[mig174]

...
1 final comment... I loved my job and worked 80+ hour weeks for decades. And Brockm, given the opportunity to do it again the same way, I would do exactly the same thing. In fact, I would have worked for 1/2 the money....but I was very fortunate to have a job which I loved and would have probably worked for free but I do appreciate this was very fortunate. That said, perhaps it explains why I do not mind the progressive tax system. I just wish governments would use the money more wisely.

I work 80 - 100 hour work weeks and say this to brockm: if you are too blind to understand how privileged you are to get the opportunities you've had to get to where you were and are too much of a crybaby to participate in a slightly more fair, but still grossly unfair (think 3rd highest levels of income inequality in the world), society, then please... get the fuck out of Canada and take your juvenile libertarian ideals with you.

Insane how rich people these days cry about taxes to pay for the civilization around them; Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 91% in the 50s. It's about damn time we got back to that.

 

[interested]

I work 80 - 100 hour work weeks and say this to brockm: if you are too blind to understand how privileged you are to get the opportunities you've had to get to where you were and are too much of a crybaby to participate in a slightly more fair, but still grossly unfair (think 3rd highest levels of income inequality in the world), society, then please... get the fuck out of Canada and take your juvenile libertarian ideals with you.

Insane how rich people these days cry about taxes to pay for the civilization around them; Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 91% in the 50s. It's about damn time we got back to that.

Mig,
I do not believe in 91% taxation.
That destroys initiative.
We live in a global competitive market and unless the world as a whole moves in this direction
it is not good policy for Canada.
I agree that we should address the inequity gap but except for entrepreneur/owners who are very successful,
I find it offensive to hear of million dollar salaries today. No justification in my mind.
That said, I do not think brockm or others on this forum who are in the $150 to $250K for a job probably with
specialized skills, long hours are overpaid. I also don't think just because they choose to compare to the US which
has the lowest tax in the G7 is reasonable either but that is just my opinion.
Also, what we are all discussing here is where we draw the line.
For me, that is around the 50% mark for federal/provincial and other taxes. I can live with the overall 53% that someone eluded to.
I frankly am comfortable to share at this level. I appreciate others have a different threshold.

In France, Hollande suggested 75%. While most would like to have problems of
wealthy (top 1%) and even more the top 0.1% problems, these individuals do make
other sacrifices which are not immediately apparent to others who simply view them
with envy.
I personally knew a very high executive at 1 of the major banks. This was 20 years ago
before the salaries reached the Stratosphere and the totally ridiculous now but then he made in
the high $250-$300K/year. His life. Meeting with top executives every morning @6 a.m. to 7 a.m.
Work....lunch at his desk most days unless meeting with others. Work to 6 p.m. Bank function
2-3x/week for dinner which he would invariably leave if possible by 9 p.m. so he could be home by
10 p.m. If no function, usually not home until 9 or 10 p.m. Often worked weekends. My point is by many people's standards....he and his family made severe sacrifices.
One could argue that was his choice. Today, the same position within the bank would be in the low
to mid 7 figures counting in options/stock. I find these salaries offensive today but personally unless
I loved the work I would pass on it.
However, I think it is unreasonable to punish this individual at rates beyond 50% ( say 75% or even the 91% as
suggested from the 50's ) since no reasonable person will do this job and it is unfair to expect the individual
doing it to support not 1 or 2 or 5 other people but 10+ etc.

 

[mig174]

Mig,
I do not believe in 91% taxation.
That destroys initiative.
We live in a global competitive market and unless the world as a whole moves in this direction
it is not good policy for Canada.
I agree that we should address the inequity gap but except for entrepreneur/owners who are very successful,
I find it offensive to hear of million dollar salaries today. No justification in my mind.
That said, I do not think brockm or others on this forum who are in the $150 to $250K for a job probably with
specialized skills, long hours are overpaid. I also don't think just because they choose to compare to the US which
has the lowest tax in the G7 is reasonable either but that is just my opinion.
Also, what we are all discussing here is where we draw the line.
For me, that is around the 50% mark for federal/provincial and other taxes. I can live with the overall 53% that someone eluded to.
I frankly am comfortable to share at this level. I appreciate others have a different threshold.

