Renegade

Topaz, if Canada and the US were to completely stop producing cars, would the only cars available be cars that were "junk"?

Yes as you point out they are not infiite but rather renewalble. There is not indication that more population would lead to more harvesting of resources but rather it would lead to more consumption of resources and less available for export. How is is beneficial to the current inhabitents if instead of exporting the resources it is now internally consumed? Yes and there is no reason why we couldn't build wealth from our people, but we do not need additional people to do so. The fact is that more population does not equal more wealth is demonstrated by the fact that most of the countries which have the highest standard of living do NOT have the largest population density. If more population means more wealth then why would that be? That is completely subjective. Many people pefer the advantages of smaller/ less dense living over the convenience of big citiy density. I use the US because it is the one you brought up as a point of comparison ("That is why many things are considerably cheaper in the United States.") We can also grow our economy with the same or fewer people by enhancing the productivity of people. IOW, we don't need more people as a prerequiiste to continue to improve our standard of living. People should move to cities if it makes economic sense for them to move to cities, not because of artifical inducements put in place by the government. If people are moving to the cities, increasing densification, how does it make any sense to further accelerate that pressure by increasing the population. Disproportionately cities will be the ones absorbing that growth. You have your self stated that there is no easy way to stop that.

OK but virtually all the resources are not infinite. A larger population consumes resources faster than a smaller one. In any case if we have a large amount of resources, we build weath by trading those to other countries, not necessarily consuming them internally. Actually it distorts rational choices. Without equalization there is more incentive for people to move where we need them (for example from Nfld to Alberta). Equalization encourages people to stay where they are not needed. You seem to agree with me in a couple of areas: 1. Growth will result in increased urban densification. 2. There is already sufficient urban densification. Given this you don't seem to have a compelling case for greater population growth. Great. They should move if Quebec can't provide them the quality of life they feel they can attain elsewhere. No it isn't bad up to a point. We already have crowded cities. Cities the size of NY do not deliver services more efficiently than cities the size of Toronto, and when they do the quality of life inevitably suffers. Do you really think that people prefer giving up lifestyles like single-family home ownership to live in crowded appartments like is the norm in NY? Actually very few benefits have been pointed out other than the pryamid scheme of social benfits. Surely if you were creating a program, you would not create which depended upon indefinite population growth. The quicker we wean ourselves off this the better. The whole scheme and intent is flawed. Collecting money so it can give it back and losing some because of administative costs is an inefficient scheme at best.

Is that all we are trying to do: "Sustain a population"? I don't doubt that you can feed more people, but does that end in a better quality of life for the people already in place? Other resources such as? Will more population produce more food or more resources or deplete existing resources faster. Even if we can sustain a larger population why would we want to and deplete resources faster. So in your visiion of increased growth, how do you avoid this? Clearly the history has been for denser and denser urbanization despite equalization programs. I don't know how anyone's quality of life would be better in Toronto or Vancouver with increased population density. There are better ways to benefit the economy than population growth. Sure the economy will grow when the populaiton grows but that doesn't imply that the standard of living gets better. The better way to benefit the economy is by increased productivity. Better use of the human capital we already have will generate growth which is both smart and sustainable.

So what? In other words we would just be living a sustainable standard of living within our means, rather than depending upon unstainable population growth. If you truly belive that population growth is a necessity, maybe you can tell me when if ever it should stop, and what do we do at that point?

Of course is is not entirely negative. The extensive social programs are structured as a pyramid scheme which depend upon ever increasing population growth. It is clear that our population cannot grow indefinitely. At what point do we say we have enough people? 100 million, 1 Billion? It seems lunacy to continue population growth just to feed the pyramid scheme. All it takes is some will to fix the social programs. For example instead of CPP depending upon current contributions, it can be geared toward cumulative contributions like an RRSP so that it is sustainable even in a population decline. There are many solutions to a labor shortage. There are still many jobs which are done which could be automated. There are increased lifespans and people can work longer than they do, if given the right incentives. The problems with population growth are severe. Increased housing density, accellerated resource consumption, and environmental dammage. Given a choice would people still pick population growth? Maybe the would, but it is only because they want to reap immediate benefits of the social programs fueled by population growth and pass on other problems like environmental dammage to future generations.

As you should well know it takes a lot more than food to sustain a population. Even if we assume that there is available usable land, how are you going to force the population growth onto the vacant land. Historically it is clear that there is a shift from rural to urban. In other words, people are not moving to open spaces rather they are crowding into the already crowded cities.

If you mean to supply labour to take care of retirees, it is not really an issue as the decline is gradual and only a small subset of the population is dedicated to care for the aged. If you mean retirement programs. It is those programs which need to be fixed so that they don't depend upon the pyramid scheme of never ending population growth. Except that people don't go live out in the tundra where there is available land. They cram into the same cities we already live resulting in increased pressure on existing land, resources and infrastructure.

