Canadian government to fall

[Kuciwalker]

Those people who inherit wealth from their parents usually still go to college, Tingkai, and actually work...

[snoopy369]

[q=nye]

And it is a clear example of a non universal access nation. When did you suppose Canada would join them in that? Just after the next Conservative becomes PM and eats the brains of average Canadians?

When will that sci-fi movie be released? I saw Maggie Thatcher suck the life force out of a servant, now I want my Harper eating brains, damnit![/q]

I once went to a talk and got to see Maggie Thatcher suck the life force out of people. It was fun Afterwards we went to see Dinesh D'Souza talk about his time in the Reagan administration

[Ben Kenobi]

All insurance schemes redistribute to help the unfortunate. That's the point of insurance. It's no different whether you make it public or private: it's still insurance. Are you going to ban private insurance because it is redistributive?

Agathon, the only point I was arguing is that the vast majority of government programs act in a redistributive fashion. Nowhere did I make the assertion that this is a bad thing. That's why I highlighted the portion of your post where you acknowledge that these programs are in fact redistributive.

Are you going to stop everyone funding the police on the grounds that only the unlucky victims of crime utilize their services?

Some would say that the police function to serve the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. I'm surprised to hear you arguing in favour of effective policing, since that means you also believe the rich should hang on to their precious property.

But you are simply wrong in stating that the function of government is to tax the rich to fund the poor. Given the massive inequality in Canada, it does a very poor job of that.

Oh, so a successful government perfectly redistributes incomes? The fact that the government chooses not to redistribute all income is not necessarily a demonstration that it does a poor job of it.

but to compel people to pay for things that they need.

If they needed something, why would they have to be compelled to pay?

Everyone has a stake in having efficient policing, yet left to the market, we would have lousy policing because domestic security has significant externalities that would entail underproduction if left to the market.

Alright, but you must admit that even with the government funding these same problems exist. There are significant externalities, and the service has many gaps. There cannot be a police force that addresses these problems perfectly.

Even if everyone earned exactly the same amount of money, there would still be a need for taxation to ensure that certain goods were provided because of market failures.

Oh, very much so. The state cannot survive without money, and in order to redistribute income requires the state to take a portion of that income.

That's retarded. A flat tax generally means that everyone is taxed at the same rate (and marginal taxation would have to be abolished). The rich still pay more than the poor under a flat tax.

Pardon me? By definition the rich and poor alike would pay the same proportion of their incomes, in a flat tax.

This is false. People tend to work even harder to make up the lost income. This whole "discouragment" thesis is a myth. People who are going to cheat the taxman will do so irrespective.

Why work harder if it puts you in a higher tax bracket, Agathon? Why not stay where you are and be more efficient in the time that you spend working?

I'd fail you. Market failure is a basic economic concept, one which you seem completely ignorant of.

My prof actually is quite pleased with my work. So it makes me wonder why you obsess over one tiny point.

Can't you read? I said this above.

And I agreed with you that it is a function of a working economy.

You are acting as if there is some other alternative. There isnt. The only alternative would be the market - and that fails in these areas.

so you say there is no alternative to a monopoly on health care?

Economics 101: there is no perfect competition in the real world.

In certain industries they come very close. Again, if it is true that markets fail, and yet markets in the real world are not perfectly competitive, would it not be proper to attribute this failure to their lack of competition?

Slap yourself in the head. Markets don't make anything either, they just produce a more efficient allocation of goods in some areas. Regulation does the same thing where markets fail.

Okay, that's very true. The market does not produce things on it's own, even as it drives production and efficiency.

Tax is just that proportion of our incomes that we spend collectively. We do so because spending it individually would lead to market failure.

Is this necessarily true? What was health care like in Canada prior to this great innovation of Medicare?

Where market failure exists, competition is destructive. We want to get rid of competition in these areas because it doesn't work.

Are there areas in which competition can be beneficial? I have admitted that organising things through the state can be beneficial in certain circumstances.

because if they weren't so compelled, those goods would not be produced at all.

So no one would try to provide health coverage without compulsion? If there is a demand for health coverage, there will always be folks who try to provide it.


Once that portion of necessary swapping is out of the way, people are free to swap for whatever they like, because in the remaining portion of the economy markets don't fail.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
It doesn't matter. Federalism complicates matters, but the essential point is sound.

I didn't respond to this because it was such a dumb post. Are you happy now?

Stop making a fool of yourself. You've demonstrated that you do not have the foggiest clue of what you are banging on about.

Canadian Federalism makes it clear that income is redistributed through taxation. That is a major function of taxation and the federal government in this country.

Originally posted by Agathon Are you being idiotic on purpose? The production of pharmaceuticals is no different than the production of beds, or syringes or whatever. It's irrelevant since these things don't suffer from market failure.

A good bit less idiotic than the moron who is banging on about market failures and healthcare when the market is allowed to function just fine in most OECD countries, while being denied in just Canada.

Really, Aggie, I'd thought you'd have enough self respect to sit down and shut up, before more people see how much of as total blowhard you are.

[notyoueither]

Now, if you'd be so kind as to STFU, Aggie, we may discuss our election without your trolling.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Those people who inherit wealth from their parents usually still go to college, Tingkai, and actually work...

Very good Kuci. What are you going to tell us next? That sun rises in the east?

[Ming]

I think some people need to chill...

Discuss the TOPIC... NOT the POSTERS!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Very good Kuci. What are you going to tell us next? That sun rises in the east?

You didn't know that either?

Wrong again. You assume a direct link between the 20% of Canadian income earners have degrees. That a false assumption. The people who are rich are often rich because they inherited money from their parents, rather than because of education

If even the people who are rich only because of their parents have degrees, then the correlation is going to be pretty strong.

[Tingkai]

Kuci, you're missing the point. The incomes of the very rich cannot be used as a benchmark for people with university degrees. Just because a person has a degree does not mean that they will, on average, earn a salary in the top 20 percentile.

[Tingkai]

What's the reaction to the election in Canada? Do people care? Are people talking about it much or are they more concerned with getting ready for Christmas? Anyone here working for a political party?

[Jon Miller]

most people with degrees only make 20k to 40k in the US

some get up to 100k, a very few make it to higher

the best way to make more money, is to have money

as the best way to make lots of money (besides being an entertainer) is to invest (in stockmarket, or land, or a company, or etc)

JM

[Tingkai]

Just noticed that the Canadian dollar is up against the American, which means the money I earn in Hong Kong is now worth 30% less in Canada compared to about three years ago.

The strong Canadian dollar must be hurting a lot of Canadian exporters.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Kuci, you're missing the point. The incomes of the very rich cannot be used as a benchmark for people with university degrees. Just because a person has a degree does not mean that they will, on average, earn a salary in the top 20 percentile.

No, you missed BK's actually quite good point:

If roughly 20 percent (it's actually about 25 percent IIRC, but whatever) of people have a college degree, then it's quite likely that there is a very, very high correlation between college degrees and being in the top 20% of earners. Unless you speculate that a large number of those without college degrees are in the top 20% of earners....?

[Tingkai]

Many people here have universities degrees, very few are in the top 20% of income earners.

Just because you have a university degree does not mean that you will become rich.

What you're saying, and what BK said, is that if an animal has four legs then it is a cat.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Many people here have universities degrees, very few are in the top 20% of income earners.

Just because you have a university degree does not mean that you will become rich.

What you're saying, and what BK said, is that if an animal has four legs then it is a cat.

Ouch. Really, really bad analogy.