or administrative costs, because the unions will fight it.
3. Will disincentive work and doing things of value, resulting in worse quality of life for the recipients.

My basis for that was.
1. The trial was set up in a discriminatory manner, and I believe that identify politics is only getting worse.
2. I can't imagine the NDP or Liberals campaigning on a program to cut 10's or hundreds of thousands of union jobs, and still get elected.
3. Nobody has proposed a solution to this, if anything they don't understand how having a purpose in life is so important. It's like they haven't gotten a basic understanding of psychology & sociology.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> You make the assumption that people collecting benefits are able to work.


I have never once said that we should cut disability benefits. I am for seniors benefits as well, for the same reason. Motivation cannot help these people, but for the ones that it can, we do them a big disservice by reducing that motivation, with these low income amounts, but enough to kill that little extra desire that is required to succeed. Obviously the person who might get it will disagree but you will never see me turn down a free dollar either, whether I need it or not.

I am not posting with respect to this individual dying person's need. I am posting against the stupidity of guaranteed minimum income for all. It is just a jobs killer, a GDP killer and a living standard killer for all. Mostly for those getting it, but a living standard killer for all, to some degree.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> I have never once said that we should cut disability benefits. I am for seniors benefits as well, for the same reason. Motivation cannot help these people, but for the ones that it can, we do them a big disservice by reducing that motivation, with these low income amounts, but enough to kill that little extra desire that is required to succeed. Obviously the person who might get it will disagree but you will never see me turn down a free dollar either, whether I need it or not.
> 
> I am not posting with respect to this individual dying person's need. I am posting against the stupidity of guaranteed minimum income for all. It is just a jobs killer, a GDP killer and a living standard killer for all. Mostly for those getting it, but a living standard killer for all, to some degree.


And a quality of life killer for those who receive it.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> And a quality of life killer for those who receive it.


As opposed to the wonderfully fulfilling life they could lead if they had no benefits, no money and lived on the streets.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I believe that for the vast majority of people, collecting minimum government benefits is forced upon them by circumstances beyond their control.

Others may disagree, but I doubt many enjoy living a life well below the poverty line and would choose to live that life instead of getting a job.

A single person in Ontario receives less that $800 a month on welfare. Does that amount encourage people to live that lifestyle ? 

I think not. Maybe people should give it a try for a few months to see how it is.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> As opposed to the wonderfully fulfilling life they could lead if they had no benefits, no money and lived on the streets.


I said no such thing.
I think we need to dramatically improve our support systems. 

It's interesting, if you criticize the bad parts of certain policies, such as UBI, people tend to respond by attacking an imaginary position you don't even hold.


Lets start with some reasonable proposals.
Basic personal deduction of $30k/yr
Single person welfare rates of $16k, and only a 50% clawback of benefits for any money earned. 

Mandatory drug screening and treatment programs.
Improved mental health support services.

Some sort of skills development/pathway to productivity of some sort


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

*Poverty reduction*

To improve housing.

Get rid of rent hike limits, or raise them to a reasonable level of at least 10% above inflation.
Expedite evictions to less than 1 month
Allow security deposits - Or develop a method to cover landlords for tenant damage.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> As opposed to the wonderfully fulfilling life they could lead if they had no benefits, no money and lived on the streets.


If that does not motivate them to get a job, do you seriously think giving them more money will motivate them to finally get one? 

I am not saying they are currently living the life of Riley so lets not give them anymore money. I am saying that unless you set them up with an above average lifestyle, they will never achieve one if you reduce their motivation by giving them less then that. As we both know, they obviously have not been motivated enough already, so to reduce it further is criminal, in my opinion.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> Single person welfare rates of $16k, and only a 50% clawback of benefits for any money earned.


Do you have any idea how long a kid would remain on their parent's couches if they had $16,000 coming in for sitting there. Their lives would be delayed until they meet another person sitting on their parent's couch who also is given $16,000 per year and then they would maybe, just maybe move in together. No need to get a job now.

Now the big question is. If all these future workers are now sitting on couches thinking about what they would like to be in life, who is working to pay them their money. There are a lot fewer jobs because every employer now has to compete with $16,000 for free. What is the minimum they would need to pay these untrained individuals to get them to actually go to work? You tell me.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The example that you use would not qualify for CPP disability, EI, WSIB or anything other than social benefits (welfare)

A single person would receive about $9,000 a year if they paid rent to their parents, and attended all the required meetings and obligations with benefit administrators.

If the healthy, single person living in their parent's basement didn't complete mandatory job searches they would be denied benefits.

I don't know where people get this idea that all it takes is to walk in and the government writes a cheque. It doesn't work that way.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Rather than posting that the poor receive all kinds of benefits from programs, people should list the programs they are talking about.

As far as I know, people won't qualify for CPP disability unless they have proven they can't work, won't collect WSIB even if they prove they can't work, and will be subject to meetings and job searches if they are collecting welfare which pays $9,000 a year. That doesn't sound like sitting around enjoying life collecting mucho rewards for being lazy.

What government programs are all these "lazy" people collecting from ? Just asking for a "lazy friend".


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> Do you have any idea how long a kid would remain on their parent's couches if they had $16,000 coming in for sitting there. Their lives would be delayed until they meet another person sitting on their parent's couch who also is given $16,000 per year and then they would maybe, just maybe move in together. No need to get a job now.
> 
> Now the big question is. If all these future workers are now sitting on couches thinking about what they would like to be in life, who is working to pay them their money. There are a lot fewer jobs because every employer now has to compete with $16,000 for free. What is the minimum they would need to pay these untrained individuals to get them to actually go to work? You tell me.


That's why I think that there has to be a pathway off, and no poverty trap.
I'm not sure how to balance the qualify for welfare vs it simply being UBI. 

With a 50% clawback, you go work 20hrs/wk at $15/hr, you take home, after adjustments and takes another $600/month, just working part time.

Personally I think it's absolutely disgusting that someone can be working a job, and actually take home less than someone who's on welfare. << That has to stop.
If you have a job, and you work, you should take home more than someone who's just getting a government handout.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Sags and Mordko truly believe money is the solution. But both have never actually gone to see how the poor actually operate. If they say, say my buddy’s tenants who are given free rent and everything for a year, and how few of them can turn their life around with no expenses for an entire year, they may change their minds about UBI, but I doubt it. Reality just gets in the way of preachers. 

Teaching someone to fish is hard, learning to fish is hard, giving a fish is easy, getting a fish is easy. Sags wants life to be easy, especially for himself.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

There will always be poor people and rich people and those in between. When has it ever been otherwise and how could it ever be otherwise given human nature?

I want more than you have and you want more than the next guy has and the next guy is gonna have to suffer accordingly. If you want the next guy to have as much as you have, then you are a true altruist and they are exceedingly rare indeed. The only way the next guy is going to get as much as I have, is if he finds a way to get there for HIMSELF. No government could ever provide it for him, that's just ridiculous to even consider.

People need to realize and accept that there will always be poor people. Then they need to figure out how not to be in that group. It has nothing to do with feeling sorry for a given individual's circumstances. None of us can solve the worlds problems including poverty. If someone wants to give the guy in the OP some money to make his last days better, fine, someone can do that for ONE individual but not for all those who live in poverty.

Want the real answer? Reduce population to a level where everyone has a job and is paid well to do it. Can such a world happen? Not really.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> The example that you use would not qualify for CPP disability, EI, WSIB or anything other than social benefits (welfare)
> 
> A single person would receive about $9,000 a year if they paid rent to their parents, and attended all the required meetings and obligations with benefit administrators.
> 
> ...


$9k isn't enough to live on, and the person who can simply move into their parents basement isn't the poverty stricken individual dying in the street.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Longtimeago said:


> There will always be poor people and rich people and those in between. When has it ever been otherwise and how could it ever be otherwise given human nature?
> 
> I want more than you have and you want more than the next guy has and the next guy is gonna have to suffer accordingly. If you want the next guy to have as much as you have, then you are a true altruist and they are exceedingly rare indeed. The only way the next guy is going to get as much as I have, is if he finds a way to get there for HIMSELF. No government could ever provide it for him, that's just ridiculous to even consider.
> 
> ...


Actually the "real answer" is make sure everyone can create enough value to support themselves.
Instead we give drugs to addicts and hope they'll magically clean up and become productive.


For the government unions, they clearly think that they just need more money from the government and that will solve all the problems, but it doesn't.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Look at the way sags raised his kids. Told them to get a union job. Look at the way I raised my kids, told them to develop a passive income. My son bought his first revenue property at 18, sags’ kids were probably drinking beer. 

Skip ahead a few years, union goes on strike and they shut the plant down. By now my son has several properties, providing affordable housing to many people. Sags’ kid is unemployed and only ever benefitted themselves. My kid is considered “rich”. Sags kid feels entitled to a “fair share” of what my kid made. Why? Personal choices and family encouragement led sags’ kid into poverty. That’s not “fair”. My kid shouldn’t be allowed to reap the benefits of better choices. That would be “unfair”.


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## Topo (Aug 31, 2019)

One issue with poverty is lack of personal development. In developed countries, nobody is content with food and shelter only. Most citizens have aspirations that go beyond the basic necessities of life. Everyone wants to climb up to the top of Maslow's pyramid. If one does not get to the point of self-actualization, there is a sense of loss and failure. 

In some parts of the world, just surviving may be a great accomplishment.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> I said NOT to trap them on welfare and disability. You quoted Sags suggestion.


Welfare and disability are the alternative to UBI. I'm not a fan of that solution. UBI is not a meaningful disincentive to work. See Alaska as a live example of UBI.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Rather than posting that the poor receive all kinds of benefits from programs, people should list the programs they are talking about.
> 
> As far as I know, people won't qualify for CPP disability unless they have proven they can't work, won't collect WSIB even if they prove they can't work, and will be subject to meetings and job searches if they are collecting welfare which pays $9,000 a year. That doesn't sound like sitting around enjoying life collecting mucho rewards for being lazy.
> 
> What government programs are all these "lazy" people collecting from ? Just asking for a "lazy friend".


You need to clarify who or what post you are referring to. All my posts are relating to you accepting that this disabled dying man should be looked after better and therefore we should set up a guaranteed minimum income for all and start giving healthy Canadians other people's money, for doing absolutely nothing.

I disagree on the guaranteed income for all. It would either be insignificant to the recipients, if it were very low, and it would reduce the living standards of everyone if it was too significant.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> What government programs are all these "lazy" people collecting from ? Just asking for a "lazy friend".


UBI. That's why I'm against it.

Sure the current programs are expensive, inefficient, broken, but that's simply bad implementation. At least the theory of helping someone who needs help is a good.

UBI is broken from both a theoretical and practical standpoint.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Welfare and disability are the alternative to UBI. I'm not a fan of that solution. UBI is not a meaningful disincentive to work. See Alaska as a live example of UBI.


Anything is a disincentive. Would a person work for $7.50 per hour? Not many. What is the difference between paying a UBI and then having 1/2 of $15 per hour recouped if they work. None. In their minds that job would only pay them an additional $7.50 per hour to work. So the money they were given from a UBI, that they now take as an entitlement, has just become a disincentive to work.

The only way that person will work is if the employer is willing to pay $30 per hour or something close to that. Now take that number down to the owner of the nearest Subway restaurant or any Retail Store and ask them to re-run their business plan using $30 per hour, for their employees, instead of $15. Ask them how many people they could hire or if they would even be in business the next day.

Couldn't care less about Alaska. My views are fundamental to human behavior. Until the entire world has a UBI, there will not be a fair test. Plus, it would take years for all the fallout that comes from this disincentive to be known. The disincentive to work. The disincentive to higher someone. The disincentive to declare you are working as opposed to working under the table. The disincentive to be honest on your tax return. These are long term issues.

I think the best idea is to simply create an environment where the healthy Canadians can get a job and one that pays well. This is first done by creating more jobs then the demand for them. That is done by creating a wonderful environment to run a business...and the absolute best environment to run a business is the one where they are making a crap load of money. Obviously that is not an environment where they increase corporate taxes and keep harping on how the greedy rich should be so ashamed of themselves, they should be more then willing to pay a little more...and when they are done...they should pay a little more...and after that they should pay a little more...and when another government comes to power...you know what, the rich should pay a little more.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> Anything is a disincentive. Would a person work for $7.50 per hour? Not many. What is the difference between paying a UBI and then having 1/2 of $15 per hour recouped if they work. None. In their minds that job would only pay them an additional $7.50 per hour to work. So the money they were given from a UBI, that they now take as an entitlement, has just become a disincentive to work.
> 
> The only way that person will work is if the employer is willing to pay $30 per hour or something close to that. Now take that number down to the owner of the nearest Subway restaurant or any Retail Store and ask them to re-run their business plan using $30 per hour, for their employees, instead of $15. Ask them how many people they could hire or if they would even be in business the next day.
> 
> ...


If the entire world gets UBI, the entire world will collapse, unless those few who are still working, they can magically produce enough for everyone else.
Even in the Star Trek universe, not everyone gets their own Galaxy Class Starship.

As far as a 50% clawback being a disincentive to work, maybe.
Right now for EI and likely for other thigs the clawback quickly becomes 100% or more (plus taxes).
When you end up with less when you work, that's a poverty trap and a HUGE problem, and that's our system today.


The reason I propose 50%, that seems pretty reasonable.
I'd love to say 30%, then the Clawback on welfare would drift to the combined marginal tax rate. of about 30% in Ontario.
I do think there is a sustainability problem if you're getting government benefits until an income in the mid 40's.

Realistically if they tried to hike the basic deduction to a "living wage" the government would be shockingly short on revenue, but I think that's the first step towards UBI.
Even if you don't support UBI, I think many agree that the government shouldn't take money from a person who doesn't have enough to support themself.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> Anything is a disincentive. Would a person work for $7.50 per hour? Not many. What is the difference between paying a UBI and then having 1/2 of $15 per hour recouped if they work. None. In their minds that job would only pay them an additional $7.50 per hour to work. So the money they were given from a UBI, that they now take as an entitlement, has just become a disincentive to work.
> 
> The only way that person will work is if the employer is willing to pay $30 per hour or something close to that. Now take that number down to the owner of the nearest Subway restaurant or any Retail Store and ask them to re-run their business plan using $30 per hour, for their employees, instead of $15. Ask them how many people they could hire or if they would even be in business the next day.
> 
> ...


Who cares about data, I trust my gut! Australia functions despite higher low end wages than Canada.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Who cares about data, I trust my gut! Australia functions despite higher low end wages than Canada.