Why is population decline a bad thing? Has it already been considered that population growth may also be the cause of a myriad of problems?

Even if you take away the frills the base cost of raising a child is pretty substantial. This US govt estimate pegs the number at $204,060 for middle-income families. IMV a parent has certain obligations to provide for his child beyond the bare essentials. It is amazing to me that some parents don't have a clue of the financial responsilbity the are signing up for.

$100K doesn't seem an unreasonable estimate to me. I easly spend at least $10K or more per year for mine. Between afterschool care, tutoring, various activiites, vacations, clothing, food, etc. That is not even counting the incremental cost of housing and utilities.

All true, in addition there is less soceital expectation that kids are obligated to look after aged parents. I've heard estimates of $100K to bring up each child. If a parent's aim is to be taken off when they are older, they may be better off using the money they would spend on raising kids, toward saving for their retirement.

Isn' t this exactly the point. It is all about trade-offs. If you can't afford both kids and comfort you need to choose between them.

Oleg, I wish I could make sense of what you are saying, but as usual it befuddles me. What freedom do you need? Parents are free to have as many or as few kids as they want. The limitiations are not imposed by govenment but rather by the parents own ability to clothe, feed, house and care for their kids.

But did you ask their parents to see if maybe, given tthe opportunity, would they have had fewer kids?

Why do we even need more kids? There seems to be a presumption that population growth is good. Why is it? We can certainly accomodate population changes both growth and declines so long as it is gradual.

Not that I know of. Yes I know it sucks. It's a choice. Exactly! The guys in the lab presumably get some other benefit other than their income (eg they enjoy the work more than office work). There may even be some office workers who prefer to work in the lab but are willing to trade that off against the higher pay of office work. The fact is that they have chosen a trade which they are willing to accept or they wouldn't be working there in that position. Their income is dependant not just upon their contribution but upon the availability of an alternative. If for example the lab guy's job could be automated and was, why should a rational company offer them any more than it woudl cost under an automated system? Your assessment of "equal contributions" is completely subjective. The only subjectiveness which counts is the company's as it is their funds to dedide what they do with. When you look at two jobs and compare them and determine that one is being unfairly treated you are looking at the comparison two narrowly (ie only by income). There are other aspects of jobs which you are not taking into account (eg job satisfaction, flexibility, skills required, effort required, etc). All of those and more factor into a person's decision to take and keep a job. Exactly! He may have had some of the ingredients needed, but he didn't have all. As well he didn't take the risk that those who put up the capital did. You seem to beleive that the entire product delivered was the materials and the labour supplied. What about finding the sale, billing, collecting, tax collection, warranty, and a host of other functions which are required to provide in order to stay in business. Certainly what your father did was augment his skills with the services which were necessary and supplied by the company. If he could have found a better deal, from some other company, no doubt he should have and would have taken it. This is completely irrelevant to the discussion. There are lots of employees who screw their companies too. What do you mean by "prevent others from joining the club"? Certainly many of those who are high-income earners today were not born "into the club". There is very little barriers to earning money, which are imposed by others to exclude "outsiders", however yes it takes capital and willingness to take risks. The issue is that you don't place any value on either. "contributions to the betterment of society"???? cm'on now. Unless they are Mother Theresa neither companies nor individuals are working for the "betterment of society". They both are working to maximize their self-interest. You have made some kind of subjective judgement of how valuable an occupation is to society. How did you determine that? Hard work isn't the only factor. (I can work hard digging diches and filling them up. Does that make me valuable?). There is another measure of value to society which doesn't depend upon your subjectivity. A person is worth EXACTLY what someone else offers him and he willingly accepts. Since you agree that people are indeed unequal in ability, and I assume you agree that people can make unequal contributions, do you agree that people making unequal contributions should beneift unequally?

Let me ask you since the people who work in the lab are paid less, why didn't they work in the office? Perhaps you should ask why MDS is willing to pay the office workers more. Is it because MDS is being generous or are there other reasons. BTW, you used the personal pronoun "we". (ie "we don't want to do'" "we still pay them less."). "We" don't pay them anything. The company pays them whatever it agrees with them to pay them and they agree to accept. You and I have nothing to do with it. The same question of your father. Since teh contractor was getting such a high price for the package, which included your father's work, why didn't your father sell directly to Osgoode Hall and cut out the contractor? No, I'm completely acknowledging that capitalism benefits equal people unequally, but it is because people are inherently unequal, something you fail to acknowledge. No, there are probably many reasons why people don't benefit including bad decisions, choices, luck. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter why someone doesn't benefit, it is up to each individual to resolve their bad choices, bad decisions, luck or whatever.

