Comment 70873

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted October 25, 2011 at 14:22:59 in reply to Comment 70834

He takes a lot of figures out of context. For instance, he talks a lot about salaries and very little about actual wealth ownership, just like he talks endlessly about progressive taxes but not about the ways in which the wealthiest often pay much less in taxes than many in slightly lower brackets.

Canada, to be sure, is far better off than the US. We're an ingenious and bizare mix of American and European style economics, with a resource base which compares far better to Brazil or Russia. Australia is doing far better than many for similar reasons. To say, however, that these aren't really problems in Canada would be utterly untrue.

The numbers are skewed for a lot of reasons. America's numbers are much higher than ours largely because so much of our economy is owned by Americans. We're not an island, we're just a neighbourhood, and these issues affect every human being on the planet.

And for the record, though many of the protesters may be unemployed, the sheer number of people demanding "jobs" and "work" should be an indication of how they feel about "contributing to society" (if such a thing can be accurately measured by traditional economics...). "Full employment" has always been one of the most popular promises of Communists. As for those I know who never work traditional jobs - most are far more enterprising than just about anybody I know who does "work". They sew their own clothes, grow their own food, tan their own leather etc... Allegations that protesters are "lazy" and want more than their fair share are pretty damned ironic, given the statistics we're looking at here.

It's pretty clear who's taking far more than their fair share.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds