Canada Taxes Fair ???

[jimmoyer]

Are you getting full value for the price you pay to Microsoft for your software, or to Esso for your gas and oil? Of course not. Same rule applies: 20% of the people those organizations pay aren't really doing anything useful. And what can you do about it? Nothing.
--------------------------------------------------------Dexter Sinister---------------------------------------------

Too lazy to research the validity of 20/80 rule. lol.
But that idea that only 20 percent of the people have sex is so wacky. Look at
teenagers. They don't work. What else do they do, when the hormones rage?


But ESSO ? I though Esso dissolved into EXXON back in the 60s.


And the issue of taxing wealth too much?? Some percentage will move to a better venue.

 

[Toro]

I will have to check this, but off the top of my head, I believe that according to the OECD, taxes are 41% of the Canadian economy and 33% of the US economy. Government spending, however, is 36% of the US economy and 39% of the Canadian economy. That includes federal, state, provincial, municipal, etc.

 

[humanbeing]

Saving, if most people do it is a negative action.

Hoarding is one of those greedy little things people do that harm society, hell cripple society if everyone else did them.

This is why government policies discourage savings, that is the nature of constant inflation and its purpose, to make constantly saving up money less of a no brainer.

Money is literally made to be spent and invested in new things. This doesn't mean you have to buy worthless crap, but you should constantly be buying. Perhaps a new parcel of land and then more things for it to build your dream home with. Doesn't matter.

But hoarding wealth is what kills the economy and makes everyone worse off than if they had just spent every dime they had in the first place.

I disagree with you completely. To me, it sounds like you are confusing money with savings. And the whole idea of just spending every dime in the first place seems nuts. How would anyone ever save up to do the big things in life, or even some of the small things? A new house, a car, an Xbox, a particle accelerator, a dam, a project to map the human genome? Forget it, none of that would happen without savings and investments.

Personally, I don't hoard my money like Scrooge does, with his vault of gold coins, I too invest it into other things, like businesses - bit of a difference there. If my investments help lead to a cure for cancer or a new source of money that eliminates the need for fossil fuels, did they make everyone worse off? If my investments help lead to more goods on the market that people might like, did they make everyone worse off? Well, they don't cripple society, that much I know.

To me, saving is actually a good thing. By supporting productive consumption, saving actually promotes economic growth.

See these two articles for more...
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1596
http://www.mises.org/story/1882

 

[Zzarchov]

If you are investing money, you are not saving it, you are spending it.

And Im well aware of the effect of "saving for a rainy day" on the economy, especially ours. Perhaps you should delve deeper into it, it'll also explain to you why no one would ever stop Christmas from being a national holiday.

 

[Toro]

If you are investing money, you are not saving it, you are spending it.

Sorry ZZ, this is incorrect.

Savings are investment.

 

[Sassylassie]

Toro; isn't that what the experts have been telling us. I have both "Savings" and "Investments" but I'm sure I'll die broke.

 

[Zzarchov]

Sorry ZZ, this is incorrect.

Savings are investment.

Not at all, I have A few grande in cash stored. Thats saving. That money is there no matter what, its saved.

I have far more in Stocks like 3M, thats investment..tommorow something horrible could happen and its value is reduced to zero, Its something I bought and could sell, its money in the economy.

 

[Toro]

Not at all, I have A few grande in cash stored. Thats saving. That money is there no matter what, its saved.

I have far more in Stocks like 3M, thats investment..tommorow something horrible could happen and its value is reduced to zero, Its something I bought and could sell, its money in the economy.

The savings you have in the bank are used by the bank to make loans. That is an investment. But your bank could go under, and your savings would then be worth zero. So your savings will not always be there. Even if you are bailed out by the government, the government is destroying savings from somewhere else by transfering someone else's savings to you.

When you use your savings to buy stock in a company, that is an investment. Simply because your stocks could go to zero does not mean that is not an investment. Your stocks could also make you a millionaire. But that's how it works. There are no gaurantees.

Savings equals investment. Savings are channeled into the capital markets and are used to increase the capital stock. That is macroeconomics 101.

 

[Kreskin]

CDIC insurance is also a false sense of security, IMO.

 

[MMMike]

Obviously by savings I did not mean storing a pile of money under my mattress. I agree, that takes money out of the economy. But like Toro says, investing or depositing money in the bank stimulates the economy.

 

[Toro]

CDIC insurance is also a false sense of security, IMO.

It is and it isn't.

Insurance on deposits is a great idea. However, CDIC isn't really "insurance" since insurance is based on risk. The premiums paid by banks to the CDIC are the same regardless of the risk profile of the bank. Thus a conservative bank pays the same rate as a risky bank.

 

[jimmoyer]

Great disparity in wealth distribution.
Yet this disguises the fact that more and more people are materially richer than before.
That's the irony.
The more who enter the ranks of the richer (draw your line) the more dissatisfaction
occurs. The children of the Great Depression never felt poor. Everyone was poor.

Is it a good thing that most western democracies have the bottom 50 percent earn so little
as to contribute only 3 to 4 percent of all income tax collected ?

Are our western societies distributing wealth more than less these days ???

 

[BigBen]

Does anyone think having a progressive tax system makes it a disincentive to put more time in at work and advance your career? In a way you are getting punished for making an investment in your career. If you decided to sit back and coast along we'll tax you less, but we'll try to squash your ambition by pushing you into a higher tax bracket.