Not really, it is the men that have the great need and are willing to become poorer for the sake of being fucked.
At age 40, how much should the average person have in their retirement account?
- Thread starter poorboy
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Not really, it is the men that have the great need and are willing to become poorer for the sake of being fucked.
Not really the same thing. Cars are a luxury, a convenience, a comfort. Removing a cancerous tumor, bypassing a blocked artery, that's a need.
On any aggregate statistical measure the canadian system is superior to the american system. We delivery on average better health outcomes for people who enter the system with similar complaints. It's only outliers who complain, generally rich outliers seeking non critical care.
I think this levels the playing field and created a more egalitarian economy with increased labor market competition. In systems that fail to meet the basic needs of the poor families are forced into very risk averse behavior that prevents their children from even attempting to compete with the children of richer families. Eliminating health cost risk frees poorer families children to compete in risk seeking ways with all comers, leading to a society on which the smartest rise to the top.
I have to disagree. It's rich who are risk averse because their life is worth something. Poor do all kinds of stupid shit like smoking etc. Poor don't worry about risk much because their life is shit anyway. Compare Americans with third world country citizens. An average American probably never was in a fist fight after the age of 7.
How many kids would be forced out of hockey and other sports without healthcare? While Canada's healthcare system is better then the US, in terms of band for the buck it is still vastly inferior to those in several European nations.
To mix topics, you really SHOULD spend some time in phils, or in china, or some other country where families savings are easily overwhelmed by unexpected health issues. It's incredible how much money people stock pile against an emergency. Money that could have been invested in a business, or in an education, or just in an HDTV--at least circulating.
It's horrendously inefficient and highly risk averse. You really have no idea what you're talking about if you think that rich families do the same--they don't. That sort of risk aversion shows up only in the poor.
In Canada this just doesn't happen. The poor are more likely to spend the money on beer or whatever exactly because they do not face an existential threat to their survival if they do that.
It is an enormous freedom to know that in the event of a low likelihood, high impact health crisis your personal savings won't be wiped out--moreover, that you don't need to stock pile savings in order to resist such an event. At a macro level it is also FAR more efficient to spread the risk around, across many individuals, rather than forcing every individual to build their own contingency fund.
It really is quite liberating, and specifically, while not all of the poor take advantage of it, it does put those who WANT to compete onto a more equal fitting with their richer peers.
I am not sure that kids need hockey. A bunch of men with sticks push a rubber disk around - why the fuck do we need that anyway?
OAS and GIS take very little of GDP. That combined with how old people vote and there will be even more old people by percentage means they should be safe.
Medical spending on the other hand... that is the question. Despite all the demographic pressures, all the parties are still itching to add to the GIS
OAS gets clawed back around 60 to 70 K to about 115K, could look up the numbers easily.
GIS gets clawed back from the first dollar at 50%, so if you get 10K from your CPP you lose 5K of GIS. CPP for the poor is a real rip off.
GAINS in ontario also gets clawed back at 50% from the first dollar, so you can also kiss the full 1000 of GAINS once you hit 2K of income.
The first 3500 of working income in exempt from GIS clawback [was 500], so you can always pull a few shifts at wally mart or McDs
TFSA withdrawals don't count. Some people bitch about the TFSA being biased towards the rich, and they do benefit more [duh they can save more] but without it, the poor would be dumb as fuck to save even a dime.
Also if you never work a day in your life, you get another 500 from GST and HST rebates combined, and probably about 900 of property tax rebate depending on occupancy rates [in Ontario]
Combine that with paid drugs, and you can live a very modest life if you own your own place, or rent someplace cheap, like not Toronto.
In Canada we fuck the rich, in the US they fuck the poor.
In Soviet Russia all non party members get fucked.
It has been done ad nausium. Do a search for the user Cute-Bald. Kind of like a very short tree that falls in the forest and wouldn't shut up about it.
All those programs you mention are paid for by taxes... and NO contributions. If people were forced to pay more up front, it would actually lessen the burden in the future. As for GM, why do people like you always blame the Union and not the CEO who was so anxious to book short term profits that he set the company up for bankruptcy in the long term. Besides, the pension and union dues were just one element. The real problem is the inability to build cars people want at a profit. Funny how you express surprise that a socialist can be successful. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are donating all their money to charity... now that is really socialist. The stark reality is, if you are rich and everyone else is poor, you won't be rich for very long. If income were more evenly distributed, our society would be richer as a whole.
We need them to have activities of some sort, if not they will grow up to be criminals. Parents are too busy working to do the job anymore.
I didn't say GM's failure was solely the unions but it certainly contributed since you can't compete when you are paying ridiculous salaries for menial work while your overseas competitiors are unburdened by the pestilence of unions.
Gates and Buffet aren't socialists: they are those evil capitalists but happen to have good hearts and are choosing to spread their wealth around. This is a good thing but totally different than socialists demanding they pay excessive taxes on the fruits of their hard work just so the less successful can be comfortable without the hard work and risktaking that the empire builders took on to reach the pinnacle. Big difference.
