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Furnaceface posted:I mean, thats not much more than Wynne did in Ontario. True, but consider how much more that represents in regard to pushing the boundaries of the Overton window in Alberta than in Ontario. I don't know what she'd do on the federal stage, but I think she'd probably move left of where she's been in Alberta.
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Feb 11, 2019 02:33
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PT6A posted:True, but consider how much more that represents in regard to pushing the boundaries of the Overton window in Alberta than in Ontario. This is v. true. A lot of my political jadedness comes from growing up under Klein and Rob Anders. NDP winning in Alberta honestly shocked me and made me reevaluate things just because I was so expectant of conservative jerkoffs winning everything no matter how much they hosed up. Of course we're probably gonna piss it away because there's nothing like dumbass reactionary conservatism to motivate voters but it was a nice breath of air dor a while.
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Feb 11, 2019 03:28
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It was pretty great when they were like "nah, all y'all 'Christian' schools can eat poo poo and go straight to hell, if you don't allow GSAs you don't get poo poo from us." Admittedly, they should've followed it up with actually doing the thing they said they'd do immediately instead of counting to two-and-a-half, two-and-three-quarters, etc... but it was a nice sentiment.
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Feb 11, 2019 03:46
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James Baud posted:Not actually true, even phenomenal wealth disappears in a hurry against the scale of humanity. Ahahaha what is this loving poo poo
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Feb 11, 2019 05:08
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Didn't someone do the math in this thread before about basic income and determine the entire amount of tax collected couldn't bump up all working age people to 40k a year? There isn't as much floating around as we think. Now, if you will consider literally stealing the rich peoples stockpiles of money, then we can really start playing with the numbers.
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Feb 11, 2019 05:29
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I'm willing to do anything to end poverty as long as it doesnt inconvenience rich people
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Feb 11, 2019 06:01
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There is no chance in hell that a basic income would start at 40k/adult. If it ever happens, it'll start at 20k or some measly amount like that. It's absurd to just crank out the numbers of whether's it's possible to fit within current budgets just by tweaking upper income tax brackets without also considering the likely positive feedback (economic stimulus from income growth, improved overall health, etc.) and potential negative consequences (like increased inflation, which I vaguely recall studies suggesting would be minimal).
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Feb 11, 2019 06:07
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Calgary herald, jan 7, 1976.  heh......  e: bonus  "fatties" lol e2: full half page ad  e3: Every feel like we're just running in circles?  e4: YIKES!  e5: 
Powershift fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 09:12
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eXXon posted:There is no chance in hell that a basic income would start at 40k/adult. If it ever happens, it'll start at 20k or some measly amount like that. Even a grant of ~15k per adult would more than double the federal budget, from about 300B to 600B. Something like a guaranteed minimum income (so a 100% phaseout rate until the 15k) would be closer to ~60 billion. I don't really have a strong feeling of whether the effects on GDP would be positive or negative (redistributing income from rich to poor would have a positive effect, but we'd also make it easier for people to not work), but it think it's a bit silly to suggest that it's absurd to look at numbers before actually implementing it. Like, yeah, we don't know the full range of knock-on effects that might happen, but even 60B isn't really something that's plausibly raised by even a 5% increase in GDP. (Conversely, any model or study or simulation that suggests inflation would be minimal is just guesswork. We don't know what would happen, nothing like this has been implemented anywhere!)
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Feb 11, 2019 15:17
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Also, isn't the point of UBI that it replaces most existing govt programs? Just stop funding those.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:29
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xtal posted:Also, isn't the point of UBI that it replaces most existing govt programs? Just stop funding those. The problem with that is the people that genuinely need welfare or disability, likely won't be able to make ends meet on UBI. Its a lot more expensive for a disabled person to eat properly and have shelter and medical supports they need than 20 or 30 grand a year. And UBI would really screw poor people that live in the GTA assuming they lost their social housing, which replacing would be incredibly expensive.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:37
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Furnaceface posted:I mean, thats not much more than Wynne did in Ontario. With a bar that low we wouldnt even need a federal NDP, just keep voting Liberal. Liberals in Alberta getting any sort of power? That's a good one.  (There's a reason the NDP leapfrogged them and honestly, serious kudos to Notley for doing the impossible). Also unfortunately, Canada has what we call female leaders holding the bag syndrome. I think it started with a bright eyed Kim Campbell being handed the leadership of the PC by Brian Mulroney before a federal election completely crashing the party.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:38
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Furnaceface posted:I mean, thats not much more than Wynne did in Ontario. With a bar that low we wouldnt even need a federal NDP, just keep voting Liberal. Speaking of Wynne there was a report that came out of the other day about job growth and it basically said the new minimum wage in Ontario didn't hurt anything. Considering all the loving posturing by Ford its nice to see that come out. Hell, I never understood how everyone got in such a huff about 15 dollars an hour. Its barely catching up to where we were 5 or 10 years ago considering our cost of living for staples like food and rent and hydro have gone up dramatically. Really, we should have been asking for a minimum wage nearing 20 an hour.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:41
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xtal posted:Also, isn't the point of UBI that it replaces most existing govt programs? Just stop funding those. In terms of transfers to working-age adults, we have federally ~14B in social spending (transfers to provinces), provinces maybe about match that. Then you have ~24B in child benefits, though in this case you're taking a lot of money away from low-income kids to sent it to adults. So, yeah, you can just about get to guaranteed minimum income of 15k by cancelling transfers to low-income folks (which surprises me! I was working off numbers from Kevin Milligan in 2014 when child transfers were just ~10B, so you couldn't get close).
