kimmy

I read the misspelled thread title and pictured someone named "Roberto Lounge-o", a tacky lounge-lizard in a half-unbuttoned silk shirt, gold medallion, and too much cologne, pointing at the ladies and making clicking sounds with his tongue. What's up with the Canucks? They deal Luongo, and Kesler is reportedly on the block? Are they throwing in the towel on this season? -k

That's certainly not an exact science. How to adjust for inflation is a controversial and highly political topic (since some social programs have built-in adjustments for cost-of-living.) Inflation adjustments tend to be based on Consumer Price Index methods that reflect what a typical consumer might spend in a typical month. But there isn't such a thing as "the typical consumer". There are a number of different "typical consumers", and there are a number of CPI measures. One of the major controversies in calculating a CPI is how to measure housing costs. Mortgage? Rent? As I understand it, CPIs tend to use something called "rent equivalent", which would be either your rent or your mortgage payments and property taxes. As a result, the CPI failed to accurately reflect the effect of rising housing prices on families, because while mortgages got bigger, mortgage payments didn't because of the advent of new longer-term mortgages. So the monthly "rent equivalent" payment might reflect the change in rent/mortgage payments over time, it doesn't reflect that the largest purchase most people makes costs far more money and takes far longer to pay off. Another item that isn't in the typical CPI "shopping cart" is college tuition. So while the inflation-adjusted numbers account for changes in monthly income and outgo, it doesn't accurately reflect that two of the biggest expenses for most families cost far more than they used to and take much longer to pay off. -k

Cool. I often like songs with long introductions. I think they can be a neat way of building a mood. The repeated phrase "one foot in front of the other" with the sort of subdued monotone vocal creates a mental image of somebody persevering or enduring, like putting your head down and walking into the wind on a winter day. -k

Well I guess I got told. On a scale from "Not Told" to "Toldasaurus Rex", I rate this telling off at about "Stone Told Steve Austin". I think there's a certain irony when the guy who wrote "In that case perhaps you might direct your concern towards countries that jail or kill gays" storms off because he's tired of knee-jerk responses. There are certainly places on the internet where "leave Arizona alone, the gays are worse off in Uganda" would be accepted as a reasonable argument. Good luck in your new location, Sharkman. -k

Well, good for Gov. Brewer. Having powerful businesses complain, and having the NFL not-too-quietly musing about moving the Superbowl out of Arizona (for the 2nd time-- the first was over Martin Luther King Day) probably helped persuade her. I do have to snicker at the people who defend Arizona with "yeah well what about Russia" or "yeah well in Muslim countries" or "well look at Uganda!" As if Arizona being better than Russia or the Muslim world or Uganda were some great standard to achieve. -k

Not yet, but I'm certainly trying my hardest. Because I don't see any other choice. I'd have to be a colossal idiot to trust that old age security and CPP will be there to take care of me in 40 years. Whatever else you might think of me, I assure you I'm not an idiot. And as I already said in this thread, I am in favor of taking care of people who need taking care of. What I am definitely not in favor of is some new Grand Plan to create a new standard of comfort and public support for all seniors. And on the subject of who actually needs taking care of, I remind you of what I posted earlier: the poverty rate for Canadian seniors is HALF the poverty rate for the general population. The poverty rate for Canadian seniors is 5.9% and the poverty rate for Canadian children is 14.3%. -k

I have no doubt that there has been government waste. But so what? What's your point? How does that relate to the question under discussion? "There was government waste, so seniors should be given more money"? Is that the argument? If that's the case your presenting, its ridiculous. I mean, how does that make any sense? "The sky was cloudy today, so we need pizza!" As for the public service unions and government employees... I am fairly sure that during my lifetime the size of the public sector to the population as a whole has been reduced significantly. When I was a kid, the news was constantly full of fights about laying off government workers and reducing the size of the public sector through attrition and eliminating government jobs by privatizing a wide variety of government services. At all levels of government. I think that the public sector in this country has been reduced substantially. And I bet that a lot of the boomers and seniors who are now trying to shake down the public trough for more money are the same people who worked their whole lives in the cushy government jobs that you're complaining about. -k

Why is it always "the deficit the deficit the deficit the deficit" until it comes to raising taxes on the rich, at which point it becomes "well that won't create jobs"? We're allegedly in a budget surplus condition right now, so an additional $10 billion a year of revenue could be put towards reducing the national debt, which stands at something like $600 billion right now. Debt servicing costs 11% of our budget, so paying it down would yield future benefits. I'm also curious as to why you say "the most this could be increased is by 10%". I don't understand where that 10% figure came from. I'm also curious about what you mean by "a 10% increase in taxes payable would have a huge effect on the incomes reported by the top 1% and would result in much less than 10 billion". Are you saying that if taxes were increased, the "1%" would find ways to pay less taxes? (As if they aren't already doing that?) -k

