# Inequality -- thy name is revolution



## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Interesting editorial in today's WFP:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/op...lity----thy-name-is-revolution-117223113.html

"At the end of 2009, just 3.8 per cent of Canadian households controlled $1.78 trillion of financial wealth -- 67 per cent of the total."

The people at the top are robbing all the wealth for themselves, despite all the hard work by those in lower classes. I firmly believe every individual has a duty and an obligation to get off their duff and work, instead of expecting the gov't to take care of them in one way or other. That said, the middle and low class people mentioned in this article DO work. It's just that the wealth is being kept at the top instead of more fairly distributed.

Solving this inequality (beyond simply creating more taxes on the middle class) would be the right thing to do, but the politicians and business leaders of today can't be trusted to do the right thing. They'll just invent more taxes and call it a day.


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## Wealthy1Day (Aug 30, 2009)

As much as I can agree that the wealthy deserve what they've earned by way of their investment of time, knowledge, and money it always seems to be forgotten that their returns are also earned off the backs of employees and other stakeholders.

Meanwhile, employee salaries and wages have been stagnant for at least 20 years only keeping up with inflation if even that. The buying power of middle incomers (and certainly lower income earners) is less today than it was a couple of decades ago. Also there are new "necessities" that didn't exist then that do today such as cellphones and internet connections. Add recent increases in the cost of energy and oil and it all adds up. Most renters experience annual rent increases with declining benefits to their dwellings. The list goes on. 

As for taxes, increasing them on middle incomers only exacerbates the problem. By all means, the wealthy earned what they've built. But if you own 67% of the wealth without any trickle down effect to those that are key to your achieving it then share it with those that you share infrastructure and resources with.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

At least we are doing better than the USA, where *1%* of the population owns 70% of all financial assets.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/145...lth_--_what's_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Wealthy1Day said:


> As much as I can agree that the wealthy deserve what they've earned by way of their investment of time, knowledge, and money it always seems to be forgotten that their returns are also earned off the backs of employees and other stakeholders.
> 
> Meanwhile, employee salaries and wages have been stagnant for at least 20 years only keeping up with inflation if even that.
> 
> [...]


Are the salaries/wages stagnant because of the wealthy or because of the sheep that are too comfortable to take risks or change companies?

My personal favourite was overhearing at the lunch table that "I liked the job/salary that was advertised but didn't apply as I did not think I was qualified. Now the person I'm training has given their notice as they have applied and got the job". 


Cheers


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> My personal favourite was overhearing at the lunch table that "I liked the job/salary that was advertised but didn't apply as I did not think I was qualified. Now the person I'm training has given their notice as they have applied and got the job".


Nice one! 

I don't really see the rich/poor gap as being all that important. In my opinion, a number like the percentage of population at poverty level or below is more telling.

In other words, if you have a situation where the poorest people are doing ok, it doesn't matter how rich the rich are.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

OK, in case you didn't know this, capitalism, by its very nature is pyramid shaped, in that a very few people at the top of the pyramid will own/control the lions share of the wealth pie and the many people at the bottom will always have very little. The names and faces may change a one succeeds and flourishes and climbs up the pyramid only to have someone else fall down a notch or two. 

You see, if you took all the money of the people at the top and distributed to the people at the bottom, without any corresponding increase in productivity (to the contrary, it would actually be very un-productive) it would become completely inflationary and presto, those very same people would be poor again. The rich would also be poor but they would most likely figure out a way to get a lot of the money back and the pyramid would reform again.

The communist tried this. They had to create shortages and lineups just to keep their economy from imploding immediately.

Anyways, that is the way it is. The best we can do is regulate it a little, allow the system to generate as much GDP as possible and increase the pie so that the pathetic percentage amount the people at the bottom will have can be as big as possible. The rich of course, will get richer, but the poor will get a little richer as well.


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## ChrisR (Jul 13, 2009)

Wealthy1Day said:


> Meanwhile, employee salaries and wages have been stagnant for at least 20 years only keeping up with inflation if even that.


I know that is something that we HEAR all the time, but I'm pretty curious as to how it was decided that salaries have been stagnant...

Pretty much every middle class profession or skilled trade that I can think of has seen *astronomical* salary increases over the last 10 years. Teachers, nurses, police officers, electricians, plumbers, anyone involved in construction... the list goes on and on.

In the late 1990's nurses were considered to be seriously overworked and underpaid. A brand new nurse today can expect to make 60K+ right out of the starting gate. 

I just looked at bargaining agreements for my own job for the last 10 years and discovered that the starting salary for my position increased 50% between 2000 and 2010, or 4.2% annually. Compare that to an inflation rate of 2%!

So are salaries for the middle class really stagnant? Or maybe, we've just added a lot of low paying unskilled jobs that have offset incredible salary increases elsewhere?

At any rate, I don't see the middle class suffering, and none of the middle class people I know are complaining about what they get paid. I see the middle class parking their big SUV's in their even bigger two car garages. Sitting on their Italian leather sofas, watching their 52 inch plasma screens, in the cavernous living rooms of their 2 year old open concept houses, eating out 3-4 nights a week and vacationing at five star resorts in Aruba and the Cayman islands. (Come to think of it, the only thing I don't see them doing much of is saving for retirement... but that's a whole other story!)


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

If all the wealth is concentrated among a few families at the top, why do they always say they can't cut taxes on the middle class, because that brings in the most tax revenue?


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## Rico (Jan 27, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> OK, in case you didn't know this, capitalism, by its very nature is pyramid shaped, in that a very few people at the top of the pyramid will own/control the lions share of the wealth pie and the many people at the bottom will always have very little. The names and faces may change a one succeeds and flourishes and climbs up the pyramid only to have someone else fall down a notch or two.
> 
> You see, if you took all the money of the people at the top and distributed to the people at the bottom, without any corresponding increase in productivity (to the contrary, it would actually be very un-productive) it would become completely inflationary and presto, those very same people would be poor again. The rich would also be poor but they would most likely figure out a way to get a lot of the money back and the pyramid would reform again.
> 
> ...


You're absolutely right, and the more "pure" the capitalism is, the faster the pyramid forms. Until things go too far and then the bottom revolts and chops off the heads of those at the top. 

There is always corruption in the system so even communism is doomed to fail, just as capitalism is (in their pure forms, and I mean eventually, without interference). Ultimately there should be one mega-corporation that owns everything that everyone works for. Come to think of it, science fiction movies always have this scenario, don't they? lol


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## Rico (Jan 27, 2011)

sags said:


> If all the wealth is concentrated among a few families at the top, why do they always say they can't cut taxes on the middle class, because that brings in the most tax revenue?


Who is the "they" in "they always say"? Probably the few families at the top (through influencing policy and using power and money to keep the status quo).


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Rico said:


> Who is the "they" in "they always say"? Probably the few families at the top (through influencing policy and using power and money to keep the status quo).


Yup, everyone likes to blame the government when really they have little say. Power is money and heads of states make a fraction of what heads of companies make. People still cry non stop they make too much and are crooked. You have to pay police enough to not be bribed by street criminals, and you'd have to pay politicians a lot more to not be bribed by the big guys. Ever noticed how many heads of states seem to die in plane crashes and freak accidents etc? Those are the ones who tried to be straight. 