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Feb 11, 2019 15:43
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zapplez posted:Speaking of Wynne there was a report that came out of the other day about job growth and it basically said the new minimum wage in Ontario didn't hurt anything. Considering all the loving posturing by Ford its nice to see that come out. Yeah but the entire movement in Canada is just cargo-culting off the Fight for 15 in the US without realizing that 1) that's basically doubling the current US minimum wage, and 2) $15 US goes a lot further than $15 Canadian. It's the most Canadian thing.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:54
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zapplez posted:Speaking of Wynne there was a report that came out of the other day about job growth and it basically said the new minimum wage in Ontario didn't hurt anything. Considering all the loving posturing by Ford its nice to see that come out. Retail small business owners were absolutely apoplectic over it. The gist of it being, "Our margins suck, and volume is at an all time low, with this wage increase we're just going to cut hours/staff" I can't speak to the veracity of those claims, but the few specific examples I know of did result in reduced hours and fewer employees. It's not my market, but I'm still of the opinion that if you can't afford to pay your staff a living wage, you can't afford to be in business. That's not a popular opinion though.
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Feb 11, 2019 15:55
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Ironically what hurts small business the most -- far more than minimum wage increases -- is people not having any loving money. Solve that problem, say by making sure wages increase, and all of a sudden you can make a lot more money and then, bam, you can afford to pay your employees a decent wage.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:03
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vyelkin posted:Yeah but the entire movement in Canada is just cargo-culting off the Fight for 15 in the US without realizing that 1) that's basically doubling the current US minimum wage, and 2) $15 US goes a lot further than $15 Canadian. It's the most Canadian thing. gently caress, 15 dollars USD in basically any city but LA,SF or NYC is like 25 an hour canadian when you consider the C.O.L. differences. Its not that hard to find a good house for 100 grand outside of major cities in USA and cars/food/hydro/gas etc is all like 25% cheaper.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:10
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zapplez posted:The problem with that is the people that genuinely need welfare or disability, likely won't be able to make ends meet on UBI. Its a lot more expensive for a disabled person to eat properly and have shelter and medical supports they need than 20 or 30 grand a year. So it sounds like UBI is bad, then! Why do we want it again?
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Feb 11, 2019 16:11
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PT6A posted:Ironically what hurts small business the most -- far more than minimum wage increases -- is people not having any loving money. Solve that problem, say by making sure wages increase, and all of a sudden you can make a lot more money and then, bam, you can afford to pay your employees a decent wage. This is macroeconomics and insane small business owners only understand the microeconomics of how to sabotage everyone they know so they can stay open for another week.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:15
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xtal posted:So it sounds like UBI is bad, then! Why do we want it again? full communism now
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Feb 11, 2019 16:16
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xtal posted:So it sounds like UBI is bad, then! Why do we want it again? Because no one ever gets as a far as actual implementation details and ITT we like to ignore the part where it comes at the cost of other social programs/entitlements. It doesn't have to, but it's a much harder sell to the fiscal responsibility/minarchist crowd if it doesn't. vyelkin posted:This is macroeconomics and insane small business owners only understand the microeconomics of how to sabotage everyone they know so they can stay open for another week. Presumably there's a bit of lag between wages increasing and increased consumer spending. infernal machines fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 16:18
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zapplez posted:gently caress, 15 dollars USD in basically any city but LA,SF or NYC is like 25 an hour canadian when you consider the C.O.L. differences. Its not that hard to find a good house for 100 grand outside of major cities in USA and cars/food/hydro/gas etc is all like 25% cheaper. Well, don't forget exchange rate too with one dollar usd literally being 1.33 CAD. Even ignoring cost of living, 15 dollars min wage in USD is comparable to 20 bucks CAD.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:21
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zapplez posted:Hell, I never understood how everyone got in such a huff about 15 dollars an hour. Its barely catching up to where we were 5 or 10 years ago considering our cost of living for staples like food and rent and hydro have gone up dramatically. Really, we should have been asking for a minimum wage nearing 20 an hour. Fighting for these once every X years increases is also not great. The increases should be happening steadily and predictably. It's one thing for businesses to complain about the increases in labour costs but it's worse when these increases don't happen on any reliable schedule or at any reliable increment but just whenever enough people get fed up and pressure the government to enact something.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:22
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Toalpaz posted:Well, don't forget exchange rate too with one dollar usd literally being 1.33 CAD. Even ignoring cost of living, 15 dollars min wage in USD is comparable to 20 bucks CAD. I wouldn't be surprised if our minimum wage was $20 CAD, accounting for inflation, when it was first introduced. The minimum wage in USD or CAD has done a very bad job of keeping up with inflation.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:22