In France, Hollande suggested 75%. While most would like to have problems of
wealthy (top 1%) and even more the top 0.1% problems, these individuals do make
other sacrifices which are not immediately apparent to others who simply view them
with envy.
I personally knew a very high executive at 1 of the major banks. This was 20 years ago
before the salaries reached the Stratosphere and the totally ridiculous now but then he made in
the high $250-$300K/year. His life. Meeting with top executives every morning @6 a.m. to 7 a.m.
Work....lunch at his desk most days unless meeting with others. Work to 6 p.m. Bank function
2-3x/week for dinner which he would invariably leave if possible by 9 p.m. so he could be home by
10 p.m. If no function, usually not home until 9 or 10 p.m. Often worked weekends. My point is by many people's standards....he and his family made severe sacrifices.
One could argue that was his choice. Today, the same position within the bank would be in the low
to mid 7 figures counting in options/stock. I find these salaries offensive today but personally unless
I loved the work I would pass on it.
However, I think it is unreasonable to punish this individual at rates beyond 50% ( say 75% or even the 91% as
suggested from the 50's ) since no reasonable person will do this job and it is unfair to expect the individual
doing it to support not 1 or 2 or 5 other people but 10+ etc.

The point wasn't to argue about a a specific number. The 91% was targeted at what would effectively be any income over $2 million. It didn't kill any motivation or initiative. On the contrary, the 50s were great economic times. And this 91% was in force when one of the great conservative leaders of the 20th century was in power, not some "tax and spend" liberal, as everyone a millimeter to the right of the center starts to yell whenever new taxes are proposed nowadays. The rate did go down once the US paid down its debt.

The point was that whiners like brockm believe they're marginalized and unfairly treated when they're actually among the most privileged members of our society. And should pay into it accordingly.

 

[marsh]

Brockm

I'm not sure what your complaint is - is it working 80 hours a week or, in our opinion, paying too much taxes? I think the world has changed and employers every where are demanding more from employees and this has been excerbated by the use of technology - we are on 24 hours a day. If you are in the same job, I don't think moving to the US or another country is necessarily going to reduce the number of hours you work - but if you pay less taxes you will see more take home pay (assuming other economic costs are the same or less). So my question is - will it really make you more happy having more take home pay? And how much more do you want in less taxes - 10%, 20% - 50%? I agree too that people should be rewarded for their success and don't support punitive income tax rates but personally I don't think we are at that in Canada. I do support a progressive tax system and the social programs it supports because I think society as a whole benefits and therefore I indirectly benefit, even if I personally am not a user of a particular social program or do not benefit as much from such social programs as other Canadians might.

Anyways, this is all a very interesting discussion, but perhaps has veered too off topic? Maybe a new thread should be started.

 

[interested]

^^^
Agree Marsh.
We better get back on topic before the mod's get upset with us.

 

[daveto]

I work 80 - 100 hour work weeks and say this to brockm: if you are too blind to understand how privileged you are to get the opportunities you've had to get to where you were and are too much of a crybaby to participate in a slightly more fair, but still grossly unfair (think 3rd highest levels of income inequality in the world), society, then please... get the fuck out of Canada and take your juvenile libertarian ideals with you.

Insane how rich people these days cry about taxes to pay for the civilization around them; Eisenhower taxed the top bracket at 91% in the 50s. It's about damn time we got back to that.

Sounds like someone needs a hug.


Let me ask you this. Suppose five people are on a hiking trip, and one person is much physically stronger (due to working out at the gym, eating healthy) and therefore carries a higher share of the backpacks, etc. Shouldn't you be saying to that person "Hey man, thanks, glad to have you with us", instead of, "F**K you, you're lucky to be able to hang out with us. Shut your pie-hole or we'll make you carry more!". Just a thought.

 

[js97]

Sounds like someone needs a hug.


Let me ask you this. Suppose five people are on a hiking trip, and one person is much physically stronger (due to working out at the gym, eating healthy) and therefore carries a higher share of the backpacks, etc. Shouldn't you be saying to that person "Hey man, thanks, glad to have you with us", instead of, "F**K you, you're lucky to be able to hang out with us. Shut your pie-hole or we'll make you carry more!". Just a thought.