Taxes are not the solution, you just need to regulate companies a bit to share a certain amount of profit or gains with employees. The pyramid is quite distorted from my perspective. Globalization means you pretty much have no control over companies anymore, international law is a joke heavily controlled by the same people. If you raise taxes on these people, it will hurt you more because they just move to a country that will accommodate them better


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

OpstyEagle is right the rich will usually find ways to get richer while the poor will find ways to get poor again even when they do make some good money. I remember when 6 people in Smithers BC split the lotto 6/49 and have heard that they are all back working like they did before except maybe with a little more real estate then they had before.

I also was talking to a Korean at work who said that fellow Koreans like to set up their convenience stores in the poor neighborhoods of LA because those people don't think twice about spending any money they have. 

In the end the true answer is education. We need to educate people about money and how to use it and so on. We also need to help people learn in different ways because not everyone learns in the set ways schools teach today. Also I was reading Danielle Park blog and you might find this one interesting on education.
http://www.jugglingdynamite.com/blog/_archives/2011/1/9/4722884.html


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

One last point. We all would like to be wealthy or at least financially independant. If you get down to the true definition of wealth, it is not a specific number of dollars or a wieght in gold, or property. 

It is simply this:

"Your ability to convince someone else to do something for you or to give you something that is theirs".

That is what wealth is and all that wealth is. As you can see from its definition, it pretty much requires someone poorer then you for it to work. That is why capitalism requires a wealth pyramid to work. Without the poor there can be no rich. Unfortuneate but true.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Assuming I agree with you eagle, can you and the rest of the folks in this discussion at least agree that _something_ needs to be done to share more wealth from the top to those people who are doing the work that leads to the success of the rich? I'm NOT suggesting a tax, I am suggesting higher salaries for the working class and lower salaries for the rich. The people at the top are making off like bandits, enabled by their gov't friends, and then the gov't comes along and increases taxes. This hurts the low and middle class people quite a bit as they are already squeezed.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

the-royal-mail said:


> Assuming I agree with you eagle, can you and the rest of the folks in this discussion at least agree that _something_ needs to be done to share more wealth from the top to those people who are doing the work that leads to the success of the rich? *I'm NOT suggesting a tax,* I am suggesting higher salaries for the working class and lower salaries for the rich. The people at the top are making off like bandits, enabled by their gov't friends, and then the gov't comes along and increases taxes. This hurts the low and middle class people quite a bit as they are already squeezed.


How exactly do you propose to accomplish this without taxes?


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

Equality of Opportunity is the corner stone of a free society not Equality of Outcome.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

I recommend that people with higher income will be taxed at a progressively higher rate than people with lower income. A progressive income tax scheme if you will.

Second is to abolish the sales tax altogether. Sales tax is unfair to lower income individuals. High income individuals spend a much smaller proportion of their income on life essentials like food, electricity, and housing. Therefore sales tax proportionally affects the poor much more than the rich, because the poor has to spend almost all of their income on life essentials.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

the-royal-mail said:


> Assuming I agree with you eagle, can you and the rest of the folks in this discussion at least agree that _something_ needs to be done to share more wealth from the top to those people who are doing the work that leads to the success of the rich? I'm NOT suggesting a tax, I am suggesting higher salaries for the working class and lower salaries for the rich. The people at the top are making off like bandits, enabled by their gov't friends, and then the gov't comes along and increases taxes. This hurts the low and middle class people quite a bit as they are already squeezed.


I would if it would work. But it will not. If you just raise the pay of the people doing the work, (which is another way of taking it from the rich, which I am not opposed to), it will become mostly inflationary and the poor will end up just as poor.

The only way these people can prosper is if what you give them incenticises them to produce more and even then the rich will get richer. My point is, there will always be, because there has to be a big divide between the rich and the poor. 

The reason the poor are so poor is because there are not enough people around that are poorer. Without someone with less, you cannot have more. I really can't explain it any better. It is the way it is. I also don't get any satisfaction from helping Joe Citizen improve his lot in life, only to see Jack Citizen starting to have difficulty making ends meet.

I do wish it were not so or there was a better economic system to deal with this, but so far no one has come up with one.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

slacker said:


> ISecond is to abolish the sales tax altogether. Sales tax is unfair to lower income individuals. High income individuals spend a much smaller proportion of their income on life essentials like food, electricity, and housing. Therefore sales tax proportionally affects the poor much more than the rich, because the poor has to spend almost all of their income on life essentials.


Wrong - Sales taxes like the GST / HST are the best type of taxes. We should increase sales taxes and decrease income & other less efficient taxes to grow the economy and create jobs.

Governments acknowledge your issues with sales taxes and adjust them to reflect these issues. Thus the GST / HST rebate + Ontario Sales Tax rebate to low income earners. The base amount of rebate is $260 + 250 = $510 for these programs thus people who receive these benefits do not pay sales tax on the first $510 / .13 = $3,923 of taxable purchases.

As well there is no GST / HST on basic food or housing. Yes there is a sales tax on electricity but there are other issues involving power that make it impractical to subsidize (hence the rebate).


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## Rico (Jan 27, 2011)

LondonHomes said:


> Equality of Opportunity is the corner stone of a free society not Equality of Outcome.


In reality is there equality of opportunity? . . . consider the wealthy trust-fund kid with university and family connections who has way more opportunities than the poor kid whose parents never finished high school and are living a disruptive lifestyle (for that kid's success).

Equality of TRYING is certainly there - many can work/talent/luck their way out of poverty but the fact is most don't because the systemic barriers (social, political, cultural, educational, financial, etc.) that are in place keep people "down".

What I have always found interesting, and what is actually happening in the Middle East right now, is that the true power is ultimately in the populace. In a democracy, a person's vote is POWER. I think to some extent people have been duped into paying attention to the "noise" of media and many are non-participants in their own democracy such that they passively accept what happens around them. If people use their right of protest and the power of their votes (and I mean LOTS of people), things can change.

As a last little aside, I've wondered sometimes why women, who make up 51% of the population (roughly) don't band together with the power of their votes and shake up the male-dominated political landscape?


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

I disagree with the declaration by Eagle and others that the poor will always find ways to become poor and the rich will always find ways to become rich. It almost sounds a little like the old "divine right of kings" argument. 

Some traits and abilities may allow certain people a competitive advantage at certain times but luck and opportunity have plenty to do with it. IMO, those things are not as equal as we'd like to pretend but that is a separate and complex debate. 

More importantly, extreme wealth disparity is an unstable system that, left unchecked, will lead to revolution. We're seeing it unfold in the Middle East. Wealth disparity in Canada is not extreme so there is no cause for alarm but we do need to monitor and may need to take steps to reverse it if it doesn't reverse on its own. We can't just throw up our hands and declare that the rich are rich and the poor are poor because that is the way it has to be.

(While typing this, I see that Rico added a couple of very interesting points about equality of opportunity and the middle east).