Yeah, just don’t ask an Australian if they agree with you either.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Who cares about data, I trust my gut! Australia functions despite higher low end wages than Canada.


I trust data I can trust. You do know that when a politician tests a program like this, they have a huge incentive to either not follow up with a report that shows a lot of problems, or they cherry pic the things they see supports their reasons for the program and how it shows that the politicians way of thinking, works. They are biased. Also, as I said, if not given at least 10 years and an entire generation would be better, it would be impossible to get any definitive results of the fallout. Obviously the people receiving the money are going to praise its existence, but I don't think we need a report to know that. Any test program where the recipient believes that it is either temporary or has a high chance of being discontinued, is also a false test. The UBI we are talking about would be like the OAS program. Not many Canadian believe that will be canceled or fiddled with and now it is an entitlement. At least with seniors, we can let them be entitled, but with younger, healthier Canadians, we need to do everything we can to help them become a success and demotivating them before they even get out of the gate, is not the way to do it.

Since none of the programs I have seen, seem to meet those requirements, I am forced to use common sense to make my opinions on the matter. "The more money a person has or gets, the less incentive they have to earn more of it, at least in the approximate same amounts". That is the basis of everything I am saying. We are attempting to help people, who cannot seem to make it on their own, and we take away their most important attribute: Incentive. Add to that the competitive nature a UBI would have on business development and hiring and I should not have to say more...but I imagine I will.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> I trust data I can trust. You do know that when a politician tests a program like this, they have a huge incentive to either not follow up with a report that shows a lot of problems, or they cherry pic the things they see supports their reasons for the program and how it shows that the politicians way of thinking, works. They are biased. Also, as I said, if not given at least 10 years and an entire generation would be better, it would be impossible to get any definitive results of the fallout. Obviously the people receiving the money are going to praise its existence, but I don't think we need to test anything to know that.
> 
> So I am forced to use common sense. "The more money a person has, the less incentive they have to earn any". That is the basis of everything I am saying. We are attempting to help people, who cannot seem to make it on their own, and we take away their most important attribute: Incentive. Add to that the competitive nature a UBI would have on business development and hiring and I should not have to say more...but I imagine I will.


You mean like the Ontario UBI trial that was designed so that you couldn't compare it to the current system?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

No, like offering people ubi and asking them if it made their lives better, especially when they didn’t have to pay for it.

Mr. Matt, would your life be better If Sags were forced to give you $5000/month? He’s relatively “rich”, has a huge pension and a boat after all. 

Let’s see how this survey goes? 

Does anyone think MR. Matt wouldn’t be better off? If we can not find a legitimate reason why mr. Matt would not, I feel we should should implement this strategy. Anyone in their right mind would see how this is obviously true.


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

self steam is an omnipresent psychological need it entails one is committed to that which is good & true & is capable & worthy of living.

If someone is given freehand outs to live they loose Esteem, when they are not holding them selves up. Trading money for esteem which UBI would do is not a good idea.

Lighten the load of the tax payer


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

sags said:


> You make the assumption that people collecting benefits are able to work.
> 
> In order to collect CPP disability a person has to provide substantial medical proof they are unable to work. They also have to have paid CPP contributions for a number of years before applying for disability. These are people who were working before they became permanently disabled.



I would like to think that about CPP disability, but those I know collecting show it's different. One, a woman of about 42, has been on it for a few years. She works full-time, for cash, as live-in caretaker of a remote off-grid property owned by a wealthy family. The place requires a lot of work and ability to handle boats, motors, machinery, to do cleaning, painting, pruning fruit trees, maintaining acreage, etc., etc. She sure does not look disabled to me. I know 2 others in roughly equal circumstances. Family doctors happily yield to requests by patients to write a supportive letter to CPP, based on the patient's articulation of subjective symptoms. Not always the case, but too many, I think.


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

lonewolf :) said:


> self steam


Aye laddie, that's what's needed. Self steam. Never mind handouts. Generate your own steam to power the engine self-sufficiency.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

When i had my car accident I applied for cpp disability and I got declined two times .I could not even hold a coffee cup the first 6 months as I was severely broken and had muscle spasms and damaged nerves that would cause painful jerking motions.I eventually got it 13 months after my car accident and was collecting it for over two years until I was able to earn money again.My sister in law got CPP disability for a back injury at home depot not long after I was denied mine and it was a joke in the family.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

marina628 said:


> When i had my car accident I applied for cpp disability and I got declined two times .I could not even hold a coffee cup the first 6 months as I was severely broken and had muscle spasms and damaged nerves that would cause painful jerking motions.I eventually got it 13 months after my car accident and was collecting it for over two years until I was able to earn money again.


It's crazy to hear from others on here that injured or disabled people just need "motivation" to start working. I suppose while marina628 couldn't even hold a coffee cup due to injuries, someone should have simply come along and yelled at her for long enough... I suppose that would heal her nerves and get her to start working! Do people actually believe that?

The reality is that in our society, there are many disabled people who cannot work for a variety of reasons. Some people have psychological problems or disorders that stop them from working or holding down jobs. Others have chronic injuries.

For these people, the choice _isn't_ between working or not working.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

True, but it’s also true that there are more ways to make money, or be a contributing member of society than having a job. People tend to not think about other options because they haven’t been taught they exist. Marina is also an example of that.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> It's crazy to hear from others on here that injured or disabled people just need "motivation" to start working. I suppose while marina628 couldn't even hold a coffee cup due to injuries, someone should have simply come along and yelled at her for long enough... I suppose that would heal her nerves and get her to start working! Do people actually believe that?
> 
> The reality is that in our society, there are many disabled people who cannot work for a variety of reasons. Some people have psychological problems or disorders that stop them from working or holding down jobs. Others have chronic injuries.
> 
> For these people, the choice _isn't_ between working or not working.


Nobody is saying that. 
I agree that people have issues.

But there are a lot of middle cases where people could make a nonzero contribution to their own care, and our system doesn't adequately support and encourage it.


I even said the current system is broken, why was someone who can't hold a cup of coffee declined for coverage?
Clearly you have to acknowledge our current system is broken.

It doesn't adequately support those who are on it, by limiting benefits or denying coverage until they go through multiple appeals and reapplications
It doesn't support pathways off assistance very well.
It's expensive.

I think we could fix all 3 problems, but instead people would rather misrepresent the position that people such as myself hold (we can do better) by saying we want to yell at injured people to get back to work.

Do you even care about the people who need this support? Or do you just like to rant at "right wingers", who want to help people.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

james4beach said:


> It's crazy to hear from others on here that injured or disabled people just need "motivation" to start working.


Who said that? Don't make things up. On quite a few of my posts, for instance, I said that it would be *a really bad idea to start guaranteeing money to completely healthy Canadians*. That is what is being suggested here. 

You will see that, quite a few times on my posts, I clarified that because I definitely did not want you to come along and AGAIN, confuse the argument by putting together two unrelated topics in a weak attempt to prove your position.

This whole argument on UBI started when SAGS took an article about a guy who was dying (a lot of political correct power with that behind your arguments) and decided that because this dying man was disappointed that he was not as financially well off as he wanted to be, that this somehow proved that EVERYBODY , who is not happy with their financial position, should be given money.

After chokeing on that for a little while I came back to explain to him that it is this "unhappyness" that drives all of us to get a job. Sure, a guy that earns $100,000 per year may not give up their job for a $16,000 UBI, but a young Canadian, whose current skills would be lucky to land him a few hours on the McDonalds drive through, will lose their working motivation very, very quickly. How will that person ever learn any skills if they don't get off their fanny and get a job? Why would we do this to him?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

By the way, talk about winning the lottery. I took two minutes and calculated the amount of money that an 18 year old would receive from a lifetime benefit of $16,000 per year, indexed at 2%, until they are 85. I used 85 because I think someone suggested we integrate all our social programs, including OAS, CPP into this wonderful new miracle program.

$2,275,400. That is what is being suggested for every person who is lucky enough to be born in Canada. Now obviously there was going to be a cost to our country, from the birth of this baby, when we consider OAS and CPP, etc., but in this particular case, they did not contribute to anything. They have been a net sucking sound since the first day they started their career of crying when the doctor slapped their behind, on the day they were born. Being completely healthy, they would have no other claim to this money except that they were born in one of the dumbest countries in the world. How lucky is that?

Net present value of the lottery win would probably equal the $16,000 a year, non-indexed, so a little over $1,000,000. Where do I sign up.

I can't believe I can't convince these people how bad of an idea, that is.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> By the way, talk about winning the lottery. I took two minutes and calculated the amount of money that an 18 year old would receive from a lifetime benefit of $16,000 per year, indexed at 2%, until they are 85. I used 85 because I think someone suggested we integrate all our social programs, including OAS, CPP into this wonderful new miracle program.
> 
> $2,275,400. That is what is being suggested for every person who is lucky enough to be born in Canada. Now obviously there was going to be a cost to our country, from the birth of this baby, when we consider OAS and CPP, etc., but in this particular case, they did not contribute to anything. They have been a net sucking sound since the first day they started their career of crying when the doctor slapped their behind, on the day they were born. Being completely healthy, they would have no other claim to this money except that they were born in one of the dumbest countries in the world. How lucky is that?
> 
> ...


That's why it is SO important that there is a clear path off, and a system in place such that it's better to create value, then sit back on your lottery winnings.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

There is only one social program that I know of that an able bodied person could "milk" for benefits, and frankly welfare benefits are the lowest level of poverty.

The musings by the Liberals of a UBI indicate they consider some people as already receiving a UBI benefit. OAS and child care benefits are considered UBI benefits.

The goal for the Liberals will be to include those who do not collect those types of benefits already. I don't know how people collecting OAS/GIS or child benefits can object to that.

Instead of a broad income tax cut for people earning up to $150,000 per year, and cost the government $6 billion in new spending, why not focus the money on those who really need it ?

Personally, we don't need an income tax cut that will save us a maximum of $300 a year. It won't change our lives one iota. 

Give the money to those who need it for food and shelter.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> There is only one social program that I know of that an able bodied person could "milk" for benefits, and frankly welfare benefits are the lowest level of poverty.
> 
> The musings by the Liberals of a UBI indicate they consider some people as already receiving a UBI benefit. OAS and child care benefits are considered UBI benefits.
> 
> ...


and yet, many milked welfare for years. It created a welfare state and if I recall the monthly income that recipients could recieve, at the peak was significantly less then what we are talking about with UBI. UBI would at least be similar but more likely a lot worse.

and I agree with you about tax cuts. Cutting taxes for people that don't pay any, is not overly useful. Better would be to cut taxes for our more productive citizens and entities. That would be corporations and high income earning Canadians. Never really met any people earning $1,000,000 or more, working by themselves. There would be a couple, but it would not be the norm. They always need to employ others. Incentivise these people to earn more and by doing so create the jobs that are so desperately needed by our low income citizens. 

Even the so called upcoming tax cut to the middle class. Would they be better off in a society that cuts their taxes and puts $600 more into their pockets, or would they be in a better position if multiple companies were competing for their services? We need jobs. We need more jobs then we have people to fulfill them. That not only means that there is an available job for anyone that wants one, but it will become a much higher paying job because of the increased demand for labour.

None of the above is done, by taxing corporations and high producing Canadians, into the stone age and directing that money to the lowest productive people in our society. That is a temporary band aid at best and that band aid has been peeling off for years. Let's stop replacing the band aid and start fixing the wound.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

ummm christmas is coming

the poor fellow named in the original post may not even live to see it

why are cmffers ranting on as usual, about money, against taxation & against welfare such as some of the help the poor fellow may be receiving?

bless his soul, with love, amen


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> ummm christmas is coming
> 
> the poor fellow named in the original post may not even live to see it
> 
> ...


Because upon the sad story of one man dying, sags suggested giving millions of Canadians $16,000 per year...who are not dying.

If this was just a Christmas bonus, I might have hidden from all its political correctness, but that is not what is being suggested.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Apparently you don't realize that we are already spending the tax money on social benefits, in the most impractical and less beneficial ways.

A myriad of programs that counteract each other, and require a mountain of rules and regulations that must be audited..........is a poor way of distributing benefits.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Apparently you don't realize that we are already spending the tax money on social benefits, in the most impractical and less beneficial ways.
> 
> A myriad of programs that counteract each other, and require a mountain of rules and regulations that must be audited..........is a poor way of distributing benefits.


Sure, restructure those if they are broken. But let's not go out and find a million more Canadians, suffering from the motivation required to go on an interview, move to any town that might have even a remote level of economic activity or to upgrade their skills, and give them just enough more money to think about it, for a lifetime longer.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

By the way, we are 6 pages into this thread and I have not once pointed out that we currently are running a deficit of over $26,000,000,000, each and every year that our children and grandchildren will be required to suffer for.

Even my suggestion of tax cuts to corporations, which are desperately required to match the US or we are going to be severely up a creek sooner then later, has most likely gone beyond are ability to pay for them. That survival boat has probably already sailed from all the giveaways of previous government spending programs.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

OptsyEagle said:


> Because upon the sad story of one man dying, sags suggested giving millions of Canadians $16,000 per year...who are not dying.
> 
> If this was just a Christmas bonus, I might have hidden from all its political correctness, but that is not what is being suggested.



some cmffers are relentless .each:

a very happy holiday season, peace & love to you


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

humble_pie said:


> ummm christmas is coming
> 
> the poor fellow named in the original post may not even live to see it
> 
> ...


How much of your own money are you sending him humble? 

I realize you have no issues sending him my money however.

It’s thoughts and prayers that matter right?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

also, I don't think implementation of a UBI was actually going to save him. If it was, I apologize for missing that point. That I am all for.

I should add, that yesterday I posted about a company called FATE Therapeutics, within the Individual Stocks thread, that under our free market system, developed a treatment that appears might actually cure Leukemia and many other cancers, and it seemed to get no more then a whisper of interest.

Not sure what that means, but it is what it is.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Can’t fix everything, can’t change bad decisions, can’t legislate away stupidity. The guy is doing nothing to change his plight, yet surprised it doesn’t change. The population of the planet has nearly doubled in my lifetime because of all we are doing. Maybe that’s a mistake.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

OptsyEagle said:


> I should add, that yesterday I posted about a company called FATE Therapeutics, within the Individual Stocks thread, that under our free market system, developed a treatment that appears might actually cure Leukemia and many other cancers, and it seemed to get no more then a whisper of interest.
> 
> Not sure what that means, but it is what it is.


