…. this week we tried three times and learned that you are in Trudeau’s middle class if you are one of those people who:
a) “…work for their income, not people who live off their assets and their saving.” (Monday)
b) “…people who live off their incomes are of the middle class and those who live off their assets, their portfolios, their trust funds are not.” (Tuesday)
c) “…who live paycheque to paycheque…” (Wednesday)
And if you’re confused,
d) “..we’ll let economists argue about which quintile or decile it starts or ends…” (Wednesday)
.@pmharper is an economist. MT @Justin_Ling Trudeau on middle class: "let economists decide which decimal/quintile it begins and ends at."
— Katewerk (@katewerk) April 2, 2014
The Un-Decimical Justin Trudeau…
Well…somebody had to ask: what is a quintile??
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=quintile
And decile??
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=decile
To be fair to Justin Tuesday was April fools day.
Please Kate remove that part of your post. ( b) )
Obviously it was in the spirit of the day.
Trudeau is an idiot, likely always will be. But his handlers have read the mood of the public well.
I define “middle class” as anyone who has not seen their income rise for the last 10 years relative to the increase in the cost of living. I don’t really care if you earn $10.00/hour or $500/hour….I am not a socialist.
The point is that incomes are stagnating, for some people very severely, while the mega-rich get richer and richer and richer.
Energy costs, food costs, university costs, you name it, all continue to increase substantially faster than inflation. Government continues to get more bloated, sucking even more from the middle class. Loafers and parasites are popping up almost daily to bleed the middle class. If you want to get you kid a decent education you how have to spend all sorts of money out of your own pocket to compensate for the lousy school system. And so on.
I doubt Pony will get elected, and I hope he does not, but I don’t mind one bit if he keeps banging the drum for the middle class. Perhaps the Cons might *** finally *** wake up and realize that it ****** was the middle class that elected them ******. Perhaps when that realization hits them they will stop screwing around with banning 100W light bulbs or abandoning their promises on income splitting.
“I know nothing”… Justine Trudeau
“people lving off their assets and savings” — that would be pensioners, then.
Well so far in the 2 terms he has been in office “the economist” running things has returned +3 deficit budgets, stuck me with the billion dollar tab for a Muskoka party for Euro banking scum, not given me a tax break big enough to finance a big mac and has let government expand 1/3 while essential services contract (particularly health care and pension funding).
The Pony would do worse, but that is no excuse for the less than stellar performance of “the economist”.
@Occam BS, health care transfers have not declined (Harper extended the plan Martin put in) and neither has pension funding (the Canada pension plan is in great shape).
The federal budget is balanced now save for a $3B contingency. It would have been balanced previously but for a slight recession.
The tax breaks are coming, once the books are balanced. He is going to cut taxes to force other parties to run on raising them.
And hosting a G20 and G8 meeting at the same time should be avoided. People will say Pittsburgh hosted the meeting for 12 million, but will not tell you that was direct costs to the city and never tell you the county, state and federal security bill. Harper should be applauded for the transparency (and for taking the criticism), the security demanded by the attendees as we all know doesn’t come cheap, and if something happened to any of the leaders you would be saying that Harper is incompetent, but you types say that anyway. If Harper walked across the water, you would say he couldn’t swim.
Now maybe if all the leftie eco nutters would back off on climate change and their Agenda 21 nonsense, maybe people will be able to afford to live in their homes after they retire.
Good on SNN for cornering Justin on this. His dad used to pull the same bs by leaving out a particular detail so he would have an escape hatch to jump through later.
No Justin didn’t say he would tax the middleclass, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t raise taxes at all and who he will stick the bill with so that “the budget will balance itself”.
When he won’t provide an answer he’s trying to hide something.
I hope SNN changes tack a bit on this story and starts asking who he intends on taxing if not this undefined “middleclass”?