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## osc (Oct 17, 2009)

Inequality is the source of progress. Extreme inequality (where a small minority controls most wealth and the government) is the source of high criminality, generalized unhappiness and possibly revolutions which most often than not bring worse solutions than the problem (like communism as a solution for the problems of capitalism). Unfortunately, more and more countries are going towards extreme inequality.
The best income (or net worth) distribution is a straight line with a 45 degree slope. We can achieve that only with a progressive income tax, including negative taxes for the very poor and very high taxes for the very rich.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Rico said:


> In reality is there equality of opportunity? . . . consider the wealthy trust-fund kid with university and family connections who has way more opportunities than the poor kid whose parents never finished high school and are living a disruptive lifestyle (for that kid's success).
> 
> Equality of TRYING is certainly there - many can work/talent/luck their way out of poverty but the fact is most don't because the systemic barriers (social, political, cultural, educational, financial, etc.) that are in place keep people "down".
> 
> ...


Equality can only be measured, poor vs poor, rich vs rich, since we all know that the rich will always have more than the poor, that is why most people strive to be rich. If you take away all the perks of being rich, no one will get out of bed and go to work tomorrow.

As for democracy. The voters have two choices. 

The one they tend to gravitate to is to make the rich pay more taxes, make the rich pay the poor higher wages, provide more subsidized social benefits to the poor, paid for by the rich. This is because there are way more poor then rich and they have the democratic power. However, all this ends up being very unproductive. New investment and therefore jobs are moved away from these jurisdictions and the entire economic pie is reduced or smaller then it would be if this way of thinking was reduced or eliminated.

The other choice is to implement economic policies that appear to favour the rich. Reduce top marginal rates. Reduce corporate income taxes. Here, more investment is made, more jobs are created and more GDP is produced and so the economic pie gets larger. Even though the poor get a smaller piece then the rich, their piece is still larger then it would be with the other choice.

Unfortuneately, democracy does not force a person to understand the above, before they are given the right to vote and because of this, our economy is a little more stiffled then it should be. Thank god all voters around the world are just as ignorant as ours and we don't suffer too much. Plus the politicians that get voted in by these poor wanting to dump on the rich, get a quick lesson on general economics. They then decide not to do, what they promised to do if elected, in the hopes of not turning the economy into a complete dissaster.

There you go. In the 2nd choice, the rich will get richer or you can have the 
1st choice, where the poor get poorer. Take your pick.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

olivaw said:


> I disagree with the declaration by Eagle and others that the poor will always find ways to become poor and the rich will always find ways to become rich. It almost sounds a little like the old "divine right of kings" argument.
> 
> Some traits and abilities may allow certain people a competitive advantage at certain times but luck and opportunity have plenty to do with it. IMO, those things are not as equal as we'd like to pretend but that is a separate and complex debate.
> 
> ...


I don't argue that this doesn't lead to revolutions, because it does. I would argue most of those revolutions didn't help their economic situation very much, but that is only because they lacked the understanding of how the world works.

Here is an example. You have someone come over and shovel your driveway when it snows. Why does he do that? Because he wants/needs your money. If you gave every driveway shoveller $1,000,000 dollars, do you think they would want to come over to shovel your driveway, anymore? Probably not. The only way you could get them to do that is to raise the price significantly that you pay for this service. Now if you expand this to every person working in a society, what you get are nothing but rising prices, everywhere. That guy that use to shovel driveways, now finds out that his $1,000,000 doesn't buy much anymore and what do you think he will do next. Offer to shovel your driveway.

Tell me how he got ahead. He didn't. All he can hope for is that he does better then someone else. They all cannot be well off. They can do better, but there has to be rich and poor. You cannot have one without the other. I didn't make these rules, but I understand them, and I, like everyone else, have to plan our strategies accordingly.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

osc said:


> The best income (or net worth) distribution is a straight line with a 45 degree slope. We can achieve that only with a progressive income tax, including negative taxes for the very poor and very high taxes for the very rich.


That I will agree with. As you say, we can reshape the pyramid a little better, but we cannot get rid of it. If we try to make it go away, it will just reappear later with a much smaller economic pie to share with everyone involved.


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## el oro (Jun 16, 2009)

Agree with LondonHomes. Consumption taxes >> income taxes all the way. Progressive income tax will just drive the high earners to lower tax jurisdictions and give an incentive for the poor to stay poor. I'd definitely retire earlier and live off of the system.

Also agree about the equality of opportunity statement. Obviously the trust-fund kid with connections has BETTER opportunities in life. There's no way around that. The poverty kid, however, has plenty of opportunity to make it big in life assuming they don't have to worry about food being on the table and are able to access the public education system. What are these social/cultural/educational/political barriers bringing people down?


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I don't know why nobody has a second for education except opstyeagle mentioning productivity. The reason the developed societies have dominated and many more citizens have become middle class in a capitalist society is because we are better educated. Of course we then use the poor from other countries to win the day but our country thrives.

So to stay ahead we need to overhaul and modernize our education system to stay ahead of the world. This is the way to prosperity for our country and there is no other way except to keep exporting commodities.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

dogcom said:


> This is the way to prosperity for our country and there is no other way except to keep exporting commodities.


And that's not going to work forever.
Keep in mind that the developing world has bigger reserves than we do - in almost everything.
More forests for lumber and paper.
More oil.
More minerals.
More water.
Think about all the natural resources in China, India, sub-Saharan Africa, South America, etc.
Once they are in a position to build the infrastructure required to exploit those resources, the floodgates will open.


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## Wealthy1Day (Aug 30, 2009)

ChrisR said:


> I know that is something that we HEAR all the time, but I'm pretty curious as to how it was decided that salaries have been stagnant...


What we hear all the time has been reported based on factual data. Now, of course, salaries themselves have increased over time. So has inflation. When we hear that salaries have been stagnant, what would be more accurately stated (but less in laymen's terms) is that purchasing power has become stagnant. It doesn't matter if there have been "astronomical" salary increases if the cost of everything listed in the inflationary index is outpacing. Bottom line is that over the past 20 years salaries have not been keeping up with inflation, have lagged, and I will also argue that there is more today that competes for our dollars than had existed a couple of decades ago.




ChrisR said:


> Pretty much every middle class profession or skilled trade that I can think of has seen *astronomical* salary increases over the last 10 years. Teachers, nurses, police officers, electricians, plumbers, anyone involved in construction... the list goes on and on.
> 
> In the late 1990's nurses were considered to be seriously overworked and underpaid. A brand new nurse today can expect to make 60K+ right out of the starting gate.
> 
> I just looked at bargaining agreements for my own job for the last 10 years and discovered that the starting salary for my position increased 50% between 2000 and 2010, or 4.2% annually. Compare that to an inflation rate of 2%!


Too much isolation in all these examples. There was a huge shortage of nurses in the 90's as they were all moving to the US for better salaries so those increases were a matter of supply and demand. I wouldn't simply chalk that up as an astronomical salary increase as much as I would say they were astronomically underpaid. Now I do hear what you're saying, but all these professionals are also paying more today for housing, food, energy, etc today than they were 10 years ago and certainly 20 years ago. Salaries have increased but purchasing power has decreased. Heck, it's practically imperative to have a dual income home in order to afford that home today.



