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Labor: Tax the rich, don't touch safety nets

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  • Nov 18th, 2012 12:54 am
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Nov 14, 2012
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Toronto

Labor: Tax the rich, don't touch safety nets

Public Union Labor IS the rich. All the new expensive boats are owned by retired public union people with 2 and 3 pensions down at the marina. They are all millionaires living in gated communities. I say tax the crap out of them. Make them sell their boats, give the money to the gubmint and get me some free gubmint cheese and crackers. Tax the crap out of the public union workers. They have all the loot anyway.
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Feb 15, 2008
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Exactly. Massive bloat in the public sector, and to top it all off, government is downsizing through 'attrition', which basically hurts the young people at the expense of the old public servants who get to retire with their million dollar + pensions (figure out the NPV on a risk-free government annuity -- its typically a million bucks or more for most career public sector retirees!).
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Dec 27, 2006
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Agree. But that's not going to happen until both of the following conditions are met:
- Politicians with the gut to pledge a platform to reduce gov't size and lower public service sector compensation, and with the capabilities to get elected.
- Public sector workers who actually support the gov't, regardless of the platform above.

Good luck with that.
Member
Mar 27, 2009
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Better yet, why not just fire them all and be done with it? Then outsource all government services overseas to the lowest bidder. I'm sure there's someone we can pay $2 a day in China to do the same thing.
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Dec 26, 2009
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Talk about generalizations...

And having separate individual income taxes for industries or company-type would be an absolute nightmare. The proper way to keep income of a given industry/company-type in line is to CHANGE BENEFITS up-front.

Sure, some people are set for life thanks to their benefits (during working years, and retirement), which were agreed upon by both the company & the employee. Just because someone doesn't like it now, doesn't make it ok to retroactively go back and take it away.

I agree that many public servants are paid well above market values, but you also need to remember that the benefits of civil servants need to be kept at least in line with the private sector. Otherwise the best & brightest will flee to private companies, leaving the worst (laziest and oldest) employees to run the government works.
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RubberCheese wrote: Sure, some people are set for life thanks to their benefits (during working years, and retirement), which were agreed upon by both the company & the employee. Just because someone doesn't like it now, doesn't make it ok to retroactively go back and take it away.
Well too much was promised to these people, and we can't afford it. At some level, something is going to have to give. Giving retired public servants a retirement annuity typically worth $1M when they've only contributed 10-20% of the cost over their working lifetimes, isn't at all fair to Canadians in the private sector who pay taxes all their lives and mostly won't be able to accumulate a million dollars in retirement savings.
I agree that many public servants are paid well above market values, but you also need to remember that the benefits of civil servants need to be kept at least in line with the private sector. Otherwise the best & brightest will flee to private companies, leaving the worst (laziest and oldest) employees to run the government works.
Well smaller government with far less of a role, would take care of the problem. Government shouldn't be employing the best and brightest -- those people are needed in the private sector to drive growth. Its a complete travesty when top grads from the universities are all lining up at the Government booths at the career fairs vying to be public servants.

Government basically should be a job for losers who can't get jobs anywhere else (at salaries that reflect such!). In the high growth periods of the 70s and 80s and even 90s, especially in some of the higher demand fields of engineering and finance, only the imbeciles from those respective professions worked for government.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Dec 26, 2009
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Mark77 wrote: Well smaller government with far less of a role, would take care of the problem. Government shouldn't be employing the best and brightest -- those people are needed in the private sector to drive growth. Its a complete travesty when top grads from the universities are all lining up at the Government booths at the career fairs vying to be public servants.

Government basically should be a job for losers who can't get jobs anywhere else (at salaries that reflect such!). In the high growth periods of the 70s and 80s and even 90s, especially in some of the higher demand fields of engineering and finance, only the imbeciles from those respective professions worked for government.
I agree that smaller government is the way to go. But remember, these are the people that set policy, plan infrastructure, etc which lay the groundwork for all citizens. You want smart people to do this. In an ideal (small-government) world, the "imbeciles" would be working for private companies doing the gruntwork.

I think the teachers have it (too) good, but I definitely want the next generation of kids to be taught by intellegent people, not "losers who can't get jobs elsewhere".
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Jun 26, 2011
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Mark77 wrote: Well too much was promised to these people, and we can't afford it. At some level, something is going to have to give. Giving retired public servants a retirement annuity typically worth $1M when they've only contributed 10-20% of the cost over their working lifetimes, isn't at all fair to Canadians in the private sector who pay taxes all their lives and mostly won't be able to accumulate a million dollars in retirement savings.
So you think it is right for an employer to offer someone a compensation package and hire them, then breach the agreement later because they don't like what THEY AGREED to?