“Why does Justin talk about a “class”system, we are not in India where they definitely do have a class system, we are in general wage earners in Canada, and we fall into three categories, low income, middle income and high income, these are the three brackets we have in Canada to identify Canadians, we are all wage earners, either by employees of a business, self employed or we generate a wage from portfolio.”
-From one of the comments
Largely nonsense. Not all things are going up in cost. Technology costs continue to plummet. Cars are better in almost every way and their costs are going up less than inflation. Ditto textiles.
Real estate values are up as is net worth.
The big change is that we now have much more competition from the rest of the world as many parts rapidly develop and get their own skilled workers and middle class. The good thing is they are now consumers and what they buy requires more of the products and services we provide.
“Why? Why put a limit on someone’s right to vote? The Charter says you need a good reason to do so. So what is it?”
Does someone on twitter want to reply to Justin Ling that it’s to prevent voter fraud. Voter fraud like this…
*765 voters with an exact match of first and last name, DOB and last four digits of SSN were registered in N.C. and another state and voted in N.C. and the other state in the 2012 general election.
*35,750 voters with the same first and last name and DOB were registered in N.C. and another state and voted in both states in the 2012 general election.
*155,692 voters with the same first and last name, DOB and last four digits of SSN were registered in N.C. and another state – and the latest date of registration or voter activity did not take place within N.C.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/04/02/massive-voter-fraud-discovered-in-north-carolinas-2012-election/
LaDa – you defend the indefensable and ignore numbers and lay out wishful thinking platitudes where neglect of public interest is concerned, disgusting apologia of the blinded partisan.
You should feel shame for defending such a mediocre regime… which are yet to deliver on the core issues they ran on when they won a first minority, I won’t hold out hope these; “just as soon as we have a majority” reform tasks which will never get done. This is a government which is conservative in name only and reflexive defense of it requires a massive compromise of Conservative values…Particularly the glib attitude towards Canadians on fixed income and those reliant on CPP, pretty callous IMHO. and typical of the compromised ethics CPC underwent when eastern PCs diluted the ideology of principled conservativism.
And the alternative party that has a a chance of winning would be?
Politics is the art of compromise. And the cpc has done an excellent job as has been itemized above. What praytell are they not doing that you would like to see them do – keeping in kind that they have to remain I power to do it?
Gord; as you have succinctly said there are many more nations around the world with the capital to spend on production equipment. Increasing productivity is the platform on which higher personal incomes are supported.
As productivity increases unskilled labour becomes increasingly redundant. Agriculture; Construction; Consumer Goods; and Machine Tools are increasingly dependent on an educated workforce. Standing and pointing fingers while waiting for the last Asian Peasant to leave his medieval farm and subsistence life style will not bring back high wages for attaching one thing to another.
There will always be dangerous and/or dirty smelly jobs to be done by thinking humans and as the workplace continues to evolve these will become increasingly higher paid employment opportunities, not opportunities shuffled off to desperate immigrants. Cheers;
Ezra had his fave economist on. The cat with the pursed lips and closed eyes.
He took considerable umbrage at the notion that the middle class was doing poorly.
Bolstered With CHARTS.
Our economist argued that since the 1995 bottoming the middle class has been “doing well”.
Now, I’m not a great chart (or poetry) reader, but there it was.
In REAL terms, 2010 was below ……… 1975.
In terms of the income proxy used to track the middle class.
Has anyone else been wondering where the much previously courted ‘Working Class’ has disappeared to?
So what “Class” does Justin claim to be personally in?
I don’t think it’s fair of all you to bully Mr. Trudeau. He is trying to make things better. Why don’t you help him?
I am eight years old.
..oh, sorry..
.. thought this was the National Post’s “Letters to the Editor”
“Has anyone else been wondering where the much previously courted ‘Working Class’ has disappeared to?”
I’ve noticed that as well.
‘Working class’ sounds just a tad too earthy and Marxist-Leninist for most of our political operatives.
Sometimes I wish there was a “Like” button on the comments. I would give you one for that comment KevinB. That made my day. So true. I’ve had discussions on Facebook with people just like that. Not eight year olds.
