Machjo

And you?

You missed the 'other' option. I always include such an option in my polls. Now as for government funding for various industries, I don't see why we could not just increase spending on education, offer more courses in arts, sports, etc, and then let the students decide for themselves what they want to do with their skills in their life rather than force industries to grow beyond market needs through government subsidies?

Where do you think government spending on arts, culture and sports ought to be focussed? personally, I think it ought all to go through the public school system, allowing all who want to learn music, sports, or other arts to do so. then they're free to do with that education as they please. I honestly don't see how concentrated funding for big events in big cities or capital cities benefit the population equally. Your thoughts on this?

Not that it's any of your business, but my buttux is firm enough thank you very much. Now who ever said all worthy things must receive government support. If that's the case, what about clothes, food, shelter? Should all of that be free too? I'd say only when it comes down to necessity, but certainly not across the borad. At that stage, we'd be looking at a nearly communist economic system, and we've seen how well that worked out in the good ol' USSR. As for sports, I'd categorize it in the same category as food, clothing, shelter, etc. Yes, it's necessary, but should have government invovlement only where necessary, such as in school physical education. I'm all for that. That's not the same though as benefitting big business over it either. There's a balance to everything. Such large scale events could be handled by the private sector just fine. Sitting in front of the tube watching the Pan Am games won't firm up anyone's bum as much as actually going out and playing himself, which is what school gym classes are all about. Same with theatres, etc. Big arts events in Ottawa have little benefit for the average family in Calgary. Instead, let's just spend more on art education in public school, thus giving every person the chance to sing, play a musical instrument, etc. Any government spending ought to be directed at the grassroots, not big business events.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for paying my taxes for worthy causes, educaiton, etc. But is anyone going to die or suffer dearly in any way if we don't have the Pan Am games? I think not.

Of course. My question was mainly rhetorical to get all the Pan Am fans out there thinking with their heads rather than just their nationalistic chest beating.

Are my taxes paying for it either directly or indirectly? By directly, I mean the government actually giving money towards the Pan Am games. By indirectly, I mean the government allowing the games to use public facilities free of charge or even under the market price going for the use of those facilities. If my taxes aren't going towards it in any way, I'm happy for them. Otherwise... Down with the games!

Just to clarify, I do agree with a government ensuring one common language under its jurisdiction for various reasons. One common language suffices though, and there is no need for two. In Quebec, that is French by law, and so the second language ought to vary from person to person so as to allow Quebec to expand its markets worldwide, as BC has done, which is reflected in its second language education policy granting schools a choice from a list of seven second-languages.

Or another way to look at this? Do you not trust the free market on this point? I'm certainly not a rabid capitalist, but I still lean more in that direction than not, and think in this case at least the market would balance it out for the most part, better than compulsory English would.

Have you ever lived in small-town Quebec? I have, and I can tell you that most Quebecers who live there have so little use for the English language in their daily lives that they usually forget it after a few years out of high school (and I can add that most of them are educated and some of them are well-paid professionals to boot). No different from the situation in most of English Canada. While Quebec does indeed need English-language teachers, translators, interpretors, etc., it certainly does not have enough jobs in the language field for all Quebecers. For the majority of Quebecers, the main value of a second language might be to make pen friends or for travel and tourism, for which any second language could do. Besides, if schools were granted the freedom to choose the second-language to teach, or pupils a second language to be tested in, my guess is the free market would influence the decision considerably. In cities like Montreal and Gatineau, for instance, I'm sure most schools would choose to teach Enhglish at the request of parents and pupils, and most pupils would choose to be tested in English, perhaps a few exceptions among certain linguistic minorities aside to preserve their linguistic cultures. In smaller towns, the population would likely be more divided between English and easier languages to fulfil graduation requirements, yet I'm sure even there English would continue to maintain a certain presence. I can add too that from an economic stand point, the expansion of language options over time would likely benefit Quebec's international tourism industry and expand Quebec's access to international markets, jsut as a similar policy has done for BC and Alberta. No different really. If you're suggesting that giving schools and pupils a choice of languages would lead to an exodus to other languages, I can't imagine that happening. In fact, in the short term, it would likely be almost impossible to switch owing to the lack of qualified teachers for these other languages. While granting schools and pupils this freedom would likely reduce the power of English to a degree in Quebec, at least enough to reduce the threat to the French language, I can't imagine your suggestion that an exodus from English would suddenly occur overnight. I'd certianly be interested in reading your view on this though.