Gary Bettman, is that you?
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Jun 6, 2007
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RubberCheese wrote: I agree that smaller government is the way to go. But remember, these are the people that set policy, plan infrastructure, etc which lay the groundwork for all citizens. You want smart people to do this. In an ideal (small-government) world, the "imbeciles" would be working for private companies doing the gruntwork.

I think the teachers have it (too) good, but I definitely want the next generation of kids to be taught by intellegent people, not "losers who can't get jobs elsewhere".
I see merit here; but this is where government payroll "groundwork" is at its worst. On a relative basis, government rewards most the lower rungs while rewarding least the higher rungs. A great example of this is the pay of tax auditors. Auditors reviewing the books of a small sole proprietorship (i.e., < 400,000 in revenues) earn approximately $50,000-60,000 per year while auditors reviewing the books of large corporations (> $100 million in revenues) earn about $70,000-80,000. Given the economic magnitude of what is at stake, there is an absolute disconnect between the need for high-quality personnel and salaries offered.

An optimal career path for many professions is to start with the government and jump to the private sector mid-career. To stick with the CRA example, this makes particular sense because it gives one institutional knowledge of the compliance authority that can be valuable to the private sector.
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RolandCouch wrote: So you think it is right for an employer to offer someone a compensation package and hire them, then breach the agreement later because they don't like what THEY AGREED to?
Happens all the time in the private sector. Pensions have been repudiated by tons of bankrupt/insolvent corporations. Nortel pensioners lost nearly everything, as did Stelco pensioners, etc. Yes, it would be an injustice, but why should government workers be immune from such injustices that private sector workers weren't immune to when they happened to work for poorly managed businesses (to wit: Nortel, Stelco, among others)?

As a transition measure, I'd be completely in favour of limiting government pensions severely, to a maximum of $40k/year per government pensioner (integrated with CPP), rather than just cancelling the pensions across the board. The government scheme of basing pension payouts to the last 5 years of service (or a similar formula) is particularly offensive.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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RubberCheese wrote: I agree that smaller government is the way to go. But remember, these are the people that set policy, plan infrastructure, etc which lay the groundwork for all citizens. You want smart people to do this. In an ideal (small-government) world, the "imbeciles" would be working for private companies doing the gruntwork.
Well what you're proposing is central planning, and there are tons and tons of examples around the world, namely in the Soviet Union, where centrally planned economies, with an over-arching public sector, is not the most efficient model for economic prosperity and growth.
I think the teachers have it (too) good, but I definitely want the next generation of kids to be taught by intellegent people, not "losers who can't get jobs elsewhere".
Right now, teachers are basically the bottom of the barrel coming out of the universities. People who flunk out of the sciences, flunk out of engineering, flunk out of accounting, flunk out of practically every other subject, are those who end up in 'education'. Yet we pay top dollar for these people. Obviously not a great system and quite broken. Top quality talent generally doesn't want to go into relatively mundane jobs like teaching.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Jun 26, 2011
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Mark77 wrote: Top quality talent generally doesn't want to go into relatively mundane jobs like teaching.


So your solution to attract the best and brightest is to cut wages, pensions and benefits? :facepalm:
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dgodsell wrote: I see merit here; but this is where government payroll "groundwork" is at its worst. On a relative basis, government rewards most the lower rungs while rewarding least the higher rungs. A great example of this is the pay of tax auditors. Auditors reviewing the books of a small sole proprietorship (i.e., < 400,000 in revenues) earn approximately $50,000-60,000 per year while auditors reviewing the books of large corporations (> $100 million in revenues) earn about $70,000-80,000. Given the economic magnitude of what is at stake, there is an absolute disconnect between the need for high-quality personnel and salaries offered.
If we didn't have such a bloated public sector and high costs, certainly taxes could be quite a bit lower and narrower in their focus (ie: a VAT), and hence, tax evasion wouldn't be nearly as attractive on a risk-reward proposition.

I think a very big part of the problem out there, especially in the senior ranks of the public service, is the delusion that those senior civil servants are in demand in the private sector, and could merely leave. Every time the topic comes up, someone claims, "those people could leave and get twice as much pay in the private sector", to which my response is, "then why don't they???". The answer, invariably, is that the senior civil servants usually have an inflated set of beliefs of their skills and their value in the private sector.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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RolandCouch wrote:

So your solution to attract the best and brightest is to cut wages, pensions and benefits? :facepalm:
No, my suggestion is that, as a society, we don't want the best and brightest in public service -- we want the best and brightest to be in the private sector where they can start businesses and use their talents to create things and create a tax base for public services -- rather than merely collecting taxes and spending wealth ultimately created by private business.

Government creates nothing. They only tax and spend.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Mark77 wrote: No, my suggestion is that, as a society, we don't want the best and brightest in public service -- we want the best and brightest to be in the private sector where they can start businesses and use their talents to create things and create a tax base for public services -- rather than merely collecting taxes and spending wealth ultimately created by private business.

