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tyler wiliams

Broadbent Institute makes income inequality its first focus - 0 views

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    Most of the income gains of the past three decades, the report argues, were realized by only wealthy Canadians. The paper suggests that social and economic rights be added to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms alongside Canadians' political and civil rights, in order to fulfil its "security of the person" provision. For every dollar increase in national earnings over the last 20 years more than 30 cents have gone to the top one per cent while the remaining 70 cents have been shared across the other 99 per cent of Canadians. The final section of the report is prescriptive, outlining several ways to combat growing income equality: -Good jobs: changes to economic policies to promote the growth of middle-class jobs, including trade and foreign investment policies that protect labour rights and environmental standards and strong investments in child care, public education and skills training. -Income supports: changes to the government programs targeted at low-income Canadians and those in short-term need, such as employment insurance, Old Age Security, the Canada Pension Plan, provincial welfare systems and other income supports and tax benefits targeted at low-income families with children and the working poor. -Expanding public services: the report argues that for the majority of Canadians public services are a good deal; The value of education, health care, child care and other public services annually exceeds the taxes paid by middle-class and low-income Canadians. At the same time, some reforms are needed, it acknowledges. -Fair taxes: changes to Canada's tax system are necessary, it argues, pointing out Canada's taxes as a share of national income (31 per cent) are below the average of the world's industrialized countries (34 per cent), squeezing funding for public services.
Rohan Zahur

Teacher Bashing: The Inequality Psychology | Inequality.org - 1 views

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    Q1: What would be your solution to this inequality? Would it really affect people(help teachers; students; any consequences)? Q2: Would your choice be efficient to the state? What would be opportunity costs for your solution?
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    1. my solution to this inequality would be to increase taxes on the wealthy and decrease for the poor and focus the use of taxes more on public schools because that's where it's needed most. Since the problem isn't really about the taxes, it's the rich people themselves and their attitude toward public services so there should be a policy where rich have to support at most, public schools. 2. Yes my choice would be efficient because this way you can at least reduce the wealth gap between the wealthy and poor. The main opportunity cost for my solution is paying more taxes but for a better result in education and basic necessities needed in schools for students to be educated properly.
A SN

Tom Thorne's ejournal: Economic stagnation in US means whoever wins the US Presidential... - 1 views

  • The real threat to Canada is not who is in the White House but what they do about the mounting US Government debt now at $16 Trillion plus. To this point there is no will apparent to cooperate for a solution.
  • The real threat to Canada is not who is in the White House but what they do about the mounting US Government debt now at $16 Trillion plus. To this point there is no will apparent to cooperate for a solution.
  • The real threat to Canada is not who is in the White House but what they do about the mounting US Government debt now at $16 Trillion plus. To this point there is no will apparent to cooperate for a solution.
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      Represents the real threat to Canada; USA's economic stagnation
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  • The real threat to Canada is not who is in the White House but what they do about the mounting US Government debt now at $16 Trillion plus. To this point there is no will apparent to cooperate for a solution.
  • If the US literally prints its way out of its economic mess, the mess will be compounded. 
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      Problems caused by overprinting money
  • Such an action is guaranteed to create inflation and a rise in interest rates charged to service the debt and also generally for business and lenders of all kinds.
  • Lenders will want more interest to cover the risk of carrying US Government debt loads expressed in diluted valued bonds and currency.
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      The proves that the USA is in really bad debt.
  • Serious debt reduction is needed in the US Congress and Administration.  And there is very little wiggle room to cut US government expenditures. However failure to do so will mean in the middle range of time that the US will become more and more an economic lightweight and hence its world presence will be diminished. That is bad for Canada.
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      If USA falls into a deeper economic stagnation Canada will be widely affected.
  • The US is making itself militarily and financially vulnerable. Canada, no matter how well we manage our financial affairs, will be forced into the same situation as our major trading partner.
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      The US is losing it influence throughout the world. This is a problem.
  • It will be tougher for Canada to retain our natural resources.  Potential deals like the Chinese State taking over Nexen in our oil sands, will become more likely if we want to maintain our own economic performance independent of a financially errant US.
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      problems caused by USA economic stagnation.
  • It really is time for the United States Government and its politicians to bite the economic bullet. Failure to do so means a downsizing of the United State’s influence on the world stage and that can only mean that Canada will need a more independent economic policy as China grows in influence. In short the lack of action on the economic front by our major trading partner is taking us more to Europe and into the arms of the Chinese Government’s hegemony.
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      The consequences if the USA does not change.
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    Questions: 1. Do you think that eventually Canada will have no choice but to sell its natural resources to the other world powers? Can this be a good change? 2. Canada and the USA share a lot of history and do a lot of activities together, do you think that being financially independent will make us rely less on the US ?
lebiez piranaj

