On 07/16/2016 07:22 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:
Has there ever been a truly poor government worker or politician? Even if they started out that way, they don't stay poor.
My ex worked for Revenue Canada for several years. She certainly wasn't well paid. Many government employees look good these days because they haven't lost as much over the years as the rest of us. There have been many things that have lead to the overall drop in the standard of living, over the past 3 decades. One, Citibank, in the U.S. came up with a plan to make it's clients wealthier. That plan included, among other things, cutting jobs and cutting wages. Then, in the 80s we had Reagan and his trickle down nonsense. We also had trade deals that were promised to create jobs, but in fact did the opposite, but greatly enriched the large corporations. Here we had Harper with his cut business taxes to create jobs that never materialized and had those tax benefits that would mainly benefit the wealthy, but he couldn't do anything to help those struggling on a meager CPP. Incidentally, you'll often hear about "respect for the taxpayer", ignoring the fact that many taxpayers will be hurt my their plans. Then we have Walmart, which pays so little employees have to rely on state benefits just to survive. According to what I read, the average Walmart employee in Wisconsin costs taxpayers some $4K per year. I also saw a graph that demonstrated the shift in wealth since the 80s. It was essentially an exponential curve with a line drawn across it. If you were below the line, you were worse off. Only the very wealthy were above the line and by a large amount at that. On top of this, we also have soaring exec compensation. One thing that's clear is the financial problems are caused by those at the top, with the help of their pals in government. It is in no way the average person or even unions that are causing these issues. It's the so called "1%".