Exactly. Further to that, shouldn't the hiker carrying more luggage have access to more food than the rest of the hikers?

p.s mig174 doubt you put in 80to100 hours regularly.

p.p.s. A house in Scarborough listed at 449k (about 180k under market value) received 20+ bids. You would think that buyers have learned some sort of lesson that having anything more than 4-5 bids, it will be a waste of your time unless you are willing to grossly overpay for that property.

Demand still appears to be strong.

 

[brockm]

The point was that whiners like brockm believe they're marginalized and unfairly treated

Except, of course, I don't feel I'm being "marginalized". I've made no such claim. Also, I don't deny that I have privilege. I acknowledged this multiple times. But this must be countered with the reality that there's a lot of people who'd rather make half the money and work half the hours, because they value their free time more than I do.

When you reduce this stuff to one-dimensional class warfare-type nonsense, you really get nowhere. As I've also said previously, it's people like yourself who anger me more than the taxes I'm paying. Because let's be clear, if my marginal tax rate was say, 70%, I would be completely dis-incentivized to work as hard as I do, and the government would end up making much less money off me than they do now.

Which is why people who think as you do are merely thinking in punitive terms. You're more concerned with "punishing" people who you view as privileged, like myself, even if it hurts you in the end. Which is, of course, spiteful.

Canada suffered a severe lost of talent in the past twenty years to the United States. Talent that our social programmes paid to help develop through subsidized education. Even today, over 60% of the doctors Canada trains end up leaving the country.

One of the biggest reasons that people leave is because they can make more money elsewhere. At lower cost of living. And the more people like you demand that government "stick it" to people like me, the more and more people "like me" will simply leave. And you may be happy with that. But if you think driving talent away in the name of fairness helps you in ANY WAY, I think you haven't thought this through very well.

Put another way, if my marginal taxes were 5% lower, and 20% more people in my industry decided to stay in Canada, rather than move to the US, because the gap in take home income was that much lower... Canada's tax base would actually be larger! This is a real phenomenon that economists can and have measured. It's known as the Laffer Curve. Although, it covers more things than just economic emmigration.

 

[PinkLucy]

Interesting, this news article from 2012 says that the numbers of Canadians moving to the US was the lowest in a long time: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/cana...g-canada-record-numbers-report-161857845.html and that more Americans are moving to Canada than in the past. I know a number of Americans who speak about our more accepting attitudes here, particularly regarding gay marriage and overall tolerance. Within my own family, a couple of people have turned down good job offers in the US because when they crunched the numbers, they really weren't any further ahead, and they prefer Canadian attitudes over American ones. The one family member who did do the move can't wait to get back -- he's pretty much a "redneck", but he says he feels like an outright socialist compared to his co-workers. That quality of life thing and general attitudes about life, living and people is what keeps me in Canada. But again, to each his own.

Also, this Globe & Mail article states that more doctors returned to Canada than left in 2012: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...r-of-doctors-but-is-it-enough/article5340309/

 

[brockm]

Interesting, this news article from 2012 says that the numbers of Canadians moving to the US was the lowest in a long time: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/cana...g-canada-record-numbers-report-161857845.html and that more Americans are moving to Canada than in the past. I know a number of Americans who speak about our more accepting attitudes here, particularly regarding gay marriage and overall tolerance. Within my own family, a couple of people have turned down good job offers in the US because when they crunched the numbers, they really weren't any further ahead, and they prefer Canadian attitudes over American ones. The one family member who did do the move can't wait to get back -- he's pretty much a "redneck", but he says he feels like an outright socialist compared to his co-workers. That quality of life thing and general attitudes about life, living and people is what keeps me in Canada. But again, to each his own.

Also, this Globe & Mail article states that more doctors returned to Canada than left in 2012: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...r-of-doctors-but-is-it-enough/article5340309/

Yes. Which is why I'm saying AFTER the US economy begins to recover in earnest, we'll see a trend reversal. But in my industry, technology, the brain drain never stopped through the recession, to be honest. I knew people who moved to Silicon Valley in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012... and even recently.

Even at the height of the recession, the truth is, the US remained a major draw for tech jobs.

Not all of this is taxes, of course. Part of it is that there's no real risk capital in Canada to invest in tech. On the other hand, the reason there's no risk capital in Canada, is that venture capitalists probably don't want to pay our tax rates. =)

There's A LOT of Canadian VCs. They just all, magically enough, seem to end up in the US. Which means, by extension, they're taking those jobs with them.

