Trudeau invites refugees to Canada, taunts Trump

[Argus]

3 hours ago, ?Impact said:

Yes, instead of going to school the young should be out digging ditches in order to be 'productive'. The seniors should get off their lazy butts as well. We continually get this crap about 50% but you totally ignore reality.

It's 50% of tax filers. I don't think half the population is made up of lower income seniors and schoolboys. I don't think many schoolboys are filing income taxes either. Mind you, these figures are from 2013. Given both the provinces and the federal government have been increasing taxes on 'the rich' quite a bit since then they probably pay even less by now.

..top 1% of income earners paid a staggering 21.2% of the total federal and provincial taxes in 2010. The top 10% paid 54.8% of all taxes while the bottom 50% of Canadian income earners contributed 4% towards the collective personal tax bill.

http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/heres-what-the-wealthiest-of-the-wealthy-in-canada-earn-and-pay-in-taxes

[?Impact]

2 minutes ago, Argus said:

It's 50% of tax filers. I don't think half the population is made up of lower income seniors and schoolboys. I don't think many schoolboys are filing income taxes either.

When you get that first part time job flipping burgers to buy an iPhone, you start filing income taxes and that continues until after you are dead and buried. 

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) Ok.  Thanks for your opinion on me.  

No problem. Tell me again how I lack charity and humanity and how I feel guilty about it.

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

2) This is true, but it doesn't preclude allocation of resources to a myriad of worthy uses.  

If you want to take money away from arts grants to put it to helping people, that's one thing. But it's coming out of the budgets for health care and social welfare. Nobody is increasing those budgets to make up for it, either. Which means those already overstrained systems are having to put out billions more in order to accommodate these refugees.

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

3)  I think it stands to reason that by the time a refugee group increases tenfold (!) there will be a core of productive taxpayers in there.  I know you'll come back and say that immigrants don't do as well as longstanding Canadians but we're talking long term.

Long term or short term, the statistics are clear that immigrants - and refugees are the least economically successful immigrants - have had poorer economic outlooks over the last thirty years than prior to that. The gulf between the demands of our modern, technology oriented workplace and the workplaces of the third world countries they come from in most cases (particularly refugees) has grown so great that they come here without the skills to succeed.

Does a Canadian born kid who drops out of school in grade 9 and whose family have no contacts do well economically? What about after ten years? My  understanding is that ten years on most of them are still working as barristas and store clerks and car park attendants or unemployed or on welfare. Why would you think a refugee with lousy English would fare better?

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I'll reiterate that this is a question about us agreeing on a $ figure for a particular charity.  What % of your taxes are you willing to allocate to helping refugees ?  We can take all of the emotion and passive-aggressivity out of it if you just give a number.

How much I'd be willing to spend on external charity depends on a variety of factors, such as what condition the federal and provincial budgets are in, what condition the health care, social welfare, and other government services and systems are in. How many Canadians are in need of help? And perhaps just as important to me, are these real refugees, or just a bunch of people progressives want to bring over so they can feel proud of themselves.

To me, real refugees are people specifically targeted. They can't go home again. They might never be able to go home again. Most of the refugees we get are not real refugees. The Syrians, for the most part, with the exception of the Yazids, are people displaced by war. They should be in refugee camps on the border waiting the end of the war. If we want to help them we (the federal government) should contribute money to the local governments looking after them, not bring them in at ten times the cost and let the provinces pay for them.

Most of the rest of our 'refugees', including those coming across the US border, are economic migrants. I'm not willing to spend a dime on them.

 

[Argus]

12 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

When you get that first part time job flipping burgers to buy an iPhone, you start filing income taxes and that continues until after you are dead and buried. 

It's still 50% of the income earning population contributing - in 2013 - a whopping 4% of income taxes. I'm guessing that by now it's down to 2-3%. The likelihood of refugees winding up in the upper 50% - among those who are paying income taxes - is slim, to say the least.

[?Impact]

4 minutes ago, Argus said:

Does a Canadian born kid who drops out of school in grade 9 and whose family have no contacts do well economically? What about after ten years? My  understanding is that ten years on most of them are still working as barristas and store clerks and car park attendants or unemployed or on welfare. Why would you think a refugee with lousy English would fare better?

Initiative

[Argus]

Just now, ?Impact said:

Initiative

I hate to break this to you, but the ones who had initiative went to Europe. We got the ones who stayed behind in the refugee camps.

[?Impact]

Just now, Argus said:

I hate to break this to you, but the ones who had initiative went to Europe. We got the ones who stayed behind in the refugee camps.