I enjoy reading about these various miracle discoveries to cure cancer, but they seem to come all too often, and then that's the last we hear about it. The reality it seems is that we still only have two proven therapies against cancer in Chemotherapy and Radiation. Like killing a mosquito with a shotgun. I admit it will be a wonderful thing when they actually find a cure for cancer, but we've been told about cures too many times to get excited I'm afraid.

ltr


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> The guy is doing nothing to change his plight




love the philosophy

hey there, you on your deathbed, get up right this minute & figure out a way to earn passive income so your death won't be a drag on us rich people!

me I did it! many's the time i've told the tale but i'm always hungry for a chance to repeat it! yes i was a bloomin hero!

bootstraps forever!


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

On the deathbed, it really doesn’t matter anymore. Getting to that point is time when you can influence change. 

You avoided the question humble, what did you do personally? Nothing, so you’re the same, except a hypocrite at the same time.

I’m concerned about affordable housing, guess what, I provide affordable housing. I’m concerned about people not developing passive income, guess what I advocate and help people develop passive income. I care about jobs, I provide jobs. I’m concerned about the poor, I work with the poor I don’t give them handouts. I can’t fix everything, but at least I walk the walk on the things I choose to have issues with. 

Again, what are you doing about your “causes”? Trying to get the government to spend my money. Keep patting yourself on the back there as you enjoy your Christmas...tell us again how your philosophy is so great.

Those who can do, those who won’t preach.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

When I read some of these CMF threads, I wonder if some of you guys really are this callous and insensitive in real life.

If you are, I can't imagine you got along very well with other people. And you'd all better hope you don't stumble into the kind of misfortune other people experience. Many of the things you believe are personal choices are in reality just dumb luck.

One's luck can always change.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

If you don’t try anything different don’t expect things to change. Sorry if reality is harsh.

Easy to give a fish, easy to take a fish hard to teach someone to fish, hard to learn to fish. Someone still needs to get the fish.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The fishing pond owners put up a fence and keep all the fish for themselves now. They inherited the pond.......and everything else.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> When I read some of these CMF threads, I wonder if some of you guys really are this callous and insensitive in real life.
> 
> If you are, I can't imagine you got along very well with other people. And you'd all better hope you don't stumble into the kind of misfortune other people experience. Many of the things you believe are personal choices are in reality just dumb luck.
> 
> One's luck can always change.


I dunno, I've heard a lot of people campaining for UBI, and higher minimum wage.
I don't think they're really callous and unfeeling, and while the leaders are surely evil, the average supporter of these policies is most likely well meaning.
They're ignorant and misinformed.

Sorry, if you're too sensitive and emotionally involved, you're less likely to make a good decision, particularly one where at the emotional level it feels good, but actually ends up hurting people.

It's not being insensitive, it's about really caring for people, and believing ALL people can make a positive difference in the world.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

james4beach said:


> When I read some of these CMF threads, I wonder if some of you guys really are this callous and insensitive in real life.


I don't know why being sensitive to the plight of a dying man has anything to do with doing something really dumb like UBI. I have said over and over again, it is the dislike of lower income that is necessary to drive a person to do better. This dying man had a dislike for his low income, just like he was supposed to. I am sure he wasn't dying all his life.

Are we supposed to bankrupt the country and disable all our young people, by killing their motivational drive, because someone died?

I don't know what to say. Would me crying on my keyboard right now make you feel a little better. I mean the whole article itself was posted to shut up anyone against UBI, because of its political correctness. Unfortuneately for that person, some of us think with our minds, not our emotions. 

If more of us did, there would be considerably less of these sad stories, in our country, and lot more success stories to take their place.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I didn't mean sensitive to the dying man. I meant sensitivity to the plight of the poor and realizing that it usually isn't the fault of someone who ends up in this kind of situation.

I was friends with a woman a few years ago who was on welfare and barely struggling to get by. She had below average intelligence, almost child-like reasoning abilities. She was at high risk for abuse and exploitation for others (which I think did happen) and had a lot of trouble finding and holding jobs. She just couldn't do a lot of these jobs; she was borderline mentally handicapped, but just high enough on the test scores to make it into normal. The lowest end of normal.

At one point I reconnected with her and found she was very broken up and shaken by something. After a while, I found out why. It turned out she had become pregnant but was unaware of it for a long time. Then had a miscarriage. She was embarassed, ashamed, confused, and very shaken up. It was another form of trauma in her life.

Not her fault. Not solvable by shouting at her or forcing her to try harder. She absolutely _did_ need housing assistance and income assistance. Probably needed some kind of mental health counseling or case worker as well... all things she was not getting. It wouldn't surprise me if I visit the neighbourhood some time later and find her living on the street. People like this simply need assistance.

People who struggle with all these things also *need compassion*. The act of caring, being compassionate, and small acts of kindness are actually meaningful. They give moral and emotional support. We can all help out in these ways but my point is that the crass and harsh kinds of things you write would actually cause tangible harm to people in these situations.

I never once brought up UBI. You seem to have an obsession with the topic.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

It’s easy to come up with excuses. It’s much easier to take handouts. At what point do you take responsibility and do something? Why bother if people will just give you what you want. The worse off I can convince you I am, the more I can demand. If they tried and failed, I’d have a Lot more respect than those who won’t even try.

If the lifestyle is so bad, why are they having kids and subjecting them to the same lifestyle? Why don’t they choose not to have kids? Well kids are a good way to make money thanks to bleeding hearts.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Just a Guy said:


> If the lifestyle is so bad, why are they having kids and subjecting them to the same lifestyle? Why don’t they choose not to have kids? Well kids are a good way to make money thanks to bleeding hearts.


How about the woman of low intelligence I just wrote about above. Who didn't even realize she was pregnant. What would you do about her?

What if she has a kid, who also ends up in poverty. She did not consciously choose to have a kid. She didn't have the level of intelligence or sharpness to fully reason out birth control, etc.

A huge mistake that several people in this thread are making are assuming that everyone is remotely like them. I am very lucky in my situation, very privileged to be intelligent, sharp, have clarity of thought, and an able body. Not everyone is like that -- and it's usually not their fault.

Just a Guy, you are pretty lucky too. You are obviously highly intelligent and capable. Not everyone is like that!


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

james4beach said:


> I didn't mean sensitive to the dying man. I meant sensitivity to the plight of the poor and realizing that it usually isn't the fault of someone who ends up in this kind of situation.


Well, you didn't get that from me. 

I would have been the guy pointing out that in a capitalistic society, someone will always end of being poorer then the rest. That is a law of our economics. It doesn't mean they have to be in utter poverty, but someone has to be poorer then someone else, or everyone will be poor.

Now to think that when we find these people at the lowest income levels, that it was all there own fault, would be ludicrous. That said, the most important person that will ever be involved in pulling that person up, will be themselves. Let's not kill their motivation to do so.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

james4beach said:


> How about the woman of low intelligence I just wrote about above.


That is the best point you have made on this thread, so far. 

Life is a competition. I have used that term many times. Usually in helping parents teach their children to understand completely that success in our world, is a competition. It always has been and it always will be. When you consider that wealth is simply the difference between the rich and the poor and without the poor, no one can be rich, it highlights loudly how true the existence of this competition between us all, is.

The problem many site, is that this competition is not fair. The main thing they bring to the table to prove their argument is the rich kids ability to access capital and influential contacts, not to mention attending better schools, etc.

The other area of unfairness, that I have observed all my life, is intelligence. If we all are competing for an insufficient amount of success, is it fair that a smarter person completes equally with a person of lower IQ. Remember IQ is something you are born with. I am not talking about education here. I am talking about how quickly and easily you can work out problems, in your mind.

Unfortuneatly, those two unfairnesses, are difficult to resolve. The money issue is the reward for hard work by the parents and I don't want to stifle anyone's motivation to work hard, as you may already know. The intelligence issue is impossible to deal with. 1st of all, no one thinks they are stupid or not as smart as the average person. The majority of people would believe their intelligence to be above average. If we fix this unfairness with tax credits, how would we do this? I could fail S.A.T. tests all day long if there was a big tax refund offered to me, for doing so.

Anyway, I can't fix these issues, but I do know that I was not born rich and from motivation alone and I like to think a few smarts, that I managed just fine. If someone had of guaranteed me $16,000 a year, at 18 years old, I doubt I would have evolved like I did and certainly not as quickly as I did.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

James, there are always exceptions to the rule. That being said, I work with the poor. You wouldn’t believe how many have kids just for the income they provide. 

Also, though it sounds harsh, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to save everyone. In nature, not everyone survives, it generally makes the species stronger. Let’s say your example had 4 kids and I chose to have none. You’d have 4 more people society needs to support while losing one of the real providers. In a few generations what do you think will happen?

You reap what you sow. If you don’t weed a garden, the weeds take over and you don’t produce any food.

Btw, luck is winning the lottery. I got to where I am because I did something. There is no way the guy in the article, your woman example or sags would achieve what I did because they’d never even try. It’s not luck preventing them, it’s them that are preventing themselves. There is no law, secret police or other things stopping them, just their excuses. What I do doesn’t take a lot of intelligence, it take doing it.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

I remember being 7yrs old in Grade 2 and kids honestly saying they wanted to be welfare recipeints when they grew up.
Then they could just watch TV all day.

It was sad, and that lack of ambition is just horrible.

I'm against harmful government policies that end up being poverty traps that suck the life and potential out of people.
I think it's cruel and sadistic to treat people like that.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Just a Guy said:


> It’s not the age that matters, true poverty sucks. I was there at a fairly early age, but also had a family to support making it worse. I didn’t qualify for any social safety nets either being self employed. It’s very depressing, I remember the doctors wanting to put me on meds, but the meds wouldn’t change my situation and I was depressed because of my situation. I didn’t see a way out as I was injured and couldn’t work...I had to think outside the box. Everyone around me kept saying just suck it up and get a job...wasn’t an option. My company was in free fall without me there, I didn’t have systems in place to replace me if I wasn’t available, So I learned investing, which everyone thought was nuts, too risky, unsafe, can’t be done, I also had no money...I was bleeding money personally and corporately.


Yes, this is more or less the story you've been telling us. You were in poverty and started buying "doors" for rental income. Apparently you have some secret sauce to get loans to buy "doors" while in poverty and you believe others in poverty can do it too. but you never get around to clearly describing the secret sauce. Are you sure you were really in poverty?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Actually I started small with only a couple of bucks in stocks. I did go into a lot of debt too. Back then you could also assume mortgages. Also, if the property cash flows over a certain ratio, the banks will lend based on cash flow, your personal finances don’t matter. There were lots of things I tried, some worked, some didn’t. 

The secret sauce was not sitting around waiting for something to change, sacrifice, delayed gratification and tough choices. Like, when the investments started to pay off, I could have cashed out and been even, no debt. Also no more income. 

Ever talk to a bank about getting a mortgage on a rental property? Are you sure you know anything about investing? The change took years, didn’t happen overnight. Very similar to marina’s story if you read about her. There is no “one” way to make money. There is a guaranteed way to not make money however.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I'll say it again, Just a Guy sounds like he's quite intelligent or has various unique skills. It's a huge leap to assume that others in poverty can replicate this or have the abilities he describes.

There are people in poverty who have various health issues, disabilities, or all kinds of other complicating factors which will prevent them from doing what Just a Guy writes. It may also prevent them from working.

I do agree there are other interesting ways a person can earn income besides "work", but not everyone is as creative and capable as Just a Guy or marina. There are some people who genuinely need assistance and welfare services.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> I'll say it again, Just a Guy sounds like he's quite intelligent or has various unique skills. It's a huge leap to assume that others in poverty can replicate this or have the abilities he describes.
> 
> There are people in poverty who have various health issues, disabilities, or all kinds of other complicating factors which will prevent them from doing what Just a Guy writes. It will also prevent them from working.


Then ask him why he was in poverty complaining instead of doing paid work of some sort?
He does seem to be reasonably articulate and I'd bet he could have done paid work of some sort, he just chose not to.

Why he made that choice is what needs to be investigated.

Now I'm not against people choosing to do things I don't approve of, but I do expect people to at least try if they expect me to help them.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I was injured and couldn’t work, still in chronic pain today. Only thing I could do is develop passive income. My wife was also injured in the same accident. Spent years in rehab. Battled depression too. Sorry James, lived that life you think I didn’t. Never used the victim excuse though. Realistically, what was the worst time in my life was also the start of the path to the best time of my life. Without getting injured, I’d probably be way worse off today. 

As for intelligence, try this on for a strategy...

Is anyone incapable of playing monopoly?

When you start out, you don’t have a lot of money. I believe you don’t even have enough to buy the best property if you were to land onit in the first round. You don’t start off rich by any means. Relatively speaking, compared to the end of the game, you are actually quite poor. 

When you buy a property, you don’t automatically get hotels, in fact you have to buy multiple properties before you can really do anything. 

When you do get all the colours, you don’t get hotels still you need to buy 4 houses first, and you probably have to go around a few time to be able to do that. 

You can’t buy houses on every property right away, in fact it’s probably better to build up one property first. If you spend your money too quickly you’ll probably lose. 

Delayed gratification, Sacrifice, planning, strategy and actually buying something. No one ever won the game by just going around the board or by not playing. I’ve often said I play monopoly in real life. It’s not some sort of secret sauce that I’ve got an exclusive on.

It’s considered a kids game, so don’t tell me anyone can’t do it. Sure, not everyone will win, but most people can at least be in the game.

Not many disabilities which prevent you from logging on to a computer and making a stock trade. Free computer. And internet access at the library. Also a lot of books on investing. You can get mortgage specialists to come to your home as well. I did my first trade on the phone.

I figured out ways to do what I wanted instead of coming up with excuses as to why I couldn’t do it. People like sags takes the latter to the extreme, they don’t even think it’s possible.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Interesting story on the game of monopoly.

A university set up a study of students playing monopoly.

One person in the group started with twice as much money, was paid twice the normal amount for passing Go, had two dice to move around the board faster...

A bowl of pretzels was left on the corner of the table. 

As the game progressed, the person with tall the advantages owned most of the properties and had eaten most of the pretzels. 

As they became owners or more properties they displayed outward signs of accomplishment and less compassion for the other players.

The study revealed how people with distinct advantages gain a sense of entitlement simply because they have more than other people.

_In one humorously shocking (or shockingly humorous) example, one of the advantaged players, after successfully winning the game, was heard explaining what he had done, strategically, to succeed and win. This example speaks to “how we make sense of advantage”, says Piff
_
https://planetsave.com/2013/12/23/a...eling-wealthy-changes-our-behavior-ted-video/

The TED talk provides an interesting glimpse into the entitlement of the wealthy.

https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Is it a failure of the current form of capitalism if there are more people needing government assistance than the government can afford to provide ?


