Canada's poor are getting poorer!

[Renegade]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

OK, but the tradesman is not looking to pass on his savings of 2% from the credit card transaction. He is sharing this savings from evading taxes.

[M.Dancer]

Ummm....yeah

[jbg]

The book Freakonomics has suggested that crime figures go down where abortion is freely available. I wonder if that is true for poverty as well.

I happen to be pro-choice, at least for the first trimester. Politically, I am not in any way conservative.

You're criticizing the wrong poster.

[jbg]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

Off my buddy goes to the bank......

One, is " chimnet" some Canadian word I'm not familiar with? Two, he should have been writing a check, not a "cheque", whatever that is. Three, the savings isn't in bank charges there, it's in GST and income taxes. Your friend is an accessory to a crime.

[jdobbin]

I happen to be pro-choice, at least for the first trimester. Politically, I am not in any way conservative.

You're criticizing the wrong poster.

I wasn't criticizing. I was just saying that an economist attributes the drop in crime in many areas of the U.S. to abortion.

[August1991]

I was just saying that an economist attributes the drop in crime in many areas of the U.S. to abortion.

That was an argument made by Steven Levitt in Freakonomics.

There is an opposing viewpoint, which I'll let Mark Steyn make:

...in his splendidly lucid new book The Party Of Death, Ramesh Ponnuru conclusively demolishes the Freakonomics case. While its key evidence turns out to be based on a programming error, its plausibility in the marketplace derives from a more casual assumption -- that the 45 million unborn children aborted since 1973 would, absent Roe vs. Wade, all have been born. In fact, the legalization of abortion caused the number of conceptions to go up by 30 per cent, while causing the number of births to go down by only six per cent. "Many of the unborn children who have been aborted since Roe," Ponnuru points out, "would never have been conceived in the first place without it." And, given that it also largely ended the assumption of male responsibility for the carelessly conceived, as Ponnuru writes, "Abortion may not lead to fewer unwanted children; it may lead to the birth of more children who aren't wanted by their fathers."

Macleans

I'm inclined to agree with Ponnuru's conclusion.

[M.Dancer]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

Off my buddy goes to the bank......

One, is " chimnet" some Canadian word I'm not familiar with? Two, he should have been writing a check, not a "cheque", whatever that is. Three, the savings isn't in bank charges there, it's in GST and income taxes. Your friend is an accessory to a crime.

Yeah shocking ain't it? I'm sure as we follow our cultural traditions of avoiding the excise man we will feel a load of guilt

oh, btw, a check is something that looks like a hockey stick, that doctors would put beside your name when diagnosing advanced pillockism......a cheque is a promissory note used in civilised countries with modern financial institutions.

[betsy]

That is what is being reported today in the news. It says that Alberta and New Brunswick pay less to the poor, poor meaning those on welfare and need help. I have no problem for a person being on welfare as long its a hand UP and not hand OUT! For those that NEED education, I think the provinces should make it easy for these people to get what they need to support themselves, as far as education is concerned. Lets face it. ALL people pay too much taxes and since the Harper jack up the lowest tax rate on the LOWEST rate, it going to get tougher for alot of people. The GST tax has done nothing for me, the saving I save would be $1.75 weekly, gee thanks Harper!!!!!!

Well I think even the middle-class is getting poor! They're slowly getting squeezed out...to fall under the bracket of "poor".

Money don't grow on trees, you know. Who do you think ends up paying for all social programs? Including monstrous boondagles?

We ain't seen nothing yet! Wait til the Libreals or the NDP gets in and universal daycares gets into place. Drug Shooting galleries filling up every cities....more money on the segment that not only hardly produce ...but also contribute to a lot of crimes that we need to spend more money on to control!

And if the NDP will have it their way...all corporate "evils" will go through the grinding mill...and we lose investors and creators of jobs to third world countries!

Who picks up the tab for all of these?

They surely don't come from the pockets of the Liberals or the NDP!

[geoffrey]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

Off my buddy goes to the bank......

One, is " chimnet" some Canadian word I'm not familiar with? Two, he should have been writing a check, not a "cheque", whatever that is. Three, the savings isn't in bank charges there, it's in GST and income taxes. Your friend is an accessory to a crime.

GST is horribly avoided all the time. That's why it's not a good tax, only the ethical people pay it, it's a tax on morality?

[jbg]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

Off my buddy goes to the bank......