Bingo! That also saves me on taxes to build more highways, airports or whatever because that business is clogging our roadsand airports. If its business is mainly exports, then move near a harbour and stop hogging our roads at taxpayers' expense. Don't you just love this user-pay idea? I do. OK, I was being a little sarcastic there, and was exaggerating. But it still holds true to a certain degree. In those cases where the resource in question is equally available abroad, we'd likely see a sudden drop in exports (unless by sheer coincidence the mine happens to be near a port so as to avoid the brunt of the gas tax, though I concede that is highly unlikely), but the domestic market would remain because whether domestic or imported, the resources would still have to face Canadian gas taxes, the exception possibly being border towns and port cities if that are far from the resources, which might then find it advantageous to just import the product. But then, we'd be benefiting from their countries' taxpayer subsidizing their transportation infrastructure to give us the product at a price below its value. That would last only so long as other contries realize we're exploiting their subsidization of their transport infrastructure. Not all of them. Especially those that require a multilingual staff find it hard to outsource since in other countries, the language known is usually the national language plus English, a very different scenario from in Canada where it is more likely to be English, French, and Mandarin, a combination fairly unique to Canada's demography. Try to export that job. I work in the language industry myself so am well aware of this. I can't see all industries shipping out. I doubt many southern countries would be interested in importing skidoos en masse. If they have to pay for transport into the heart of Canada regardless of whether it's produced in Canada or not, and then if we consider that producing it in Canada would mean less income tax than producing it abroad, why on earth would a company produce it in the US for example, with a higher income tax, and then import it to Canada with a high gas tax? The smartest thing to do then would be to produce it in the heart of the market. Sure the gas tax would be high (which they'd have to pay either way anyway), but at least income taxes would be low. To build it in the US to then ship it to Canada would be the worst of both worlds. Now if it wants to focus on the Canadian market since few Americans buy skidoos, it might just produce it in the heart of Canada's north where the market is greatest so as to save at least a little on the gas tax. If it's focussed on the export market, it would likely move just North of the Canada-US border, but almost right on the border, in some cases maybe even almost literally on the border so as to benefit from low Canadian income taxes and low US gas taxes. In fact, some smart Canadian companies might even ship their goods across Canada on US highways, thus taking advantage of US income tax subsidies to their highway system. If we look at it that way, my guess is the US would soon follow suit with a gas tax of its own when it realizes their taxpayers would be subsidizing our transport industry. Why waste taxpayers' money to build more highways when we can get the US taxpayer to do it for us? In fact, you're likely to find a number of US factories moving just across the Canada-US border into Canada to take advantage of the same thing, benefiting from Canada's low income taxes and low US gas taxes while shipping to the US market. Needless to say, the US would suffer much more from this than we would. After all, we would still be making at least some money from them even if the income tax is low (after all, a low income tax is not the same as no income tax). And if all they're doing is producing in Canada (right on the border might I add) and exporting it all to the US, it's not like that's much of a burden on the Canadian government when it comes to infrastructure spending. They'd barely even be using our highways. And if they do use our highways to sell domestically, well, then they'll pay more tax, so it would still be breaking even. The US though would be getting zilch from them whether in income or gas taxes. Now you might say that could risk causing a labour shortage in Canada's border areas. It could, but a imple labour movement agreement would solve that problem. Thiw could benefit health care too. After all, we'd likely witness a surge in educational and medical tourism owing to the lower income taxes professors and physicians would need to pay, allowing them to accept lower salaries and still make a good profit. Only the transport there would be expensive, but for international students, that would be no more than once or twice a year, saving money on professors' salaries the rest of the year. And again, if a hospital opes near the border on the Canadian side, you'd have US citizens crossing the border to benefit from low-taxed physicians while also avoiding much of the gas tax. We'd likely experience an economic boom in our border regions and our port cities while benefiting wholeheartedly from foreign subsidies to their transport industry, at least until they figure out what's going on and finally adopt a similar system to ours.

