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I found this interesting, sure the Unifor pres. isn't an economist so 'what do they know'? And I don't agree the BofC is waging a 'class war' but what I can tell you is everything they seem to be saying and doing benefits someone that isn't me.

Sure inflation WAS really high but my variable mortgage costs me more now than inflation did. I was down 10s of dollars a month with inflation, I'm down 100s of dollars with the interest rate hikes.

Tiff can tell me its for the greater good and that unemployment is too low, but it sure feels like Bay Street preaching to Main Street. So what, its hard to find good people and people want to be paid more. Last I checked average wages have not kept up with inflation, that is unless you're in the class that's already reaping the benefits of dividends, share repurchases and bonuses. But they'll win, they always win, its just my savings.

I normally try to keep a level head with this stuff but I do think the BofC is out of touch.
 
I read an article a few days ago about the AG's report of pandemic supports and other things. Noticed something interesting when the article went over what the report had to say about CERB:

'Those pandemic supports, the audit said, primarily went to lower-income workers who benefited with an increase over their pre-pandemic incomes.

"Overall, these increases in government transfers to households exceeded losses in wages and salaries and self‑employment income," the audit said. "This income compensation through the COVID‑19 programs helped to financially support the population."

The audit said that because the financial support offered to low-income families boosted incomes beyond pre-pandemic levels, the benefits program created a disincentive to work that contributed to the labour shortage.

"The CERB created a disincentive to go back to work, especially for more than one-third of applicants who earned less than $500 per week," it said.

"For them, the CERB represented more than 100 per cent of income replacement. This may explain why approximately two million people stayed on the benefits for all seven periods, for a total of 28 weeks."'


To Summarize: Lower-income workers received transfers that exceeded what they had lost in income. Which, obviously, was a disincentive for them to go back to work. One-third of the people on CERB (maybe two million people) earned less than $500/week.

This was covered in the article under a section called 'achieving objectives'. Uh, no sh*t, this objective should be a normal bare minimum. If you work full-time and make $500/week you're making $12.50/hour (granted the $500 may be after taxes?). I don't blame these people at all for not going back to work, if your former work place was not willing to pay you enough to incentivize you back to work then ride that wave as long as you can.

I also take this as a little trial balloon on UBI and how people would act, it seems that more than one-third would initially stop working. I say initially because of course you could survive on CERB for 28 weeks but could you really do it forever? Plus if you're out of the work force, and so are others, businesses will be forced to raise their wages, acting as an artificial minimum wage. I'll also say that even if being on CERB was better than your wage, it surely didn't make you food secure and all the benefits that a person having regular meal can have on society. These people may have also been using food banks and other charity to get by. So what I'm saying is, CERB might not have made people want to go back to work for a little while but I don't equate that to people leaving the work force forever.

I'm curious what happened after the 28 weeks...
 
I also take this as a little trial balloon on UBI and how people would act, it seems that more than one-third would initially stop working.

If UBI is almost double minimum wage then yes, and especially if UBI implementation also means min wage goes away completely since the UBI might replace it.
I haven't been following UBI discussions, what was the desired amount as compared to minimum and living wages?
 
what was the desired amount as compared to minimum and living wages?
I honestly don't follow the formal discussion either.

A Herald article from November says:

'The living wage for Calgarians increased from $18.60 in 2021 to $22.40 this year. “A living wage is not a luxurious lifestyle. A living wage gets you to a place where you're not trading out your basic needs to survive,” said Meaghon Reid, executive director of Vibrant Communities Calgary.'

So if you're using that you'd like to think UBI would hit around those numbers, or I'm misunderstanding UBI. Either way, $22.40 per hour is well above minimum wage which would render it useless. It's actually quite a shock to read that number as if you want UBI to work it would have to be a 'living wage' otherwise you're not actually changing anything and just moving deck chairs around the titanic. At least in the sense that you could still have working people accessing food banks and the like. I think the goal would be to eliminate the need for food banks.

I need to read up more on UBI, should find a book on it and really dive in.
 
Hats off to Truman Homes for maintaining their website! Other developers just couldn't give a fuck or keep everything secret. In many cases, it almost appears that they're not in business anymore.
But Truman updates their website constantly and keeps it beautiful and easy to navigate. Well done.
 
I was so mad when I played the game and the daughter died that I never really played on haha.

Was sent this meme today and it cracked me up.
53554C82-5F90-4516-9ADB-2BFCB6D864CD.jpeg
 

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