Renegade

You mean the same government and electorate who opposed SSM and in 1999 passed an motion affirming that marriage was only between man and woman. That same government, a couple of years later came around to the conclusion that yes indeed that SSM should be permitted. Sometimes it take the courts to do what the government doesn't have the stomach for. The government and electorate will come around.

I grant you that there are many choices many women make which will negatively financially impact them. This will not be caught in the statistics. But given we think discrimmination is a factor we'ed like to eliminate as an area of contribution to the pay discrepancy, how do we do so, when as you acknowledge it is so difficult to make the comparisons and eliminate other factors?

As always, what is "stupid" is a matter of perspective.

The could be but most are not. Most of this additional income is usually withdrawal from RRSPs, company pension, or investment income. Yes you are. It is not your OAS which is cut. It is your GIS. The GIS is clawed back at $14,904. The OAS doesn't start to be clawed back until $63,511. Old Age Security Benefit Payment Rates

It would be an impossible comparison. No two individuals are alike, so even if they had the same qualifications, experience, education, time off work, client base, seniority etc, how do you assess that the performance in the job is exactly alike?

CA, I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is that the potential employer has to make a hiring decision based upon a variety of data which he doesn't know and can't readilly get, so he makes assumptions. Once such assumption is that a young woman can get pregnant and a young man cannot. This is a pretty safe assumption, however there will be some women who cannot get pregnant. Similarly the employer must make assumptions about some other attributes such as how much time the employee will spend on work tasks instead of home tasks. If there is objective evidence which suggests that women are more likely to spend more time at home than work, it is reasonable for the employer to assume it, just as much as for the employer to assume that the female employee will get pregnant. Let me put it another way. If we used as our sample infertile individuals of both sexes and held all other variables the same, do you think we would still see a pay difference? Of course we would, because despite them being infertile, the employer still makes assumptions about their fertility and other characteristics.

The basic pension in Canada is $105 a week. Are you in dollars or pounds. If it is dollars than you can get a lot more over there. If you arei in pounds then it would be The equivilant of $387 a week. jester, I believe that to be eligible for a UK pension you must have to have contributed to NI, similar to our CPP system, correct? margrace, you have earlier stated that the basic amount paid is around $12000 (OAS + GIS). So the minimium amount a senior would be getting in Canada would be $230/week Q&A: Basic state pension

Well, they are. From shooting doctors who provide abortions, to spending most of their time fighting SSM and to blowing up buildings due to xenophobic or religios beliefs, people are putting ideology ahead of self-interest. Sure, but many abortion clincs were opened by doctors who put ideology above self-interest. Many of the population supports SSM for ideological reasons, and many more are putting themselves in harm's way to protect buildings from being blown up. So acting out of ideology cuts both ways.

From the child's perspective, how is it any different?

CA, I think there are more factors than just potential pregnancy which negatively impact the choice of hiring a woman in a role: 1. As BD pointed out, housework and focus on the home. For better or worse, the bulk of the responsibilty for maintaining the home and kids falls on the woman. She will be less likely to be available for productive employment hours if she has to balance her time. 2. Agressiveness. Many women are simply not as agressive as men for demanding higher pay. 3. Risk adverse. With job choices there sometimes is a decision between taking a higher-pay but risky job, and a low-pay, low risk job. Many women will value the lower risk despite lower pay. 4. Elderly parent. As with housework the bulk of the workload falls on the daughter, making her less avaialbe for employment hours. 5. Physical ability. Even with jobs which don't require physical ability, there are cases where an employer may require the employee to substitute into another job temporarily. The more potential jobs an employee can substitute into, the higher the value to the employer. This is not to deny that discrimmination exist, however it is not the only , or even the main factor to explain difference in pay between men and women.

The issue is bigger than who's name get's put on the certificate. If the birth-mother dies, what standing does the other "mother" have in making decisions for the child. Unless she was recognized as a mother, the birth-father, who maybe nothing more than a DNA donor would have greater standing. I believe even if the second mother adopted the child, it wouldn't resolve the issue, because the law would previously recognize only one mother, so in adopting, the second mother would replace the birth-mother as the child's only mother.