I could add to that that by sanctioning the country, we sanction both the perpetrators and the victims. In that I'd though of ways governments could circumvent this issue, at least to some degree. I'll explain below. The Canadian government (though this could apply to any government but I'll take Canada's as an example) could grant individuals and individual companies guaranteed trade freedom with us by meeting certain obligations. For example, any company in the world that meets all Canadian labour, environmental, human rights, and other standards that do not directly conflict with the laws of its country would automatically be granted free trade with us, regardless of any trade sanctions, tariffs, etc. we may have imposed on its government. All the company would need to do would be to have a representative of the Canadian embassy in his country verify the company's claims, with maybe one surprise inspection a year to ensure its continued adherence to these standards. In a sense, the idea would be that Canada would be establishing free trade agreements not with governments, but with individual persons and organizations. After all, what incentive is there for a company to raise its standards if it will remain sanctioned by our government no matter what it does? At least under this new proposed system, we'd be handing him an incentive whereby he could surmount our economic sanctions against his government though his own actions. In this way, we're also promoting personal responsibility among companies abroad, which in itself promotes social justice. If we establish such agreements with governments only, then we remove any incentive on the part of individual companies to take responsibility for their own actions, not to mention that we penalize individuals and companies in the country that are in fact trying their best to meet our standards.

You seem to be missing a few points here. A Canadian manufacturer who specializes in exports could easily set up shop right on the border. That way, as soon as the product is produced, it's shipped out without having to buy much Canadian gas if any if it's right on the border. It's produced in Canada, shipped out, and barely a tax is paid. In fact, that company might even have an edge over his foreign counterparts since the gas tax would offset income taxes. With lower income taxes, the company could cut costs that way, and by avoiding the gas tax or any other resource tax as much as possible, it might in fact pay much less tax than its counterparts abroad. Now you might argue that that would hurt Canadian government revenue. I'd have to agree, but with a caveat. The company would be paying less tax because it would have found a way to not burden our infrastructural resources needlessly, thus saving the government much money in infrastructural development too. So yes, the government would have less money, but would also use less money. Meanwhile, the export company that insists on staying in central Canada and use up all our highway and airport and rail infrastructure would be paying its fare share to maintain it, as it ought to. As for the company that services both a foreign and domestic market, it would be forced to make a choice. If its market is mainly domestic, it could set up shop more or less in the centre of the country. Or if it can afford two factories, and it exports alot of its products too, then it could set one up on each coast, and then charge a low cost to foreign buyers while naturally calculating transport costs for the Canadian market, the farther afield the town, the more expensive the product, as it ought to be. You use the roads, you pay for them. Why should I subsidize you? Meanwhile, Canadian services such as computer programming, or other internet services would have an advantage too owing to lower income taxes. Since income taxes would be lower, and they'd be making little use of our roads, airports, harbours, etc (it's easy enough to just email your finished product in such industries), the combined advantages of low income taxes and low reliance on gas and other natural resources (precisely where the taxes would be focussed) would mean that they'd be paying much less tax than their counterparts abroad, giving them an edge too. As a result, while our resource-based industries would suffer, our service-based industries would flourish, the exact opposite of your claim. American web designers, programmers, etc. would want to move to Canada, while our resource-based industries would want to resettle in the US or elsewhere. We could see a similar advantage in our education sector. Universities are mostly service oriented, not resource oriented, so our universities would be cheaper than their counterparts abroad too owing to the lower income taxes. Another advantage with such a growing service industry is that tariffs and quotas have little to no effect on them. After all, how does a border guard stop an email message with an attachment, or an electronic financial transaction? Or how does a foreign government prevent its population from sending its children to Canadian universities without preventing them from leaving the country altogether. Such a Green Shift would essentially make the Canadian economy more resistant to foreign protectionism too. Now you might argue that this would force Canadians to pay more for resource-intensive products, especially if from afar. True, but seeing that they're the ones burdening our highways, railways, airports, etc. should they not be the ones paying for it? I say let the user pay. No more corporate or consumer subsidies. This way, the one who purchases locally, or who spends more on service-intensive products or who spends more on services that don't rely so much on resources, would find the cost of such services drop owing to lower income taxes on himself and on the workers and companies, etc. So he'd find his money going farther than before. But again, if he's not burdening society as much in the need for infrastructural construction, should he not be rewarded? All a gas tax, or any other resource tax would do is to make our roads, highways, airports, railways, harbours, etc. more user pay than there are now, where now we are subsidizing them regardless of whether we benefit from it. Why should I be subsidizing your industry? If it's that inefficient, then indeed, let another country have it.

