Canada Ranked 8th on the List of the World’s Wealthy

[Acanthus]

Are we talking about income equality or income growth?
How does income inequality affect growth? I'd say there's plenty of other more pertinent factors in play, like technology, work ethic, competing in a global economy.

Income growth (inflation adjusted of course).

Take a look at the countries that have periods with a gini index over 0.6 (or 60, some groups multiply the calculation by 100 to get whole numbers). None of them have good growth.

The US after 2000 has seen a dramatic rise in the Gini Index, growth has stalled.

You can see this same pattern in France, Germany, the UK, and Japan.

In periods where the index rises, growth slows both nationally (GDP) and individually (median income).

 

[CPA]

You really don't think the Windows monopoly has done any damage?

Consumers pay more for computers. Businesses pay more for terminals, workstations, and servers. All of this money goes to Microsoft.

You can look at it from a consumer standpoint and say that every consumer has overspent on operating systems over the years, money that could have been spent on material goods that would create more economic activity than sitting in Gates bank account idle.

You can look at it from a business standpoint and say that they have wasted BILLIONS on the Microsoft monopoly where money could have been spent on research, upkeep, choice, expansion, or white/blue collar pay.

Sure there is always the capital argument, but America has no shortage in capital to invest in itself. Our financial sector is over 30% of our GDP (some argue as high as 45%).

1)It doesn't matter where the money is spent it still provides economic activity - whether it's Microsoft or Apple or Joe's Plumbing shop. And again, your argument only works if the pie is finite, which you've already agreed it is not.

2) Your GDP argument is the EXACT same argument they used for healthcare and driving it towards government care. What was that? 16%. Are you saying we need to drive the financial sector to government care? Does is matter what drives the GDP as long as it increases?

There was a time that manufacturing drove GDP? Should we have put that industry under government ownership because it was too large a percentage of GDP? Of course not.

 

[CPA]

If the policies for business are more aimed toward big corporations and rich people than towards small business, it actually does impact your wealth potential.

There are only two ways where my wealth potential are stymied: 1) Income Taxes and 2) Barriers to a market.

I will cede that certain corporations (not all) lobby to create barriers to market, but that does not mean that someone's personal wealth has impacted me. Two different things. There are plenty of people who are filthy rich who have not requested or received any specific legislation that bars my ability to get in their market.

Income taxes reduce my wealth. I don't see too many rich people fighting for higher taxes. If they did, then that could reduce my wealth, yes, but other than a few billionaires (Buffet, Gates, etc) showing a good public face about it, there has been no real push by them.

 

[CPA]

You're crazy if you don't think the rich lobby to protect themselves or to give themselves goodies at the expense of the rest of us. The rich, specifically, do things like lobby for more H1B visas (aka indentured servants) while claiming we don't have enough american workers to fill those positions or when they prevent us from fighting against mercantilist nations from using various government subsidies to move capital (and jobs) away from America.

Also, i could probably write pages upon pages on wall street.

Again, you are naive.

Phokus, neither one of those impact my potential. I'm not roped down in my home. And nothing stops me from joining Wall Street other than my own desire. You, as well.

On a side note, I currently have a foreigner on my staff that is going through the visa process. I guess I'm rich and I'm now a slave owner by your logic.

 

[silverpig]

whatever you say oh wise one. Please explain to me how bill gates or his ilk have depressed or mitigated my wealth potential.

There are a few headless kings who would love to disagree with you...

 

[silverpig]

capitalism will solve your college cost analogy.

Not completely.

If it is every man for himself with government providing only national defense, then if you are born poor, you stay poor.

Increased taxes and government services level the playing field, especially things like transportation, education, and healthcare.

Now you may come from a family that was able to afford to send you to private school from kindergarten all the way through college, but chances are you weren't. And for all those who weren't able to do that, your career and income benefited from the government taking money from some guy who was richer than your parents and building a school for you to go to, with a road leading up to it.

 

[Train]

Not completely.

If it is every man for himself with government providing only national defense, then if you are born poor, you stay poor.

Increased taxes and government services level the playing field, especially things like transportation, education, and healthcare.

Now you may come from a family that was able to afford to send you to private school from kindergarten all the way through college, but chances are you weren't. And for all those who weren't able to do that, your career and income benefited from the government taking money from some guy who was richer than your parents and building a school for you to go to, with a road leading up to it.

That was true pre-industrial revolution, only because ~99% of labor output just went to keeping yourself and your family fed and clothed. Cracking that 1% was next to impossible.

Post industrialization, it is very easy for a kid with talent to climb. And no, not because the Marxist fairy made it so, because people in the market have a demand for people with skill and/or creativity.

 

[Acanthus]

1)It doesn't matter where the money is spent it still provides economic activity - whether it's Microsoft or Apple or Joe's Plumbing shop. And again, your argument only works if the pie is finite, which you've already agreed it is not.

2) Your GDP argument is the EXACT same argument they used for healthcare and driving it towards government care. What was that? 16%. Are you saying we need to drive the financial sector to government care? Does is matter what drives the GDP as long as it increases?

There was a time that manufacturing drove GDP? Should we have put that industry under government ownership because it was too large a percentage of GDP? Of course not.

1) no, it doesn't. This isn't even fundamental economics. Obviously idle money does nothing. Apple just sitting on more cash than the US Treasury does not help the economy. Joe Plumbings shop spends its income. The pie is not infinite, do not twist my words to fit your incredibly black and white ideological lens.

2) No, I am in no way saying that the financial sector needs to be in the hands of the government. All i was saying is that the financial sector is very large in the US, and there is no shortage of capital investment potential. It would not be limited by a rise in taxes.

I don't even know where you got the last paragraph. Wat.

 

[cbrunny]

But isn't Canada a socialist country/nanny state?