Then you must be a huge fan of those walking through the snow in Quebec & Manitoba.

[Argus]

4 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Then you must be a huge fan of those walking through the snow in Quebec & Manitoba.

I don't put taking a taxi to the border and walking across on the same level as crossing the Med in a leaky lifeboat.

Plus those aren't Syrians. They're mostly Somalians and others from northeast Africa who have heard their guy is in charge here now.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Argus

[?Impact]

Syrian refugee and the chocolate factory

[Argus]

5 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Syrian refugee and the chocolate factory

There's probably a name for this sort of tactic, because I see it so often in discussions. In this case I bring up indisputable economic data from government and research institutes that point to the poor economic performance of immigrants and refugees, and someone drags up a story of one refugee or immigrant and says "See! See how well they do!"

Sorry, but that sort of thing never convinced me of anything. I've never said that NO Syrian refugees or other refugees will succeed. I've said most won't. And I'm pretty sure you know most won't.

 

Edited March 14, 2017 by Argus

[?Impact]

3 minutes ago, Argus said:

There's probably a name for this sort of tactic,

Yes, it is called factual based debate. It contrasts quite clearly with the supposition based one. 

[Argus]

1 minute ago, ?Impact said:

Yes, it is called factual based debate. It contrasts quite clearly with the supposition based one. 

Using anecdotal information about one single refugee supports your belief that refugees are not going to be dependent on other taxpayers?

[capricorn]

45 minutes ago, Argus said:

..top 1% of income earners paid a staggering 21.2% of the total federal and provincial taxes in 2010. The top 10% paid 54.8% of all taxes while the bottom 50% of Canadian income earners contributed 4% towards the collective personal tax bill.

http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/heres-what-the-wealthiest-of-the-wealthy-in-canada-earn-and-pay-in-taxes

And then politicians and egghead bureaucrats wonder why high income earners turn to tax havens.

[dre]

6 hours ago, Argus said:

This is more of your passive aggressive insults. You think you're more noble because you don't pause to consider how much anything costs. You're not. You think I lack your charity and must feel guilty over it. I don't. I simply think your political views are shallow and focused on the emotional short term appeal of 'helping people' and never pause to expand beyond that into the cost, because you don't see caring about cost as worthy of your nobility. And if it was your money you'd be right. But you're volunteering other people's money. And cost comes in the form of depriving other Canadians of services they would otherwise enjoy.

Money matters. Every dollar you spend on one thing means a dollar not available for something else. Not enough money means people die from health care which isn't as good as it could be. Lack of money means highways and bridges in poor condition, which causes deaths, and slows down traffic and damages the economy. Lack of money means poorer pensions for our elderly, and not enough support for them. But you and others don't give that the slightest attention because to you, money is always available in abundance. Not enough? Hey, just borrow more or raise taxes! Problem solved!

Says who? Almost half the population aren't productive taxpayers. We know that since they pay virtually no income tax (top 50% of income earners contribute 96% of income taxes). What makes you think these Syrian farmers are going to be productive taxpayers? Are they suddenly going to get high paid jobs on Bay Street? Maybe Trudeau will put them all into his cabinet?

 

[dre]

First of all, as has been explained to you numerous times, immigrants don't make anyone poorer.  If you look only at direct per capital GDP, they are on the negative side, but only slightly. If you take other things into account, like the fact millions of Canadians have jobs building homes, and creating new businesses to answer the demands of a growing population then every gains from immigration.

Also, you complaining about spending is the ultimate in irony. I have read posts by you on here defending the war in Iraq (3 trillion dollars), the war on terror (5 trillion dollars), the war in Afghanistan ( billions and billions, and blood as well not just treasure. You're just as big on spending as any liberal the only difference is you would rather spend money blowing stuff up over THERE, than building stuff HERE.

 As for the silly claim that immigration policy is driven by charity or altruism, its not. Its driven by economics, and businesses. Canadas banks want 50 million people here by 2030. Think they are charitable? Good luck. They want to loan money to people so that their little house of cards doesnt collapse.. Think the chamber of commerce and Canadian business are charitable and altruistic? Good luck. They want more people to sell stuff too, and more people to hire.

Quote

Says who? Almost half the population aren't productive taxpayers. 

This is a dishonest claim. How many of those people are children. Deadbeat 2 years old huh? How many of them are retired? How many of them are investors that are taxed on capital gains instead of income? How many of them are corporations that channel all their revenue towards dividends and deductible capital costs? Of course you dont know the answer to any of that... that would take some work to go figure out, and you would rather just mindlessly rant about immigrants and people who don't pay income tax.