Precisely. But there is one thing you'll notice. In Alberta, if English is the medium of instruction, then the school gets to choose the second language. And if English is not the language of instruction, then English must be taught as a second language. As a result, English remains the sole common language across Alberta, and therefore uncontested. Quebec could learn from Alberta, Hungary, and other such places. For example, it could allow its French-medium schools to teach the second language of their choice, and French-medium students to sit the second-language test of their choice. It could also allow schools to teach in the local indigenous language, or perhaps even in a religious language such as Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, etc. as long as French be taught as the second language. These could be carrots Quebec could wave in front of the faces of linguistic minorities to lure them from English to French. In this way, over time, even if many schools teach English as a medium of instruction, French would still be the only common language across the province, essentially adopting a strategy similar to Alberta's or Hungary's. In fact, I remember reading statistics on second-language learning in various European countries, and it seemed that the higher the percentage of students learning English, the more that government expressed concerns over it. IN France 90% of students choose English, and the French government is in a panic. In Italy, about 81% and dropping over the last years, and though the government has expressed some concern, it seems to be more level-headed about it. And Hungary, with the lowest percentage of students learning English at less than 50% with the rest choosing from among about 20 other languages, I've yet to find any article showing that their government have any concerns over English. Perhaps Quebec could learn from this.Just stop forcing them to learn English, and you won't need to have all these restrictions on English any more. It's hard to be sympathetic when Quebec's language problem is self-inflicted by making English compulsory.

It may or may not help our competitiveness, but it will certainly help our efficiency (competitiveness and efficiency are two clearly distinguished concepts in my mind). As it stands now, a Canadian company selling across Canada and abroad may very well be contributing much more than any other company to traffic congestion on highways across our country yet paying the same amount in taxes. This also masks the real benefit to the Canadian economy from that company. On the surface, it might appear to be making lots of money and paying lots of taxes. In reality though, it may simply be draining the government of precious resources in building and maintaining ever more highways. Alternatively, another company might be making less profit, but also making much less use of our highways. Though it light not pays as much in taxes, it's also not as much of a burden on our highway system. A gas tax would remedy this by making the real cost of that company to the Canadian economy more obvious. All of a sudden, the first company finds itself with less profit than before because it's not paying for all the roads it's using. Meanwhile, the second company sees its profits rise as its income taxes drop. Suddenly, the real contribution to the economy of each company becomes more obvious, and this puts an end to hidden subsidies, such as having others pay for your road usage. Make it user pay through a gas tax, and its real value to the economy becomes more apparent, thus encouraging companies make a profit without hogging up all our and other resources. I do not think of competitiveness when looking at improving the economy. In fact, I do not care for competitiveness. I'm more interested in efficiency, since competitiveness is to focussed on just taking wealth from a competitor, whereas efficiency focusses on actually producing new wealth for all. While this might not affect things much in our border towns and port cities, it will certainly affect imports in Canada's interior, where the local product will e granted a clear advantage. Also, do we really want our export companies hogging our roads? If you're planning to export your stuff, then move to a border town or port city so that you can save on transport and distance. Wouldn't that make your company more efficient and make our whole transport system more efficient too by taking more trucks off our roads?Move closer to the market. Companies that want to stay in the interior shift their focus on the local market, or alternatively foreign companies that sell to Canada's interior could just move there rather than hog all our roads and ports, don't ya think? So the foreign goods would have a HUGE competive advantage in the cost of shipping their goods from their borders to that of other countries. Once their goods landed in Canada, shipping would be OUR cost, regardless of being a domestic product or an import. The effect of such a gas tax would be effectively null. Yes,shipping would be our cost, and so we'd buy less of it. We'd try to buy more locally instead. In some cases, that could benefit an importer. For example, a Canadian in Ottawa might rather buy a product from Buffalo than from Vancouver. However, with our lower income taxes, our service industry would have an edge over the US one which would have to pay higher income taxes. Add to that the savings in not having to build more highways for awhile, owing to less traffic as our export industries move closer to the border to be closer to their foreign markets. Again, you're thinking competitiveness, I'm thinking efficiency. Two different concepts that are too often confounded.

