I agree. I'm in the early thirties and having an opportunity to travel plentiful for work, I'm constantly tempted to move myself and my wife to the U.S. The same income goes a lot further in the US, even in major cities like Chicago or LA.
Smaller cities like Minneapolis or Austin has really ben enticing my curiosity. Yes, it may involve living in a gated/exclusive neighbourhood and ignoring my social conscience on how the US treats its poor, but after a while, selfishness and pragmatism takes over idealism.
Back to the Housing market.
I've witnessed a semi in riverdale go for 1.25M (120k over) and a rundown bungalow (60*220ft) in Scarborough go for 660k (40k over).
Although the market seems to be cooling 'enmasse', there appears to still be a group of buyers willing to substantially 'over pay' for a home (pent up demand from the previous years).
Yes. I think as the US slowly pulls itself out of the economic doldrums in the coming years, Canada will experience a second brain drain like it did in the late 90s, early 2000s. For a while, Canada has seemed to have had better prospects. But upwardly mobile people -- the smartest people -- eventually tire of being piggy banks for the national purse. These people, the people who willingly work 80 hours a week -- I count myself in this category -- to build things, to learn and to create success feel punished, not rewarded. Especially when we try to build a family.
This is the other dimension to it. I've already admitted I'm in the $150k-$250k income category. But here's the thing. I *do* put in 80 hours a week. And often, on weekends, I find myself heads down on my laptop trying to catch up on work. My job isn't a cushy 9-to-5 job. It requires that I give a lot of myself.
So when people say: "just be happy you have the problems you do, and pay your taxes", that doesn't sit well with me. Because I have people in my family and friends who'll say to me: "you know, you really have no work-life balance. Perhaps you should accept a lower income and get your stress down".
Think about that for a second.
I never finished university. But I have a high paying job. The job wasn't handed to me. I was born into a household, and grew up in a household that had a household income below the national median. My parents made just enough money to not qualify for OSAP, or afford to pay for university. I was, by all accounts, at a serious disadvantage. Except for the fact that I'm a white male -- which I acknowledge grants me privilege, and I don't deny that.
But here's the thing. I may be making a high income. But I haven't "made it". I'm still killing myself week after week. I have 20 days of Paid Time Off given to me every year with my employer. Just before I went on vacation before Christmas, I had accumulated 68 days of PTO. Do the math. =)
This isn't some pep talk about saying people should just work harder if they want to be like me. I don't think like that. What this is, is the cold harsh reality of where I've pulled myself up my the bootstraps, worked my ass off, continue to work my ass off, and all people can say is: well, you should be happy you are where you are. A lot of people would love to have your problems.
But that's not true. The counterfactual is that a lot of people would HATE to have my problems, even if it meant more money. Hence, family members and such trying to get me to accept a lower income for a more "work-life balance".
This is about sacrifice to support my family and secure their future. But it seems the harder I work, the more I'm working to secure the future sustainability of social programmes that, in many cases, I don't even support.
So here's what I did. Over the weekend I finally calculated a figure of what I believe I gave to the government in taxes. I included sales taxes by going through Mint.com (which is awesome by the way) subtracting groceries and children's items (to the best of my ability, since I don't pay sales taxes on those). I pay sales taxes on a lot of my bills -- like telephone, internet, cellular, etc -- so I factored that in, too.
This is not the *marginal* rate I pay. I paid an *average* income tax rate of 41.7%. BUT, when you consider the sales taxes I paid on the bills, services and goods from the year, the total amount of money I contributed to the public purse represented about 54.3% of my income. That's a majority of my income paid in taxes.
The problem with working hard in a progressive tax system to get ahead is that progressive taxation creates a feeling of diminishing returns. And for someone whose lost as much of his life to 80+ hour work weeks to get where he is, it starts feeling really unfair. When I hear people say that people who are in my privileged position should pay more, it makes me want to get violent.
