Indexing and inflation

[myata]

Inflation is a serious problem in the country. Only thanks to ... sorry, because of it MP salary had to be near-doubled in two decades only inflation and nothing to with enrichment, really!

So, at what rate should Canadians pensions and other public payments be indexed? One can examine the longread. Why though? We have a very good method that proved so well for our esteemed leaders (85% automatic raise in two decades) and so why not for a regular Canadian?

That's right, the same formula used for annual raises of MPs, ministers and judges applied to our age pensions; veterans pensions, benefits; tax brackets and so on.

Imagine in two decades pension near doubled and through no fault of ours, just inflation. Non taxable amount went up 85% (from around 15K to 27). Not bad, eh?

Great idea, right? And why, why haven't we thought about it before? We are all together and all Canadians after all, so obvious, and let's get down to it no time wasted.

So, how about "Real Equitability Act": no public service cost or tax; no compensation paid to a public figure or employee (unless set in collective bargaining, for a member) can increase more than indexation of pensions and benefits of the citizens.

So which party wants to take the lead in this very worthy, highly equitable and in great Canadian spirit of togetherness undertaking?

Did we hear anyone? Hello?

Anybody there?

Edited July 29, 2021 by myata

[myata]

So why: a license plate sticker; a transit ticket; university tuition; and minister salary can go up, like a clock, year on year at a 2% "inflation". But your pension, benefit, tax bracket has quite different number. Why is it, what would be the underlying reason and cause? Aren't we all equal, and equitable? Curious minds want to know.

How about "Real Equitability Act": no public service cost or tax; no compensation paid to a public figure or employee (unless set in collective bargaining, for a member) can increase more than indexation of pensions and benefits of the citizens.

Either of the two is true: this is not an equitable society; all citizens are equal in their rights so there cannot be different, tweaked and adjusted as needed "inflations". So which one?

And which party will take it to the reality representing in truth the interests of the citizens?

Any one?

[Scallywag]

17 hours ago, myata said:

So which party wants to take the lead in this very worthy, highly equitable and in great Canadian spirit of togetherness undertaking?

They will all commit to such a worthy notion once their scriptwriters can get something out to them.

Action, that's quite another matter. The process is too long for the cameras to catch in a short eye-gripping way. 

[myata]

If we couldn't or would not do this, what we still can as "the citizens"? Push a button (connected to nowhere) once every so many years?

Nothing will happen. The thing cannot and won't control itself, proven in zoopsychology. Effective oversight and controls do not exist. May very well be the last chance for a change.

Edited July 27, 2021 by myata

[Michael Hardner]

59 minutes ago, Scallywag said:

They will all commit to such a worthy notion once their scriptwriters can get something out to them.

The courtiers have the most to lose in this.  And when they go it will be quickly, but I doubt it will be spectacular.  Just as puritan culture slowly dies out over decades, the retribalization and despecialization will play out over a century or more.

[myata]

1 hour ago, Scallywag said:

The process is too long for the cameras to catch in a short eye-gripping way. 

No, no only a common misconception! The process of approving the annual 2% raise for "representatives" is a fingersnap, 2+2, done and next item. It's only when applied to the affairs of common citizens (down below, can you see them, moving) it becomes long and complicated longread, with multiple difficult to understand layers of "inflation".

Why complication though, and where? If esteemed minister is good for an automatic inflation raise, why not Jack and Jill's pension, and at the same exact rate? Where's the difference who can point it?

 

[Scallywag]

53 minutes ago, myata said:

Where's the difference who can point it?

 

Jack and Jill, their children and grandchildren would need to work hard to provide the money required to pay themselves more. Politicians don't have to change a thing. It’s odd we elect people who see squandering money as a privilege of office but are frugal with ourselves. Fortunately, frugality has no place in the new economics. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men have been rebranded to appeal to a new, more informed audience. I wonder if all that information is cluttering up our minds.

[Michael Hardner]

4 minutes ago, Scallywag said:

1. we elect people who see squandering money as a privilege of office but are frugal with ourselves.
2. Fortunately, frugality has no place in the new economics. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men have been rebranded to appeal to a new, more informed audience. I wonder if all that information is cluttering up our minds.

1. If you think that we squander money, it may be that you don't see value in what we're spending on.  If there are a lot of people who agree with you then that means we have a broken 'public'
2. This is unclear to me - what are you saying, that our new economics of debt isn't grounded in common sense ?

[myata]

1 hour ago, Scallywag said:

Jack and Jill, their children and grandchildren would need to work hard to provide the money required to pay themselves more. Politicians don't have to change a thing. It’s odd we elect people who see squandering money as a privilege of office but are frugal with ourselves. Fortunately, frugality has no place in the new economics. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men have been rebranded to appeal to a new, more informed audience. I wonder if all that information is cluttering up our minds.

Right, that's how it works with a bureaucracy left to its own instruments, to control and manage itself. Sure it'll take care of things, in its own way that always comes to maximum spending on itself with minimum result for everybody else. Nothing personal, just the math.

