OECD: Canada's richest get richer...

[bloodyminded]

It's the parroting of empty axioms like this that keep people stupid. You can't really argue with Friedman's quote, but it ignores the fact that unregulated capitalism provides 'freedom' for the rich, and much less so for the poor and middle class. When you're living paycheque to paycheque to feed your family, your freedom is practically non-existant.

That's an interesting point, and it speaks to practical, de facto differentials in power.

In Canada, me and the local Oil Tycoons, the Irving family, have precisely identical "negative freedoms" (not my favourite term, but nevermind); and these are, it's true, of fundamental importance.

However, the Irvings have more--far more--"positive freedoms" than I do, based on their wealth, social and political influence, and of course media holdings. (Well...these are strictly and unequivocally interrelated, not really separate components.)

That is, they have more "freedom" than I do...which translates into more influence, and more political power. This may be at least in part an intractable dilemma, but it remains true nonetheless, and is in quite fundamental opposition to democratic principles.

When we talk about, say, "the richest 1%," we're not really talking about how much stuff they can buy or how secure their grandchildren's future will be. More power to them, on those points, I say. I couldn't care less.

But we're talking about Power. We're talking influence, over policies domestic and evn foreign. We're talking about direct and indirect effects on a lot of people's lives...based solely and only on the accruing of wealth.

Edited July 20, 2011 by bloodyminded

[Bob]

Quoted because it needed to be said twice.

It's a frightening attitude just asking for more governmental social engineering, because we need to be saved from ourselves. The ease with which you accept a parallel being drawn between parents and their children, and the government to the governed is quite perverse. It's literally the foundation of a population complicit in tyranny.

Edited July 20, 2011 by Bob

[eyeball]

Until the ignore cows that fill the electorate actually take a few minutes out of their busy days of watching American Idol and Lost to understand wtf is going on in their world, they're going to just keep voting for people who are hell-bent on screwing them.

You can holler till the cows come but until there is actually something to see the electorate will continue to tune you out. That said, I've got nothing more to offer than the same old record I keep playing, complete total transparency by virtually hard-wiring the government to the Internet so it's as if God Himself were constantly looking over it's shoulder.

Total public awareness is the only thing that's never been tried in all of human history although I do have to say the idea or at least the hope that God keeps a watchful and judgmental eye over the doings of the rich and powerful has probably been with us forever. I honestly think for this reason the rich and powerful might adjust to the idea a lot more quickly than we might think. Surely it's worth at least one shot before we drive this planet over a cliff.

Obviously I don't expect the public to log on to Governet and watch it like they do Big Brother, but so long as the threat of your particular interest being screwed over in some backroom exists or the field you're playing on is being excavated out from under you, there'll be someone watching and ready to sound the alarm.

We know monitoring can work as well on the rich and powerful as anyone, take Conrad Black for example.

Look at the situation in Greece, how widespread corruption and the near total lack of public belief or trust in anything has left the place in ruins, no pun intended. I think it's safe to say we're all headed in the same general direction for the same basic reason.

[eyeball]

But we didn't lose ground. Median real incomes are generally rising, and even the poorest 20% have more.

Frankly, I just don't care about the miniscule top wealthiest people in the world - except that if you take away their rewards, then you take away the incentives of everyone to create new ideas. And that would make all future generations poorer.

This is how I see life, and world history:

The fact is though we did lose ground, in a manner of speaking.

I'd like to see these folks put together a graphic showing the liquidation of many natural ecosystems that 200 years of growth in the human economy is largely based on. It's what's all the little balls in your neat graphic have largely been rising and floating on.

When something grows bigger somewhere something else is shrinking, it's simple thermodynamics. It just cannot be any other way. Physics won't allow for anything else.

[maple_leafs182]

As Milton Friedman said: "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."

Good quote. Milton Friedman was also against central banking.

When you guys say redistribution of wealth you guys keep referring to socialism or government redistributing wealth...That is state socialism and not true socialism, yes state socialism doesn't work. Real socialism is the workers movement, unions and all of that. That is what we need, we have the owners and CEO's of these big corporations making stupid amounts of money while all the labourers settle for crumbs. That needs to change.

Also you guys really need to look at the monetary system and fiat money. Having a central bank manipulate the economy while inflating away our savings is the reason for a lot of this income disparity. Look at the US prior to fiat money, they were one of the most egalitarian countries in the world. Now they have one of the highest income gaps in the world, there is a correlation between the two.