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zapplez posted:Its not that hard to find a good house for 100 grand outside of major cities in USA. I feel like this kinda buries the part where you're reliant on a car for daily life and the ongoing unsustainability of suburban/exurban life in general. You can buy a cheap house, but at best you're externalizing your actual COL. See also: Every dipshit buying a house in Alliston and commuting four hours a day to somewhere with jobs.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:23
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"We could just get a job on the base"
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Feb 11, 2019 16:34
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xtal posted:I wouldn't be surprised if our minimum wage was $20 CAD, accounting for inflation, when it was first introduced. The minimum wage in USD or CAD has done a very bad job of keeping up with inflation. http://www.canadasocialreport.ca/MinimumWages/2015.pdf I don't know how good this report is as an indicator, but whoever did it seems to be suggesting that they've accounted for inflation in looking for min wage stats across Canada from 1965-2015 into a 2015 'constant dollar' so that all dollars on the graph represent generally the buying value of one dollar in 2015. It seems to be the case that adjusted for inflation most minimum wages start in 1965 as about 7.50 CAD in 2015 dollars, so it is increasing meaningfully somewhat maybe? Which is nice. But I'm not a money/numbers person. I also have no clue how actually tied cost of living and costs like education are tied to 'inflation' because I am not a money person.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:42
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flakeloaf posted:"We could just get a job on the base" CFB Borden, a shining beacon of Canada's economic future.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:48
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zapplez posted:gently caress, 15 dollars USD in basically any city but LA,SF or NYC is like 25 an hour canadian when you consider the C.O.L. differences. Its not that hard to find a good house for 100 grand outside of major cities in USA and cars/food/hydro/gas etc is all like 25% cheaper. Yup. This is yet another place where Canadians imitating American political culture is actively harmful to our interests. We consume all this political media and culture and discourse about how important a $15 minimum wage is, or how a $15 minimum wage will destroy our economy, but all that discourse is actually the American debate sparked by the Fight for 15 and the adoption of a $15 minimum wage in political campaigns like Sanders 2016, or the Seattle increase. So instead of thinking about it for more than a second and realizing we could be having the same debate about higher minimum wages in general but tailored to our own circumstances which might mean fighting for a $20 or $25/hr minimum, we decide it's easier to just piggyback onto that discourse and have our own fight for 15, which means even if we accomplish that goal like happened in Alberta, the result is way more underwhelming than comparable victories in the US. Yet we get the same reactionary backlash against what's a fairly incremental rather than a radical change, because the anti-minimum wage people are also piggybacking on the same anti-$15/hr discourse coming out of the US, which is much more loaded because it represents a larger change and therefore a larger threat to business interests. It's a perfect example of our very Canadian apathy and lack of ambition once again coming around to bite us in the rear end.
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Feb 11, 2019 16:59
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infernal machines posted:It doesn't have to, but it's a much harder sell to the fiscal responsibility/minarchist crowd if it doesn't. How about instead of appealing to those people we execute them instead. Their assets can be used to help pay for UBI instead of cutting other social programs.
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Feb 11, 2019 17:21
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Pick up a rifle and get crackin'.
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Feb 11, 2019 17:22
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The problem with UBI is that it was designed to preserve the market mechanisms that are actually causing the problems. Image for a second if we had American style private healthcare and somebody suggested that we fix it with a basic income. Imagine if somebody suggested instead of having single payer health care here in Canada we went to a private system but gave everyone in the country $20,000 or $30,000 a year to deal with it. Does anybody actually think that's a good long term trade off? The problems we're facing are largely created by our insistence on trying to turn almost everything into a commodity or asset, which in practice creates a lot of perverse incentives and rent-seeking behaviour. A lot of nominal leftists are still drunk on the free market cool aid and just cannot actually get their head around the idea that maybe in some areas market mechanisms are not this powerful engine of growth we need to hitch ourselves onto but actually inefficient and dysfunctional systems with a heavy tendency to redistribute resources in unfair and inefficient ways. The nice thing about a basic income is that it addresses poverty in the most direct way possible - your problems are caused by a lack of money so we give you more money. In some immediate situations that is a powerful and efficient way to mitigate harm. But it's very much a stop gap measure and people on this forum invest way too many expectations and hope on a program that would not be nearly as effective as they think and that in many ways just further set us on the wrong path. I understand the deep appeal of the policy and think it has some uses but mostly I think UBI is sort of like baby's first radicalism. It's a temporary way station you stop at on your trip to growing up and realizing that no, capitalism really is the problem and a slight tweak of the income distribution isn't an adequate fix.