Only it's not the people we elect, but that we couldn't care to own our own democracy, and that means watch it, clean it and fix it as and when needed, regularly and constantly.

[Scallywag]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. If you think that we squander money, it may be that you don't see value in what we're spending on.  If there are a lot of people who agree with you then that means we have a broken 'public'
2. This is unclear to me - what are you saying, that our new economics of debt isn't grounded in common sense ?

I definitely don’t see value in some of the things on which we spend it. MPs spending hours (days?) smiling and wishing old folks happy birthday is important. Those sales calls could be managed for a lot less than MPs cost. The public is a major component of our political problems.

I understand use of the term ‘common sense’ even less than faith economics so I’ll just watch what happens. Currencies, as I understand it, are controlled by a small global group with their best interests in mind, not ours. Money is a paltry deity and a popular one. Economics, as a social science, fails the repeatable results test. Maybe I am just being pessimistic but I feel concern.

[myata]

57 minutes ago, Scallywag said:

I definitely don’t see value in some of the things on which we spend it. MPs spending hours (days?) smiling and wishing old folks happy birthday is important. Those sales calls could be managed for a lot less than MPs cost. The public is a major component of our political problems.

Is there anything else there though, with party nomenclature calling all shots that "representatives" have no way of questioning or Heaven forbid, disobeying? If it can't be seen does it meant that it exists still? Or it means that these are very expensive (to us, the payers) typewriters and handshakers with $200K annually indexed salaries, grotesque pensions and unlimited allowances, by some irony or long forgotten tradition still labeled as "representatives"?

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Scallywag said:

1. I definitely don’t see value in some of the things on which we spend it. MPs spending hours (days?) smiling and wishing old folks happy birthday is important. Those sales calls could be managed for a lot less than MPs cost. The public is a major component of our political problems.

2. I understand use of the term ‘common sense’ even less than faith economics so I’ll just watch what happens.

3. Currencies, as I understand it, are controlled by a small global group with their best interests in mind, not ours. Money is a paltry deity and a popular one. Economics, as a social science, fails the repeatable results test. Maybe I am just being pessimistic but I feel concern.

1. Great example.
2. Fair enough.
3. Fair enough.

[myata]

Either citizens have democracy that's working for them; or the bureaucracy runs quasi democracy that benefits itself via smarty fancy rules, like for our salaries "annual inflation" is two percent but for your pension it would be only 0.1%, honestly. It's unsurpassed in the skill of making those rules here's the 1000 page manual and try to figure how it should make sense for you. Temporarily it can be something in-between but eventually settles to one or the other. Don't expect surprises.

I'm afraid that we may be past the point where it could control its appetites or reform itself. If nothing is done now we could sail happily right to the point where the absurdity arrives in the mail.

[myata]

A democracy of fugureheads who entitle themselves run behind the curtains under the banner of permanent conflict of interest. Whole family works for a charity given non-competitive contract, but see here, the paragraph says it's not so not to worry only an appearance! Is it the third world already, or still an appearance?

Where citizens sleep and couldn't care, the democracy will degrade and decay. There will be no surprises.

[Nefarious Banana]

Boils down to how politically lazy and complacent most voting Canadians are.  Trudeau is acceptable?  He just makes my point.

[OftenWrong]

On 7/27/2021 at 7:52 AM, myata said:

So why: a license plate sticker; a transit ticket; university tuition; and minister salary can go up, like a clock, year on year at a 2% "inflation". But your pension, benefit, tax bracket has quite different number. Why is it, what would be the underlying reason and cause? Aren't we all equal, and equitable? Curious minds want to know.

How about "Real Equitability Act": no public service cost or tax; no compensation paid to a public figure or employee (unless set in collective bargaining, for a member) can increase more than indexation of pensions and benefits of the citizens.

Either of the two is true: this is not an equitable society; all citizens are equal in their rights so there cannot be different, tweaked and adjusted as needed "inflations". So which one?

And which party will take it to the reality representing in truth the interests of the citizens?

Any one?

Because shit flows downhill by nature, and we are at the bottom. You get used to it after a while.

Still, moderately corrupt and unjust society is arguably better than striving for ultimate perfection in all things. That is the road we are on, and it amounts to totalitarianism.

 

[myata]

31 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Because shit flows downhill by nature,

Laws of nature state that energy is needed to counter entropy and decay. And so where energy and will cannot be found there will be only one direction and trajectory. No surprises. For a while we can enjoy moderate corruption and even get used to it, problem is, it isn't a stable state. Why limit itself where there is no limits?

[OftenWrong]

6 minutes ago, myata said:

Laws of nature state that energy is needed to counter entropy and decay. And so where energy and will cannot be found there will be only one direction and trajectory. No surprises. For a while we can enjoy moderate corruption and even get used to it, problem is, it isn't a stable state. Why limit itself where there is no limits?

Banks are like entropy in the second law of thermodynamics. No matter what we do they gain and we lose. Always and forever, to infinity.

It's a law.

[myata]

29 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Banks are like entropy in the second law of thermodynamics. No matter what we do they gain and we lose. Always and forever, to infinity.