Let's put my responses in context. I said, and believe that parents have an obligation to educate their kids. If the state didn't provide an education to my kids, I as parent would still have that obligation. The obligation I speak of is a moral one and one I signed up for as a parent. That is why I stated "My obligation is to to pay for my kids in the same way. If I have no kids, I have no such obligation". You asked me what I would do with my kids if I had any. So I said "If I'm here I may send them to public or private shool depending upon what is available." Now does any of this state that I wouldn't fund the education of other kids who couldn't afford it? Not as far as I can see, and I fail to see how you can read it that way. Is this all you have to prove your aligation that I "believe all education should be private an only those who's parents can afford it, should have access to it." ? Again you are reading things which I never said. I said I have obligations to my own kids, that doesn't preclude me having societal obligations as well. My comments were with respect to your concept of a deferred system of payments and benefits, which implies that people recieve benefits which they pay for later, or people pay for benefits which they receive later. What I am saying is this model doesnt apply to education or medicare or a host of social programs simply because you must pay regardless if you receive benefits or not. Yes, I do support a user-pay system, however with caveats. For certain essentials like education and medicare, there should be mechanisms so that people who can't afford it can still use the services. No as I've said above, even in a user pay system, no-one should be denied education.

So your daughter has no problem with two mothers?

Then the debate should focus should be on making sure there is freedom of choice. Even in two-party marriage there is the possibility of coercion, but that doesn't prevent the state from endorcing two-party marriage. An unnecessarily restrictive condition. As with the previously restrictive condition of having one participant be male and the other female, this one too will eventually fall.

I agree. Actually I see just the opposite. I see most people acting out of self-interest and not ideology reinforcing your point above. Personally, I'd like to see more people put ideology ahead of self-interest.

I'm sure they didn't. But I can only assess my own situation, and it is based upon what chances I'm willing to take. If I deem that the chances of me collecting welfare are very low, and the personal savings are comparitively high, then it is in my interest to take the chance. Again I have to do a personal assessment of benefit. If I think the indirect benefit I get is less than the personal cost, then it woudl be in my self-interest to not support child care. So then how do I determine if a program is in my self-interest when so many of the benefits are not easily quantifiable? How do you assess potential benefit of someone else's cared for children to me? Do I take it on faith that it is good value?

Ok, quote me what I previously said which lead you to that conclusion. Is this a new question or do you already know my response based upon what I've said? Why ask the question when you claim I have already said that I "believe all education should be private and only those who's parents can afford it, should have access to it."? The fact is, I agree with a public school system, whether or not I or my kids use it, however if given the choice I would fund it very differently than is done today, and is probably the subject of a different thread. Forgive me, but where did I say that? Of course it matters. I "owe" those who contributed to whatever it is you claim I got for free. So go ahead and be specific. So, its like credit and bills now? Your analogies are going over your financial head. Do you notice that they track how much you owe for credit, and how much you owe for bills? That is why yes, credit and bills are deferred payment systems exactly like I described above. Education is not. So try again with your analogy. So if I follow you, if I take a loan from John, and I pay back the loan to Paul. My debts are clear right? Please, please don't go into finance. Please don't say that to anyone in the insurance or benefit industry. You have completly muddled both concepts. Let's just agree to call it a kind of insurance ok?

Why all the fuss about polygamy? Let 40 people be married to each other if they choose.

I'm not sure it does. I didn't see that there was any requirement where any of the children's parents needed to be married. The anti-gay crowd seems to be up in arms about this decison, possibly because it was initiated by a lesbian couple. But how about the following scenario: Birth mother and birth father split. Birht father gets remarried to new wife. New wife wants to be also desginated the child's mother. Birth mother, Birth father, and New wife are all fine with it. Why shouldn't the court allow it? Would the anti-gay crowd still be POed?

