$20,000 per person: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
- Thread starter SLM
- Start date
I think it also speaks to the fact that we're really not all that far apart on ideals and goals, and both sides of the political spectrum realize that for benefits to be had there needs to be costs. Hammering out the details is always the trickier part but now I'm wondering if it's because we always seem to go after the details first that we have such a hard time agreeing.
I would much rather see someone working, even a minimum wage job, and getting some kind of top-up allowance than be fully on social assistance. Right now we have nothing remotely like this (that I'm aware of). If someone has a job then they have more of a future, and more hope for that future.
And if they could pick up some garbage and pull some weeds that would be a plus!
It would work on a similar principle to the conservative idea that cutting taxes creates jobs, except with the added benefit of not being total horse****. A corporation can expand its operations all over the world. It doesn't help them one bit if there are no customers. Pay people minimum wage and take away the benefits that alleviate their financial burden and you don't have many customers for your tax-free corporate enterprise. Take money from the rich that don't need it or spend it, however, and put it into social programs, and you actually free up money in the economy (think stimulus package). Poor people spend their money and that spending increases the need to hire more people to provide services.
Apple, Microsoft, Nike, Adidas, etc, etc.... All of these companies have done exactly what you described above in moving their mfg base out of the USA, yet the US is their biggest market that makes them the most money.
Fact is, all of the aforementioned moved big chunks of their companies to foreign soil because they were getting gouged in taxes and union demands (to mention a few).
For that matter, take a look in any of the items in your cupboard or closet and tell me how much was made in Canada or North America.
All you have said is nothing more than wishful thinking
Not even that necessarily, although it would be nice to get some garbage picked up.
Take your all time favourite Big Mac analogy, right now I'd say if you had to get a job at McDonalds you'd be looking at minimum wage and not full time hours. But if we looked at 'topping up' the base income of all Canadians to a decent point, then odds are people will be buying more Big Macs. If people are buying more Big Macs then it won't be long before McDonalds needs more full time staff, maybe with a wage bump. More full time staff means more tax dollars going into general revenue for the country, paying for this 'top-up' allowance. Etc, etc, on and on.
Now obviously that's just a small example and of course it's not that direct nor is it quite that simple. There would always be a percentage of the population that requires a 'top-up' but I wouldn't be surprised to see fewer individuals requiring it within a generation or two, should a nation adopt a plan like this. With the right qualifiers I'd wager it could be a vary viable alternative to most social assistance programs.
The world is getting to be a small place, Capt., we really have to start thinking "Global". We can't produce everything, the more participants the better.
Ooooooooooooh, oooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooooh, S.L.M. your idea in general is good, BUT for God sakes substitute A & W for McD's. We don't want to poison the populace! -
T
Ooooooooooooh, oooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooooh, S.L.M. your idea in general is good, BUT for God sakes substitute A & W for McD's. We don't want to poison the populace! -
Hey! 8O You're the one who's always using the "price of a Big Mac" as an analogy!!!!
I have never even had a Big Mac.
Ever.
(Seriously. If I'm ever forced to eat there, I go for the Quarter Pounder.)
I would push for compulsory employment for people that are deaf or blind. It is simply a matter of figuring out what they can do and that covers more jobs than you might think. These kind of handycapped make good employees.
$20G could probably be atainable for a single person without increasing the budget simply by removing the bulk of the social workers that suck so much money out of the system with zero results. What they take could be considered highly paid welfare.
What do you mean? At the risk of being P.I. I think the deaf are capable for a job leading the blind and the blind could learn signing to convey messages to the deaf.
"Useless people" meaning.........................................? I'm not sure where people out of Ottawa could move to!
Not to mention minimum wage laws and workers rights. Corporations moved their manufacturing bases overseas because they can more easily exploit foreign labour. Don't pretend that taxes and unions caused the gutting of North America's manufacturing. Manufacturing prospered for decades with higher taxes and more union power than existed when they started moving away. When it started happening conservative and neo-liberal governments used the same rhetoric you bought into to peel back already low taxes, freer trade and labour laws. None of it worked. The companies just kept leaving (free trade helped them). They didn't leave because of those darn greedy unions. They left because they wanted borderline slave labour. They wanted to fully maximize their profits and the development of better international transport and free trade laws allowed them to do it. The fact that people like you decided to blame the wrong people and act like corporate immorality was a fine thing and kept re-electing the same corporate spokespeople to office only made it worse. The conditions needed to bring those companies back would be the brutal slave labour conditions that exist elsewhere.
Manufacturing's reliance on the North American market is decreasing and its current reliance is not due to the generation of wealth but the inertia of previously established wealth from just a few decades ago. That and predatory credit and the pre-recession real estate inflation and banking crime (which is the glorious financial freedom our politicians extol, you buy into and nothing has been done to fix).
Funny thing about workers rights... Those people in the nations where the mfgrs moved to invoked their right to work at the pay rates offered.
Kinda throws a kink in your scenario, don't it?
Higher costs through a variety of mechanisms incl taxes and labour contributed heavily to the issue... That and the fact that quality was not keeping pace with the cost increases also played a part. Pretend all you like it was/is something else, you're only fooling yourself
PS - the public was demanding lower prices... Can you say Walmart?
Yeah, sure.. The gubmints were all about a plan that would increase unemployment rates, lower GDP and generate less cash from taxes.
Are you for real?
No one has a gun to he head of people that decide to work for less than you would accept.
.... Workers Rights an all
How horrible... Wanting to max the upside for the investor body (read: owners)
How dramatic... Shoot me your mailing address... I'll have a tin-foil hat sent to you ASAP
Don't forget that there is an entirely new market of consumers in China and India demanding material goods.
You talk as if there is no other option and that you are being forced to assume credit facilities at too high a rate.
Newsflash for ya: interest rates in the 70s was in the low double digits as compared to today in the low single to medium digits
The minute they opened up the borders to goods with minimal tarrifs, the labour will go to the cheapest marketplace. Now they can use slave labour in China and have full access to American markets.
Of course, if you undid all that, yes labour would come back here but your $300 iPhone with telco subsidy would now cost $800. All the cheap stuff you buy weekly (that comes from China) would cost 2-3 times its current cost. Question is if you were doing the minimum wage manufacturing job, would you be any farther ahead?
Of course, if you undid all that, yes labour would come back here but your $300 iPhone with telco subsidy would now cost $800. All the cheap stuff you buy weekly (that comes from China) would cost 2-3 times its current cost. Question is if you were doing the minimum wage manufacturing job, would you be any farther ahead?
I am not opposed to a minimum standard of living for all. However, I believe that this standard should be multi-tiered, because I believe that we should be paying people to re-educate, re-train. re-habilitate, or simply contribute to their community. For those that can't, I agree that compassion is due. However, for those that simply abuse or refuse to be part of the system, can take their bag of worldly belongs to a shelter, and they can become a ward( for lack of a better word) of the shelter.
So when a person eats at McDonalds or shops at Walmart, is he not exploiting cheaper labour!