Lots of the people that pay no income tax have lead more productive lives than you have.

Edited March 15, 2017 by dre

[taxme]

On 3/13/2017 at 8:07 AM, Argus said:

A trio of stories in the Ottawa Citizen seem interesting to me. No doubt the progressives at Postmedia don't see today's story on hospital overcrowding as in any way related to their usual heartwarming propaganda about how wonderful it is to help Syrians with their medical problems, but I do.

Heart Warming Story of Syrian farmer and his sick boys coming to Canada

Heart warming story of Syrian refugee having her son treated at hospital

Not very heartwarming story of hospital overcrowding in Ottawa

That is what we always get from the Canadian fake and phony liberal media especially from the CBC who just loves to talk about lovely stories of how well some Syrian immigrants are doing in Canada but will be very careful not to talk about the bad ones that are committing crimes in Canada. Canada does not have a free and open press. Instead it has a media political party press. Canada and Canadians will always be the ones who are taken for suckers and fools because we have the media political party and politically correct politicians who continue to make Canadians and Canada look like a bunch of suckers and fools. Both party's are destroying Canada, and doing a dam good job at it.  

[taxme]

50 minutes ago, dre said:

First of all, as has been explained to you numerous times, immigrants don't make anyone poorer.  If you look only at direct per capital GDP, they are on the negative side, but only slightly. If you take other things into account, like the fact millions of Canadians have jobs building homes, and creating new businesses to answer the demands of a growing population then every gains from immigration.

Also, you complaining about spending is the ultimate in irony. I have read posts by you on here defending the war in Iraq (3 trillion dollars), the war on terror (5 trillion dollars), the war in Afghanistan ( billions and billions, and blood as well not just treasure. You're just as big on spending as any liberal the only difference is you would rather spend money blowing stuff up over THERE, than building stuff HERE.

 As for the silly claim that immigration policy is driven by charity or altruism, its not. Its driven by economics, and businesses. Canadas banks want 50 million people here by 2030. Think they are charitable? Good luck. They want to loan money to people so that their little house of cards doesnt collapse.. Think the chamber of commerce and Canadian business are charitable and altruistic? Good luck. They want more people to sell stuff too, and more people to hire.

This is a dishonest claim. How many of those people are children. Deadbeat 2 years old huh? How many of them are retired? How many of them are investors that are taxed on capital gains instead of income? How many of them are corporations that channel all their revenue towards dividends and deductible capital costs? Of course you dont know the answer to any of that... that would take some work to go figure out, and you would rather just mindlessly rant about immigrants and people who don't pay income tax.

Lots of the people that pay no income tax have lead more productive lives than you have.

Massive immigration is of no help to Canada's economy. It is more like a burden on Canada. There is no way anyone can tell me that bringing in 40,000 Syrian refugees plus, and 2 -3 hundred thousand new immigrants every year imported to Canada is good for our medicare/social services, infrastructure, and the environment. It is destroying it. But if Canadians continue to believe the liars that massive immigration is good for Canada well stop whining when your taxes go up or you have to wait for surgery or you are stuck in traffic for hours. You deserve it. 

[taxme]

3 hours ago, ?Impact said:

Yes, it is called factual based debate. It contrasts quite clearly with the supposition based one. 

I call it common sense and logic. What you keep saying makes no sense or logic to me at all. Just more liberal drivel. But hey. 

[dre]

3 hours ago, taxme said:

Massive immigration is of no help to Canada's economy. It is more like a burden on Canada. There is no way anyone can tell me that bringing in 40,000 Syrian refugees plus, and 2 -3 hundred thousand new immigrants every year imported to Canada is good for our medicare/social services, infrastructure, and the environment. It is destroying it. But if Canadians continue to believe the liars that massive immigration is good for Canada well stop whining when your taxes go up or you have to wait for surgery or you are stuck in traffic for hours. You deserve it. 

There is no massive immigration. We allow roughly the same amount of immigrants per capita as we did 100 years ago. The rest of your post is just a mindless rant. You have no idea whether immigration benefits our economy or not, because you don't take into account all of the factors involved. Those 40 thousand people are going to need food, and shelter, and clothing. Building 40 thousand new residential units is going to create a shitload of employment for Canadians. The added demand for housing increases the wealth and equity of all Canadians that own a home.