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

sags said:


> As the game progressed, the person with all the advantages owned most of the properties and had eaten most of the pretzels.
> 
> As they became owners or more properties they displayed outward signs of accomplishment and less compassion for the other players.


Did the wealthy player also go on the internet and start arrogantly boasting about themselves, while denigrating people who are struggling to stay alive?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Let me guess, sags is talking about the university study, (why they needed to do a study of the obvious) where one player got twice as much as the others and tended to win. 

Did the one player getting more prevent the other players from playing?

If sags and I played, I’d let sags have the double income and I’d still win. He’d just go around the board collecting his $400 and saying “you can’t buy properties, you can’t buy properties”. About 5 rounds in he’d be saying “my UBI needs to be increased, I can’t afford to pay the rents”. About ten rounds he’d be broke and whining about how “unfair” the game was. How I own everything and should give him a living wage. 

It’s not what you start with, it’s how you play that matters.

James, having actually worked with the poor I can tell you first hand giving them money isn’t the solution. Don’t believe me, try going down and working with them yourself. I suspect you have no idea where they are even without google.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Is it a failure of the current form of capitalism if there are more people needing government assistance than the government can afford to provide ?


That is because you can delve out the help all day long, but the difference between the rich and the poor will not change. Whether this is a society problem or an individual problem, it makes no difference. It is the individual that has any hope in fixing their situation. 

Someone has to be at the bottom of the wealth pyramid. It is an economic reality of our way of life. I did not make these rules. Giving them money will not change the shape of the pyramid, just the names at the bottom. We can bring one group up if we don't mind driving another group down. I do mind. It's expensive and we never get anywhere, and it reduces the overall size of the wealth pie.

None of the above comes from my personal lack of compassion. It is simply from my observations of how our system works...an no, it certainly is not fair, but it is the way it is... and yes, JAGs method is unique, but everyone's must be, at least everyone that is healthy and young.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

OptsyEagle said:


> Someone has to be at the bottom of the wealth pyramid. It is an economic reality of our way of life. I did not make these rules. Giving them money will not change the shape of the pyramid, just the names at the bottom. We can bring one group up if we don't mind driving another group down. I do mind. It's expensive and we never get anywhere, and it reduces the overall size of the wealth pie.


By the way. Has anyone ever seen a complete success story behind any government social assistance program or charitable endeavour? I mean we have been providing social assistance for longer then I have been alive and everywhere I turn, we always need to be supplying more. *We have EI. We have OAS and Guaranteed Income Supplement for our seniors. We offer free health care to every Canadian and free prescription drugs for our seniors. Disability benefits to those that need it. We provide child care benefits to parents. We provide low income housing to many. There are food banks, soup kitchens and snow suit drives for children.*

With all that, each and everyone of those programs are taxed to their limits with demand. It is insufficient.

*Has anyone ever asked why these social programs are always insufficient?* On the surface we might say that what was provided was not enough. The problem is bigger. But as I said, two economic laws will always make these programs insufficient. The first is that our economy requires a pyramid shape wealth structure. This means that there must be a few wealthy people at the top and a very large group of less wealthy people at the bottom, for our system to work well. The larger the divide the larger the wealth pie. This divide however, in conjunction with free market pricing, drives up prices so that the people at the bottom will never be able to afford, everything they need. 

The 2nd law our economic system tells is that if you lower the price of something you will increase the demand for it. Now think about food banks, snow suit funds, low income housing. What are we doing here. Sounds like we are lowering the prices to me. Should it really be a surprise to anyone that the demand for these things is always higher then before and always outstripping supply. Do you think their would be milk in the grocery store if they offered it for free or 80% paid by the government. No, the stores would almost always be empty or the government would have to keep anti-ing up more money to find the never ending supply requirement.

This is what I am talking about. Our problems are fundamental. They are in every society, but they are not equal in every society. The poverty problem we have in Canada is nowhere near the likes of the poverty problem they have in Ethiopia. That is because our economy is much wealthier and although many of us do not want to admit it, the wealth tide of the overall society raises ALL boats. That is all we can do, is to increase the overall wealth of our entire society so that the ones at the bottom are as well off as they can be

After that, each of us must be on our own. There is nothing else our society can really do to make any kind of large and lasting difference. Whatever we do our economic system will simply undo.  That is what I have been saying.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Many people have been helped by social programs.

Ben Carson became a world renowned brain surgeon and is currently the US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. His mother was on welfare and they lived in subsidized housing.

A past President of Ford Canada grew up in a family collecting social benefits and living in subsidized housing. He attended university on government grants.

A young man I know is a hospital administrator in Toronto today. His family lost the dad to a heart attack at an early age and they lived on welfare and subsidized housing. The young man attended university on 2 scholarships...one athletic scholarship for football and one for academics.

You might be surprised how many people were able to change their life path with some help from government social programs.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

It isn't normal or desirable for 1% of the people to own most of the wealth and the other 99% own very little individually.

I agree that it is a known consequence of pure capitalism, and it has been well understood the imbalance must be addressed with wealth redistribution or the whole system falls apart.

Some of the founding fathers of the US recognized the problem and opined there should be no passing of wealth from one generation to another as one remedy to restore balance.

If wealth and income disparity continues to widen it will reach a point where the system falls apart. Social and political unrest are already apparent in today's society.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

So we should move to full socialism where 0.001% of people own everything and 99.999% of people have nothing. Isn't that the worst kind of income inequity?

Even those on welfare in Canada enjoy a better lifestyle than the average person in Cuba or Venezuela.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

We should move towards a form of capitalism where the rewards of productivity and profit are shared more equally.

We shouldn't expect or rely on the capitalists sharing voluntarily, and so our governments must perform the task of redistribution of wealth.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Many people have been helped by social programs.
> 
> Ben Carson became a world renowned brain surgeon and is currently the US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. His mother was on welfare and they lived in subsidized housing.
> 
> ...


I did not say that many people did not receive help from social programs. What I said is our economic rules demand that people are at the bottom of the wealth structure. It is an economic law. So for everyone that a social program helps, another person will get pushed down to take their place.

Hence my point. The social programs help individually but they cannot fix the overall problem itself.

It's like your trying to boil water at 90 C to save someone's life, and I am being accused of having no compassion when I point out that it will not work, because we need 100C to make the water boil. 

Show me something that might work, and not just replace one person in need with another, and you will have my undivided attention.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> It isn't normal or desirable for 1% of the people to own most of the wealth and the other 99% own very little individually.


Well, I don't think I will get many to argue that the riches country in the world is the United States of America. In conjunction with that the MOST billionaires, in the world, also reside within the USA.

Capitalism will always create the most wealth for all, but capitalism requires a pyramid type shape for its distribution of that wealth, where there will always be a few obnoxiously wealthy people at the top and many, many people struggling at the bottom. That will not change.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

The way I see it is our education system. When all you’re given is a hammer, the world just looks like a nail.

We raise kids these days to be employees. Not everyone is cut out to be an employee, just like not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, investor, landlord, etc. We also don’t teach financial literacy, cooking, economics, etc. We certainly don’t put anything we teach into context. 

For example, for the Same price of taking my family to say McDonald’s (shudder) I could buy a Steak dinner at home. Not precut steaks, but a vacuum pack at costco, as well as all the veggies and sides. Most people think McDonald’s is cheaper because they don’t really think about prices, or have the “skills” to butcher and cook, so they eat at McDonald’s and think they are being “cheap”.

In schools, teamwork is considered cheating, especially on exams. Great way to teach kids to figure out things in a group. If it’s punished all their lives, who will they turn to in the future to help solve problems? People don’t unlearn well. 

In social, we teach things like Maslow’s pyramid of needs, but don’t put it into context, so everyone things it’s useless. I understood what it means in real life and it helped me develop my investment strategy. Notice I tend to invest in “needs” and avoid “wants”. 

People are taught that investing is risky. Look how most people fear even the thought of it. How many here ever venture beyond GICs, mutual funds, etfs, and bonds? Too scary and hard. When they do try to teach investing, they actually teach gambling (whomever gets the best results in 3 months of this course gets an “A”). 

They don’t teach anything about running a business. Hard to evaluate a stock investment if you can’t evaluate a company. Harder still to start and operate one.

They do teach people that self esteem is important, competition is bad, comparing yourself to others is unfair...so we get people who believe they’re great being stomped by reality that like is all about competition when they get out of school. 

If they can’t get a job, they don’t know what to do. 

We’re also aptaught the BS that, without post secondary, you won’t be qualified for any of the “good” jobs. Many people without post secondary don’t even consider applying for better jobs, and stay in retail and hospitality. I had a friend who got pregnant at 16 and had her kid. She did quite well relatively speaking, but only ever applied for jobs at Walmart or similar locations. I told her about a small local company (about 159 employees) that I could probably put in a good word for her with (I know the ceo) and they hired unskilled labour or reception people all the time, paid about double Walmart to start and promoted from within...she never even submitted an application. Too convinced she’d never get hired. 

Let’s not even get into the problems of the addicts, most trying to get away from the reality that didn’t turn out the way they expected, or the criminals who couldn’t fit into society as they were taught. 

Giving people more money won’t help, there is a certain portion of society which can’t go down the only path they are taught, and we refuse to teach other paths. Then we wonder why trying to force them back on the sole path doesn’t work. 

Anyone who even talks about success on another path is just bragging anyway. Wouldn’t be trying to prove there are other ways. Wouldn’t want to be trying to undo years of indoctrination, no they are just evil egotistical lucky bastards...they should be muzzled. They make us uncomfortable.

You can’t throw more money at the poor, they don’t know what to do with it. Then again, throw money and hope it goes away is all we’re really taught. Wouldn’t want to go see the problem first hand, we may get dirty.

This is what you get from the second biggest, unchecked monopoly in Canada (first is healthcare). Oh wait, all you liberals don’t even realize that healthcare and education are the two biggest, most government subsidized, businesses in Canada. It’s “good” because it’s public sector. Not ineffective, inefficient and corrupt at all like the private sector. 

Time for people to wake up to reality. The public sector wants more money, the administration fires front lint workers, and the government takes the blame. If husky fires people, everyone is mad at the private company. You’re all fools who believe there is a difference. The real difference is how much money they have access too. Husky is a drop compared to health care and education. But that’s not what we’re taught.

As Pluto proves later on, we’re certainly not taught to think, herd mentality or bust.


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

OptsyEagle said:


> It's like your trying to boil water at 90 C to save someone's life, and I am being accused of having no compassion when I point out that it will not work, because we need 100C to make the water boil.


There are several cities in the world where you could boil water at 90C to save that person's life. Cusco, La Paz...


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

Religion has put ethical restraints in schools regarding using the laws of logic & principals of thought. Faith the blind acceptance of ideas without any sensory evidence. Political correctness views faith as good over reason judging information provided by the senses.

Mans only weapon is his mind & it must be used in a precise way to gain truth witch is needed for survival. School will not show kids that are not good scientists ( there are a lot of people that think they are good scientists though they are not i.e., global warming) how to distinguish truth from falsehood.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Just a Guy said:


> Actually I started small with only a couple of bucks in stocks. I did go into a lot of debt too. Back then you could also assume mortgages. Also, if the property cash flows over a certain ratio, the banks will lend based on cash flow, your personal finances don’t matter. There were lots of things I tried, some worked, some didn’t.
> 
> The secret sauce was not sitting around waiting for something to change, sacrifice, delayed gratification and tough choices. Like, when the investments started to pay off, I could have cashed out and been even, no debt. Also no more income.
> 
> Ever talk to a bank about getting a mortgage on a rental property? Are you sure you know anything about investing? The change took years, didn’t happen overnight. Very similar to marina’s story if you read about her. There is no “one” way to make money. There is a guaranteed way to not make money however.


1) a couple of bucks in stocks. a couple is two. for example, if you said you and your wife were a couple, you would mean two, wouldn't you. You wouldn't mean many. So what stock portfolio did you have that was worth two dollars? The point here is your exaggeration, your hyperbole, is obvious. Your stories are just that, stories with the literary licence to exaggerate, but you want people to take them as literal historical fact. 
2) I have talked to a bank about getting a mortgage on a rental property. More than one mortgage on a rental property, in fact. And it didn't take years. I got the mortgages almost overnight. 
3) you are wont to equate yourself with "true poverty" and equate your past the the plight of the homeless, but your stories never quite add up. 

It looks like you are trying to say you were in "true poverty" while having property cash flows with a ratio good enough to to get a loan. You seem to conflate "true poverty" with your circumstances. 

Lots of people had a negative net worth who never thought or claimed they were in "true poverty". Doctors just starting out, burdened with student loans, for example, would have a negative net worth. But they don't claim they are in "true poverty". 

It seems like you are saying you had a negative net worth at some point, and to you that was "true poverty." I don't buy it. 

I do advocate for taxpayer funded programs for the poor. Most of them are not capable. Most of them get weaker over time. the strong get stronger, the weak get weaker. I believe in helping the weak and I don't care about how you think helping them victimizes you.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I forgot Pluto that you take everything so literally. I credited you with having a brain and could understand, I forgot you default to the ridiculous just to “prove” your point. 

Statements like it took years, didn’t actually mean it took years to get a mortgage, it means it took years to get to the stage where I could qualify for a mortgage...I know, too obvious.

You’re right, I did manage to scrape together more than $2, but it’s not like it was thousands either. I know, mind blowing. Oh, btw, look where a small investment in a certain fruit company would have gotten you if you’d invested, say around the time of the founder coming back, would have gotten you. Everyone was saying they’d go bankrupt at the time. 

How about those income trusts which all dropped 25% overnight when the government announced it was changing the way they taxed them. Then recovered very quickly when people realize it wouldn’t happen for 4 years.

Or the financial meltdown of 2007, where bank stocks got hammered. 

Or even kraft Heinz which I talked about this year...$25-$32 in a couple months while paying almost 10% dividend on that $25 purchase price. 

Yep, no chance a small, investment can grow. Especially if you don’t make the purchase. 

I also didn’t have my rent paid for an entire year, food given to me, bus passes given to me, or any of the other benefits the poor get..,oh, let’s ignore those benefits, they’re poor after all. 

You don’t have a clue as to how you’re benefitting the poor, just throw money from a distance. 

Anyway, I don’t need to “prove” myself who would go to such ridiculous lengths to try and twist facts. Join sags on the ignore list. Nothing will ever add up to you, you come in blinded by bias and obviously don’t know how to think.

