Canadian government to fall

[Kuciwalker]

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

Okay, let's go over this again:

Assumption: a relatively small number of those in top 20% of earners do not have a college degree - therefore, almost all of the top 20% of earners do have a college degree. Do you disagree?

Roughly 20-25% of people in the US have a college degree.

Therefore, the majority - in fact, around 80% or more - of people with college degrees are the top 20% of earners.

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

That's because not all of the top 20% of earners are rich by our society's standards.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kontiki


Ouch. Really, really bad analogy.

How so?

[Seeker]

Conservative literature is piling up in my mailbox, apparently they are 'the party of Trades' and want to fix Canada's skilled trades problem.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Assumption: a relatively small number of those in top 20% of earners do not have a college degree

How do you know that assumption is true? What do you mean by small number? You need some facts to back up your assumptions.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Roughly 20-25% of people in the US have a college degree.

About 27% of Americans have university degrees. So even if all rich people have degrees, then 25% of university graduates are not in the top 20% of income earners. Given that a number of rich people do not have university degrees, we can say that more than one out of four people who gain a university degree do not become rich.

In Canada, people with 70% of university graduates have high incomes, 20% have medium incomes and 10% have low incomes. So a university degree is not a guarantee of income.

http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/health/nonmedicaldeterminantsofhealth/education/education_figure1.gif/image_view

[Kuciwalker]

About 27% of Americans have university degrees. So even if all rich people have degrees, then 25% of university graduates are not in the top 20% of income earners.

Which is roughly what I said, though my 80% guess was off a bit.

Given that a number of rich people do not have university degrees, we can say that more than one out of four people who gain a university degree do not become rich.

I'd assume that that number is relatively small, and anyway so? Doesn't that rather support my point?

In Canada, people with 70% of university graduates have high incomes, 20% have medium incomes and 10% have low incomes. So a university degree is not a guarantee of income.

It's a pretty good one. No one has said that all university students are rich, but that a college degree is virtually required to become rich and gives you a very good chance of securing a high income.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Tingkai


How so?

cats = people with university degrees
animals with four legs = "rich" people

Cats are animals with four legs. Not the entire set of animals with four legs, but, barring deformities or accidents, a wholly included subset. Ergo, people with university degrees are "rich", but there are others that are "rich" as well.

[Tingkai]

No, what they were saying is that cats = rich people, animals with four legs = university people. Anywas, whatever, you get my point.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
[I'd assume that that number is relatively small, and anyway so? Doesn't that rather support my point?

No, because your assumption is wrong.

45% of the Americans with incomes in the top 20% bracket have a college diploma or less.

15% of these income earners have a high school diploma or less.

Only 36% of people with a university degree earn a top 20% income.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_02.html

I'm a bit drunk so look at the graphic and see if I am right.

[Kontiki]

Fails either way. The logical flaw is that just because all A = B, not all B = A. Just a tip from a grammar nazi.

[Kontiki]

Anyway, all this is moot. In order for BK's latest claim to hold water, we'd need to see some stats that show a university grad in the US can expect to make 20% more than a university grad in Canada.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Fails either way. The logical flaw is that just because all A = B, not all B = A. Just a tip from a grammar nazi.

Well, I'll say you're right mainly because I'm too drunk to think right.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither


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.

Most taxation redistributes income: both within provinces and between provinces. It makes no difference if you have a Federalist system or not. You could of course ban equalization payments, but what would be the point of that? Equalization payments just reflect that the Federal tax system in Canada is used to partially fund stuff that provincial authorities are responsible for. But every insurance scheme exists to transfer funds from the fortunate to the unfortunate. Again, do you want to ban insurance?

It's no different than an insurance company that covers the whole country shifting funds from branches in one province to another. Would it be more efficient to keep the premiums from each province within that province? Perhaps, but you have to come up with some serious numbers to show that it is true, and it is unlikely to be true. Even corporations will shift funds around between branches and even countries rather than let each part of the company stand and fall on its own two feet.

But of course you believe, like most of the right (and a large proportion of the left) that taxation and public health care is about egalitarianism. For the most part it isn't: it's just easier to market the idea this way than it is to explain the sober economics that are the real reason for most public spending.

As it is, you are falling back on your old and tired form of argument: trying to recast the argument as being about particular features of Canadian society, rather than being about general economic principles. I'm sorry, the latter are prior to the former in any argument about this.

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.

You simply don't know what you are talking about. That has been amply demonstrated by your complete failure to address the economic point at issue. You haven't even shown that you understand it.

Two tier healthcare can work in certain situations. It is certainly no replacement for a well funded public system. Two tier healthcare is only really useful to clear up marginal cases (elective surgery being the main one). That was how it used to be used in New Zealand, and it worked rather well. Certainly, you should be afforded no tax breaks for private health insurance (as is currently the case).

If your complaint is that there are waiting lists, campaign for increased taxation to bring them down, since it is clear that Canadians are not paying for the amount of healthcare that they really need.

It would be silly to allow private health insurers to take over a significant portion of health care because it would just result in increased costs to the consumer (well, to most of them - except the 10% of the population that the Tories actually care about - and of course that is what is at issue here: rich people whining).

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Seeker
Conservative literature is piling up in my mailbox, apparently they are 'the party of Trades' and want to fix Canada's skilled trades problem.

Shouldn't they be letting the magic market solve this?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Fails either way. The logical flaw is that just because all A = B, not all B = A. Just a tip from a grammar nazi.

No, because you simply don't understand the argument. The argument is because X% of people have college diplomas, and X isn't much greater than 20, and most of the people in the top 20% of earners have a college diploma, then most of the people with a college diploma must be in the top 20% of earners by simple math. If X = 80 it's not true.

[Kuciwalker]

Let's make it simple. We have assorted blocks. Blocks come in two colors, red and blue. Blocks come in two shapes, round and square. 20% of the blocks are square. 30% of the blocks are blue. All of the square blocks are blue. Therefore, 67% of the blue blocks are square.