Avalanche season has arrived in Kim Country, and that means to expect a veritable carnival of carnage as backwoods skiers and backwoods snowmobilers meet their icy dooms. In honor of this annual Darwinesque thinning of the herd, here is Wave of Mutilation, by the Pixies. Bonus icy doom track: Snowblind, by Black Sabbath. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHal84S_XkI Remember, kids, stay off the mountains when the avalanche risk is rated extreme. -k

Well it won't be the government, I'm certain of that much. I'll have to be 80 to qualify for cat-food coupons. There's going to be nothing left by the time people my age get there. -k

It says that poverty rates among seniors in Canada increased, while poverty rates among OECD nations as a whole decreased. Big deal. Why don't we compare the actual numbers? Here's the data (PDF). That study says that Canada has the among the lowest poverty rates among seniors in the OECD. Canadian seniors are better off than seniors in all but a handful of these nations that we are supposedly falling behind. In short, Canada is not falling behind, other nations are catching up. The study says the poverty rate for Canadian seniors is 5.9 percent (from the above PDF). The poverty rate for the Canadian population as a whole is 12 percent (from the same PDF). The poverty rate for Canadian children is 14.3 percent. So tell me again how tough seniors in Canada have it. Go ahead and tell me how the group whose poverty rate is half the national average is the group that needs more support from the government. Sauce for the goose, as old-people would say. Maybe financially struggling seniors could take some of their own advice. Move to a smaller home, eat cheaper, get a room-mate... Stereotypes abound. Currently the big stereotype being peddled is that young people are shiftless complainers who expect everything in life to be handed to them. There's been oodles of media articles on that theme. I've linked to articles blaming lazy millenials for the sluggish housing market. And members here have been only too happy to play along. Well, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. The older members here who are saying "b-b-but we're not all like that!" can dish it out but they can't take it. So if I wasn't doing well, I'd be a whiny millennial making excuses for my lack of success in life. But since I am doing well, I have nothing to complain about? I reject the idea that I don't get to talk about this just because my personal circumstances are pretty good for the moment. What I'm complaining about, specifically, is that at a time when money is being chiseled out of every other area of public expenditure in the name of fiscal responsibility and reducing the debt, the baby-boomers and seniors-- the very people who created that debt-- have the gall to ask for even more money. -k

"Clubs" is a key word there, Dick. Now get out of those Speedos and stop hanging out near Spa Lady. -k

Are you aware of the laws regarding public accommodation established in the Civil Rights Act of 1964? If you're running a business that provides service to the general public, you don't get to arbitrarily refuse members of the general public. It provides exemption for religious institution. A flower shop, hot-dog stand, or Hobby Lobby, is not a religious institution, however devout the owner may be. -k

It's not anti-gay, guys! It's Pro-Religious Freedom™! -k

I don't recall saying all seniors are spoiled. But what of it? Using the plight of seniors to complain about the Green Energy Act is just cheap political opportunism. "Look at my poor shivering grandma! She can't heat her home! End this law now!" Grandma's heating bills are going up regardless of where she lives. The cost of energy is going up. Do you think seniors should be exempt from the real world or something? Should seniors get their heating bills and gasoline costs permanently subsidized to 1979 levels? Hey, look at my sad kitty! See how sad my kitty is? My kitty is sad because high taxes give me less money to buy kitty-treats. I need lower taxes so that my kitty will be less sad! Why won't the politicians think of my poor kitty? -k

Shush, Wilber! Stop applying sense to this. That's not what this talking point is about. The talking point is that Obama plunged a whole state into drought to preserve an insignificant minnow, and applying any amount of inquiry to the reasons behind the situation makes it sound less cut and dry. -k

We have poor people getting subsidies, be they young or old. And I have no complaints about helping the truly needy. I was responding to an older-person complaining about the effect that rising energy costs will have on his lifestyle. That should have been obvious. Yes, we will continue to care for the elderly. The question is what is a reasonable standard of living. And in a society where everybody else is being told to settle for less, it's hilarious that the elderly and the boomers approaching retirement are telling us that they need more. -k