You’re right though, I was never truly poor, didn’t have the mentality for it. You’d be good at it though, you can find excuses better than most, or twist reality until it at least looks wrong.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

I've seen a couple of brief interviews with Buffett who claims the playing field is not level and he has suggested a refundable tax credit as one way to level the playing field. 

It is interesting that in golf, no one objects to the handicap to level the playing field for player of differing abilities. Maybe this golf metaphor can shed some light on the social programs debate. 

Motivation or lack of motivation is often cited as a rationale for dumping on the poor and justifying not helping them. If motivation was the only factor, then, if we all were just motivated enough, we could all be Tiger Woods. But clearly, that isn't true. Motivation is not the only differentiating factor. Similarly, in the work world, and in the issue of poverty, there are many factors making the playing field tilted against those with less ability. Taxes on those who are well off to help the poor is similar to a handicap in golf. 

Did the handicap in golf ruin the game? Nope. Similarly, appropriate taxes or refundable tax credits to help the poor will not ruin things.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I don’t think anyone says the playing field is level. Even if it was tiger would outplay you. Even with a handicap tiger would outplay you. Even with two broken arms, tiger would probably outplay you. Does that mean you should never even try golf? Does that mean you can’t go on a course even?

Let’s keep changing the rules until you can beat tiger right? It’s the only way to play. Everyone gets a participation medal. 


The limiting factor is between your ears.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Just a Guy said:


> I forgot Pluto that you take everything so literally. I credited you with having a brain and could understand, I forgot you default to the ridiculous just to “prove” your point.
> 
> Statements like it took years, didn’t actually mean it took years to get a mortgage, it means it took years to get to the stage where I could qualify for a mortgage...I know, too obvious.
> 
> ...


Now you are back tracking and admitting you didn't really mean what you said. That's funny.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Pluto said:


> Taxes on those who are well off to help the poor is similar to a handicap in golf.
> 
> Did the handicap in golf ruin the game? Nope. Similarly, appropriate taxes or refundable tax credits to help the poor will not ruin things.


But they take from the poor, not just the wealthy. 
Also the programs are structured in a manner that makes them harmful. 

If the programs were to be changed, they should make things better, not worse.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Just a Guy said:


> I don’t think anyone says the playing field is level. Even if it was tiger would outplay you. Even with a handicap tiger would outplay you. Even with two broken arms, tiger would probably outplay you. Does that mean you should never even try golf? Does that mean you can’t go on a course even?
> 
> Let’s keep changing the rules until you can beat tiger right? It’s the only way to play. Everyone gets a participation medal.
> 
> ...


You're funny. You obviously missed the point. Often, trying to make a point with you is like trying to get 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound sack.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

MrMatt said:


> But they take from the poor, not just the wealthy.
> Also the programs are structured in a manner that makes them harmful.
> 
> If the programs were to be changed, they should make things better, not worse.


yes, I agree. Here's to hoping things are changed for the better.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Pluto said:


> Now you are back tracking and admitting you didn't really mean what you said. That's funny.


Yep, pat yourself on the back you win. The fact you can’t read and understand paid off for you big time. Trying to make a point with you is like trying to make a point with a potato, you’ll never really understand so why bother.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

sags said:


> We should move towards a form of capitalism where the rewards of productivity and profit are shared more equally.


Taking other people's wealth isn't "sharing", it's stealing.



> We shouldn't expect or rely on the capitalists sharing voluntarily, and so our governments must perform the task of redistribution of wealth.


The government already redistributes wealth...it's called taxation. You want more taxes?


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

sags said:


> We should move towards a form of capitalism where the rewards of productivity and profit are shared more equally.
> 
> We shouldn't expect or rely on the capitalists sharing voluntarily, and so our governments must perform the task of redistribution of wealth.


 The same corrupt government that is redistributing wealth from the tax payer to the over paid teachers to the lobbyists that pay the highest bribes. The government could not even run a bubble gum machine without going into debt.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

As long as you take from anyone but sags and give him whatever he wants. The communists always redefine words until they mean what they want. Take “fair”, “denier”, “poor”, etc.

It’s called newspeak


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

nobleea said:


> There are several cities in the world where you could boil water at 90C to save that person's life. Cusco, La Paz...


I hope that is not all you got out of my example. I thought adding "at atmospheric pressure" might confuse my point.

They are attempting the same feet as would be changing the boiling point of water. You could try a bigger pot. You could stir a water a little. You could blow on it, but if you are sitting at sea level, the water will never boil at 90C. That is a scientific fact and what I am saying is an economic fact. I did not make any of these rules but I see no reason to through other peoples money at something that simply will not work.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Pluto said:


> I've seen a couple of brief interviews with Buffett who claims the playing field is not level and he has suggested a refundable tax credit as one way to level the playing field.
> 
> It is interesting that in golf, no one objects to the handicap to level the playing field for player of differing abilities. Maybe this golf metaphor can shed some light on the social programs debate.
> 
> ...


Motivation is not the only reason why they have less then others, but it is about the only way they will ever get any tangible improvement. Again, it is imperative, in our society that some people have less then you or you will have nothing. That is how wealth works. It is a fundamental law. If we prop the lowest income group up, it is the same as driving everyone else down.

What about that is confusing to people. It is not pleasant, but it should not be so misunderstood.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The wealth gap isn't misunderstood........it is just too wide and growing wider.

Since the widening isn't expected to stop or slow down by itself, governments across the world are considering how best to deal with it.

Whatever their solutions are.......redistribution of the wealth will be at the core.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> The wealth gap isn't misunderstood........it is just too wide and growing wider.


I thought this discussion was about poverty. 

The wealth gap is widely misunderstood, that's why people complain about it. 

There are people who honestly believe there is limited wealth. 
This misunderstanding leads to the mistaken belief that poverty is caused by the wealth gap. 
Why does it matter if Elon Musk is richer than me? His wealth isn't making me poor, if any his wealth is making me wealthier too! 

The only issue I have with him being rich is the amount of government handouts he got.

I would be okay having trillionaires if it pulled a single additional person out of poverty.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

The more I think about it, how do rich people make things worse?
Did Steve Jobs make your life worse by getting rich? Elon Musk is pushing electric cars and cheaper space flight, and renewable energy. Being rich has enabled this. Isn't this a good thing? Would we be better off without smartphones and Teslas?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Mr. Matt, 

Those people Show how flawed other people’s way of life really is. How often did Jobs or Musk go on strike to demand more money? How many times did they ask for a raise? How many times did they sit at home and pout about how unfair life is?

We hate them because they succeed without doing the things we think are the right ways to do things. How dare they make more than us. They must be cheating, since they aren’t getting a job and demanding more money. Imagine thinking and going against the herd...they should be strung up. They are hurting my self esteem, I’m not a failure, they are the ones doing it wrong.

We do nothing and complain when others who do something get rewarded.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

When the wealthy continue to claim a bigger piece of the expanding financial pie, it leaves less for others to divide up.

Wealthy is fine. The question is when too much wealth is flowing to a few people. That is really bad for a consumer driven economy.

While governments dither on the solutions, people fall deeper into debt and the risk to the financial system grows daily.

Sobering numbers and charts on why so many people are falling below the middle class and into poverty.

https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet alone are worth more than the bottom 40% of Americans.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> When the wealthy continue to claim a bigger piece of the expanding financial pie, it leaves less for others to divide up.
> 
> Wealthy is fine. The question is when too much wealth is flowing to a few people. That is really bad for a consumer driven economy.
> 
> ...


yes, you're right, many people misunderstand wealth.
For example you think that somehow they "use up" all the 'wealth".

Lets say I have 1 million shares of ABC Corp.
Someone buys a share for $1, I now have $1 000 000, I'm very wealthy.
Lets say I buy that one share back for $1 000, now I'm a billionaire.
Maybe I pay $1 000 000 for that share, then I'm a trillionaire, and the richest person in history.

Care to explain how that wealth I created took anything away from anyone?


It isn't that governments dither, it's people aren't even sure what the goals are.
Here we are having a discussion about poverty, and people think it's caused by the wealth gap!#[email protected]#!

It doesn't matter how much money Warren Buffet has, he didn't take those pennies out of my bank account. 
In fact ensuring there are good well run companies out there makes the economy stronger and is actually going to get MORE money for me.


The super rich aren't swimming in their bank vaults full of gold thinking how to screw over the little people.
I'd say Warren Buffet is a great example, he's been giving practical applicable and actionable investment advice to ordinary people for decades.

If the super rich want to be richer faster, the best way is to make their customers wealthier and create more wealth.
The vast majority of the worlds wealth and value today was made by people working, we take things of low value and make them into higher value, or provide services, or create new works.
We're constantly making more wealth and value for the world, and we should try to get EVERYONE creating more wealth.

You can argue about splitting up the pie all you want. 
I want someone to just go make more pie, and that's the fundamental difference.

You don't believe in people, it's the bigotry of low expectations writ large.
Unlike you, I believe people can accomplish incredible things.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

"Trickle down economics" only benefits those at the top of the funnel. Everyone else fights over the drips and drabs running out of the tiny hole at the bottom.

It doesn't matter how much water is poured into the top of the funnel for the few, if the hole at the bottom is continually made smaller and smaller for everyone else.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Funny, I buy a lot of vacant properties. Not being used by anyone. I buy them because people like Sags don’t. I get a good price for them, so I can afford to provide affordable housing to a whole host of people. Something Sags won’t do. Further, he want me to pay more, so I have less resources to take vacant properties and provide affordable housing...just to be fair, and complain about the price of rent.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> "Trickle down economics" only benefits those at the top of the funnel. Everyone else fights over the drips and drabs running out of the tiny hole at the bottom.
> 
> It doesn't matter how much water is poured into the top of the funnel for the few, if the hole at the bottom is continually made smaller and smaller for everyone else.


I don't believe in your "trickle down economics".
But if I did, I'd rather have the drips and drabs falling off Jeff Bezos table.

I'll repeat my question.
1. How does Elon Musk being rich hurt me?

He's created thousands of jobs, brought in new technology, and he's reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
Are you really suggesting we'd all be better off if he was at home collecting UBI?
Do you think he'd be able to accomplish any of that if he didn't have his billions to fund his ridiculous ideas?

2. In my example, how does owning a whole bunch of highly valued stock hurt anyone?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

To compare ask how paying ubi, social programs, higher minimum wages, etc. Would harm us. Guess where that money comes from.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> The wealth gap isn't misunderstood........it is just too wide and growing wider.
> 
> Since the widening isn't expected to stop or slow down by itself, governments across the world are considering how best to deal with it.
> 
> Whatever their solutions are.......redistribution of the wealth will be at the core.


Sags, I think the reason we are on 12 or 13 pages of a thread and no where near agreement, is because we are actually arguing about two different things. You are arguing about what is right and fair and I am limiting my argument to what is doable.

I am with you in principle, but I can't see how the wealth can be divided up better without everyone losing more in the process. Taxing these billionaires won't work, because there is not a country on this planet that would not offer residency, with open arms, to any of the people on the Forbes 400 list. You and I might wait for a while, but they won't.

Anyway, I wish you luck. If I see an idea that might actually work I will weigh in if it might help, but it is extremely unlikely I will ever agree to give guaranteed money, in the neighborhood of $16K per year, to completely healthy Canadians. That will definitely create a bigger welfare state then we ever experienced before. Now if you can come up with an idea to separate the very needy from the unmotivated, I would certainly be for that. Unfortuneately on that one, I got nothing.

Good luck to you.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Anyone notice that all of sags’ plans never have the low end doing anything. He complains that the high end, who actually do something, maybe not enough to justify the amount they are getting, but actually do something shouldn’t be allowed to keep it all.

The idea of some compromise, where the low end meet us in the middle to do something, anything, is considered unfair. Just hand it over. Not once has he ever suggested a single plan where they get involved.

This doesn’t make the low end any better off long term, it only makes the high end suffer more.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

MrMatt said:


> I don't believe in your "trickle down economics".
> But if I did, I'd rather have the drips and drabs falling off Jeff Bezos table.
> 
> I'll repeat my question.
> ...


Mr. Matt, you make some good points. Being rich is not inherently evil, and the rich did not cause poverty as sags seems to assume. that's like saying Tiger Woods caused other golfers to be bad or average golfers. It doesn't make any sense. 

However, some of the rich people cited here believe the playing field is tilted in their favor, and they do think there is income inequality. 

Here is buffett's take on income inequality:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-eitc-150619498.html


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

OptsyEagle said:


> It is a fundamental law. If we prop the lowest income group up, it is the same as driving everyone else down.
> 
> What about that is confusing to people. It is not pleasant, but it should not be so misunderstood.


I'm not convinced it is a fundamental law. Mr Matt says there is not a limited supply of wealth, and that fundamental law assumes there is a fixed amount of wealth. apparently, however, the amount of wealth is dynamic. 

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-eitc-150619498.html

that's Buffett's take on it. He says BRK couldn't happen if it were not for the working guy at the bottom of the heap making the least money, and he wants them to be part of the system too and have a decent life. he is not concerned about any fundamental law.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

That is an interesting concept.

_The Earned Income Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit that goes to millions of low- to moderate-income workers, particularly parents, to supplement their earnings. One of the reasons Buffett favors the EITC is that it rewards work._


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Other than jealousy, what is wrong with wealth inequality?

Assuming consensual transactions, what is wrong with someone getting rich? 

I want to end poverty. 
I don't care about the wealth gap, I'm glad to be on the rich side of it, like pretty much every Canadian.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> That is an interesting concept.
> 
> _The Earned Income Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit that goes to millions of low- to moderate-income workers, particularly parents, to supplement their earnings. One of the reasons Buffett favors the EITC is that it rewards work._


Don't we already have one of those. It is called "The Working Income Tax Benefit". It bypasses the tax credit schedule 1 and puts the benefit on line 453, which makes it "refundable".

I have always loved that one, who wouldn't. I will support increasing that one, all day long.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

I'd rather just raise the personal deduction. I very firmly believe people should not be taxed until AFTER they have enough to support themselves.

I don't care if you're "working' or "investing" or "partnering". I know some people think investing returns should be taxed, but lets say you buy and fix up a house, then sell it as an investment property.
Shouldn't that qualify as the "working income"

Do stuff that other people are willing to pay you for.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> Don't we already have one of those. It is called "The Working Income Tax Benefit". It bypasses the tax credit schedule 1 and puts the benefit on line 453, which makes it "refundable".
> 
> I have always loved that one, who wouldn't. I will support increasing that one, all day long.