ChrisR said:


> So are salaries for the middle class really stagnant? Or maybe, we've just added a lot of low paying unskilled jobs that have offset incredible salary increases elsewhere?


A lot of manufacturing jobs have moved offshore and have been replaced with lower paid service jobs.



ChrisR said:


> At any rate, I don't see the middle class suffering, and none of the middle class people I know are complaining about what they get paid. I see the middle class parking their big SUV's in their even bigger two car garages. Sitting on their Italian leather sofas, watching their 52 inch plasma screens, in the cavernous living rooms of their 2 year old open concept houses, eating out 3-4 nights a week and vacationing at five star resorts in Aruba and the Cayman islands. (Come to think of it, the only thing I don't see them doing much of is saving for retirement... but that's a whole other story!)


All of that is another story altogether. But this is one reason why the wealthy are even wealthier and the average Canadian has a higher debt ratio. No one's saying that middle incomers shouldn't make better personal financial decisions.  But even if they did so long as inflation outpaces salaries, a greater gradual strain will be placed on the middle incomers and even more so on low incomers.

While salaries over time do increase relative to inflation, it's not 1:1 and I would also argue that there is downward pressure on salaries. Often, especially during and shortly after recessions, people are happy just to have a job. After they get that job, it takes company hopping in order to gain significant salary increases and that's normally limited to those in professional careers if they don't have a union bargaining for them. I just believe that if people at the top are going to significantly increase their profits then there should be a trickle down effect on the salaries of the employees whose backs they've made those profits on.


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## Rico (Jan 27, 2011)

$1600 Gold by 2011 said:


> Agree with LondonHomes. Consumption taxes >> income taxes all the way. Progressive income tax will just drive the high earners to lower tax jurisdictions and give an incentive for the poor to stay poor. I'd definitely retire earlier and live off of the system.
> 
> Also agree about the equality of opportunity statement. Obviously the trust-fund kid with connections has BETTER opportunities in life. There's no way around that. The poverty kid, however, has plenty of opportunity to make it big in life assuming they don't have to worry about food being on the table and are able to access the public education system. What are these social/cultural/educational/political barriers bringing people down?


With respect, does BETTER not almost by definition mean UNEQUAL in this example? Every kid is supposed to attend school (by law) but that does not mean private school with a reasonable amount of students in the classroom and appropriate attention and support from teachers. And the child has no say in how much or what kind of food shows up on the table. If one lives in poverty, the ability to see, take, and flourish from opportunities is reduced.

As to the barriers - where to begin?! 
Social/cultural: Prejudice (I don't just mean, for example, visible minorities, but more like being looked down upon for "being poor"); peer pressure (e.g., someone in a low SES who works hard and tries to improve is treated like an outcast by friends/family). These are powerful influences.
Educational: school requirements - you cannot get into university without high school, and maybe you can't finish high school or get good grades if you have to work full time because your poor parents can't afford rent.
Political: if you're homeless, you can vote but it involves a process (since you don't have a residence to register to); if you're poor and don't have TV or read very well, you may not feel informed enough to choose in an election or you think your vote won't matter.

Please note I wrote "keeping" people down, not bringing them down.

These are just examples, and I am not saying that people in poverty cannot work their butts off and succeed. I'm saying that it is VERY HARD to do because of all the extraneous influences to overcome.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

Rico said:


> With respect, does BETTER not almost by definition mean UNEQUAL in this example? Every kid is supposed to attend school (by law) but that does not mean private school with a reasonable amount of students in the classroom and appropriate attention and support from teachers. And the child has no say in how much or what kind of food shows up on the table. If one lives in poverty, the ability to see, take, and flourish from opportunities is reduced.
> 
> Please note I wrote "keeping" people down, not bringing them down.
> 
> These are just examples, and I am not saying that people in poverty cannot work their butts off and succeed. I'm saying that it is VERY HARD to do because of all the extraneous influences to overcome.


Clearly each child comes into the world in different circumstances. Some have significant advantages and others are messed up so bad by their parents that they never had a chance.

However the issues you point to need to be addressed as social issues, they cannot be solved as economic problems. It doesn't matter how high you make the taxes on the rich, little Johnny's Dad is still an alcoholic even if the gov't gives him another $1,000 a month.


Note: I'm not implying everybody in poverty is an alchohlic, I'm just using it as an example, feel free to replace it with any reason why somebody is in a lower economic class.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

Rico said:


> With respect, does BETTER not almost by definition mean UNEQUAL in this example? Every kid is supposed to attend school (by law) but that does not mean private school with a reasonable amount of students in the classroom and appropriate attention and support from teachers. And the child has no say in how much or what kind of food shows up on the table. If one lives in poverty, the ability to see, take, and flourish from opportunities is reduced.
> 
> As to the barriers - where to begin?!
> Social/cultural: Prejudice (I don't just mean, for example, visible minorities, but more like being looked down upon for "being poor"); peer pressure (e.g., someone in a low SES who works hard and tries to improve is treated like an outcast by friends/family). These are powerful influences.
> ...


I think it's all a matter of perspective.  Yes there are rich and poor, and their is a large gap. However, on a global perspective, North American's are really rich, even the poor ones are better off than most compared to those of developing countries. 

Those who come to Canada from these countries, many are much below what we refer to the poverty line, but yet many of them are able to move past that. 

As a 1st generation Canadian, listening to what my parents and relatives who immigrated here, and the conditions they came from, it makes me appreciate truly how many opportunities my poor parents have been given. They did not come here with any money, trust funds, education, and have to start right from the bottom, or even lower. In fact, they had the greater disadvantage of not being fluent in the language, unable to read (english) well, and not growing up knowing the rules in Canada, not to mention the racism and discrimination they faced. 

Yet, they've manage to follow the Canadian dream, and had opportunities to make it. They don't complain about the government not doing enough. My parents were thrilled at the thought of not having the government try to make things equal. They worked EXTREMELY hard, and made some huge sacrifices, and as a result they have come out of 'poverty' . I know so many families like this.

So my thoughts are if someone who doesn't speak english, uproots their family into the unknown, and is left with nothing, and has no social assistance can do it, then those living in the land of opportunity should be able to do even more. So why is it that they don't?


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## ChrisR (Jul 13, 2009)

Okay, here is my solution that will allow everyone to share in the total wealth pool, without raising taxes.

Fix the corporation system.

Design corporations that MUST work in the BEST INTERESTS of the SHAREHOLDERS. (ie. the single most important task before the corporation is to increase wealth for common investors). I think we all learned during the latest financial crisis that our corporations are mostly concerned with generating a huge amount of wealth for a select group of employees and insiders, with only a trickle left over for the common investor.

The change: The corporation should have a legal obligation to work in the LONG TERM interest of the common shareholder. In such a system, all people, rich and poor will have the option of sharing in the wealth pool by making investments in corporations. You won't need any special skills or talents, expensive education or social connections. All people will need to do is set a portion of their earnings aside and invest in corporations!