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Feb 11, 2019 17:44
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Also it should be pretty revealing that UBI is almost always the preferred solution for the ultra-wealthy if they ever express any desire for meaningful change. They know it's the One Big Reform that's most likely to preserve the current market structures that give them obscene levels of power and luxury. Give poor people just enough money that they don't starve but they can still participate in the market economy and order packages off Amazon. It's the perfect solution for billionaires who more than anything else want a docile consumer base.
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Feb 11, 2019 17:49
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UBI is a pretty necessary starting point, just let the Liberals think it's the endpoint until it happens and then take the next steps after that. This would work better if there was an actual left wing in Canada. In real life UBI or any other starting point is not going to happen.
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Feb 11, 2019 18:01
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vyelkin posted:Also it should be pretty revealing that UBI is almost always the preferred solution for the ultra-wealthy if they ever express any desire for meaningful change. They know it's the One Big Reform that's most likely to preserve the current market structures that give them obscene levels of power and luxury. Give poor people just enough money that they don't starve but they can still participate in the market economy and order packages off Amazon. It's the perfect solution for billionaires who more than anything else want a docile consumer base. This has similarly always been my argument for raising wages. "So you mean you don't want people to have more "buying power" to shop here?". I also wish I could say the wealthy should want to live in a world where people are happy enough to not commit crimes out of desperation, but heh, they already just segregate themselves from the general populace anyway.
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Feb 11, 2019 18:02
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vyelkin posted:Also it should be pretty revealing that UBI is almost always the preferred solution for the ultra-wealthy if they ever express any desire for meaningful change. They know it's the One Big Reform that's most likely to preserve the current market structures that give them obscene levels of power and luxury. Give poor people just enough money that they don't starve but they can still participate in the market economy and order packages off Amazon. It's the perfect solution for billionaires who more than anything else want a docile consumer base. One thing that ubi does that is good however is take some of the social control aspects out of welfare. Currently there are still many hoops to jump through to get many of the welfare programs in Canada and they do not really provide you with the amount of money to live. So you have to ask your social worker for help. Need some furniture, ask for the furniture allowance, the move allowance. Better hope you don't get kicked out of your place before your next move allowance comes in. Also if you earn any money it generally gets deducted from your welfare check. Makes a transition into employment pretty hard. Additionally some places would take money off your welfare check if you grow your own vegetables. Still, UBI not dealing with rent seeking is a big issue. One of the major concerns about the rental market is that in cities that are not Toronto, social service checks provide the rent floor. If you raise that floor without doing much else, a lot of the benefits go to landlords.
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Feb 11, 2019 19:08
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The main advocates of UBI seem to be under the misapprehension that stagnant wages and worker insecurity are some kind of unforeseen or accidental byproduct of our economic system. Even worse they try to make other people believe this because if you think poverty is some kind of mistake by our otherwise benevolent rulers then it's almost believable that they would be willing to fix it voluntarily. Meanwhile in the real world increasing economic insecurity was an explicit goal of the economic restructuring of the 1970s onward. It's a feature, not a bug. You can't do an end run around the fundamental problem of political power and who wields it. There's no technical solution for this problem. You've gotta build up your team, go to war and win political power the traditional way.
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Feb 11, 2019 19:25
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Helsing posted:The main advocates of UBI seem to be under the misapprehension that stagnant wages and worker insecurity are some kind of unforeseen or accidental byproduct of our economic system. Even worse they try to make other people believe this because if you think poverty is some kind of mistake by our otherwise benevolent rulers then it's almost believable that they would be willing to fix it voluntarily. So the part about UBI discussion that frustrates you is that they should be organizing to overthrow our political/economic system instead? How should people go about building up their team in places like Canadian cites as an alternative to things like fight for 15 fairness campaigns or talking about UBI Helsing?
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Feb 11, 2019 20:32
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https://www.thestar.com/amp/politics/provincial/2019/02/11/student-fees-bankroll-crazy-marxist-councils-says-premier-doug-ford.html Turns out that Ford was dismantling student loans to save us from those drat communists.
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