Doesn't the WITB start getting reduced at about $12,000 net family income and eliminated at $28,000 net family income ?

Not a bad program, but not much help either.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Doesn't the WITB start getting reduced at about $12,000 net family income and eliminated at $28,000 net family income ?
> 
> Not a bad program, but not much help either.


Then, they should raise it. My main point is that the working poor are a lot closer to the definition of needy then the guy that lives in some small desolate town in the middle of NFLD, who for some reason does not have the motivation to move to any town that might have a glimpse of economic activity to provide him a job. That guy would be on welfare until the day he died. Wouldn't help him much and it would drain money from the more needy, is my point. We have to keep giving him a reason to move.

I will support propping up the elderly, disabled and working poor and I might even entertain giving some to the less intelligent if we can come up with a way of separating out the less intelligent from the intelligent Canadians looking for free money. Stupidity should probably be classified as a disability. I have met a few idiots that I am quite positive our society would find of very little use, and so far that has been the case. Although annoying, most of these people were born with a low IQ and for that I must give them a little slack.

In any event, it is a bad idea, all around, to give healthy Canadians free money just because their incomes are low. Even if it is not their fault, taking away more of their motivation, will not help them, in the long run and it hurts many other areas within our economy, not to mention the government deficit.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Other than jealousy, what is wrong with wealth inequality?
> 
> Assuming consensual transactions, what is wrong with someone getting rich?
> 
> ...


Countries with high inequality tend to be more dangerous, and have shorter lifespans (even for the wealthy). Nevermind the risk of a replay of the french revolution. 

I have a problem with intergenerational wealth. The American dream is dead in the US, but seems to be limping along in Canada. That is, strength of the correlation of the wealth of grandparents and grandchildren.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> Mr. Matt,
> 
> Those people Show how flawed other people’s way of life really is. How often did Jobs or Musk go on strike to demand more money? How many times did they ask for a raise? How many times did they sit at home and pout about how unfair life is?
> 
> ...


Jobs, as an example, participated in a pattern of collusion to suppress wages of tech sector workers by threatening other firms that hired his staff at Apple. These guys don't ask, they take, and they have the power.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

And the poor don’t take? Wake up and ask what the poor contribute say...compared to Jobs. I know plenty of apple millionaires who worked at Apple and got shares for free. Yes,in the early days things were different, but he made a lot of staff very wealthy. 

I don’t know too many people on social assistance who can make a similar claim. They just take and demand more.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

So you are saying that social benefits should increase so the poor can invest in Apple and the stock market ?

With their investments maybe someday they won't be poor anymore and can drop off the social assistance rolls.

Good idea JAG.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> Countries with high inequality tend to be more dangerous, and have shorter lifespans (even for the wealthy). Nevermind the risk of a replay of the french revolution.
> 
> I have a problem with intergenerational wealth. The American dream is dead in the US, but seems to be limping along in Canada. That is, strength of the correlation of the wealth of grandparents and grandchildren.


Well that is why socialists want to destroy social structures, such as families, church and nations.
Destroy the social structure so all you have left is the government, then they can run things "the right way".
Like they do in all the communist countries!


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

andrewf said:


> Countries with high inequality tend to be more dangerous, and have shorter lifespans (even for the wealthy). Nevermind the risk of a replay of the french revolution.


That's wrong. The greatest inequity is in communist and dictatorship countries.



> I have a problem with intergenerational wealth.


Of course you do. You're jealous that someone else has more than you and that someone else might get that money instead of you. But be honest...if you were wildly successful you wouldn't dream of not being allowed to pass it along as you see fit rather than giving it to the government.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I have said it before and I guess I need to say it again.

If everyone has the same, everyone will have nothing. Your wealth is only your ability to convince someone (who wants it/needs it) to do something for you or to give you something that was theirs.

If anyone can give me a better definition of wealth, I am all ears. Until then, I would like to know how it all works when no one is in need of it. It seems to me, like communism, it all starts to break down, and everyone becomes poor.

Although we would all be equally poor, is that really what you guys want? Seems a little drastic to me.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

Nothing is ever as simple as that OptsyEagle.

Let's take your statement that if everyone has the same, everyone will have nothing and combine that with a definition of wealth.

Suppose you have two cars and only need one and I have 2 boats and only need one. You decide you need a boat and I decide I need a car so we decide to trade them. We both had something that was 'worthless' to us and traded for something that was of 'value' to us, your worthless car and my worthless boat suddenly become an addition to my and your 'wealth'. We would not become 'equally poor', we would become 'equally wealthy'. 

It's all in the individual's perception of what would add to their 'wealth'.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

OptsyEagle said:


> Although we would all be equally poor, is that really what you guys want? Seems a little drastic to me.


I believe that there are some people that would rather everyone have nothing than someone else have more.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Longtimeago said:


> Nothing is ever as simple as that OptsyEagle.
> 
> Let's take your statement that if everyone has the same, everyone will have nothing and combine that with a definition of wealth.
> 
> ...


I suppose I should have defined the outlying parameters. In your world EVERYONE HAS MORE THEN THEY NEED. In that world, your system might work. I would still suggest using money would be a better method and having more of that then you need, would be of absolutely no use to you,* if others did not want it, with very high levels of motivation.* That motivation is the wealth. The goods will eventually be depleted. The only way someone will replenish them for others, is if the others actually have something, they can spare, to give them.

Now let's look at the two other worlds. The first, is the world where everyone has exactly enough for their needs (only have one car, one boat, etc.) and the next world they all have insufficient amounts for their needs (no car at all but would like one but have nothing they can trade without pain or anguish). Again, everyone has exactly the same. I really can't see a plumber coming to fix a problem in your house, when you have absolutely nothing you can give them.

I am not saying we don't trade a few things but at the end of the day, in the last one, where there is an insufficient amount of goods, what do you really have to trade.

The best world, of course, is one where you have 2 cars and only need one. Another person has some skills that you require and you motivate them to use those skills for your benefit by offering to give them a car. Does that world sound familiar.

I doubt, in a world where everyone has equal amounts, there would be enough motivation left to create enough stuff so that we all had enough. Soooo, we would live in a world of insufficient goods and have virtually no way to change it. I doubt many of us are going to vote to live there.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Prairie Guy said:


> I believe that there are some people that would rather everyone have nothing than someone else have more.


That has actually been proven by the scientific community. It is a fundamental human characteristic, that too many people fail to notice in themselves.

As I point out. Even if we take money from the Billionaires and reduce them to $100 millionaires, when we are done with the billionaires, we will then target the $100millionaires, etc. and so on. Eventually they will come and expect money from you and I. The savings that you put aside for your children's education, will come in quite handy to top up the savings of all the others that did not put anything away for their children. I mean it is only right and fair. *The fact that you have this money and they don't is proof that you had an unfair advantage...is it not?*

This wealth disparity is certainly not equal so lets not waste time looking into how it got like that, let's just equalize it up and be done with it. Doesn't everyone agree.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

If you don't agree that wealth is the ability to convince someone else to do something for you or give you something that was theirs. Then I ask you, what are you saving your money for and what exactly do you plan to do with it?

LTO made a weak attempt to debunk the theory by simply changing our monetary system to a bartering system. That doesn't change my point in that it is the motivation of others who want it, that makes anything you have, hold value or at least a lot more value then the item alone. If no one wanted cash money in your wallet, what are you going to do with it?

Now, if money is just what I explained. Would $1,000 work better if everyone had $1,000, as well as everything else they needed,....or.....would it be worth more to you, if many other people had absolutely nothing and desperately needed some or all of that $1,000 to put food on their table.

It is the same $1,000, just two different worlds. Which one would work better for your $1,000?

In Summary: *The wealth you have is largely derived from the motivation of others to acquire it.*


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Sharing the wealth produced in the economy more fairly via higher wages or income redistribution isn't difficult or onerous.

On the other hand, allowing the wealth and income gaps to continue to widen unabated will without doubt lead to a financial collapse from which all will suffer.

Economists all over the world agree there is a growing problem, but they don't all agree on the solutions.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Sharing the wealth produced in the economy more fairly via higher wages or income redistribution isn't difficult or onerous.
> 
> On the other hand, allowing the wealth and income gaps to continue to widen unabated will without doubt lead to a financial collapse from which all will suffer.
> 
> Economists all over the world agree there is a growing problem, but they don't all agree on the solutions.


But fairly is an opinion, not an amount...and we have been doing what you are saying for my entire life. I guess, just a little more should do it. Is that what you are saying. 2ndly if many economists agree, but not all economists agree, then is it not safe to say many economists don't agree. So what is left in your post above.

Sags you keep saying the same thing without adding any type of realistic plan to get there. Post after posts, line by line, others explain to you that all you will be doing, with your fairer equalization dream is simply bringing others, with more, down to the same level as those in need, yet you keep saying we need to do it. It just does not sound like rational behavior to me.

The reason I keep harping on "what wealth is" etc., and how capitalism creates a disparity of wealth, etc., is I am trying to help you understand the true nature of the problem. You really sound like you want to solve the problem but you don't seem to understand the true nature of it, which would be required to solve it. The problem is much larger then simply taking money from someone, with an abundant amount, and giving it to another. We have already tried that many, many times, and it has not worked. I am trying to help you see why.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

sags said:


> Sharing the wealth produced in the economy more fairly via higher wages or income redistribution isn't difficult or onerous.


The wealth is already shared:

- In 2014, 27.5 million Canadian filed a tax return; 33% (9.1 million) paid no income tax; 67% (18.4 million tax filers) paid all the federal and provincial income tax.

- Those with incomes under $50,000 accounted for 68.4% of all tax filers and paid 13.2% of all federal income tax.

- Filers between $50,000 and $99,999 represented 23.3% of all filers and paid 35% of all federal income tax.

- Those with incomes at $100,000 and above represented 8.4% of all filers and paid 51.8% of all federal income tax

- Of note, those with incomes at $250,000 or higher represented 1% of all tax filers and paid 21.1% of all federal income tax.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> Sharing the wealth produced in the economy more fairly via higher wages or income redistribution isn't difficult or onerous.
> 
> On the other hand, allowing the wealth and income gaps to continue to widen unabated will without doubt lead to a financial collapse from which all will suffer.
> 
> Economists all over the world agree there is a growing problem, but they don't all agree on the solutions.


Destroying wealth by too much redistribution, or forcing unsustainably high wages is also a problem.
That is assuming it was done fairly, which it won't be.

That's the actual unspoken issue.
People want to replace one system with another.
The current system is theoretically fair and partially merit based, but tends to runaway with itself, and has lots of problems.

The proposed replacement system doesn't generate as much wealth, is unfair in theory and even more unfair in practice, and tends to result in authoritarian governments and mass suffering.

I'm willing to work with and fix up our current system, or listen if you have a new idea.
But repeating the same horrible ideas that have already been disproven in theory and in practice isn't going to win me over.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

OptsyEagle said:


> Although we would all be equally poor, is that really what you guys want? Seems a little drastic to me.


Life doesn’t work that way. There will always be people who do more and people who do less. People who will be more successful and people who will be less. People who take risks to get ahead and people to frightened to try. 

Wealth inequality is inevitable.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Just a Guy said:


> Life doesn’t work that way. There will always be people who do more and people who do less. People who will be more successful and people who will be less. People who take risks to get ahead and people to frightened to try.
> 
> Wealth inequality is inevitable.


Not if these socialists get the communist state they are dreaming of. Your hard work, the successful do above, would have got you about 100 grams more bread in a Soviet gulag.

By the way, have you ever wondered why the communists always have gulags? China does. North Korea does. The quick answer would be the heartless nature of the government. The right answer would be that if you promise that everyone would be equal, who would you find to do the dirty jobs. In our economy we have money to motivate people and since our money has already been devalued by our socialists programs, we need to bring in immigrants to do many of them. In their economy, they only have forced slavery to get that work done.

*Example: Would you take the job, changing the diapers of our elderly, at the nursing home down the street.* I am guessing most of us would say, never (ever notice that almost all the workers doing that job are immigrants). Anyway, if you were offered a 1/4 chicken dinner from Swiss Chalet to change 25 diapers today, would you do it? No. You can probably go to Swiss Chalet any day. Now if you had not eaten for 7 days and you had no money to buy any food. I will ask again. Would you change 25 diapers at the local nursing home for a 1/4 chicken dinner at Swiss Chalet. Yes. would now be the answer.

*Same 1/4 chicken dinner. Same job.* Just one had almost no motivation and the other had a lot.

Therefore the value of the chicken dinner changed dramatically depending on the motivation of the person that wanted it. Your money you are saving for retirement, your kids education, to buy next week groceries, is exactly the same. It derives value from the motivation of others who want it.

If you reduce the motivation of the people with the lower incomes, in our society, by giving them their money for nothing, you reduce their motivation to earn it and therefore you reduce the value of everything that you have. That is all I am saying.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Any wealth or income that is more fairly distributed will result in North Korean types of gulags ?..........LOL.

I guess we are doomed then. Let the wealth/income gap continue to increase until people have no money to spend beyond the basics of life.

We are already almost to that stage with millions of people with no retirement savings, buried in personal debt, without $200 of discretionary income each month.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Even in jail, there are people at the top of the food chain and people at the bottom. Wealth inequality will always exist.

People like sags will always be lower than others, it’s a mental attitude. He may not be he bottom, but he’s got no chance of ever seeing the top.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Any wealth or income that is more fairly distributed will result in North Korean types of gulags ?..........LOL.
> 
> I guess we are doomed then. Let the wealth/income gap continue to increase until people have no money to spend beyond the basics of life.
> 
> We are already almost to that stage with millions of people with no retirement savings, buried in personal debt, without $200 of discretionary income each month.


You're the one continuously asking to even things up and I am showing you what happens when everything is equal. Don't rearrange my words in an attempt to ignore them. I am hoping even you would be willing to stop before we get to having gulags but I am not quite so sure.

I don't understand why you are willing to reduce the welfare of the many, to help the few, when easily 75% of the few you would be helping, are just too lazy or unmotivated to help themselves. These other groups, your ideas would harm are the hard workers. Your suggestions do not just effect Jeff Bezos. It affects the wealth of everyone in that society. The wealth that you want to have in order to give it away. It doesn't work that way.

For every one person your idea would help, at least one other person would take their place...and you refuse to see that and make any change your approach.

I am happy to help them but I am not fond of just replacing one name with another, so lets work together to see what we can do.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

If we reduce the need, of our lower income citizens, to earn money, by simply giving it to them, there will be a much larger group of jobs that no Canadian will ever agree to do. Jobs that need to get done. Assuming we don't want a gulag, I assume the plan would be to increase immigration to get the people to do these necessary jobs.