Please note, my system is an "opt in system". ie. The poor don't need any special skills or talents, but they will need to opt in by sacrificing a portion of whatever money they have available. The nice thing is that the money required to get started will be very small. In the day of discount brokerages, a poor person can get started investing with as little as a few hundred dollars. Heck, I would even support a social program that sets up brokerage accounts and buys the first few shares for those that earn under a certain threshold (with a dividend reinvestment plan, of course!).

And all this requires is some fairly small changes to the system we already have. Corporations are already legally obligated to work in the interest of the shareholders... we just need to redefine what those interests are (ie. long term interests as opposed to short term gains). You'd probably also want a regulatory body to oversee corporations and ensure that they are working in the shareholder's interests. (Ex. a corporation could still pay an executive $20 million a year, but they would need to prove to the watch-dog that this was in the best interest of the shareholders!)


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## ChrisR (Jul 13, 2009)

mode3sour said:


> Taxes are not the solution, you just need to regulate companies a bit to share a certain amount of profit or gains with employees.


But this will just rearrange the inequality!

The only people who benefit are the employees of the companies with profit that can be shared. These companies will then become the most desirable places to work, and will attract the "best" employees.

Those who are not desirable employees (ex. lack of skills or talent, lack of education, lack of social status or not enough social connections) will still be stuck in poverty.

The solution, as I wrote above, is a system where it is very easy for the poor to invest in companies, and those companies are required to work in the best interest of their investors. This is the only way that EVERYONE can share in the wealth creation of capitalism, even those with no skills, no talent, no education and no social connections!


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

i believe a contributing problem is that are fewer and fewer roles for people of average ability and circumstances, and it's leading to the shrinkage of the middle class. this is because we're at a tipping point where our overall economy and that of other developed nations is not human labour intensive enough to continue absorbing "regular" workers who have lost their jobs due to automation and/or globalization. This represents the largest chunk of our population. Our basic mechanism for putting purchasing power into the hands of consumers is starting to breakdown, and that results in their impoverishment and idle time.

impoverishment + idle time + instigation = revolution.

And for those think that education will save us, I am doubtful. There simply will not be enough jobs to go around for ordinary folk no matter how much you "educate" them.

If technology advances & increases in complexity, we can reasonably assume that the technical skills of the people required to design and maintain it would have to rise in kind. But what if only 10% of the population is innately capable of attaining such skills, and you have a drop off in that % as time goes on because of the increasing complexity? meanwhile jobs in industries where 90% of the people are employed are being done away with due to automation ...........

What's the long-term result of such trends?

Unemployment of the majority of society, with an increasing demand for a minority of people, whose proportion in society will keep decreasing.

This will not go well. We are doomed unless we can come up with some creative solutions.


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## ChrisR (Jul 13, 2009)

Wealthy1Day said:


> What we hear all the time has been reported based on factual data. Now, of course, salaries themselves have increased over time. So has inflation. When we hear that salaries have been stagnant, what would be more accurately stated (but less in laymen's terms) is that purchasing power has become stagnant. It doesn't matter if there have been "astronomical" salary increases if the cost of everything listed in the inflationary index is outpacing. Bottom line is that over the past 20 years salaries have not been keeping up with inflation, have lagged, and I will also argue that there is more today that competes for our dollars than had existed a couple of decades ago.


Where can one find this factual data?

According to these tables from Stats Can, the average family income (measured in inflation adjusted dollars) increased from $61,500 in 1989 to $74,600 in 2008. In layman's terms: family income not only kept up with inflation, it outpaced it by 1% annually over the last 19 years. (If you look at the years in-between, you'll see that 1989 and 2008 were the peak earning years). 

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil21d-eng.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil21a-eng.htm

This would suggest that salaries have not been stagnant at all, and purchasing power has not eroded. The one thing I will agree has increased is the variety of ways to spend one's money. The cost of keeping up with the Jones' isn't what it used to be!


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

ChrisR said:


> Where can one find this factual data?
> 
> According to these tables from Stats Can, the average family income (measured in inflation adjusted dollars) increased from $61,500 in 1989 to $74,600 in 2008. In layman's terms: family income not only kept up with inflation, it outpaced it by 1% annually over the last 19 years. (If you look at the years in-between, you'll see that 1989 and 2008 were the peak earning years).
> 
> ...


I was pointed to the Centre for the Study of Living Standards in another thread discussing the same topic. Here's a report about Canadian well being that covers the era from 1981 to 2008:

http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2009-4.pdf

The discussion therein is very interesting. Here's one relevant excerpt:



> " The picture of living standard trends provided by median income is inconsistent with the widespread impression Canadians have of a steady progression in living standards based on average income per capita measures. Median after-tax income of all family units only surpassed 1981 levels in
> 2006. Not only does it imply a decrease in living standards for the median Canadian household between 1981 and 2005, but it also means that government redistribution, through transfers and taxes, did not totally offset the reduction in median market income per family unit until 2006. "


In summary, what they made mention of was how misleading it is to look at average income alone as this masks some problems. . it's stated that increases in wealth have been unevenly shared between canadians, with the already wealthy garnering a disproportionately large share of the gains. that's why it may more valuable to look at median measures rather than the average and net worth in terms of quintiles of the population. these numbers reveal a not so rosy picture of what is going on, especially for the bottom three quintiles.


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## I'm Howard (Oct 13, 2010)

We have a variety of Friends whose Net Worth ranges from the ultra rich to the barely getting by.

The problems they have may differ, but all these groups have challenges , and whoever said money does not always buy happiness was right.

The children of the barely getting by are driven to succeed, doing what ever it takes to garner an education or trade, the ultra wealthy are pressured by circumstances to live up to certain expectations.

The individual who rises to the top did not always start there, and as One of Ten kids, I will attest to the role of Family as being key.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I'm Howard said:


> We have a variety of Friends whose Net Worth ranges from the ultra rich to the barely getting by.
> 
> The problems they have may differ, but all these groups have challenges , and whoever said money does not always buy happiness was right.
> 
> ...


I don't remember who said it but it was good:

"I have been rich and I have been poor and I can tell you with experience ... rich is better"

Yes everyone has problems, but it just seems like the rich people's problems are a lot more fun.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> I don't remember who said it but it was good:
> 
> "I have been rich and I have been poor and I can tell you with experience ... rich is better"
> 
> Yes everyone has problems, but it just seems like the rich people's problems are a lot more fun.


Everything being equal with other problems, I would rather be rich. One of the really wealthy people I know said that having money doesn't make you any better, is just allows you the ability to afford more choices. Even with the amount of money they have (in the many many millions), that money could solve the health problems of his aging parent. However, having money has allowed the best options available to make the situation better (but not solved).

There are also many problems that come up once you're really wealthy, that you didn't have to deal with before. I still wouldn't mind be in that category though.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Because I know that being rich is obviously better then being poor, but being rich creates new problems that are not experienced by the poor, it seems obvious to me that there is a specific amount of money that will make me the happiest money can make me, and any less and even any more money from that number, will reduce my happiness almost equally.

That's why I don't understand this unrelenting desire to have more, that a lot of people seem to have. Once I have two times all the money I will ever need in my lifetime, why would I want the problems that come along with having more?