Government creates nothing. They only tax and spend.
Ahhhh trickle-down economics.

Of course we would not want any good talent/money invested in say...the education of future generations.
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RolandCouch wrote: Ahhhh trickle-down economics.

Of course we would not want any good talent/money invested in say...the education of future generations.
You can make that argument for any sector. For instance, engineering salaries in Canada are pretty low compared to professions like Medicine, Accounting, Law, etc. that have similar training requirements. Do we not want the best talent in our engineering sector, improving our productivity and doing R&D to ensure technological leadership that is to the benefit of future generations?

There's always the concept of private education as well. If a school opened in a community that had better quality teachers, but cost a little more, people may be willing to pay the extra cost if they can demonstrate that there is an additional benefit involved in employing teachers with greater qualifications. My local community has a few examples of schools that work on this model -- families pay an extra couple thousand dollars a year in my community for the benefit of religious education that isn't otherwise provided by the public system.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Oct 28, 2009
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RubberCheese wrote: Talk about generalizations...

And having separate individual income taxes for industries or company-type would be an absolute nightmare. The proper way to keep income of a given industry/company-type in line is to CHANGE BENEFITS up-front.

Sure, some people are set for life thanks to their benefits (during working years, and retirement), which were agreed upon by both the company & the employee. Just because someone doesn't like it now, doesn't make it ok to retroactively go back and take it away.

I agree that many public servants are paid well above market values, but you also need to remember that the benefits of civil servants need to be kept at least in line with the private sector. Otherwise the best & brightest will flee to private companies, leaving the worst (laziest and oldest) employees to run the government works.
Unions of any type never attract the best and brightest, ever. It's like, the raison d'etre of unions. Sink to the lowest common denominator and stay there.

So the effect is, you hire mediocre people for government bureaucracy, then you pay them like they are royalty. Nobody gets anything done, costs up the wazoo.
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bluenote wrote: Unions of any type never attract the best and brightest, ever. It's like, the raison d'etre of unions. Sink to the lowest common denominator and stay there.

So the effect is, you hire mediocre people for government bureaucracy, then you pay them like they are royalty. Nobody gets anything done, costs up the wazoo.
Even worse is when new top new grads take government positions because the starting salaries tend to be higher, and benefits much higher (especially for women who, when childbearing, receive benefits and enjoy the slack work environment far more than would ever be tolerated in the private sector). Over time, the initiative of those top grads, and their skillsets, fall into decline/disrepair, as they are stuck for many years in the relatively boring unionized environment with limited opportunities for advancement, dysfunctional management strategies, etc.

Most of what government does isn't rocket science either.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Mark77 wrote: You can make that argument for any sector. For instance, engineering salaries in Canada are pretty low compared to professions like Medicine, Accounting, Law, etc. that have similar training requirements. Do we not want the best talent in our engineering sector, improving our productivity and doing R&D to ensure technological leadership that is to the benefit of future generations?

There's always the concept of private education as well. If a school opened in a community that had better quality teachers, but cost a little more, people may be willing to pay the extra cost if they can demonstrate that there is an additional benefit involved in employing teachers with greater qualifications. My local community has a few examples of schools that work on this model -- families pay an extra couple thousand dollars a year in my community for the benefit of religious education that isn't otherwise provided by the public system.
Ahhhh I see...this is going to turn into yet ANOTHER thread about how engineers are underpaid. Time for me to check-out.

Race to the bottom threads FTL.
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Mar 10, 2010
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Mark77 wrote: No, my suggestion is that, as a society, we don't want the best and brightest in public service -- we want the best and brightest to be in the private sector where they can start businesses and use their talents to create things and create a tax base for public services -- rather than merely collecting taxes and spending wealth ultimately created by private business.

Government creates nothing. They only tax and spend.
No, we want the best and brightest on RedFlagDeals all day and not working...you have so many incorrect statements and generalizations I don't even know where to start.

It's easy to say "screw their contracts", some other people got screwed so the Government of Canada can go back on their word as well. How are we going to teach the new generation with a bunch of useless, low paid teachers who don't even want to be there. I'm not a teacher, but to say that every teacher is only there because they can't do anything else is pretty much the dumbest thing I've ever seen you say.

The private system isn't always better...look at Health Care in the US. Would you like to privatize Health Care as well? The US spends a higher percent of GDP on Health Care than Canada does.

Also, my sister is a Nurse and she pays a good chunk of her wage into her pension (she pays 6%, the Government puts in 7%). That's hardly 10-20% of the cost as you've noted above...the only ones with those gold plated pensions are probably the actual Politicians who voted it for themselves. So should we take away the money my sister paid into her pension as well?

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