At least banks provide essential service to the society and I'm not advocating only observing. Car loans, consumer loans, mortgages, industry and business loans really hard to get by without. But would I notice if all of a sudden we'd lose MP and GG? I don't think so. Just don't see how, one tiny and microscopic thing I'd need from them. At exorbitant and non-negotiable price.

Edited July 28, 2021 by myata

[OftenWrong]

30 minutes ago, myata said:

At least banks provide essential service to the society and I'm not advocating only observing. Car loans, consumer loans, mortgages, industry and business loans really hard to get by without. But would I notice if all of a sudden we'd lose MP and GG? I don't think so. Just don't see how, one tiny and microscopic thing I'd need from them. At exorbitant and non-negotiable price.

 

It depends what you mean by lose MP or GG, and what you would replace them with. You don't want to create a power vacuum.

Which is what I am alluding to. I don't know if there's a heaven, like what people keep describing, but I know deeper hells exist. It's better not to make any move in any direction at all, in order to defeat Mr. Heisenberg.

Hope that sounds logico.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by OftenWrong

[myata]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

It depends what you mean by lose MP or GG, and what you would replace them with. You don't want to create a power vacuum.

Hope that sounds logico.

It doesn't though. Second law of thermodynamics goes against that, in the letter and reality. If salary can be made just under 200K why not over 500, like who or what said impossible?

And it's a misconception that removing figurehead pieces would change anything in the power balance, only make it more obvious, not covered by figurehead imitation of "democracy". If the party office can make "representatives" push finger this way, and not vote for that commission of inquiry, how would it change if they were replaced with 24/7 smiling mannequins or portraits and we would save a ton, probably enough for an annual party countrywide, still better than nothing.

And if you want to replace them with a functional modern democracy, it would be a bit different matter. That would require energy, will and intelligence to create and maintain. Because no machine can work forever without cleaning and fixing, thermodynamics does not allow that either.

Edited July 28, 2021 by myata

[OftenWrong]

On 7/28/2021 at 2:39 PM, myata said:

It doesn't though

I know. There is no way to do it. Have tried myself many times. In fact everything is falling apart and decaying all around us all the time. That is what I do for a living, I am an entropy fighter. We wear a logo on our backs- Born to Lose, Live to Win

But in fact we are deluded dreamers, we never win.

The banks must always win. It is written into the very fabric of society.

But if the banks ever do not win? Oye vato, 

you better get the motherin heck outta here...

 

[myata]

Entropy is the force of uniformity, eternal indifference, returning to chaos and it can be counteracted only by sustained, conscious and determined effort, and only for a while, that is, while it lasts. And now easy, where is the agent of the effort, who is conscious, and to whom the choices aren't limited to throw a lot of billions at the problem and hope that it'd fix itself somehow?

[myata]

On top of the crisis in healthcare that takes over generation to fix for generation we're now heading into higher education one. Yes, right, in this 21st century of knowledge and information economy. The tuition is getting out of hand, having increased sixfold in two decades. Its almost physically impossible to provide for oneself and complete education without external help or going into deep debt (already quoted "40% of students don't have enough for food"). Sure for some of us extra 10-20K a year is peanuts, so who will succeed and go ahead? Ergo, stratification.

The solution? Yes we found a quick band-aid one: skim the world and bring educated folks from elsewhere in the (third) world. See we cannot educate our own citizens affordably and sustainably so let's get specialists for cheap elsewhere it's globalization time ne c'est pas? Does it make sense for you? But sure does for the bureaucracy chinking and dinging annual % on % increases.

Approaching crisis of affordable housing. Forget saving for your first place with skyrocketing rental prices, transit and service prices, and multi-fold student debt that needs to be repaid. Quality free universal healthcare, affordable post school education, own your place dream, in the past or heading there, fast. Do you see the trends converging somewhere, like perfect star alignment?

Right, Roman republic lasted half of a millennium and surely, it can be beaten. And no, the bureaucracy will not fix anything here, don't even dream of it. Because for it, there's no problem all is nice, rosy and best in the world and after all, Caesars and emperors couldn't do without it either.

Edited August 6, 2021 by myata

[myata]

On 7/29/2021 at 11:26 PM, OftenWrong said:

But if the banks ever do not win? Oye vato, 

you better get the motherin heck outta here...

As said already I have no problem with banks. Mortgage, car loan, reno loan is a voluntary contract, for now at least. Don't want to pay for account, get a free one. Don't like interest on the loan, don't get one. Even notoriously non competitive, eternal conundrum for diverse public offices (that is OK, with % on % annual raises) mobile and Internet services are voluntary, don't get it there or find another one.

But do I have a choice not to order the service (whatever it is) from MP and GG, paid obscenely with automatic % on % raises from public pocket? Why, as a citizen I shouldn't have this choice? I would be fine with 24/7 smiling pictures with whoever and however making critical decisions behind them in this democracy, but why are we forced to pay outrageously for the useless facade with no choice whatsoever?