[eyeball]

When you guys say redistribution of wealth you guys keep referring to socialism or government redistributing wealth...

Try talking about the redistribution of power and you'll get the same sycophantic whinging for maintaining the status quo.

[Battletoads]

Good news for society hating cons, bad news for the rest of us.

[Moonbox]

It's a frightening attitude just asking for more governmental social engineering, because we need to be saved from ourselves.

What the hell does that even mean?

The ease with which you accept a parallel being drawn between parents and their children, and the government to the governed is quite perverse. It's literally the foundation of a population complicit in tyranny.

The misuse of buzz words like 'tyranny' and 'liberty' is the kind of stupidity and ignorance that people need saving from. The way they're used today is completely vapid. Bringing the words 'tyranny' into a discussion about Canadian or American politics is the sort of slippery-slop straw man arguments that have been dumbing down politics for decades. Look up the definition of 'tyranny' for us, come back here, and then tell us what the word actually means and then tell us how, in any way, it applies to this discussion.

[Moonbox]

Also you guys really need to look at the monetary system and fiat money. Having a central bank manipulate the economy while inflating away our savings is the reason for a lot of this income disparity.

I would stay away from discussing the intricacies of economics if I were you. I don't mean any real offense, but it seemed like you got that out of your ECON 101 textbook and now you've decided you're an expert.

Sure, the data could interpreted to present a correlation between the dropping of gold standard and income disparity, but that would only be if you're naive enough to assume that the dropping of trade tarrifs, world trade and a host of other variables (which are more to blame) don't have anything to do with it.

[August1991]

When something grows bigger somewhere something else is shrinking, it's simple thermodynamics. It just cannot be any other way. Physics won't allow for anything else.

No, that's zero-sum thinking. And I sometimes think that at the bottom, all leftists suffer from zero-sum thinking. (This thread is based on such a premise: "All the rich folks took the money and made the rest of us poorer.")

Eyeball, several hundred years ago Isaac Newton invented calculus and since then, the world is a better place. Love, and the discovery of new ideas, are evidence to me that the universe is not zero-sum.

How can you possibly believe that harnessing the power of, say, Niagara Falls harms anyone or the environment? The water was going to go the ocean anyway.

That is state socialism and not true socialism, yes state socialism doesn't work. Real socialism is the workers movement, unions and all of that. That is what we need...

ML, you're living in the last century. The 20th century, if anything, proved that various grand social planners or schemes for the perfect society lead to horrible results. No one in the 21st century will follow anyone with a "grand scheme". That time is past. Edited July 20, 2011 by August1991

[Moonlight Graham]

Personally I am a little dubious on the correlation between income and infant mortality in Canada. No one here, regardless of income gets attention any different than anyone else.

So I don't buy it.

I don`t know about Canada specifically, but generally go look at the correlation between income and infant mortality within countries, then look at the same between different countries. The correlation is there, and there`s a lot of peer-edited scholarly research on it. Stats don`t lie. Here you go: link

Here`s one abstract:

Using new comparative data bases this paper examines whether infant mortality rates in industrialised nations are affected by public policies and income inequality. Particular attention is given to the role of the level of economic development, public policy and the distribution of economic resources. The study shows that the level of economic development has a strong, but decreasing impact on the infant mortality rate. Income inequality and relative poverty rates appear to be of greater importance for the variation in infant mortality rates than the level of economic development between rich countries. Levels of unemployment and of social security benefits seems to affect the infant mortality rate; the combination of high unemployment and low unemployment benefits seems to be associated with particularly high mortality rates. A high level of family benefits is also associated with low infant mortality rates.

and another:

Comparing two countries in which the poor have equal real incomes, the one in which the rich are wealthier is likely to have a higher infant mortality rate. This anomalous result does not appear to spring from measurement error in estimating the income of the poor, and the association between high infant mortality and income inequality is still present after controlling for other factors such as education, medical personnel, and fertility. The positive association of infant mortality and the income of the rich suggests that measured real incomes may be a poor measure of social welfare.

[bloodyminded]

ML, you're living in the last century. The 20th century, if anything, proved that various grand social planners or schemes for the perfect society lead to horrible results. No one in the 21st century will follow anyone with a "grand scheme". That time is past.