This is also a mystery to me, when I see other people acting this way. I guess it is probably normal, but still I don't understand it.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

OptsyEagle said:


> ...being rich creates new problems that are not experienced by the poor...


Really? Can you or anyone supply one or more examples of this?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

the-royal-mail said:


> Really? Can you or anyone supply one or more examples of this?


How many would you like.

1) Keeping your business successful so you don't have to lay off 3/4s of your staff that have been with your for years.
2) Security. Worrying about people breaking into your house, kidnapping your kids, stealing your boat.
3) Gigalo's marrying your daughters. Money grabbers getting knocked up by your son's.
4) Inheritance issues.
5) Being sued by any yahoo who knows a lawyer that likes money.
6) Charities unrelenting campaign of the pain and suffering only you can fix if you stroke a cheque right now.

this list goes on. It is a larger list for the poor but the rich certainly have one. 

This list above gets smaller if you keep your wealth to a minimum and that was my point from my previous post. Just a little advice if people hadn't thought of it. At some point, more money just adds more burden will very little improvement in lifestyle and comfort.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

the-royal-mail said:


> Really? Can you or anyone supply one or more examples of this?


Some others:

- Raising kids is a huge issue. It's much more difficult to teach them to be grateful, and not spoil brats that are contributing members of society - motivation, etc.
- Though substance abuse is in group, There is a much higher incident of substance abuse percentage wise for those ultra wealthy. 
- People automatically assume because you have that much money, that should be giving it to a cause. They get contacted much more often from the charities or the friend of the friends, friend. 
- Expectations are much higher, there's added pressure. 

There are more. I know the people I've talked to still says that they perfer to be rich, but it does come with some other issues.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I never thought of that stuff. Good point and thank you both for supplying all those examples. I think we're all trying to strike that balance.

Although I'm not rich, I am making more today than I was many years ago, yet other than a newer car and a few more very minor toys around the house and other minor tweaks I have not increased my general lifestyle with this added income. Good money management is critical no matter how much you make.


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## cannon_fodder (Apr 3, 2009)

Plugging Along said:


> Everything being equal with other problems, I would rather be rich. One of the really wealthy people I know said that having money doesn't make you any better, is just allows you the ability to afford more choices. Even with the amount of money they have (in the many many millions), that money could solve the health problems of his aging parent. However, having money has allowed the best options available to make the situation better (but not solved).
> 
> There are also many problems that come up once you're really wealthy, that you didn't have to deal with before. I still wouldn't mind be in that category though.


That's the message I tell my daughter - having money gives you certain freedoms. Whether that's the ability to travel, live with less stress, having a nice roof over your head (which you own), work at what you love, or help others more substantially, having more money can provide more choices.

What choices we end up making are a reflection of who we are.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> Because I know that being rich is obviously better then being poor, but being rich creates new problems that are not experienced by the poor, it seems obvious to me that there is a specific amount of money that will make me the happiest money can make me, and any less and even any more money from that number, will reduce my happiness almost equally.
> 
> That's why I don't understand this unrelenting desire to have more, that a lot of people seem to have. Once I have two times all the money I will ever need in my lifetime, why would I want the problems that come along with having more?
> 
> This is also a mystery to me, when I see other people acting this way. I guess it is probably normal, but still I don't understand it.


I'm not rich yet, but I am very close to some who would be considered the Ultra wealthy. From what I have been able to observer and from questions I have asked, it seems that money is not just money as a way to buy things. It is more than just the lifestyle and security, they have that a hundred times over. Money often equates to power, freedom and choices. The more they have, the more they can do. It's not a matter of happiness, there are just as many unhappy rich as unhappy poor. It seems that once you hit a certain threshold of money, the thinking is different. 

I have seen it first hand, it's quite fascinating. When you have enough money, you can 'buy away' all the little stressors of life, which for some are a lot. You do get some major ones, but with a clear plan and strategy some of those can be mitigated. When you have no stresses that arise from money, it really allows to focus on the bigger things.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Plugging Along said:


> I think it's all a matter of perspective. Yes there are rich and poor, and their is a large gap. However, on a global perspective, North American's are really rich, even the poor ones are better off than most compared to those of developing countries.
> 
> Those who come to Canada from these countries, many are much below what we refer to the poverty line, but yet many of them are able to move past that.
> 
> ...


+1 on the global perspective that most of Canada's poor are comparatively rich to the rest of the world. The US has more of the extremes so I'm less willing to say it is generally true there.

I can recall at one point a Quebec separatist, around the time of the Meech Lake accord posting that "Canada is a third world country". When I compared this to a true third world country, Bolivia that was experiencing 1000% inflation per month for a decade - he changed it to mean that Canada had made mistakes and could do better. In Bolivia's environment, poor and rich were being hammered - only the criminals were getting ahead. 


As for why those already in a land of opportunity who have fewer barriers that don't seem to take advantage of the opportunities - IMO one factor is a combination of a sense of entitlement/apathy. 

A friend of mine was bound and determined to "not waste his time" starting with a company, unless it matched his university training/salary expectations. Twenty plus years later, those who started in the mail room with a strong work ethic have long since been promoted several levels above what he wanted and he is still scraping by. 

So who ended up wasting their time?


I wish more young people would travel the world and see first hand how lucky they are.


Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

the-royal-mail said:


> Assuming I agree with you eagle, can you and the rest of the folks in this discussion at least agree that _something_ needs to be done to share more wealth from the top to those people who are doing the work that leads to the success of the rich?
> 
> I'm NOT suggesting a tax, I am suggesting higher salaries for the working class and lower salaries for the rich. The people at the top are making off like bandits, enabled by their gov't friends, and then the gov't comes along and increases taxes. This hurts the low and middle class people quite a bit as they are already squeezed.


I'd rather fix the abuses than have a general handout. How is it going to help by rewarding apathy and/or a sense of entitlement?

On the other hand, where there are corporate/gov't shenanigans such as a $12 million dollar severance (plus the rest of the package) for nine months of work or the more recent $400K severance package for someone who resigned, there is lots of room to do something.


Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

ChrisR said:


> Okay, here is my solution that will allow everyone to share in the total wealth pool, without raising taxes.
> 
> Fix the corporation system.
> 
> ...


Hmmm ... for the true poor - I don't see how this will help. To me, someone who is poor is having to choose any two of food, shelter or medicine. So they won't have anything to invest.


As for the watchdog - there will be a large cost in order to keep the watchdog up to date on the corporate plans. Then too - depending on how current the watchdog is kept on the company plans - lots of opportunity for competitors to bribe watchdog staff for copies of the plans.

Finally, the biggest problem IMO is that where there is a disagreement as to what is or is not in the shareholders best interest, the bureaucracy to settle the matter may cripple the company. Especially when you consider other countries that don't have this overhead to deal with.


Don't get me wrong - I'm all for a fix to corporations, I just don't see adding more bureaucracy as an effective solution.


Cheers


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> On the other hand, where there are corporate/gov't shenanigans such as a $12 million dollar severance (plus the rest of the package) for nine months of work or the more recent $400K severance package for someone who resigned, there is lots of room to do something.