You neglect that not all the middle class have been "slipping into lower classes of income". Many in fact have moved out of the middle class and into the upper class. The shrinking of the middle class

Yes it is good for a select group. That group is the one which is smart enough to take advantage of the growth for economic gain. That applies to both rich and poor. If you look at the economic boom in Alberta, do you not think that poorer people are also benefiting because there is a huge demand for their skills? Why exactly in your scenario is the father who earns $25K a year losing $5K since clearly he is not invested in the stock market? They don't owe their investments to a country, not the country they reside in nor any other. If the country they are part of feels that that investments are best made within that country they need to make it as attractive as possible by providing favourable taxation schemes and paying suitable returns. It is stealing!! Simply legalizing it or going by euphismisms like "leveling the playing field" doesn't change that fact. The fact is that some people succeed because they are smarter, harder working, or luckier than others. Why should they not be entitled to fully enjoy the fruits of their luck, work, or smarts without theft. I didn't say the free-market was better for eveyone. It is better for the skilled, the smart, the hard-working, and anyone who can excell above others. It isn't so good for the unskilled, uneducated, lazy or stupid as they would likely not economically thrive, so it is they who are propoenents of wealth redistribution. It is far easier for them to support such a parasitic system than have to justify why they actually deserve a smaller piece of the economic pie. The test of an economic system is most certainly not "is your life any better now than it was 10 years ago?", because regardless of the answer there are any number or reasons for the outcome 10 years later which may have nothing to do with the economic system.

Is that supprising to you? The rich tend to invest and stand the most to gain in a rising economy. They also stand to lose the most in a declining economy or financial crisis. Why should anyone object to them enjoying the fruits of their risk-taking? Rich folks, quite rationally, invest their money into where they can get the best return for the least risk. If that turns out to be a mom-and-pop business then they will do so if not they will put their money elsewhere or out of the country. Why should you or anyone object, because afterall it is their money to do with as they please. BTW, putting money into offshore accounts doesn't avoid paying taxes so long as the holder is still a Canadian resident. A social-contract is nothing more than an execuse to steal from those who earn, and give to those who don't. A true contract is one in which both sides agree to terms rather than have them imposed on them.

I agree but not just now. It's been the time to cut spending for quite a while.

August your scenario ignores some important considerations. It is only rational that I support government borrowing if the borrowing flows through money to me to pay down the higher interest debt. Is government borrowing better than me borrowng? No, not if it means I directly or indirectly pay the debt costs without assurance that the benefit flows back to me to pay down my higher-interest debt. More than likely the borrowing will be used to fund programs which I may not benefit or only marginally benefit.

Who gets to judge the standard for driver's licences, and how does it get enforced? Look and you'll see a model. Standards should be set, and should be adujsted based upon their impact on the results. Today there are no standards, with sometimes tragic consequences. In my opinion a decision is make once for life, similar to when a woman gives a child up for adoption. Even if her circumstances improve later and wishes to change her mind, it is an irreversable decision. Assuming a system of parental qualification is in place, if a parent has a child without being qualifed they risk not being allowed to keep that child. BTW, I don't believe the qualification should simply be finanical. It should be mental and emotional as well. Your right possessing a gun is not the same as having children. The responsibly and potential for harm is much greater with children thus if anything more care should be taken. No, where have I ever made that assumption? I'm saying it doesnt' matter whether their situation is a result of poor choices, mistakes, or dumb luck. Their situation should be evaluated without blame, but the situation is what is is and should be evaluated on whether it is the right environment to develop kids. The freedom you so readly assign them is freedom you steal from the rest of the taxpayers. You steal the freedom of taxpayers to choose where to spend the money they have earned. If you made taxpayer contribution to such a program voluntary, I too would have no problem with it. It is interesting that you belive that nomatter how unqualifed, or unprepared a person is, they should be no intervention in them having kids and continuing a cycle which leads to a host of problems. If you look at many of the problems in society, you will see that they are a result of kids being brought up in an inadequate environment without suitable parenting. You solutoin is to try and address after the fact. My contention is that preventing the situation to begin with would far more effective. How effective? We won't really know until we try.

No I didn't mean to imply a binary situation. We can sit and argue about what constitutes a family if you wish. For example, is a fetus part of a family? If not at what point does it become part of a family? If you want to call a newly-born baby part of the family then I have not issue with breaking up that "family" if it is not in the best interest of the child to be part of that family. I don't have an issue with removing a child from harm or potential harm. It is completely consistent that when incapable parents have kids, they could inflict harm on their kids. To best protect the kids, some poeple shouldn't be parents and analogus to removeing kids from physical abuse, kids should be removed from other forms or potential forms of harm. Car accident victims should get treatment however the cost of that treatment shoudl be borne by those responsible for the accident, either directly or indirectly through the cost of increased insurance rates. No I don't judge other people's life situation, I care little about how they run their life. I only judge situations when I'm asked to contirbute to their life situation. Since I ask no such contribution from you, your qualification is meaningless to me.