I enjoy the posters on SDA, but with due respect I think you are missing the point on this one.
The “middle class” that Pony is referring to, and cannot properly elucidate because he does not have the necessary brain cells, is more complex to pin down than simply using a wealth metric.
For example, my kids, who are all bright, come home from public school and they cannot write in handwriting, they cannot spell, and they cannot even do their times tables. Yet they have to waste hours doing useless projects on First Nations. My daughter’s so-called math teacher doesn’t even teach, he has the students watch videos on You Tube. So my wife and I have to spend hours teaching our kids. Yet, surprise surprise, my taxes go up each year.
On the other hand, the mega-rich in the town where I live send their kids to a nice private school, where they learn to write, and spell, and do their times tables, and all the other things that matter. I cannot afford that school, even though some might say I am reasonably well off – it would cost me $40k per year to send my 3 kids there, which is out of reach.
At the same time, adjusted for inflation, my income has steadily declined for years, even though I am well educated, and work my rear end off in a productive job in high-tech that actually does something *useful* for the world. Hell I would be quite happy if I could at least _maintain_ my standard of living, but no such luck. Meanwhile, the second-rate City Manager where I live earns $254k per year, plus a huge pension when he retires, and he is of less use to the world than a half-dead donkey.
The “middle class” problem is *very* real, and just because Pony cannot properly explain it does not make it less of a problem. It is not simply about money in of itself, there is far more to it. I would have thought Ezra would understand that.
I wish Pony was a bit more intelligent, not because I ever want to see him elected. But if he were a bit sharper, it might actually cause the Conservatives to stand up and do something useful. Despite his absolute mastery of politics, Harper has become vulnerable. The sparkle is gone, the good ideas are gone, he is stale like an old loaf of French bread.
“Has anyone else been wondering where the much previously courted ‘Working Class’ has disappeared to?”
Mostly China, but you can include Mexico, Brazil, and India among others as well.
Bill, well said.
The concept we have any real choice on election day is more and more an illusion. Only the hardcore partisans are absolutely blind to that reality, the rest of us seem to be able to see it though. As Occam originally offered, I too have no doubt JT would be worse for this country than PMSH, but not by near as much as many here believe. JT, like any other leftist career politician, would adopt a conservative platform in a heartbeat if he was sure it would carry him to power. As other posts here have shown, I am not the only conservative who witnessed PMSH’s unsignaled hard left turn at Sussex Dr. There is NO party in this country that wants to sincerely change the political status quo. Harper has clearly shown that, if nothing else. The system works quite well for politicians. It should, they have successfully wrestled ownership of it from the voters these past few decades.
You simply cannot be in politics as long as PMSH without succumbing to Dome Disease. This is not the Stephen Harper of Reform Days. Anyone who believes PMSH does not now have the interests of his party ahead of middle-class Canadians(just like JT) is nothing less than a fool. For that matter, if you believe the bumbling boy-King Justin is hard to take now, just wait til you meet the slick, greasy version years of political experience will create. If the little twit survives, that is.
If it were not for the bullsh^t ideologies of these parties keeping us peons infighting in perpetuity, we could rise against these scum called politicians and take our country back. Instead, every 4 years or so, we march to the polls like good little wallets and choose which Royal Family we want to plunder us next.
Sure, an English king may be preferable to a French king for some of us, but we will still be slaving under the yoke of a f*cking self-entitled king who confiscates 1/2 of our earnings each and every year(while always plotting new ways to get more)to be spent at their whim and benefit, yet will not allow us even the most basic rights of protected ownership or timely access to healthcare.
When there are no positive choices and the sole purpose of your vote becomes keeping the worst of a bad lot out….the system is broken.
Canadian royalty has given its opinion. Now our job is to just shut up, than bask in this sun of wisdom.