This is what I mean when I say the upper class needs to be the group who helps the poor. If I read some of the other comments in this forum, it seems the solution proposed is always to further tax the middle class. That completely misses the point. I agree with you. $400K severances are absurd. When there is no longer need for me in my present job, they shift me to another department or tell me to pound sand. They don't give me such absurd severances. Why should the rich be any different?


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

the-royal-mail said:


> This is what I mean when I say the upper class needs to be the group who helps the poor.
> 
> If I read some of the other comments in this forum, it seems the solution proposed is always to further tax the middle class. That completely misses the point.
> 
> I agree with you. $400K severances are absurd. When there is no longer need for me in my present job, they shift me to another department or tell me to pound sand. They don't give me such absurd severances. Why should the rich be any different?


Like the "further tax" is not a solution - I don't believe the upper class can solve the problem on their own either. Handing money over is likely to lead to a sense of entitlement.

I think it has to be a combination of things - upper class help, education etc., all working together.


One of lucky ones who got into the union at Coke (approximately six per year) was asked a couple of months later why he wasn't partying as much. His answer was that when he didn't believe he could get a head, he had no problem with spending his pay cheque on beer/parties. Now that he had a good salary and benefits - he could see that he could get ahead, wanted to make the most of the opportunity and wasn't willing to spend as much.


Cheers


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Let the rich decide how to administer and deploy extra tax dollars we get from them to help the poor. This way they will find ways to help people where it will do the economy the most good in the future.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

dogcom said:


> Let the rich decide how to administer and deploy extra tax dollars we get from them to help the poor. This way they will find ways to help people where it will do the economy the most good in the future.


The altruistic rich - sure. Those who don't have a problem with a $12 million severance for 9 months work are likely to funnel the money to their buddies companies, relatives, $1K chocolates for the hard working employees who are not poor etc.


Side note: 

I always thought the parking policies when I was a travelling consultant were crazy. The secretary who had to be in the office day-in and day-out made a fraction of my salary and had to pay her own parking (well over $100/month).

I'm in the office once/twice a month, have my lodging/meals/transportation paid when I'm on the road but somehow I "need" the $18/day parking re-embursed.

Go figure ... I always thought it should be the other way round or at least allow both to expense it.


Cheers


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

Hang the rich: Great war inevitable, pundit predicts http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20110304/gerald-celente-worldwide-insurrection-forecast-110306/



> "Soaring unemployment, cuts to pensions and benefits, rising fees for diminishing services, across-the-board value-added tax increases and declining minimum wages are all common factors to some degree, he says. Combine those with the numbers of young people who are still living with their parents, struggling to find work and not seeing much hope for the future, and Celente says you've got some powerful reasons to not only get angry over the growing gap between rich and poor, but to do something about it. "


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## Longstreet (Dec 27, 2010)

*Revolution? What a joke.*

"This is what I mean when I say the upper class needs to be the group who helps the poor."

In a free and democratic country such as Canada, don't you think the poor should ultimately be responsible for helping themselves? By placing blame on others, the problem only gets exacerbated. What ever happened to personal responsibility? I am by no means rich, but if I have a problem, the first question I ask myself is what I can or will do to solve the problem, not how can the government help me. We live in a country with huge social safety nets (CPP, OAS, EI, Welfare, Workers Compensation etc) and a pretty progressive tax system. What more do you want?

As for %3 of the household controlling %65 of the wealth (or something like that, I can't quite recall the exact figures), would it surprise you to find out that that they also contribute a proportional amount of personal income taxes? Like I said before, I don't have the exact figures but the bottom %50 of earners contribute something like %10 to the personal income tax burden in this country. 

I have no problems with ultra rich people making billions of dollars if their ideas have that great a market for it and they do it legally. Take Bill Gates, he's worth around $50 billion. Does he need all that money? Probably not. Does he deserve it? Absolutely. He created something that revolutionized the world. The next time you think that a wealthy person doesn't deserve their money, ponder this: do you deserve all of your wealth? Relative to the rest of the world, we live like kings and queens in absolute luxury. When was the last time you sent money to the third world? Just like how rich people should be responsible for the poor, maybe you should be responsible for the poor of the world. For those of you who regularly give to charity or the third world in a meaningful way, kudos to you. For those who don't, you do not have the right to complain about the ultra rich who've worked for their money and earned it legally. Give your head a shake.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I don't know what the figures are, but I would think most of the wealth accumulated at the top isn't the result of a lifetime of hard work, but is inter-generational, having been passed down within families.

Grandpa may have worked hard to build the empire, but the grandkids are too busy enjoying life to work.


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## Longstreet (Dec 27, 2010)

"I don't know what the figures are, but I would think most of the wealth accumulated at the top isn't the result of a lifetime of hard work, but is inter-generational, having been passed down within families.

Grandpa may have worked hard to build the empire, but the grandkids are too busy enjoying life to work."

I have no doubt that that is partially true, but I also read another article (sorry, I can't remember the title to cite it properly) that states for the majority of wealthy families, the income of the grandfather has next to no impact on the income of the grandchild. Most people are self-made. I'll try and find the reference.

Even so, what's wrong with money being passed down? Is it illegal? No. If, heaven forbid, your parents or grandparents pass on, would you turn down the inheritance money because you didn't deserve it? No. Attacking self-made wealthy people is just sour grapes and jealousy.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

Forbe's Richest People in the world list:

http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires#p_1_s_arank_-1__-1



1 Carlos Slim Helu & family $74 B 71 telecom Mexico 
2 Bill Gates $56 B 55 Microsoft United States 
3 Warren Buffett $50 B 80 Berkshire Hathaway United States 
4 Bernard Arnault $41 B 62 LVMH France 
5 Larry Ellison $39.5 B 66 Oracle United States 
6 Lakshmi Mittal $31.1 B 60 Steel India 
7 Amancio Ortega $31 B 74 Zara Spain 
8 Eike Batista $30 B 54 mining, oil Brazil 
9 Mukesh Ambani $27 B 53 petrochemicals, oil & gas India 
10 Christy Walton & family $26.5 B 56 Walmart United States 

6 of the top 10 are self made super rich, of the 4 who inherited wealth most seem to be 2nd generation wealthy and played a signifiant role in making themselves super wealthy.


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

The problem is if the non-rich do not speak up, do not fight for a fair distribution of wealth, the ultra-rich will for the most part do all that they can to hoard wealth. This is the nature of man. Statistics indicate that the wealth are garnering a greater share of the wealth than ever before, and that their net worths and incomes are rising at a greater rate than the non-rich, whose levels are at best staying steady or declining. If the majority of society starts to suffer and grows to resent this, there will be social unrest..

A widening gap plus an economic climate where the living standard, social services, and economic security for the majority declines is not good for keeping Canada "free and democratic". And perception matters more than reality, the wealthy and powerful understand the need to "pacify" the masses.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

loggedout said:


> The problem is if the non-rich do not speak up, do not fight for a fair distribution of wealth, the ultra-rich will for the most part do all that they can to hoard wealth. This is the nature of man. Statistics indicate that the wealth are garnering a greater share of the wealth than ever before, and that their net worths and incomes are rising at a greater rate than the non-rich, whose levels are at best staying steady or declining. If the majority of society starts to suffer and grows to resent this, there will be social unrest.