My point in these post is not to suggest that we ought to eliminate the welfare program or hire more police. My point is simply that there are motivations when we choose to support programs which go beyond our own self-interests. We may support welfare programs because we feel compassion. We may support SSM, or anti-discriminatory legislation out of a sense of fairness. There are are many other motivations beyond "self-interest" which should factor into which programs and policies we do or don't support. This is why I disagreed with Saturn when he advocated that each should be looking at issues strictly from the perspective of self-interest.

Huh? How did you read that into what I said? You asked me where I woudl get my kids educated. I don't think I even commented on what other parents should do. If I have please point it out. Huh? I wasn't commenting at all on my view of a user-pay system. Disscussion of a user-pay system is much more involved than anything I have commented on here. In my response I was simply agreeing with you that if you didn't force a retirements savings plan, then people would end up on welfare, and if welfare wasn't avialble they would starve, or look for handouts. Which part of that statement do you read that I wanted to exclude the disabled and those who can't afford education? So who are these others you refer to who paid for my education? Canadian taxpayers? My parents? Some other taxpayers? Again you use "deffered payment", without understanding the concept. I've given up trying to explain it to you. You are wrong. Who is it that paid for what I got, tell me because I'd like to pay them back. I'm afraid it is you who are very confused. You have tried to simplify a complex payment mechanism into something simple you call a "deferred benefit" without understaning the meaning of the word. Of course it is form of insurance! I've been trying for the last couple of days to point it out to you, but you have insisted in calling it a deferred benefit. The real problem is that you don't understand the difference between the two and use the terms interchangably, and I've given up trying to explain it to you.

An interesting question. Perhaps we can look at it this way: let's say we could vote to kill welfare. Then the people who collect welfare are probably going to be breaking into your house to find money (or stuff to steal to sell for money) or food. So, killing welfare, would probably be "acting against your best interest." Ok, let's assume you are right. Then I should be only in favour of subsistance level welfare and no more, enough so that those who get welfare won't attack my property. Correct? It also may be in my interest to distribute the bulk of the welfare to young single males instead of mothers with kids, since they are the ones likely to break into my house. Alternatively it may be more cost effective for me to hire more police or better secure my house. All valid choices, n'est pas?

It is probably true that seniors will never become a majority unless lifespans dramatically increase. But I wasn't speaking specificly of seniors. Unless you can somehow guarantee that the voting base will always be composed of hetrogenous groups, at some point a majority with sufficient common interest will exist. It is irrelevant whether this majority is formed on the basis of demographic, race, or immigration status. The system allows the majority unfettered access to the purses of the minority, thus promoting the kind of outcome we discussed, even if you can somehow get everyone to vote and act in their own interest. ------------------- As an aside, does "acting in my own interest" mean voting to kill welfare, if I don't think it is a program I will ever use? Does "acting in my own interest" mean voting for no childcare, if I don't have kids? Etc? Should I always be putting my own interest firsts? BTW, I'm a boomer and it is likely I will collect OAS, despite this I would vote to kill OAS as a program. I'm not acting in my own self interest. Should I be?

The point was that by the time it starts to hurt, it may be too late to recover or the cost of recovery may be huge. Let me give you an example. Global warming. For centuries government have implemented policies which gave no regard to environmental damage. By the time it starts to "hurt" 2 centuries later, it is either impossible or not feasable to fix the problem. Moreover the people who caused the problem and benefited from the destruction are long gone. No, that is not the only alternative. In fact it is as much a problem to give ultimate control to a minority as it is to give ultimate control to the majority. What I'm saying is that even in a "majority rule" democracy, there needs to be checks and balances so that the interests of the minority are not run over roughshod.

I doubt such a natural limit exist. Extravagant spending in the 70s and 80s showed that governments can spend well beyond their means and accumulate debt. The effects on the economy may not be immediate and can even happen decades after the actions are undertaken. So what happens if 15 years later the economy is in ruins, and the huge debt has been piled on? Is that the time the natural limit kicks in?