I dunno...perhaps as much as 20% of the Earth's population (and much higher in the centres of power) moaned all kinds of delirious bullshit about "democratizing the Middle East" through violence and mayhem.

On the other hand, they were, by a long shot, a fringe and radicalized minority overall, so maybe you have a point.

Edited July 20, 2011 by bloodyminded

[Moonbox]

ML, you're living in the last century. The 20th century, if anything, proved that various grand social planners or schemes for the perfect society lead to horrible results. No one in the 21st century will follow anyone with a "grand scheme". That time is past.

I'll agree with that in a sense, but could we also not agree that the 20th century has proven that unregulated economies have lead to numerous collapses that have, as a result, required social and economic intervention from the government?

It seems that some grey area is required, and that the people who occupy the black and white areas on the peripherals are the ones who really get things screwed up.

[bloodyminded]

It seems that some grey area is required, and that the people who occupy the black and white areas on the peripherals are the ones who really get things screwed up.

I think there's a lot to be said for this notion.

[jacee]

Umm...we should definetly worry about such a world. When one man/woman can hoard the equivalent of an entire country of 30M's GDP for a year, that harkens back to the days of Louis XVI.

... unregulated capitalism provides 'freedom' for the rich, and much less so for the poor and middle class.

Providing safeguards to ensure a viable middle class is the best way to encourage the economy. It doesn't mean raising corporate tax rates and screwing your wealth producers, but it does perhaps mean raising income taxes on the rich and crushing the monopolies, oligopolies and protected industries that are constantly screwing us. ...

Bringing the Soviet Union into the argument is the biggest straw man you could have possibly attempted. Sure, the Soviet Union failed, but that really has nothing to do with what we're talking about. That was communism, or crushingly stifling government intervention. It was incompetent and misguided and corrupt and that's why it failed. Similarly, unrestrained capitalism is equally incompetent and misguided. It's human nature that certain people will exploit the system wherever and however they can, and we have countless examples of failures in the capitalist system.

I find it galling/hilarious that people in the US, for example, are still bitching and moaning about any sort of government intervention when the US economy almost collapsed as was saved, ironically, by government intervention.

Relevant, cogent and quotable quotes by Moonbox. You bring clarity to an admittedly controversial and difficult topic. Thanks.

People who rail against 'government' intervention forget one thing: In our democracy, the government represents the people, ALL of the people. They can be (some would say are) corrupted to please only the rich and powerful, and increase the income disparity between the richest and the rest of us. Historically, that is when revolutions happen. There is on question we are entering an era of increasing unrest among the people. 10,000 Canadians protested the G20 'austerity' agenda because we know it's 'austerity' for us, not for the rich and powerful. It's 'austerity' for us and increasing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

Perhaps this is just a discussion board, and perhaps this is just idle conversation, but the increasing income disparity and impoverishment of the middle class is the single most important issue facing us today, both economic and social, imo.

And we are at the danger point.

[bush_cheney2004]

...People who rail against 'government' intervention forget one thing: In our democracy, the government represents the people, ALL of the people. They can be (some would say are) corrupted to please only the rich and powerful, and increase the income disparity between the richest and the rest of us.

It is not altogether clear that a government "corrupted" by the poor and needy is any better, and I suspect, would really be far worse.

Perhaps this is just a discussion board, and perhaps this is just idle conversation, but the increasing income disparity and impoverishment of the middle class is the single most important issue facing us today, both economic and social, imo.

"Impoverishment" relative to what baseline...in which countries? As discussed earlier on the larger scale, the "hang the rich" argument eventually must confront its own inherent corrupted view.

And we are at the danger point.

"We" have never been richer.

[cybercoma]

It is not altogether clear that a government "corrupted" by the poor and needy is any better, and I suspect, would really be far worse.

False dichotomy.

[Jack Weber]

Making everyone poorer in the name of equality of not a healthier situation.

Frankly this notion that equality within countries matters is nonsense. We live in an interconnected world where our standard of living depends on dirt cheap labour elsewhere. It is hypocritical to whine about disparity within a country while ignoring disparities across countries. I am pretty sure the people demanding income redistribution would be singing a different tune if that meant their standard of living had to go down in order to equalize their income with Africans.

You've just described what's necessary in your free market world of "competativeness" for us to actually compete!