“..we’ll let economists argue about which quintile or decile it starts or ends…”
MPs are rich, Senators are not. MPs’ base salaries have just been raised to $163,700
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/01/mp-salaries-senators-canada_n_5066137.html
so they must be rich–all 308 of them–if $150,000 is the dividing line as Ontario Liberals seem to think:
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/03/18/tax_hikes_loom_for_upperincome_earners_in_ontario.html.
Meanwhile Senators make only $138,700 so I guess they are middle class
So perhaps Senators then are better placed than MPs to understand and debate the plight of the poor, oppressed middle class.
Mark
Ottawa
the shiney pony drives a car valued at a cool million
Markottawa >
“MPs are rich, Senators are not. MPs’ base salaries have just been raised to $163,700”
The word or term “Rich” is both relative and subjective.
Regardless, it is strange that “regular people” earning +/- $163,700 annually live fairly modest lives in relative terms, but politicians earning $163,700 annually become extremely wealthy very quickly in real world terms.
For all of their bland bureaucratic non-creative thinking they have the ability to create vast sums of personal wealth from reletivley very little. Funny that.
BC:
I sympathize, but you should look up “Kumon”. For about $200/month (and they don’t have to go 12 months a year), your kids can learn real math (yes, it starts with drill in addition/subtraction, but eventually moves up to trig and calculus), and they also have an English course. It’s a lot less than $40k, and your kids will learn stuff.
My wife and I put our two girls through it, and it was worth every cent.
“For all of their bland bureaucratic non-creative thinking they have the ability to create vast sums of personal wealth from relatively very little. Funny that.”
It’s called insider trading.
Knowing what laws are going to be passed and what contracts the government is going to hand out to whom makes people who are part of the legislative process the ultimate ‘insiders’.
“So what “Class” does Justin claim to be personally in?”
He’s in the for-thirty-grand-of-public-funds-I’ll-show-up-in-your-class-for-an-hour class.
My point being that the rhetoric has made a hard cut, the phrase working class is no more and has bee replaced with middle class. If you want to play along and gather the data just be mentally aware how often middle class is used and how scarce working class is mentioned.
Everyone in the work a day world is clearly working class, the logic may as well be circular.
I think the middle class term is now favoured because it is just so easily redefinable and nebulous. A little class creep coupled with tax bracket creep to go make the systemic inflation a bit less obvious.
The occupy crowd has decided to start using the meme of “shrinking middleclass” of late.
Truth is this demographic isn’t shrinking as much as the cost of everything is being inflated by the local and provincial tax burden plus the increased cost of energy from things such as the green energy act, and the inability to secure energy markets through projects like KXL.
Sorry for the run on…
It takes a ship of state turns slowly and Canada isn’t the sole vessel on the sea and we are not immune from other forces. Obama is making the US into the Canada under Trudeau while Harper is working against an adversarial bureaucracy.
I’ll gladly stand accused of making excuses, but I prefer what we got now to the disaster waiting for us if the paper doll was put in the big chair.
Justin is speaking the language of the occupy movement a language that demonizes wealth creation as inherently evil, private property is unfair, and asking illegal entrants to the country be given all benefits and rights of citizenship without actually becoming taxpaying citizens
Any body wants to be critical of PMSH I got no beef with that, but be damn careful what you ask for.
The paper pony either hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about or he actually means it and you should stock up on ammo and find a remote location somewhere off grid.
Now, I’ve seen productions of “The Turn of the Screw” that were pretty darned Quintile…
Thx Joseph for your true comments re: local and provincial tax burden growing. My home is in Winnipeg and school board taxes keep rising well beyond what the Feds do. My family income was well in excess of $100,000 and we received money back from the Feds. Sellinger and his commie thug bunch, the school board albatross and the Katz Phoenix dwellers are meanwhile raping us more and more each year.
Harper is a knight in shining armour compared to that bunch of sheat.
excellent and very accurate response. thank you!
“Has anyone else been wondering where the much previously courted ‘Working Class’ has disappeared to?”
They haven’t gone anywhere.
They’ve simply been incorporated into the meaningless political euphemism “middle class”.