Agreed. The distribution of wealth in this country is worse than ever and I am basically sick of the default gov't response of adding more taxes/fees/levies that invariably end up hitting the middle class every time. The middle class no longer has the capacity to prop up the poor, and in fact much of the middle class is eroding to poor due to taxes and inflation.


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## Longstreet (Dec 27, 2010)

"A widening gap plus an economic climate where the living standard, social services, and economic security for the majority declines is not good for keeping Canada "free and democratic". And perception matters more than reality, the wealthy and powerful understand the need to "pacify" the masses."

You sound like a conspiracy theorist. There is no evil circle of rich people in a forboding castle high on a cliff plotting the doom of all of humanity. Most wealthy people are bright, intelligent, hard working people who earn their money in a legal and ethical way. Maybe if others worked harder, broaden their skills, introduced new products or services, etc etc instead of being jealous and demanding more from government, then they could earn more as well. Maybe if they saved their money instead of spending it needlessly on wants then they can accumulate more wealth. I plan on retiring a millionaire by using time and automatic savings to my advantage and not wasting money on big screen TVs and luxury cars. I earn a middle class salary. 

About the distribution of wealth, who is to say what is equitable? One could argue that we have an equitable distribution of wealth right now. I would argue the most equitable is by getting rid of the progressive tax system and going with a flat tax. Regardless of race, sex, creed, economic background, education etc, everyone pays XX percent of their income. Fair, no? 

We have it so good here yet people never stop complaining about this or that and are constantly blaming someone else for their problems. For someone to advocate a revolution in Canada should get their head examined and be sent to Cuba. What do you suggest, communism? Some countries tried that and aside from the political oppression, mass murder and genocide, horrible socio-economic conditions, etc, they're just terrible places to live. What incentive is there to work hard and produce when you get nothing in return? Communism is one of those ideas that sounds alright at first, but upon even a cursory examination is one of the worst ideas ever conjured by humanity.


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

Longstreet said:


> "A widening gap plus an economic climate where the living standard, social services, and economic security for the majority declines is not good for keeping Canada "free and democratic". And perception matters more than reality, the wealthy and powerful understand the need to "pacify" the masses."
> 
> You sound like a conspiracy theorist. There is no evil circle of rich people in a forboding castle high on a cliff plotting the doom of all of humanity. Most wealthy people are bright, intelligent, hard working people who earn their money in a legal and ethical way. Maybe if others worked harder, broaden their skills, introduced new products or services, etc etc instead of being jealous and demanding more from government, then they could earn more as well. Maybe if they saved their money instead of spending it needlessly on wants then they can accumulate more wealth. I plan on retiring a millionaire by using time and automatic savings to my advantage and not wasting money on big screen TVs and luxury cars. I earn a middle class salary.
> 
> ...


I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm not blaming the rich and I'm not stating that they are good or bad. I'm not saying the resentment is justified, but there are certain facts with regards to a widening rich/non-rich gap, and how this may have certain consequences if left unchecked. If a gap continues to widen between the rich and the non-rich (and you're not rich, if you're middle class) and if the non-rich perceive they are being short-changed (whether that is true or not is irrelevant - which is why i said perception matters) and certainly if they see their standard of living and economic security decline (whether that is due to the actions of the rich or not, also irrelevant), there will be social unrest whether that results in increases in crime or "Revolution", there will be problems. Of course, we are not close to this situation right now but things could escalate if things slide, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. I think it's an issue all western developed countries are facing (mainly due to structural unemployment of a growing segment of the population and a aging population)

I'm from a third world country. I have cousins my age working in labour camps throughout the middle east, and relatives that live in relative squalor compared to Canada. I don't need a lecture about how good it is in Canada, but that's irrelevant, to what can trigger social unrest....when people are used to having something, and then have it taken away, they are often more agitated than those who never had it.

I don't advocate socialism/communism/capitalism or any kind of ism I exist in whatever ism there is, just stating that there are certain worrisome trends a foot. In my opinion, animosity towards the rich is growing, whether that is justified or not is arguable but I believe it is a trend to be worried about.

Remember Otto von Bismark wasn't a communist and he's the father of our modern social welfare systems...he created these to appease the masses.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

loggedout said:


> I'm from a third world country. I have cousins my age working in labour camps throughout the middle east, and relatives that live in relative squalor compared to Canada. I don't need a lecture about how good it is in Canada, but that's irrelevant, to what can trigger social unrest....when people are used to having something, and then have it taken away, they are often more agitated than those who never had it.


I don't believe that it is correct to compare 3rd world poverty to western poverty. In the 3rd world poverty is due to lack of economic opportunities, but in the west poverty the primary causes of poverty are social conditions not economic conditions.

In the west, people living in poverty usually are suffering some medicial condition or have a poor attitude which makes them unemployable or are paying the long term consquences of an earlier bad choice. This is not a segment of the population that is going to be motivated and rise up in revolution.


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## loggedout (Dec 30, 2009)

LondonHomes said:


> I don't believe that it is correct to compare 3rd world poverty to western poverty. In the 3rd world poverty is due to lack of economic opportunities, but in the west poverty the primary causes of poverty are social conditions not economic conditions.
> 
> In the west, people living in poverty usually are suffering some medicial condition or have a poor attitude which makes them unemployable or are paying the long term consquences of an earlier bad choice. This is not a segment of the population that is going to be motivated and rise up in revolution.


Didn't I just that comparison was irrelevant? I am not comparing, nor am I even arguing that the "poor" will spark revolution, but because large segments of the working and middle classes IMO are going to go through some times, where their standard of living and their overall economic and job security are likely to decline in the face of globalization/offshoring and automation of nearly all jobs that the common person iss suitable for (thereby limiting their employability to a decreasing number of opportunities), there is a possibility that this could lead to social unrest, in light of the fact that the wealthy will continue to be profiting (mostly for investing in the growth of nations on the come up, and due to the efficiencies created in their own businesses bringing in income here). It's just my prediction.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

LondonHomes said:


> Forbe's Richest People in the world list:
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires#p_1_s_arank_-1__-1
> 
> ...


No doubt they worked to create their fortunes, but only Ellison and Ortega came from what could be termed "working poor" families. The rest were born into wealthy to extremely wealthy families.

The opportunities to create their own wealth was certainly greater for most of this list, than for the average kid from the average family.

Perhaps we could just start by forcing the ultra rich to actually pay their proper amount of taxes, as everyone else does. Swiss bank accounts, offshore accounts, fancy tax accountant offices and lawyers, aren't on the payroll of the average person.

Corporations are allowed ridiculous tax advantages.

GM paid employees to destroy perfectly good parts. The reason was they were old stock and the government allowed a 100% writeoff. It was a better deal for GM than holding onto the parts in hopes of a sale. We destroyed thousands of new car radios, chrome rims, hoses, rads, and all kinds of parts. They were taken to the shredder and GM was paid for the tonnage. It was performed on an ongoing basis.

The general public doesn't have a clue what is going on.


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