- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2437
I like Iceland, another reason why:
Link: https://mosaicscience.com/story/iceland-prevent-teen-substance-abuse
There are solutions to every problem, we lack only the will and intelligence to pursue them.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2633
Yep, with the surprising number of vacant properties - in Calgary, The Kootenays and elsewhere - this makes good sense. Thinking in the right direction...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2582
Yeah, I like Iceland. If I wasn't moving to Nelson I'd be moving there.
{embed:youtube:C1qk-BQwNlA}
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2392
One of Trump's lines that attracted a lot of attention in the restaurant was when Hillary accused him of paying not tax for 20 years, to which he replied "That Makes Me Smart!". Well, sorry to disagree, it means that you have smart accountants and investors working for you. But I was struck by how many of our customers - those in business, especially, but quite a few who aren't as well - agreed with him. I beg to differ. It's called "Gaming the System" - moving your offices to Ireland - think Apple and Facebook - to take advantage of greatly reduced taxes - is shit. Companies do it all the time. Good business is not good citizenry.
If people demonstrated the same integrity that business do no taxes would ever be paid. We'd have a nation of people on EI, getting welfare, Subsidized housing, child support, free dentistry and be using the food banks and subsidized school and luncheon programs for our children. People who do this we realize intuitively are shitbags. We all collectively pay for so that they don't have to. Businesses that use similar loopholes, only many orders of magnitude greater - are shitbags as well. Trump, by his own admission, is that shitbag.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2333
(This started as a conversation with the owner over lunch, discussing Brexit, he didn't understand, "But Rich People Create Jobs" he argued...I couldn't respond in person. He wouldn't understand.)
True, Wealth creates jobs, but not wealth in a person. Distributed Wealth creates jobs. Wealth in a single individual is wasted. One man or woman can only consume so much - and while the very principle of wealth favors superfluous and excessive consumption, even that generally has limits...
Allow me to explain. Wealth - given the scale - the orders of magnitude - that separate the rich from the poor - has it's limits. A poor person (not homeless) - has an apartment, a poor car, eats, well, basic food. This person makes maybe $15 or $20 an hour. He/She pays $1000 a month for an apartment, $200 a month for the car, another $300 for miscellaneous expenses, leaving a few hundred, maybe a thousand dollars, left over for "luxuries" like liquor, cigarettes, restaurants, pubs, etc. There is very little left over for saving. Usually nothing, but if you're a Temporary Foreign Worker you'll find a way, live 6 people in a single bedroom, eat 3 pounds of rice a day, whatever it takes. If you've been poor you know.
If your wealthy, and let me set an imaginary limit here: Ten Million Dollars a year.
Link: The top five executives at Shaw received a total of about $49 million.
Shaw Cable is a publicly traded company and so must disclose it's earnings. Privately traded companies don't have to. Imagine.
In any event you earn $10,000,000 VS 40,000 per year. The upper end of poverty in Calgary. You are earning 250 times what the well-to-do poor people of Calgary earn.
No matter how refined your tastes are you can't consume that much fine wine. Or cigarettes. Or food. Or housing. They (the rich) try, but it always fails. And so the remainder they throw in the bank, investment portfolios, the what-have-yous. Take expensive vacations abroad (but the income earned locally is now dispersed to other countries and disappears.).
At 250 times the earnings of the (relatively wealthy) poorest earners, they perhaps save or invest 8 million out of 10. Factor in Taxes, we'll pretend they pay the same rates as us, (they don't, they have opportunities to use loopholes and tax laws we'll never know of) maybe 4 million. This money disappears, "in reserve", perhaps invested locally (although usually not) - and it's presence is largely recorded on paper, not in the real world.
The poor, meanwhile, 250 people (minimum, some will have dependents, wives, children, others) will continue to pump almost the entirety of their earnings into the economy. The majority of their earnings are required for food, lodging, living, etc. There is rarely anything left over. Everything they earn is tangibly invested in the world around them. They pay more rent (250 times a thousand is easily greater than than the largest mortgage payment any rich person makes in Calgary), they spend more on food, they spend more on dining out and luxuries, more on maintaining their 250 beater cars, I could continue. You get the idea.
The investment in the economy - local and otherwise - is far, far greater by the poor than it is by the rich. The rich generally do harm to the economy - investments that speculate on housing drive up rents, that speculate on commodities drive up the cost of food, fuel and the necessities. This is straightforward and intuitive, it should require no explaining, but talk to a rich person and see how well they understand.