So I ask Sags. When these lower income people from around the world, come to Canada, to do all those jobs no Canadian will now ever do, what do we do about their poverty. Are they to be included in this UBI program? If they are included, since soon enough they will be Canadians, will they continue to do those jobs. If not, do we bring more immigrants in.

I guess I am confused here. I am not sure the plan Sags actually has, except that the rich are too rich. That I know.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Sharing the wealth doesn't mean everyone would be "equal", nor would the numbers of capable unemployed likely increase.

The world won't fall apart if the wealthy are expected to share a little more. It is good for the social fabric and economy to have a fair distribution of wealth.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Scandinavian countries have very strong welfare systems and good social benefits. Very high tax rates as well. In fact, they are some of the best societies on earth, probably because they really are sharing their wealth internally among the population. And newsflash... people still work.

In comparison, look at what you get in the US where you minimize welfare and have huge wealth disparity by letting the rich hoard wealth. Minimal taxes on the rich. You end up with a deeply dysfunctional society, huge numbers of people in poverty and in jail, some of the worst life expectancy among developed countries.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I would still love to know, that if we are currently having a problem getting Canadians to do certain jobs, like changing the diapers of our elderly, how does that work out when we give more money to the only people that might have any incentive to do that job.

If immigration, how will that work. If not immigration, what?

Sags laughs at Gulags but apart from immigration and that, I would like to know. If we raise the wage for that job and all the comparative jobs, for them to stay competitive, what does that do to other people's wealth when prices of these services go up...and what do we do now with these new people, who we just made poor by devaluing the little they had, with inflation.

Perhaps you could look at that Scandinavian system and enlighten me. I also hear they are doing fine things in Alaska.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Prairie Guy said:


> That's wrong. The greatest inequity is in communist and dictatorship countries.
> 
> 
> 
> Of course you do. You're jealous that someone else has more than you and that someone else might get that money instead of you. But be honest...if you were wildly successful you wouldn't dream of not being allowed to pass it along as you see fit rather than giving it to the government.


I think you're projecting. I'm doing just fine, and stand to inherit 7 figures. Maybe you can't fathom they're are people who care about society beyond their narrow self interest.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

If Scandinavian countries are so good, why aren’t people flocking to them? Why aren’t you and sags there James? Your utopia awaits. Take your welfare cases with you and let us live our lives.

We’re not the ones doing nothing with our lives and demanding more. We’re not the ones unwilling to delay gratification to ensure a brighter future. I’m not the one with my hand out all the time.

Not to many Scandinavians who are super wealthy, also not a lot of innovation coming out of those countries either.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

They have no idea. They hope it is happening the way they want it to in Scandinavia.

To me they are saying the same thing as telling me they are boiling pure water, at sea level, at only 90 degrees C, which of course, we all know is against the laws of physics.

I don't really need to look into that statement to know that it is not happening the way they want me to believe it is happening.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Bah, they’re all experts. They read a meme on Facebook. Or made it up like they usually do. No need to admit reality. Don’t need it when all they do is hold out their hands and demand more.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

andrewf said:


> I think you're projecting. I'm doing just fine, and stand to inherit 7 figures.


This is good news for the poor since you've taken a stand against "intergenerational wealth". 

You will be handing that money over to the poor and we'll be cheering you on since you care so much about society.

ltr


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> Scandinavian countries have very strong welfare systems and good social benefits. Very high tax rates as well. In fact, they are some of the best societies on earth, probably because they really are sharing their wealth internally among the population. And newsflash... people still work.
> 
> In comparison, look at what you get in the US where you minimize welfare and have huge wealth disparity by letting the rich hoard wealth. Minimal taxes on the rich. You end up with a deeply dysfunctional society, huge numbers of people in poverty and in jail, some of the worst life expectancy among developed countries.


You're forgetting these are smaller culturally homogeneous countries with a high degree of social cohesion.
Different culture different results.


I also think it's interesting that you live in the US, not one of those wonderful Scandinavian countries.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Hey Guys. A child receiving an inheritance or a Canadian living in the US has nothing to do with the merits of UBI. 

I am sure Andrew's point is valid, about a wealthy person still being interested in helping the poor, but it is equally true that a person like myself, who nobody would ever call overly wealthy, can see clearly the benefits our society derives from the rich. I never said anything about liking that reality. I am just talking about common sense and the world we actually live in.

I have made money off of wealthy people my entire life, as almost all Canadians have, and paid a much lower then average amount of taxes, while doing so. The only difference is that I am actually aware of it. I am very glad to have these people, in my society, to pick up the cheque on a lot of my government benefits and I am desperately trying to keep Canadians from driving them away.

Whether we like it or not, they are the golden goose. Let's not constipate it or cut off its head and give the meat to the food bank. I just think that would be dumb.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> You're forgetting these are smaller culturally homogeneous countries with a high degree of social cohesion.
> Different culture different results.


It's true that they are smaller countries. I'm not sure if cultural homogeneity factors into it. It's possible that's true. 



> I also think it's interesting that you live in the US, not one of those wonderful Scandinavian countries.


I don't live in the US. I left the US and live in Canada, which I see as the better country. I would not want to live in the US long term.

Even when I lived in the US, I opted to file and pay Canadian taxes when I didn't have to. All the years I've been in the US, I've continued with my Canadian tax obligations.

I did this because Canada is my home. As a high income earner at the time, I felt I had a *moral duty* to help out my country by helping pay for vital services provincially and federally. In hindsight, even though I opted into more taxes, I'm glad I did so. Taxes are how we _share_ the costs of vital services in our society. It's how we fund all the useful services and functions that government performs.

While in the US, I frequently said to myselt: I would happily pay higher (US) taxes to help their society out, to reduce the large numbers of mentally ill people wandering the streets, handicapped veterans who have been abandoned by their government, by having better treatment or assistance for these people. Even Americans who I worked with were saying the same thing. In our profession, at our income level, we were aware that as high income earners, we were getting way too big an advantage -- this is exactly how the massive wealth disparity in America happens.

We basically paid little tax even though we made a lot of money. This was even more dramatic due to the Trump tax cuts, which let our corporation (which I own a part of) pay less tax. It's wrong and this is all leading to the ultimate downfall of America, through greed of the rich.

But you know what? Since I also filed in Canada, I saw that my Canadian tax burden wasn't too much higher. If my province of residence had been BC, AB, ON, the tax burden would have been very similar. This showed me that *Canadian taxes are also very low*... and high income earners in Canada should be paying more taxes. They can afford it and they should pay more tax.

Ultimately I left the US. Canada is the better country, and one reason why is that we place higher value on social services and assisting our fellow citizens. If it would mean it would reduce poverty in Canada and provide more useful services that improve quality of life, I would happily pay more taxes in Canada as well.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Change is very difficult for some people to accept, but it is inevitable.

There will have to be a new way to redistribute income and wealth. We can manage the change or it will manage us.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Taxes on the wealthy are too low in Canada.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

sags said:


> Taxes on the wealthy are too low in Canada.


Agree!

Let me add (to my notes above of living in the US) that Canadians have been subjected to a lot of corporate propaganda over the years which has tried to convince us that we pay a lot of tax vs the US, or that our companies pay a lot of tax and need tax cuts and are suffering.

This is baloney. Tax levels in Canada are comparable to many parts of the US when you look at all-in costs, including healthcare and other vital services in the US that the govt doesn't cover. The corporate lobbyists put out this message in an effort to convince Canadians that our taxes are too high versus America... they are trying to get more tax cuts.

If you look at any part of the US which actually has a good level of services for their residents, places like CA, OR, NY, MA, you'll find tax levels pretty similar to Canada's. And once you do the all-in comparison including healthcare and supplementary services you might even find a lower tax burden living in Canada.

Don't be convinced by the corporate propaganda. If anything, Canadian taxes are too low. High income earners and big corporations should absolutely be paying more taxes. We don't want to become like America but are too close to it IMO. The American greed really rubs off on people, especially the high income earners in this country. They should suck it up and pay their taxes and then be thankful for how good they have it.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

OptsyEagle said:


> I have made money off of wealthy people my entire life, as almost all Canadians have, and paid a much lower then average amount of taxes, while doing so. The only difference is that I am actually aware of it. I am very glad to have these people, in my society, to pick up the cheque on a lot of my government benefits and I am desperately trying to keep Canadians from driving them away.
> 
> Whether we like it or not, they are the golden goose. Let's not constipate it or cut off its head and give the meat to the food bank. I just think that would be dumb.


Well stated.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> It's true that they are smaller countries. I'm not sure if cultural homogeneity factors into it. It's possible that's true.
> 
> 
> I did this because Canada is my home. As a high income earner at the time, I felt I had a *moral duty* to help out my country by helping pay for vital services provincially and federally. In hindsight, even though I opted into more taxes, I'm glad I did so. Taxes are how we _share_ the costs of vital services in our society. It's how we fund all the useful services and functions that government performs.


1. Culture matters a lot. It matters in families, social groups, companies and nations. Most career advise is to simply leave a toxic culture, because it's hard to turn around. It's horrifying to see our elected officials actually working to destroy ours.

2. I'm okay paying for the vital services. However the government has a moral obligation to act responsibly. They quite simply aren't doing their job. 
They're wasting billions of dollars that families need to survive.
If they were spending my money on things that actually were important, that would be one thing, but if they're going to insist on wasting it, or even to make things worse it is morally wrong to take it. We also have a moral duty to oppose those actions.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

james4beach said:


> While in the US, I frequently said to myselt: I would happily pay higher (US) taxes to help their society out, to reduce the large numbers of mentally ill people wandering the streets, handicapped veterans who have been abandoned by their government, by having better treatment or assistance for these people. Even Americans who I worked with were saying the same thing. In our profession, at our income level, we were aware that as high income earners, we were getting way too big an advantage -- this is exactly how the massive wealth disparity in America happens.
> 
> We basically paid little tax even though we made a lot of money. This was even more dramatic due to the Trump tax cuts, which let our corporation (which I own a part of) pay less tax. It's wrong and this is all leading to the ultimate downfall of America, through greed of the rich.


I call bull on this, you know why? If you really wanted to pay more taxes to help the poor in america, you could have easily done so. it’s called a charitable donation. Better yet the money is directed to your cause, not the government’s agenda. 

It’s easy to say the things you’d like to do, not even hard to implement, but you didn’t. Hypocrisy in action.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Just a Guy said:


> I call bull on this, you know why? If you really wanted to pay more taxes to help the poor in america, you could have easily done so. it’s called a charitable donation. Better yet the money is directed to your cause, not the government’s agenda.
> 
> It’s easy to say the things you’d like to do, not even hard to implement, but you didn’t. Hypocrisy in action.


Funny that *you* of all people would "call bull" on someone


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> Taxes on the wealthy are too low in Canada.


That is an opinion, quite biased and based more on anger then reality. You have no idea what each individual person pays in taxes. I don`t recall our tax system offering a major reduction in tax rates when a person`s income surpasses $10 million or anything like that. Saying these things, however, seems to be enough to justify your confiscation ideology, assuming that wealthy person would actually stand still while you sift through their pockets.

Most wealthy Canadians will pay more money in taxes, this year alone, then the average Canadian will pay in their lifetime. If Jeff Bezos wanted to come to Canada to live, I would be quite content offering him a deal on his taxes, if that might persuade him. Instead of 40%, that many think he should pay, or higher, I think that when a taxpayer can generate over a $Billion of income, even 10% of that becomes real tax revenue for all of us to share. Add to that the taxes paid by all the people that are employed by their businesses, and we actually start to generate some real tax revenue that might actually pay for some of these grandiose spending ideas like UBI. Please don`t forget the $26 Billion government spending deficit we are currently running every year to support all the other social programs you guys demanded in the past.

But no. Sags says they don`t pay enough, so I guess it`s best that they should leave or stay away. Somehow we will all be better off, although these posters never seem to come up with a realistic, real world way, for it to happen.

Any level of poverty for our country is somehow better then seeing Jeff Bezos buy a bigger house. That is pretty much the end result of what Sags is actually saying.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> 2. I'm okay paying for the vital services. However the government has a moral obligation to act responsibly. They quite simply aren't doing their job.
> They're wasting billions of dollars that families need to survive.
> If they were spending my money on things that actually were important, that would be one thing, but if they're going to insist on wasting it, or even to make things worse it is morally wrong to take it. We also have a moral duty to oppose those actions.


Yes the government has moral duties and responsibilities, and I think they *are* doing their job. I think we have a well functioning, relatively efficient and well running government. I don't mean just the current government; I have been satisfied with Canadian government going back as far as I started paying attention to such things, in the early 2000s.

Our government in Canada is quite good overall. We should be proud to live in a stable country with a well functioning government.

When in the US, I also interacted with US government people (who we worked with). I think they also do an excellent job and the US has a pretty good government as well.

Canadians and Americans need to be more thankful for their excellent governments, how well things run, and how smoothly our countries operate. We have it very lucky and there are few other countries on earth which operate so well.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Further to the above, there are few countries _in world history_ who have operated as smoothly, peacefully, and as well as we enjoy in Canada.

I suggest taking what you hear about politics in context and thinking of the big picture. We live in extremely good times. No major wars. Low crime rate that is steadily declining. Gradually rising life expectancy (which US doesn't have). Best employment rates in nearly 40 years. Stable economy. More diverse economy than Canada has had historically with a broader range of jobs and opportunities, nothing like our trading & agricultural past.

These are really good times and I think our government does an excellent job. Has done an excellent job for the last few decades, if not longer.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I don't know why you would use Jeff Bezos as an example.

How much does Amazon pay in taxes...........how about $0. In fact they got a rebate.

_Amazon, for example, earned over $10 billion in income in 2018. But by taking advantage of tax credits, the company zeroed out its income taxes and *earned a rebate of $129 million*, according to tax filings published by the Securities and Exchange Commission._

But Bezos does brag about paying his employees the minimum wage of $15 which means he relies on social programs to subsidize his employees.

Amazon and Bezos are far from the only ones. The corporate tax rate is 21% and they paid an average of 8%.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-dont-pay-federal-income-taxes-amazon-gm-2019-11

Like I said....the rich should pay more taxes instead of dodging them for a free ride. There is lots of money in the world, we just need to pry it from the greedy hands.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> I don't know why you would use Jeff Bezos as an example.
> 
> How much does Amazon pay in taxes...........how about $0. In fact they got a rebate.
> 
> ...