Yay class warfare!

 

[Kenny]

They just all, magically enough, seem to end up in the US. Which means, by extension, they're taking those jobs with them.

I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of that. Why would VCs go to the US because of taxes? Our corporate tax rate is much lower.

 

[brockm]

I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of that. Why would VCs go to the US because of taxes? Our corporate tax rate is much lower.

VCs wouldn't pay corporate taxes. They'd pay capital gains, since they're taking risks and making investments.

 

[TrickyRicky]

There will always be a brain drain to the US in certain sectors because our domestic industries lack the scale to ever compete.

The median American on the other hand long ago already fell behind. You can talk about cost of living but I've got to say that my experience from travelling is that PPP type comparisons don't work. Absolute US dollar comparisons give you a better representation of Standard of Living. Countries like Switzerland (at the extreme) and Canada that are penalized using purchasing power comparisons when comparing standard of living, just offer clearly higher standards of living than similar countries where purchasing power comparisons boost comparisions. An example I recently experienced is Taiwan which, on paper, has a similar standard of living as Canada. On the ground however this is clearly not the case. You would be better off financially sweeping floors in Canada then being an IT worker in Taiwan.

The scary thing about the US is how far median Americans are falling behind at a time when government expenditures in that country are out of control.

 

[brockm]

The scary thing about the US is how far median Americans are falling behind at a time when government expenditures in that country are out of control.

Of course, this isn't surprising, given the size of the US and the problem of inefficiency in government spending. Which, I know is a radical notion that earns me a one-way ticket to crazy-land.

It's not surprising to me at all that smaller states, like in Scandinavia get away with *relatively* efficient welfare states, and larger states like the US seemingly get more and more inefficient as they grow. The economic phenomena that contribute to this are actually quite well understood. People just refuse to accept it for ideological reasons.

 

[interested]

Except, of course, I don't feel I'm being "marginalized". I've made no such claim. Also, I don't deny that I have privilege. I acknowledged this multiple times. But this must be countered with the reality that there's a lot of people who'd rather make half the money and work half the hours, because they value their free time more than I do.

When you reduce this stuff to one-dimensional class warfare-type nonsense, you really get nowhere. As I've also said previously, it's people like yourself who anger me more than the taxes I'm paying. Because let's be clear, if my marginal tax rate was say, 70%, I would be completely dis-incentivized to work as hard as I do, and the government would end up making much less money off me than they do now.

Which is why people who think as you do are merely thinking in punitive terms. You're more concerned with "punishing" people who you view as privileged, like myself, even if it hurts you in the end. Which is, of course, spiteful.

Canada suffered a severe lost of talent in the past twenty years to the United States. Talent that our social programmes paid to help develop through subsidized education. Even today, over 60% of the doctors Canada trains end up leaving the country.

One of the biggest reasons that people leave is because they can make more money elsewhere. At lower cost of living. And the more people like you demand that government "stick it" to people like me, the more and more people "like me" will simply leave. And you may be happy with that. But if you think driving talent away in the name of fairness helps you in ANY WAY, I think you haven't thought this through very well.

Put another way, if my marginal taxes were 5% lower, and 20% more people in my industry decided to stay in Canada, rather than move to the US, because the gap in take home income was that much lower... Canada's tax base would actually be larger! This is a real phenomenon that economists can and have measured. It's known as the Laffer Curve. Although, it covers more things than just economic emmigration.

Brock,
I do not believe that this is correct.
There was a brain drain of physicians in the 1990's and even early 2000's. But the trend has slowed down markedly and has even reversed.
There was a problem of inadequate funding and no positions for physicians in certain specialties. Family doctors and emergency physicians do better in Canada than their counterparts. Some specialists make much more in the US than in Canada but even they are being realed in quite markedly by insurance companies.

Your comments regarding technology may well be correct. Certainly the closest thing we had perhaps to Silicon Valley was Kitchener Waterloo and perhaps Toronto but I think these are in a minor league so it is not a fair comparison. Probably there are few places in the world that can compete with Silicon Valley. That said, cost of living there is extremely high as you know and makes Toronto relatively cheap....so a large amount of the extra wages goes to that. However, for stimulation, I am sure Silicon Valley must be superb.