Canada Income Inequality: Governments Effective In Softening Wage Gap, Study Says - 2 views

  • Researchers at the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards looked at how much taxes and government benefits helped to even things out between the rich and the poor in Canada over the past three decades
  • They found that taxes and spending have persistently dampened inequality, but not enough to stop the increase in inequality over time
  • before-tax income inequality rose 19.4 per cent over three decades
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  • income inequality was 44 per cent less severe than it would have been if governments had not intervened.
  • Transfer payments – such as old-age benefits or family benefits — were responsible for most of this dampening effect, while taxation accounted for about 30 per cent of the reduction
  • Governments were most active in redistribution of income in 1994, they found. If they had kept up that level of redistribution, they would have eliminated half of the rise in inequality over three decades
  • Canada ranks 24th out of 35 countries in terms of equality in the late 2000s
  • Canada was one of the least active countries in terms of using tax or transfer policy to redistribute income, ranking 25th out of 30 countries.
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    This article talks about how the government is doing very good with reducing the inequality with the tax cuts and all but that they could be more aggressive. It's suggesting that we need a new redistribution plan but mainly focuses on what it counts to be the most important thing in getting rid of the debt, the governments role in all this. Asks questions like what if the government had made different decisions. 
Cristina Raileanu

Ontario close to eliminating coal as electric-power source, a first in North America | ... - 0 views

  • Word that Ontario is nearing its long-promised goal of eliminating coal-fired power plants has gotten a lot of play outside the province in scientific, environmental and power industry publications.
  • by the end of this year the last two large-scale coal-fired generating plants will close, leaving only a small backup facility in Thunder Bay operating until the end of 2014.
  • "Shutting down the last coal plants in Southern Ontario will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save the province $95 million,"
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  • last year that coal, which a decade ago accounted for a quarter of Ontario's electricity, now generates only 2.8 per cent of the total. It's now exceeded by wind power, which provides three per cent. The shift "demonstrates how far we’ve come in terms of t
  • Nuclear power provides more than half (56.4 per cent) of Ontario's electricity, followed by hydro at 22.3 per cent and natural gas at 14.6 per cent, the electricity agency said.
  • "While there’s little respite from rising electricity prices no matter what the source, with renewable energy at least consumers know what they’re paying for," he wrote.
  • So far, none of the Liberal candidates vying to succeed the departing McGuinty are ready to abandon his green-energy policy.
  • Gerard Kennedy promised to review the Green Energy Act.
lebiez piranaj