One, is " chimnet" some Canadian word I'm not familiar with? Two, he should have been writing a check, not a "cheque", whatever that is. Three, the savings isn't in bank charges there, it's in GST and income taxes. Your friend is an accessory to a crime.

Yeah shocking ain't it? I'm sure as we follow our cultural traditions of avoiding the excise man we will feel a load of guilt

oh, btw, a check is something that looks like a hockey stick, that doctors would put beside your name when diagnosing advanced pillockism......a cheque is a promissory note used in civilised countries with modern financial institutions.

1. A $30 savings in bank charges does not beget a $300 discount; GST and income tax savings do. As a lawyer I have to advise against committing crimes;
   
2. I write checks, not cheques, at stores. I'm American; I speak English;
   
3. The US and Canada are civilized, not civilised.
   

[Melanie_]

Then why are they making babies if they're too poor to afford them?

~~~snip~~~

During this time, the painter for one of the contractors engaged to rehabilitate slum housing in Westchester County, New York took a liking to a 13 year old girl in one of the apartments he was painting. Can anyone tell us why the 13 year old girl wasn?t in school, and wound up pregnant by the painter? Is this a worthwhile use of taxpayer and government money?

I think a better question is what was this presumably adult painter doing with a 13 year old, and why wasn't he charged with pedophilia? And while you are condemning the child, pointing to her poverty as a factor in her pregnancy, you are absolving the gainfully employed adult of any responsibility.

[jdobbin]

That was an argument made by Steven Levitt in Freakonomics.

Macleans

I'm inclined to agree with Ponnuru's conclusion.

There are a lot of "may be" references in Ponnuru's conclusion.

I have no idea if Levitt was right in his conclusion either.

I do know that economists have said there is often no relation to how many police there are to how much crime takes place in an area. And if people attribute the aging population to a crime drop, ergo, birth control and abortion can be cited as some of the reasons for a lower crime rate.

[jbg]

I think a better question is what was this presumably adult painter doing with a 13 year old, and why wasn't he charged with pedophilia? And while you are condemning the child, pointing to her poverty as a factor in her pregnancy, you are absolving the gainfully employed adult of any responsibility.

Awfully good question as well. But a child's primary advocate and protector has to be his or her parents, not the police.

[Melanie_]

But a child's primary advocate and protector has to be his or her parents, not the police.

Absolutely. I have a 13 year old daughter; if this were her, the painter would have to hope the police got to him before I did (and you definitely wouldn't want to see my husband!)

But we have age of consent laws for a reason - 13 year olds are vulnerable, and aren't far removed from fairy tales and happily ever afters. The parents can take some of the blame for not protecting her more, but the real criminal here is the painter, and he should have been charged.

[jbg]

But a child's primary advocate and protector has to be his or her parents, not the police.

Absolutely. I have a 13 year old daughter; if this were her, the painter would have to hope the police got to him before I did (and you definitely wouldn't want to see my husband!)

But we have age of consent laws for a reason - 13 year olds are vulnerable, and aren't far removed from fairy tales and happily ever afters. The parents can take some of the blame for not protecting her more, but the real criminal here is the painter, and he should have been charged.

Again, I am not here to defend the painter. I am here, however, to excoriate a mother that, in all likelikhood, was out getting high or involved in further recreational sexual activities. That was only one family; I knew plenty of others in the course of that engagement. The irresponsibility, overall, was shocking.

[M.Dancer]

A friend of mine was having his chimnet repaired....the bill came to $1800 ...he was writing a cheque....I said to the fellow, how much for straight cash? The tradesmen answers not missing a beat, ..."$1500."

Off my buddy goes to the bank......

One, is " chimnet" some Canadian word I'm not familiar with? Two, he should have been writing a check, not a "cheque", whatever that is. Three, the savings isn't in bank charges there, it's in GST and income taxes. Your friend is an accessory to a crime.

Yeah shocking ain't it? I'm sure as we follow our cultural traditions of avoiding the excise man we will feel a load of guilt

oh, btw, a check is something that looks like a hockey stick, that doctors would put beside your name when diagnosing advanced pillockism......a cheque is a promissory note used in civilised countries with modern financial institutions.

1. A $30 savings in bank charges does not beget a $300 discount; GST and income tax savings do. As a lawyer I have to advise against committing crimes;
   
2. I write checks, not cheques, at stores. I'm American; I speak English;
   
3. The US and Canada are civilized, not civilised.
   

advanced pillockism....check