My point exactly. A product coming from abroad might be able to compete in our port cities. But once they start moving inland, the price would start going up, giving local businesses an edge over their competitors. This is where a green shift would have an advantage over complicated rules trying to take every little detail into account. If we think about it in simpler terms, foreign governments must tax other businesses or individuals to subsidize certain industries. So while those specific industries would have an edge, the rest of their economy is at a natural disadvantage. They could never compete with us on every front any more than we could against them. A natural equilibrium will always occur over time. A gas tax would give a natural advantage to local products though. Also, since this would mean lower income taxes, it would also mean lower labour costs, thus giving our service intensive industries (which could include some IT industries) an advantage over theirs, even if it gives some of their more resource intensive industries an advantage over ours owing to our higher gas taxes. As you can see, no one ca win on every front. By subsidizing certain industries, they are hurting others who are paying the subsidy. By increasing a gas tax we'd be hurting our transport industry and more resource intensive industries, but would be benefitting our service intensive industries through lower income taxes. The question is, what industries do we want to promote and what industries do they want to promote. I think a gas tax would be a simple way of protecting our local industries without necessarily putting ourselves at an unfair advantage over them. It would be an effective defensive tactic, albeit in no way threatening to them.

Though I'm not a sovereigntist myself, I have discussed the language issue on sovereigntist forums. I like to visit various forums, be they right or left leaning, federalist or sovereigntist, etc. just to exchange ideas. In one particular exchange, I'd tried to present the idea of promoting French in Quebec through the provision of more instead of less freedom. For example, if the Quebec government is so concerned about English language hegemony in Quebec, then why not adopt the Hungarian second-language instruction model, whereby each school is free to teach the second-language of its choice using any course plan already approved by the Ministry of Education or one produced by the school itself to be presented to the Ministry for approval, and for each pupil to be free to fulfill his high school second-language requirements by sitting a test in the second-language of his choice among any test approved by the Ministry. One possible modification to the Hungarian model that Quebec could adopt would be to grant this freedom to French-medium schools only, with English-medium schools being required to teach French as a second language. Surprisingly enough, even among sovereigntists, most were opposed to the idea, insisting simultaneously that more restrictions must be imposed on English while making English compulsory. They could not understand the idea of reducing the threat of English not by adding further restrictions to it, but rather by granting more freedom from it. This, by the way, would not be such a radical idea. In BC, schools are free to choose between French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin Chinese. In Alberta likewise, are free to choose from among various languages. This in fact helps to maintain the position of English in those two provinces by ensuring that English be the only language everyone share in common. Certainly the same would apply in Quebec. If students could choose their second language as they can in BC and Alberta, then French would in fact be the only common language across the province, problem solved. They would no longer need so many restrictions on English because it would no longer be a threat, a threat self-imposed by the Quebec government, ironically enough. Maybe it's time for Quebec to learn from its Western provincial counterparts or, better yet, Hungary, on that front.

Add to that that in a high-density area, it's hard to commit a crime unnoticed while there are people everywhere. I remember one documentary a few years ago pointing out that the suburb is the perfect crime destination. In the country, many work at or near home. In the city, there are people everywhere. The suburb are practically ghost towns on weekdays in the daytime. It's perfect for those trying to escape prying eyes. In fact, mid-day is the best time of day for them.

Certainly if the problem was bad management, then they'd go down anyway. And if that's the case, then let them fall and retrain the workers for something else. I think the principle still stands though that government ought to be planning for recession in good times, and planning for inflation during recession. Essentially, in good times, the government cuts back on spending, raises taxes, pays off tis debts, and makes itself as lean as can be tolerated. This would help fight inflation too by the way. Then in bad economic times, that's the time for the government to go on a shopping spree to get all the good deals. We'd benefit since government would be getting a better deal for their buck, and we'd benefit again since this woudl help sabilize the economy a little. I'm sure the police could manage with a clunker for awhile at least. If it's really desperate, then buy the minimal number of cars immedeiately needed, but as for any large purchase, that must wait until recession. Same with army uniforms and all kind so of other things. Otherwisse come recession, we don't know what to spend our money on and so just waste it bailing everyone out. In good times, plan for the bad times by making sure there'll be something worth spending money on.