For richer, for poorer | The Economist - 1 views

  • the share of national income going to the richest 1% of Americans has doubled since 1980
  • rise in disparities all along the income distribution
  • best-known way of measuring inequality is the Gini coefficient
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  • global inequality has started to fall even as inequality within many countries has risen
  • inequality rises in the early stages of industrialisation as people leave the land
  • inequality has been on the rise for three decades
  • people at the bottom and even in the middle of the income distribution are falling behind not just in relative but also in absolute terms
  • Too often high-tax welfare states turned out to be inefficient and unsustainable
  • Europe France’s new president, François Hollande, wants a top income-tax rate of 75%
  • The mainstream consensus has long been that a growing economy raises all boats
  • of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive and…poisonous is to focus on questions of distribution
  • Some societies are more concerned about equality of opportunity
  • The unstable history of Latin America, long the continent with the biggest income gaps, suggests that countries run by entrenched wealthy elites do not do very well
  • America’s presidential election is largely being fought over questions such as whether taxes should rise at the top
  • a big driver of today’s income distributions is government policy
  • a lot of today’s inequality is inefficient
  • reflects market and government failures that also reduce growth
  • it is about attacking cronyism and investing in the young
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    The article talks about how inequality may have decreased worldwide but it is increasing more and more in specific countries, Canada has fairly high inequality and there are propositions to tax the rich or redistribute income using other strategies. 
Cristina Raileanu

Canada's dirty economic secret: we're as indebted as the rest of you | Colin Horgan | C... - 0 views

  • is acknowledged to have weathered the economic storm better than any other major western economy, bank bailouts have been avoided, sustained growth has returned,"
  • "highest credit rating in the world,
  • Canada learned some sound policy lessons from its own financial and economic meltdowns in the latter decades of the 20th century, a lot of us are now personally up to our eyeballs.
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  • Canadian "household debt as a percentage of disposable income has risen by almost 60 percentage points to 165% today,"
  • The bulk of this rise in debt – 66%, or $636 bn – has been in the form of mortgage debt, putting Canadians in an uncomfortable neighbourhood
  • between Spain and the United States in the ranking of household mortgage debt,"
tyler wiliams

Income Inequality In Canada: Ed Broadbent Wants To Give Tories 'A Good Shake' - 1 views

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    most people don't realize that income inequality effects us all and not just the poor. Our market-driven ideology has lead to the increasing income gap and needs to be changed. The reductions of income tax. Not only reductions of income tax and the disproportionate benefits to upper-income [individuals] takes away the money that's needed for post-secondary education, for health care, for Canada pensions, worsening the income gap.
Brijesh Patel

40000 jobs added in december yet umemployment rate falls - 1 views

  • unemployment rate to its lowest in four years,
  • Statistics Canada reported last month that the economy grew just 0.1 per cent in October after a flat reading in September and a 0.1 per cent contraction in August.
  • December saw 41,200 new full-time jobs added, while the number of part-time positions fell by 1,400.
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  • Compared with a year earlier, Statistics Canada said there were 312,000 more jobs, all in full-time work.
  • The gains were made in the transportation and warehousing segment which added 22,000 jobs, while the construction industry gained 18,000 jobs.Professional, scientific and technical services lost 42,000, while public administration dropped 13,000.
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    Capital Economics, which has one of the most bearish outlooks on the Canadian economy, noted the strong jobs growth was in stark contrast to the other recent economy data. The federal agency said the national unemployment rate slipped by one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.1 per cent, its lowest level since December 2008 The recent strength of employment growth will probably convince the Bank of Canada to stick with its existing position that interest rates will eventually need to rise at this month's policy meeting
ShiyuandCristina SC

Rich-poor gap could spark financial crisis in Canada: Report | Money | Toronto Sun - 1 views

  • The gap between the rich and the poor in Canada is getting wider and could eventually lead to an economic collapse, according to a new report by a left-wing think-tank.
  • Income for middle-class Canadians has remained stagnate since the 1980s, while the income of the richest 1% has increased dramatically
  • When the rising savings of the rich are parked in the financial markets, but everyone else falls deeper into debt, a house of cards is created, producing the kind of economic instability that led to the 1929 financial sector crash and the market meltdown of 2008."
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  • As a result, Canada's income inequality has reached a level not seen since the 1920s, says Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
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    The problems created by income inequality in Canada could possibly lead to a financial crisis. 
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