Serious?

 

[Acanthus]

That was true pre-industrial revolution, only because ~99% of labor output just went to keeping yourself and your family fed and clothed. Cracking that 1% was next to impossible.

Post industrialization, it is very easy for a kid with talent to climb. And no, not because the Marxist fairy made it so, because people in the market have a demand for people with skill and/or creativity.

This is the biggest fallacy in all of economics.

"Work super hard and you can be an oil baron too!"

 

[cbrunny]

Probably why there's so much income inequality when government workers are making double the average wage.

Here in Ontario, they're trying to raise taxes yet again under the guise of funding transit this time. This announcement came just after a report found the government had misspent at least $250 million of taxpayer money in what was basically a vote buying scheme last election

There is also a housing bubble. Lots of low and middle income people being shut out of the real estate market due to high costs. Homes in Toronto now go for half a million on average now. That's not even downtown or in high end neighbourhoods.

The bubble only exists in higher density urban areas (and their surrounding areas). Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, etc.

 

[Train]

This is the biggest fallacy in all of economics.

"Work super hard and you can be an oil baron too!"

I never said work hard or oil baron.

 

[Acanthus]

I never said work hard or oil baron.

The fallacy says that.

You basically said "be talented and you can be a billionaire" which is an ad nauseam twist on the same old mantra.

 

[Train]

The fallacy says that.

You basically said "be talented and you can be a billionaire" which is an ad nauseam twist on the same old mantra.

Well it certainly isn't a fallacy since there are many stories of people doing it.

Dave Thomas didn't get past 6th grade and died a billionaire.

Are you going to tell me some govt sponsored college made him successful? Or are you going to come back and say "well he isn't a typical case" ? Either way your "fallacy" falls flat.

 

[yuchai]

Does is matter what drives the GDP as long as it increases?

It does not if increasing your current GDP for 1 or 2 years is your only goal. It matters a lot if your goal is sustainable and consistent growth over a long period of time.

 

[Howard]

Well it certainly isn't a fallacy since there are many stories of people doing it.

Dave Thomas didn't get past 6th grade and died a billionaire.

Are you going to tell me some govt sponsored college made him successful? Or are you going to come back and say "well he isn't a typical case" ? Either way your "fallacy" falls flat.

Many stories of people... becoming billionaires?

I don't doubt that.

 

[Acanthus]

Well it certainly isn't a fallacy since there are many stories of people doing it.

Dave Thomas didn't get past 6th grade and died a billionaire.

Are you going to tell me some govt sponsored college made him successful? Or are you going to come back and say "well he isn't a typical case" ? Either way your "fallacy" falls flat.

Facepalm.

We are talking about statistics. There will be outliers. "There was this one guy that did it" is not really a good rationalization for a system that damages many more than it helps.

 

[Train]

Facepalm.

We are talking about statistics. There will be outliers. "There was this one guy that did it" is not really a good rationalization for a system that damages many more than it helps.

No we aren't. Silverpig said "if you are born poor, you stay poor".

Which I called out for the complete load of crap that it is.

He didn't say "if you are born poor the chances are you stay poor".

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Failure to regulate state-owned colleges at the same time is a huge reason.

Costs have skyrocketed in administration and huge expenditures and cosmetic upgrades that have nothing to do with education.

Book prices have skyrocketed due to colleges colluding with publishers to reduce the choices the professors can make for less costly solutions.

Little has been done to reign in expenses.

I know IL has actually taken a step in the right direction by forcing colleges to accept transfer credits from accredited community colleges (the state accredits them, not the school). This forces price competition between the colleges and community colleges and dramatically reduces costs for both the student and the state. (kids can live at home and take their entire gen-ed series at a low-cost community college before going to an expensive state school)

The cosmetic upgrades that campuses and buildings receive are a direct result of loans from the federal government.
Easy to acquire loans guaranteed by the government led to increased demand which caused tuition to soar, simultaneously dumbing down the value of a degree.
Get ready for another bubble and recession when students start defaulting on their loans.

 

[actuarial]

Post industrialization, it is very easy for a kid with talent to climb. And no, not because the Marxist fairy made it so, because people in the market have a demand for people with skill and/or creativity.

I disagree, and that comes as someone who has in fact climbed.

When I was a kid my dad lost his business and we were on welfare. In spite of this, I continued to get an education my parents wouldn't have been able to afford to give me.

Eventually I was given scholarships to attend university (which I supplemented with working during school), but I find it hard to believe that someone would have paid for me to go to school at 10 because the market demanded people with skill.

 

[Acanthus]

The cosmetic upgrades that campuses and buildings receive are a direct result of loans from the federal government.
Easy to acquire loans guaranteed by the government led to increased demand which caused tuition to soar, simultaneously dumbing down the value of a degree.
Get ready for another bubble and recession when students start defaulting on their loans.

I absolutely agree with you.

The only way to give the poor access to money to pay for school and at the same time not have out of control expansion of university costs is to have oversight of what publicly owned college are spending their money on. A 3 million gallon pond with a fountain doesn't help you learn Calculus.

 

[actuarial]

I absolutely agree with you.

The only way to give the poor access to money to pay for school and at the same time not have out of control expansion of university costs is to have oversight of what publicly owned college are spending their money on. A 3 million gallon pond with a fountain doesn't help you learn Calculus.

Lou Diamond Phillips certainly didn't need one.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Congrats to our neighbors up north, that is awesome. Can we get a loan? haha

 

[brianmanahan]

You're so naive. Besides what's been said, wealth also = political power.

LOL, phokus calling CPA naive?

phokus calling anyone naive is enough to make me snort laugh.

 

[brianmanahan]

You really don't think the Windows monopoly has done any damage?

what monopoly?? install linux, problem solved. lol