D.
I'm in the top 1% of Canadian earners, probably top 0.5%, so don't tell me to better my life. I used my intelligence and determined that the system we have here in Canada is better.
It exceeds the US system on every measure. There is NO QUESTION that it's a more efficient system that delivers better care for less money. Americans who think try and dispute the Canadian system by asserting that their problem is with their legal system--but they own up to having a problem. It's impossible not to.
There are indeed benefits to living in a country which enables the poor to compete effectively in the labour market. Free or subsidized education and healthcare are the two pillars of that, the things that benefit the working poor, the guys actually trying to get ahead, as opposed to the welfare bums with mental health issues.
I have also lived in countries that have nothing, and I mean nothing in the way of public healthcare. You get sick, you pay. Period. In those places the need to save funds against a rainy day really do hold the poor back. Enormously so. I've seen it directly.
It exceeds the US system on every measure. There is NO QUESTION that it's a more efficient system that delivers better care for less money. Americans who think try and dispute the Canadian system by asserting that their problem is with their legal system--but they own up to having a problem. It's impossible not to.
There are indeed benefits to living in a country which enables the poor to compete effectively in the labour market. Free or subsidized education and healthcare are the two pillars of that, the things that benefit the working poor, the guys actually trying to get ahead, as opposed to the welfare bums with mental health issues.
I have also lived in countries that have nothing, and I mean nothing in the way of public healthcare. You get sick, you pay. Period. In those places the need to save funds against a rainy day really do hold the poor back. Enormously so. I've seen it directly.
Examples?
Sound like China to me since that's the perennial rationale for them to hoard the cash, other than saving money for the Chinese men to marry "gold diggers". No?
I don't necessarily accept your definitive statement that Canada's healthcare is better than the US's [even if you did use CAPITAL LETTERS].
Health insurance is like home or car insurance: you either pay ongoing money to be insured or you set money aside to deal with an emergency and you insure yourself. In Canada, we pay higher taxes to have our healthcare provided to us while in the US you buy the level of healthcare coverage you desire or can afford and you have extra disposable income because taxes are lower [all other things being equal] since the system doesn't have the healthcare costs we have in Canada.
In 3rd world countries you might not have the option of health insurance so you have to insure yourself by saving money but you probably don't have to pay any taxes. How does having to save money and set some aside for an emergency "hold people back"? Once they have set aside an appropriate amount then it should be taken care of [theoretically]. It's not a life crushing burden to have to save up a certain amount of money.
D.
In the end you pay for your healthcare one way or another and I prefer to pick my own coverage and pay for it out of higher net income. And the "oh it's healthcare and that is different and that's sacred" argument doesn't automatically make it something that can't be discussed and improved.
Having to save money for a health emergency holds people back because it is a horrendously inefficient use of funds that are already very dear. Funds that could have been invested in a business idea or an education or other opportunity. Also to acquire those funds the poor make choices like deciding to work rather then go to school, and choosing a stable low paid job over a risky but possibly lucrative venture.
The net result of that risk aversion is a less competitive labor market in which only those with enough wealth to feel secure engage in risk seeking opportunities like education or entrepreneurship.
As for the superiority of the canadian system in terms of both cost effectiveness and in terms of superior health outcomes, that is well documented if you go and take a serious look. Critics of the canadian system are always forced back to anecdotal evidence and ideological argument because the statistics cleary favor the canadian system.
The net result of that risk aversion is a less competitive labor market in which only those with enough wealth to feel secure engage in risk seeking opportunities like education or entrepreneurship.
As for the superiority of the canadian system in terms of both cost effectiveness and in terms of superior health outcomes, that is well documented if you go and take a serious look. Critics of the canadian system are always forced back to anecdotal evidence and ideological argument because the statistics cleary favor the canadian system.
Nobody knows whether OP's DB plan is private or public. That could be a difference between 1.5% to 2% indexing.
+1 but again his priority right now is to accelerate payments to wipe out the outstanding mortgages sooner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_efficient_society
The Efficient Society: Why Canada is as Close to Utopia as it Gets is a popular book by Canadian philosopher and author Joseph Heath. First released in 2001, the book is Heath's attempt to explain why Canada 'works'. He argues that Canada's successes as a nation are largely attributable to its commitment to efficiency as a value. The book was released to positive reviews, and became a national best-seller.
I am not going to say I agree with everything Heath says, but all his shit is worth reading. Unlike most non fiction authors who use the Micheal Moore method of truthiness with selective use of evidence, arguing out of context etc, Heath is astoundingly fair and balanced in his approach.
And being Canadian, his stuff should be at your local library, or easily getable via inter-library loan.
The posted cpi rates and the actual will vary greatly in about 15-20 years. People on fixed income will suffer, due to the face that the system is somewhat broken.
I would say if you are 45 and need to retire today, you'll need about 1.5-2.5 million if you want to live till 85 without worrying.