I don't know what the total net effect would be if you were to do a real macro-economic analysis of immigration, but at least I can admit that. You have a strong opinion, but absolutely nothing to back it up.

[dre]

4 hours ago, taxme said:

That is what we always get from the Canadian fake and phony liberal media especially from the CBC who just loves to talk about lovely stories of how well some Syrian immigrants are doing in Canada but will be very careful not to talk about the bad ones that are committing crimes in Canada. Canada does not have a free and open press. Instead it has a media political party press. Canada and Canadians will always be the ones who are taken for suckers and fools because we have the media political party and politically correct politicians who continue to make Canadians and Canada look like a bunch of suckers and fools. Both party's are destroying Canada, and doing a dam good job at it.  

Just a bunch of silly hyperbole. DESTOYING CANADA!!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! OMG!!!

Look at some real data...

Life Expectancy: Highest in G7 besides Japan.

Per Capital Purchasing power: Over 40k US. Higher than the UK, Germany, Japan, France, etc.

Safety: Urban homicide rate 10 times lower than in the US.

I have a lot of complaints about various things, but overall this is one of the best places to live in human history. 

 

 

 

[Argus]

14 hours ago, dre said:

First of all, as has been explained to you numerous times, immigrants don't make anyone poorer.  If you look only at direct per capital GDP, they are on the negative side, but only slightly.

According to the only study I've seen, by the Fraser Institute, immigration is costing all levels of government $30 billion a year.

14 hours ago, dre said:

If you take other things into account, like the fact millions of Canadians have jobs building homes, and creating new businesses to answer the demands of a growing population then every gains from immigration.

Nope. If we have to build houses for immigrants/refugees who can't support themselves then that's simply an added expense on us. Sure, people have jobs doing it, but they're paid by the government, which means taking money away from other people to do it.

14 hours ago, dre said:

Also, you complaining about spending is the ultimate in irony. I have read posts by you on here defending the war in Iraq (3 trillion dollars), the war on terror (5 trillion dollars), the war in Afghanistan ( billions and billions, and blood as well not just treasure. You're just as big on spending as any liberal the only difference is you would rather spend money blowing stuff up over THERE, than building stuff HERE.

I'm big on spending on necessities. It is necessary to defend the country. And we never spent more than a fraction as much on the war in Afghanistan as we're spending on refugees.

14 hours ago, dre said:

 As for the silly claim that immigration policy is driven by charity or altruism, its not.

I never made such a claim. And you are again talking immigration not refugees. This topic is about refugees. Refugee policy is driven by a pompous need by progressive, attention-whore politicians to tilt their chins skyward and smile nobly for the cameras as they bask in the adoration of how wonderful and kind and generous they are (with other people's money).

Immigration policy is driven by the cold, backroom calculation of how to appeal to certain ethnic groups for votes.

14 hours ago, dre said:

Its driven by economics, and businesses. Canadas banks want 50 million people here by 2030.

I don't give a damn what the banks want. I know they like having more customers, just like other business like bringing in foreigners who will work like dogs for very little income. Screw them.

14 hours ago, dre said:

This is a dishonest claim. How many of those people are children. Deadbeat 2 years old huh?

Are you suggesting 2 year olds are filing income taxes? 

14 hours ago, dre said:

Lots of the people that pay no income tax have lead more productive lives than you have.

That may well be but they're not contributing a damn thing to pay for public services, and we don't need more such people sucking on the government teat and not paying anything back. Bringing in tens of thousands of third world farmers who have little or no hope of ever attaining decent work here is extremely expensive, not to mention culturally dangerous.

[Argus]

9 hours ago, dre said:

There is no massive immigration. We allow roughly the same amount of immigrants per capita as we did 100 years ago

There is absolutely no comparison to immigration 100 years ago. When people arrived 100 years ago they were on their own. They got no government assistance of any kind; no welfare cheques, no public housing no government funded health care, no language lessons, nada. They sank or swam. They learned the language if they wanted to deal with the government or anyone else because no one was going to help them out with foreign language forms.

 

[?Impact]

Just now, Argus said:

When people arrived 100 years ago they were on their own. They got no government assistance of any kind;

I guess 400 acres of land is nothing in your book.

[Argus]

Just now, ?Impact said:

I guess 400 acres of land is nothing in your book.

What did it cost the government? Or in other words, what did it cost the other people living there, the taxpayers?

[?Impact]

3 minutes ago, Argus said:

What did it cost the government? Or in other words, what did it cost the other people living there, the taxpayers?

So that 400 acres of Crown Land I have my eye on should be given to me?