I don't know. When I lived in Montreal, I found its public transit infrastructure to be quite efficient, so efficient in fact that not only did I not need a car, but seldom even needed public transport, with nearly all I needed within walking distance. At that time I was starting out, wasn't particularly rich, but found the system quite satisfactory. Add to that that since Montreal has a few business districts spread across the city, it's easy enough to find a good job near where you work. I can add too that though I was not particularly rich then, the borough I was living in had quite a range of social classes, from rich to poor, so even as I accumulated more wealth, I didn't mind staying in the same borough and just move to a better home. Then I moved to Ottawa to be closer to family. In Ottawa though, public transport is not as impressive and the city is much more sprawled out. Add to that, that it doesn't make much effort to try to spread business around, so most of the business is downtown while most of the residential neighbourhoods are in the suburbs. This also results in inner city neighbourhoods being neglected, so they really are reserved for the poor. So I decided to move into the suburbs and buy a car and now work downtown. It's a shame though because I miss the lifestyle in Montreal, where essentially a 'poor' borough was not necessarily a slum. OK, I'm exaggerating a little and indeed Montreal has its slums, but my point is that there are plenty of 'poor' eighbourhoods that are not far from middle class ones, and quite integrated with them too. Here in Ottawa, I live in Orleans, which is essentially wall to wall middle class, with neither rich nor poor, or not many of them anyway. The rich live on the other end of town and the poor downtown. There really is little sense of community, mainly because of the overall urban planning. When I moved to Ottawa, I wasn't so poor anymore, so honestly don't know for sure what it must be like to be poor in Ottawa, but I can't imagine it's very pleasant. Based on a quick glance at the city, I'm happy I was poor in Montreal and not Ottawa. I just ca't imagine living without a car in Ottawa. And in this sense, I'd say that Montreal is much more community oriented and 'poor'-friendly than Ottawa.

You do have a point there Moonbox, and I don't necessarily support cutting all help to the poor myself. My main point though was hoew we can't really compare today with a hundred years ago. The very structure of our cities and highway systems today makes it more difficult for those without cars compared to a hundred years ago. To some degree, we can say the very physical infrastrucutre of our cities reflects our values.

I think you misunderstood me here. I do agree that overall the poor a hundred years ago had it harder than the poor today. The point I was trying to make was that those who suggest we just cut welfare altogether neglect to consider that, while the poor of today are better off than their counterparts of a century ago thanks to social assistance, if it weren't for social assistance, they'd be even worse off. After all, while the poor a hundred years ago had to walk a mile to get to work, many today would have to walk 20. Essentially, my challenge to those who want to cut welfare altogether is to think about how our urban infrastructure is itself designed around our modern conveniences for those who can afford it. Had welfare never come into being, we'd likely find an urban core today with walkways and bicycle path replacing roads in at least some part of town, and that would have been a good thing. Seeing that that is not the case, before we could just cut welfare, we'd first have to restructure at least parts of the urban environment to make it possible to cut welfare.

Personally, I'd be all for government putting a stop to any further suburban development, not only at the local level, but perhaps even in provincial or even federal law. This would save taxpayers money too by the way in not having to pay for as much road construction and maintenance, not to mention electrical, telephone, sewer, and other systems having to drag out for miles outside the urban core.

A hundred years ago, when the average level of wealth was lower than today's, most people could not afford cars. As a result, most lived near work, near a subway line or tram line, or walked or cycled to work. The lower incomes meant not only lower personal disposable income, but less government revenue too. As a result of that, governments could not afford to build or maintain suburban infrastructure. You either lived in the city or in the country. And with more people walking or cycling to work, less money was needed for road construction. And with more people making use of trams, subways, etc., government did not need to subsidize the public transportation system as much since the free market supply and demand took care of that. essentially, if you could not afford a car, you were in good company, and the urban environment had evolved accordingly, thus making life quite comfortable for those who could not afford a car. As our overall level of wealth increased, more people bought cars. And as government revenue increased owing to our increased wealth, governments responded by building the modern suburbs. This changed the face of the urban landscape drastically. Gradually, governments transformed our urban infrastructure into more car-friendly environments, making life easier for those who could afford and wanted cars, forcing those who could afford but did not want a car as a lifestyle choice to have to make tough decisions as the urban environment became ever less friendly towards them, and forcing those who could not afford a car into a bind. We often express contempt for the modern poor who might not be able to afford a car, and often look to the 'good old days' when 'people pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and took a job, any job'. What we forget though, is that the urban infrastructure of those 'good old days' was much more accommodating to the poor than the urban infrastructure of today. To some degree, the modern urban infrastructure, built for a higher level of wealth, essentially makes the poor more dependent on the government than they would have been a hundred years ago in a somewhat more accommodating urban environment. So my question to those who compare the circumstances of the modern poor to those of a hundred years ago with contempt: Are you prepared to sacrifice the modern conveniences of a suburban infrastructure built for your car so that those who can't afford a car could live like the average person did a hundred years ago in exchange for society not having to help them as much anymore? Are you prepared to go back to those 'good old days' when we all had to choose between city and country, with only the upper class being able to afford to buy a car and live in the suburbs?

And she worked for the government most of her working life.