Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for December 6th, 2006

So when you ask a “think tank” whether high taxes are good or not, what do you think the answer you might get? Well if you ask the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, you get the answer that Higher Taxes are what makes your country great (I paraphrase, but essentially their report says that higher taxes are a good thing).

This report compares countries with high tax rates and low tax rates and then rates the quality of life (effectively) in these countries. The CCPA claims to be a “… non-partisan research institute …”, but certainly not unbiased. Their point of view is very much a Social Democratic point of view, that the government must take care of it’s population, and the only way possible is via taxes.

While my viewpoint agrees that the state must at least ensure a minimum lifestyle for all folks, I am not sure it needs to go to the levels that are seen in Sweden or Finland either (which is evidently Utopia, by this research).

Our findings show Americans bear incredibly
severe social costs for living in one of the lowest taxed
countries in the world.

Which is interesting, it mostly says that the U.S.’s medical system and social safety net are not very good (which I might agree with in some instances). The report implies that Canada should not be trying to emulate the U.S. “low tax” viewpoint, but should move towards the model of the Nordic countries (higher taxes, much larger state run social welfare programs). Specifically:

• Nordic countries have significantly lower rates of poverty across almost all social groups;

• as an indicator of how well a country protects the vulnerable, the elderly have significantly higher pension income replacement rates in Nordic countries and the income received by those with disabilities relative to the population is much higher;

• income is distributed significantly more equally in Nordic countries;

This seems to be the crux of the argument, is that there should not be small groups with wealth and large groups without. A noble idea, I don’t agree with it, because you choke off the parochial traditions of “work hard and be rewarded” that most of us grew up with.

If I didn’t have to work hard to get rewarded, would I? That’s a very good question.

An interesting read, well worth spending a half hour reading it and seeing what you think about the topics discussed. -C8j

I love that kind of headline, it is from the cbc’s web site, and the article associated with it is quite interesting to read.

In terms of Canadians, it is pointed out that:

It took more than $500,000 US to be among the richest one per cent of adults in the world, according to the report.
(…)
Canada’s net worth per capita came in at $70,916 US, putting it just ahead of Denmark.

I can assure you I am not part of the top 1% and I am hard pressed to reach the Canadian average in real money too. What does this all mean? The difference between “Western” countries and developing nations is MASSIVE, I agree with that, whole-heartedly. There are people fighting to get clean water, and I complain about having to put snow tires on my car, however, what does this report say we should do about it? Nothing, it just reports the facts, and then allows politicians to bandy this information about? Maybe aid organizations could use it, but again, what is the information good for?

In this season of Christmas, remember to give to those who are needy (like the Hunger Site on this page, which is a free click guys). –C8j