Not as far fetched as you think, as Willard and Jughead discovered. They certainly will. But that won't stop the Boomers from demanding home heating subsidies for their elderly parents, will it. "My mother can barely afford the natural gas to warm up her cat food! When is the government going to do something to help?!" So what? Do you propose some kind of lifetime fossil-fuel allowance or something? If not, why should I care how much gas or oil my grandparents used? And certainly, my grandparents used relatively little energy during their lives. They lived in sod houses half the year and roomed with families in town for the other half, and heated their homes with wood they cut while clearing their land, and didn't have electricity until the late 1960s, and only drove to town once a month. They were frugal, to say the least. But I don't think the same can be said for the boomers who drove around cars with 400 cubic inch engines getting 6mpg for much of their lives, heating 4 bedroom homes, and so on. -k

Sounds about right. A cynical attempt to buy old-people votes at the expense of people who aren't old enough to vote yet. I recall it didn't work for Willard and Jughead in the past Presidential election, even though they did decisively win the old-people vote. I don't see that it is smart politics in Canada either, because we who are born after 1964 are already scheduled to receive less and later than those born before 1964. Offering today's old people more at the expense of tomorrow's old-people who've already agreed to less seems like bad math from a vote-buying perspective. Sounds like excellent advice for the seniors complaining that high energy costs are ruining their retirement plans. Nice going, sucker. You took his bait. He says "hur-de-dur Canadians hur-de-dur" and you get indignant and go off on a tangent that's completely unrelated to the thread. Good job. -k

So what's their excuse? Why are they telling us they need more public money? So? -k

That's a slimy statistic, because it's meaningless without the actual numbers. "Audiences at theaters for Mars Needs Moms doubled in the second week!" sounds impressive until you discover that only 4 people saw the movie in the first week. If somebody says "Poverty rates among seniors in OECD nations fell during this period, but it increased in Canada!" it makes it sound like Canada is falling behind. But if you look at the raw data you might find that (for example) senior poverty rates in Estonia, Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Spain dropped from 55% to 50% while senior poverty rates in Canada went from 8% to 10%. And this is another statistic designed to impress people who are easily impressed by statistics. It's intended to deceive people who are bad at math or lack critical thinking skills. I assume you're repeating something some lobby group posted; only a lobby group would use statistics in such a dishonest manner. If you hear that Ernie received 25% of his apples as gifts from Mr Hooper, and Bert only received 10% of his apples as a gift from Mr Hooper, you might be inclined to think that maybe Mr Hooper likes Ernie better than Bert. But if you look at the actual data, you discover that Mr Hooper gave each of them one apple; Ernie had three apples of his own, while Bert had nine apples of his own! If seniors in Canada receive 39% of their money from public transfers, compared to 59% on average for OECD nations, it probably means that seniors in Canada have considerably more of their own savings to draw from than their counterparts in most OECD nations. 59% of an average Estonian retiree's income could consist of 3 potatoes per week for all I know. Yes, 2008 was rough. Suck it up. Savings wiped out by risky business ventures or not, seniors in Canada receive a ton of support. Medicine, income, housing, transportation. Even those who somehow lived through the greatest era of economic prosperity in the history of our species yet somehow didn't manage to save anything still have their needs covered by our very kind social safety net. Wait, you're asking me to feel sorry for people who were earning $100k and somehow don't have money to buy houses for their kids? I find that quite amusing. Seniors who are truly hard pressed today can stretch their CPP and OAS money by learning to enjoy Mr Noodles and No-Name macaroni and cheese, buying taxpayer-subsidized transit-passes instead of clogging the roads by driving 20km/h below the speed limit with their left-turn signal permanently on, moving to smaller and less expensive homes, and many other money-saving tips... the exact same money-saving tips that you people are dispensing to today's young people. BTW I do own my own home and I haven't received a nickel of support from my parents if that's a concern. -k

Energy prices are going up everywhere. Every kind of energy. BC Hydro is dramatically boosting electricity rates this year, and I don't think anybody needs to be reminded about where the price of fossil fuels is going. And guess what, you haven't seen anything yet. It's only going to get worse. I hate to sound callous, but once again, I have a hard time feeling sorry for seniors who find rising energy costs are cramping their style. You guys got to enjoy cheap energy for most of your lives; that's money you got to save for your retirement or spend on assets. I have another 5 decades to pay the higher energy costs that are the reality of life in the 21st century. That's money I don't get to save for my retirement. As old-people are fond of telling today's youth to "suck it up", I offer the same advice to seniors struggling with higher energy costs: put on a sweater; move to a smaller home; sell your Crown Vic and buy a bus pass. -k

You may not be, but Shady certainly is, and that's implied in all of this noise coming out of the conservative blogosphere too. -k

Obama and the environmentalists wrecked the New Orleans levees too? -k

They probably don't have student loan debts to pay off, or parents willing to continue letting them live at home. Parents who want their adult kids to move out can just say so, you know. That was still an option, last I heard. -k