For us to "compete",we have to lower our standard of living unless we will render ourselves uncompetative with lower standard of living and wage jurisdictions...Of course,this will make the vast majority of people poorer one way or another...

We will continue to lose high paying jobs to low wage sectors,replacing the vast majority of those jobs with the "McJob" service secotor economy the Fee marketeers feel will give us the personal freedom they crave.All the while,that loss of wealth will be redistributed upwards into the hands of the few...

[Moonbox]

It is not altogether clear that a government "corrupted" by the poor and needy is any better, and I suspect, would really be far worse.

You're right. Tyranny by the many is not really any better than tyranny by the few. One is no better than the other though.

"Impoverishment" relative to what baseline...in which countries? As discussed earlier on the larger scale, the "hang the rich" argument eventually must confront its own inherent corrupted view.

How about 10% of the population controlling over 90% of the wealth and factors of production, which in turn only worsens the problem.

It's the black and white outlook that people have that ruins the whole debate. Placing controls on the super wealthy to prevent them from manipulating the system and screwing over everyone else doesn't magically all of the sudden mean we find ourselves in 1920's Russia.

"We" have never been richer.

Take out the top 3% percentile and you'd likely find that we've been getting steadily poorer.

Edited July 20, 2011 by Moonbox

[bush_cheney2004]

...How about 10% of the population controlling over 90% of the wealth and factors of production, which in turn only worsens the problem.

But this is not true if you include labor, which is a "factor of production", as well as the market consumption that makes it possible.

It's the black and white outlook that people have that ruins the whole debate. Placing controls on the super wealthy to prevent them from manipulating the system and screwing over everyone else doesn't magically all of the sudden mean we find ourselves in 1920's Russia.

Terms like "super wealthy" or "uber rich" also sends the debate off on a tangent. Anyone who proposes clawing back wealth will be met with strong opposition by a much broader constituency striving for wealth, not welfare.

Take out the top 3% percentile and you'd likely find that we've been getting steadily poorer.

Compared to what? Compared to who? This is where the argument ultimately collapses under its own weight if "social" and "economic" justice is the goal.

[M.Dancer]

A few years ago I met a man from Barbados..he had some thoughts on poverty.

He said poverty was much stranger in Canada, where there are relatively few poor people, than in Barbadoes, where there are many.

He said, in Canada, the poor could go hungry if they don't have money, in Barbados, if the poor are hungry, they: fish, pick fruit/vegetables, sell shells to sea side sightseers...

He said in Barbados, the poor cannot afford electricity...in Canada, the poor cannot afford premium cable services.

He said the poor in Canada are lazy....the poor in Barbados are not but have little opportunity....which is why you do not see very many poor bajans in Canada...

[WWWTT]

It is not altogether clear that a government "corrupted" by the poor and needy is any better, and I suspect, would really be far worse.

I guess you never heard about "The Peoples republic of China"

They are located just west of Japan and north of Vietnam.

They also have the largest population in the world and are the 2nd or 3rd largest geograpical country in the world(depending on interpretation).

They also have the second largest economy in the world growing at an astronomical,historicly never seen before pase that will double the current G7 combined within 40-50 yrs.

Ring any bells yet?

WWWTT

[TimG]

For us to "compete",we have to lower our standard of living unless we will render ourselves uncompetative with lower standard of living and wage jurisdictions...Of course,this will make the vast majority of people poorer one way or another...

The problem is the poor of the world are learning how to be as productive as people in rich countries which means there is no longer any reason to keep jobs in rich countries. This means that rich country wages must go down. It is inevitable. You can whine and complain but nothing is going to change that reality. This is not about ideology but about the cold hard facts of economics. Edited July 21, 2011 by TimG

[bush_cheney2004]

...They also have the second largest economy in the world growing at an astronomical,historicly never seen before pase that will double the current G7 combined within 40-50 yrs.

...yet their GDP per capita ranks at about #100 in the world. One would expect more after 5000 years!

[maple_leafs182]

I would stay away from discussing the intricacies of economics if I were you. I don't mean any real offense, but it seemed like you got that out of your ECON 101 textbook and now you've decided you're an expert.

Sure, the data could interpreted to present a correlation between the dropping of gold standard and income disparity, but that would only be if you're naive enough to assume that the dropping of trade tarrifs, world trade and a host of other variables (which are more to blame) don't have anything to do with it.

It is just clear to me that the inflation associated with fiat money hurts the greater majority.