What number did you get in the years before that, since rebates usually come about as a refund of some taxes paid at some time. Also we need to add up the amount of sales taxes paid by their customers and the income taxes paid by their employees, and what did you come up with from his personal tax return?

It does sound like some entrepreneurial country got to Jeff before we could, and offered him a deal. Damn!

My point is that even if Jeff paid no taxes at all, the amount of benefit that derives from his efforts outweighs a single years tax bill. Do you think that he would dream of focusing his effort towards us, if our only offer is to tax him into the stone age, especially when he is preparing that tax return on behalf of his shareholders, where he is only one of.

I didn't pay my tax rate in taxes last year either. Far from it. Most on this board, probably did not, when you consider RRSP deductions, tuition credits, flow through share programs, exaggerated business expenses, money earned inside registered plans, etc.

Again, I never asked what is right or wrong. I am asking what is best for the majority of Canadians in the real world we live in.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

By the way, the only reason I even mention the wealthy is that it is my opinion, that the poor would be much better off by giving perks and tax benefits to the wealthy, then they would ever derive from a UBI of any amount. A program that we cannot even pay for now, let alone pay for if our most successful people leave or pull back on their efforts. That small group we are spitting on are paying the majority of the income tax bill. Just look at the records if you are unsure. Would I like to see them pay more. Who wouldn't. Better anyone else then me. But it's not going to happen in this particular world we live in. So lets do what we can do to generate prosperity, and not start an expensive UBI program and hope some rich people won't mind paying for it. 

Looks like we might not get Jeff Bezos to move to Canada either, but I am still hopeful to attract a few others. I certainly do not want any of the ones we currently have to leave or retire. That would be too hard on our poor, and would add too many more people to their group. Our citizens need the opportunity to get a job and enjoy some level of success. Let's not kill that opportunity by driving away the machine that creates those jobs.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Interesting fact regarding wealth: apparently John D. Rockefeller was worth, in 2017 dollars, 350 billion. That's more than twice the current richest man. So maybe the wealth gap isn't as big as it used to be.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

james4beach said:


> Funny that *you* of all people would "call bull" on someone


I actually work on my causes. Since people like you obviously don’t, I can understand why you find it hard to believe others do.

You know, if you’re concerned about affordable housing, buy and ensure affordable housing. If you’re concerned with the poor, work with the poor. Understand the situation, try to fix the problems...a lot harder than preaching of course.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> Yes the government has moral duties and responsibilities, and I think they *are* doing their job. I think we have a well functioning, relatively efficient and well running government. I don't mean just the current government; I have been satisfied with Canadian government going back as far as I started paying attention to such things, in the early 2000s.
> 
> Our government in Canada is quite good overall. We should be proud to live in a stable country with a well functioning government.
> 
> ...


I agree with you. I personally consider the current government particularly incompetent by Canadian standards, but we've been well served by decades of relatively good Federal governments.

To be clear the keyword is "relatively good" is an important term.

I would bet if you had an extra $1000 laying around, you would give it to a lot of other groups, before you give it to the government.
That's the thing, all these people who'd "Gladly pay more", don't. Look at Bernie Sanders, makes millions from a book, keeps the cash for himself.


I've actually never heard of anyone donating to general revenue on their taxes, yet most people I know have a few charitable contributions. Makes you wonder, for all the "good" the government does, virtually nobody thinks it's the best destination for their money.
The simple truth is we all know the government is not particularly effective by any practical standard.

I actually think the typical individual is better able to allocate their money than the government, but that's just because I believe in people.
Also there's that whole "local knowledge" problem, which big government types pretend to ignore.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

MrMatt said:


> I would bet if you had an extra $1000 laying around, you would give it to a lot of other groups, before you give it to the government.
> That's the thing, all these people who'd "Gladly pay more", don't. Look at Bernie Sanders, makes millions from a book, keeps the cash for himself.
> 
> I've actually never heard of anyone donating to general revenue on their taxes, yet most people I know have a few charitable contributions. Makes you wonder, for all the "good" the government does, virtually nobody thinks it's the best destination for their money.
> The simple truth is we all know the government is not particularly effective by any practical standard.


Yeah, handing extra money over to the government, above the required taxes is something not many people would do.

I doubt James4B actually means that he literally wants to voluntarily give the government more tax money. Rather, I suspect he is a member of the group that wouldn't complain if the government announced they were going to increase taxes on all those horrible citizens that earned a lot of money. This generally aligns with the socialist kudos of taking money from those that earn it and give it to those that don't.

I read from all the socialists on this site that we don't pay enough tax, but you can only go so far with taxation and people will find a way around it. The government can make all their assumptive calculations of how much more will be dumped into their coffers when they raise taxes, but it's never the reality. People find a way around onerous taxation.

I feel Canada is already at the top end of taxation and shouldn't move too much further. If I look at my own retired situation, I am assumed to be in the middle class. Yet, every dollar of income I make on top of what I already make in my investments results in 52% being taken away by the government. Not much incentive to further invest with that result. 

Studies have shown that as soon as you confiscate more than half of a persons income, it's over the line and will result in actions to avoid that situation. And yet, many socialists on this site want to increase that taxation beyond that number. They say it's my fair share?

ltr


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I doubt truly wealthy people pay anywhere close to 52% in income taxes, so you pay more so they can pay less. That is how the game is played.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

sags said:


> I doubt truly wealthy people pay anywhere close to 52% in income taxes, so you pay more so they can pay less. That is how the game is played.


Excuse me? Every dollar I earn on top of my existing income and investments results in 52% being confiscated by the government. 

What is it about that you don't understand?

Explain how the game is played, beyond taking money from those that earn it and giving it to those that don't......

ltr


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I have no idea what you pay, but the top 1% of income earners pay far less than 52% income taxes.

The top 1% gathered 9% of all income and paid 21% of all income taxes. The 9% of all income is far higher than the 21% of income taxes paid.

_The overall effective tax rate for Canada's top 1% of tax filers edged down from *31.3% in 2016 to 31.0% *(correction) in 2017. This was due, in part, to lower provincial effective tax rates for the top 1%.

After the introduction of a fifth top federal tax bracket in 2016, the effective federal income tax rate for Canada's top 1% of tax filers rose from 18.4% in 2015 to 18.8% in 2016, and remained at that level in 2017.

The top 1% of tax filers received 9.9% of total income in 2017, and they paid 21.1% (correction) of the income taxes collected by the federal and provincial/territorial governments. Relative to 2016, their share of income taxes paid rose 1.2 percentage points (correction), while their total income share rose 0.6 percentage points._


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

sags said:


> I have no idea what you pay, but the top 1% of income earners pay far less than 52% income taxes.


Ahh, so you don't care about the middle class? It's Trudeau's favourite group. In fact, it's the majority of the people.

Personally, I don't care about the top 1% because they are such a small minority. It's 1%.

Let's look at a middle class person. They worked all their life and now enjoy a pension of $45000. No big deal. They also receive CPP @ $13854 and OAS @ $7289. They spent their life saving and investing in our economy and get about $19,000 in Canadian dividends and $7000 in interest income. They're making under $100K a year and a lot of that OAS is clawed back. This person is exactly in the middle of Trudeau's middle class. They are not considered wealthy or rich.

So now pay attention comrade. 

Go to an tax program like Tax Tips and enter those numbers. Then add $100 interest income and you'll find the taxes go up $52. If you're not math inclined, that's a 52% tax for a middle class person that is highly favoured by Mr. Trudeau. Does this middle class guy have an incentive to invest further with those tax rates?

Compare the number of middle class that is subject to this onerous tax rate and compare it to the teeny weeny 1% rich guys that you spend all your time moaning about.

Do you and comrade James4B really feel taxes should increase? beyond 52%?

ltr


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> I have no idea what you pay, but the top 1% of income earners pay far less than 52% income taxes.
> 
> The top 1% gathered 9% of all income and paid 21% of all income taxes. The 9% of all income is far higher than the 21% of income taxes paid.
> 
> ...


Huh?
Care to share the source for that, also I don't belive it is true, unless they use a definition of "income" that isn't taxable "income"


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190924/dq190924b-eng.htm

In the example given of a retiree earning $100,000 a year with pensions, dividends, CPP, OAS and interest........the tax rate would be around 29%.

It could be lower if the pension was subject to pension splitting or a disability tax credit were available.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190924/dq190924b-eng.htm
> 
> In the example given of a retiree earning $100,000 a year with pensions, dividends, CPP, OAS and interest........the tax rate would be around 29%.
> 
> It could be lower if the pension was subject to pension splitting or a disability tax credit were available.


Excellent paper
It doesn't say the top marginal tax rate is not 52%.
It does say that the top income earners are paying an even higher share of the total income tax.

I think the interesting thing is that they blame dividends, which don't actually cut the tax rate, they just credit back the tax corporations already paid.
But the really interesting thing is that incorporating and dividends is being targetted as a tax minimization strategy due to the new higher tax bracket that was added.
The thing is that when you incorporate and pay dividends, it just shifts personal income tax to corporate income tax. The total tax on the actual earnings of the activity should stay approximately the same.

Oh and finally according to the table in that group, the relative income share of the rich is falling.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190924/cg-b001-eng.htm


In short, I agree people don't pay the marginal tax rate overall.
The dividend tax credit is interesting, I wonder if they included the gross up amount or the actual received amount.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

MrMatt said:


> In short, I agree people don't pay the marginal tax rate overall.


Yes, of course, we all know that, but when someone is looking for an new investment and they see that they will have $52 confiscated for every $100 they make, there's little incentive to invest. Forget about the rich, these are facts for the middle class.

And it also seems counterproductive to raise taxes on the rich. Look at the graph below for the total taxes collected and see if you think the rich don't pay their "fair share".









ltr


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

james4beach said:


> I was listening to this CBC podcast, and near the end there's an interview with a man named Mike Sloan. He has terminal cancer and has been given just a few months to live. He's been preparing his funeral and talking about his experience on Twitter.
> 
> Mike suffers from PTSD due to abuse he suffered as a child. He has severe depression, anxiety, and has not been able to work. Based on what I read here, his CPP+disability totals just 16K a year.
> 
> ...


This thread has strayed a heck of a long way from the original post. I'd like to re-examine 'Mike's' answer to the interviewer.

He said he wouldn't miss poverty when asked 'what won't you miss about being alive?' But isn't that in a sense a question to which you would be trying to give in a weird way, a POSITIVE answer? In other words, OK, I'm dying and I can't do anything about that but 'every cloud has a silver lining, I won't have to live in poverty.' 

That does NOT mean as you seem to have been suggesting in the OP james4beach, that he saw poverty as a greater negative than cancer or being abused as a child. He couldn't have said, 'I won't miss being abused or having cancer', that would have made no sense as an answer to the question asked. If he was living in a hospice at the time he was asked that question, he could as easily have answered for example with, 'well, I won't miss the horrible food I have to eat here.' An attempt to find a positive in a lousy situation.

I think you may have been reading too much into his comment re poverty. I'm sure if asked outright, which was worse, cancer, abuse or poverty, the answer would not have been poverty. If you had to endure 1 of the 3, which would you choose as the worst choice?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Alright. End of discussion. Next years deficit. $28.1 Billion dollars. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Spending our children's future and then arguing about how to spend billions more for a group of people, who except for a small number of exceptions, are too bloody lazy or unmotivated or possibly stupid, to get a job and contribute to our society. Enough

So much for UBI or any other program. That ship sailed with other useless programs we spent too much money on in the past. I will say it again. We cannot afford it.

I say this with all honesty, because of two realities. 

1) I have no children, who will someday pay for these programs we are dreaming up. 
2) It is extremely unlikely, when the government starts looking for people to pay for some of this garbage, they will ever get that money from me. I understand the tax system way too well for that to ever happen. No, as always they will get it from the paycheques of the next generation of taxpayers who have no idea how they are being taxed...and why.

https://business.financialpost.com/...illions-more-in-deficits-this-year-and-next-2


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

We’ll be lucky If its only 28B. They sent to add pharmacare (another estimated 58B) and free dental. Spending is easy, you can always come up with things you “need”. Making the Romney is tough, especially when the crows see sitting on the phone lines just waiting to take it...in the name of fairness of course.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The deficit money isn't piled up in a corner and set on fire. It hasn't disappeared into thin air.

It is invested to grow the economy, just as the economy has grown due to pass spending by the Liberals and government revenues have increased accordingly.

The debt to GDP is projected to remain flat in 2020 and decline in 2021. 

Don't worry.......the Liberals consulted with 14 economists who work for the banks, pension funds, and other financial institutions. 

They all agreed that Canada is in great shape and deserves the AAA credit rating.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

I feel so much better now that very large financial institutions think that Canada should take on more debt. Because we all know that a bank would never suggest that it's bad to borrow money


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

Prairie Guy said:


> I feel so much better now that very large financial institutions think that Canada should take on more debt. Because we all know that a bank would never suggest that it's bad to borrow money


Yeah, along with the ridiculous use of "debt to GDP" as one of the worst metrics invented by the left to justify spending with gay abandon. When GDP drops you're still left with all that the debt. Everyone knows it's not a valid barometer.

ltr


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> The deficit money isn't piled up in a corner and set on fire. It hasn't disappeared into thin air.
> 
> It is invested to grow the economy, just as the economy has grown due to pass spending by the Liberals and government revenues have increased accordingly.
> 
> ...


A deficit of almost $30B, means that they're adding almost $1k/yr per person to the debt.
That's $100/month!

Yes, but you forgot to mention the economists were doing political analysis.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

How much new money does the public sector ever create compared to the private industry...but sags wants us to hobble the cash cow and go for the recycled cash.


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## Prairie Guy (Oct 30, 2018)

Just a Guy said:


> How much new money does the public sector ever create compared to the private industry...but sags wants us to hobble the cash cow and go for the recycled cash.


Public sector is supported $100 by the private sector. Yet leftist math says that higher taxes to pay for more government employees is good for the economy but more private jobs that create wealth isn't as good.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

_Spending multiplier (also known as fiscal multiplier or simply the multiplier) represents the multiple by which GDP increases or decreases in response to an increase and decrease in government expenditures and investment. It is the reciprocal of the marginal propensity to save (MPS). Higher the MPS, lower the multiplier, and lower the MPS, higher the multiplier._

https://xplaind.com/958349/spending-multiplier

More references:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQVfkH-2G-I

https://www.khanacademy.org/economi...n-summary-the-expenditure-and-tax-multipliers

And now you know the rest of the story..........


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