Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent thinks so. But SDA regular ‘nv53’ has a very different take:
“The gap between the rich and the rest of us has reached 1920 levels.”
“We asked Canadians for their views on whether the growing gap between the rich and everyone else is a problem and the response is conclusive.”
Note the irresponsible juxtaposition of “the rich” and “the rest of us” or “everyone else”, as if there is a 1% class earning millions and a 99% class earning slave wages. This is an appeal to envy, to the thoughtless desire for the unearned by some of the lower specimens of humanity, and nothing more.
Incomes fall on a smooth curve with one peak in what we call the “middle income” range – not two. There is no “gap”. That is, there is no income level that no one earns but that a few above and many below do.
Income inequality is not a problem per se. Every individual is different – How’s that for “diversity”? They differ in their intelligence, their skills, their ambitions, their choices, and their luck, and undoubtedly many other characteristics.
In a free market capitalist economy, there should be a fairly standard distribution of incomes. Government intervention in the economy can make it difficult for businesses to operate and create jobs properly. Most social policy, including the “social programs” that Broadbent calls for more of, has this unfortunate result. In many cases, that’s the goal – to make things more difficult for business. Many of the phony “human rights” cases at the kangaroo courts fall into this category. Persons at the upper income level often have extra ways to look after themselves, and may well have “connections”. The vast majority do not, and they take the brunt of the assault on business that derives from irresponsible government spending and regulation, among other policies. The anti-capitalists will generally favour the policies that fill up the rosters for social programs, rather than allow job creation.
The nations that are much closer to having a 1% class and a 99% class are those that have adopted the vicious, immoral socialist ideology of Ed Broadbent: North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and the former Soviet Union. In those nations, a small parasitical elite that takes power, seized and maintained by violence, has a high standard of living while the average person suffers through being exploited. How often do Ed Broadbent and his ilk speak out against injustices like these?
As for his poll, I’d like to see the actual questions it asked. I’ve answered phone polls over the years and a lot depends on the wording of a question. Often, I can barely begin to explain my stance on an issue given the multiple choice options. It’s easy to ask questions that appeal to the envy of thoughtless people. I suspect there’s a 95% probability that’s what Broadbent’s poll has done.
“and the rest of us”
I suspect I would be very happy trading incomes with Eddy. He probably has so many indexed incomes coming that I’d consider him wealthy.
I make a bit more than the average British Columbian at my first job and my second job bumps me up another 20% or so. Am I the problem, aren’t I? Yup, everyone making less than me should just get the difference without having to work for it…
“It’s easy to ask questions that appeal to the envy of thoughtless people.”
The envy of the thoughtless is the entire basis for the existence of the NDP in the first place. Good news is they keep getting smaller and smaller. So either the envy is shrinking or the thoughtless are getting fewer.
Ed Broadbent isn’t dead? I mean, besides from the neck up I mean.
But Comrade Ed has a Lada and a one-bedroom apartment.
No MHA he is not dead, but look on the good side he is around to keep bugging Mulchair.
Charles Murray’s book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010”, which I reference in today’s Reader Tips, is also a book for deluded socialists like Broadbent.
From the review, at Front Page Magazine: “‘Coming Apart’ would not be as shocking if it were not for a political and academic establishment that is unable to speak about the problems of the working class except in terms of class warfare and racial discrimination. Murray boldly upends the formula that social problems arise from economic problems and that these can only be solved with more social welfare programs. . . .” Got that, Ed?
Read all of this review at:
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/11/coming-apart-coming-together/2/
I have found that people with an income problem are very rare. Most people’s problem is on the expense side and the debt they take on for short term satisfaction.
Yeah well….
East Germany called itself “the Democratic……”
The US Democratic party is not democratic….
So what else is new….
No black and white….it’s all jus’ shades o’ gray….
Parasitical Ed is just one of the 1%.
As a member of the 99%, I demand the authorities stop forcing me to pay HIS pension while I cannot finance MY retirement … becuase you thieving socialist buggers take all my money for your own luxurious pensions.
Give it up Ed, give my money back to me if you REALLY care about the people.
Of course, you don’t, do you Mr. Broadbent? You are living high on the hog on my money, I am your serf as far as you are concerned, as far as you even think about those poor, stupid slobs who actually pay your pensions.
I totally agree….if one gets out and works they can live a fairly good life…income differences who cares..not every one is a bright light…its up the individual….there is becoming to many people living off of others and demanding the same life style as people who work, and produce…this will be our down fall…..///
As so many greater economic worthies than I have pointed out, the gap between rich and poor is irrelevant. It’s the objective standard of living of the “poor” that matters, and in the Western commonwealth it’s a hell of a lot better than anywhere else. “Income inequality” is just raw naked envy, full stop.
cadilac socialists just pi$$ me off
Ed Broadbent is nothing more than a sh*it disturber of the highest order. Why don’t people like him just stfu and go away. Why don’t they enjoy the fruits of their labour (or, in Mr. Broadbent’s case, the taxpayers’ labour) and go fishing, take up woodworking, restore old cars or anything that just gets them out of our faces.
Sadly, Broadbent and those of his ilk will continue their phony and transparent crusade to protect the “working man” because that’s what they do best. When he’s on his deathbed, he’ll regret spending his remaining few years sticking his nose where it isn’t welcome.
nv53 – that’s a really top notch, excellent, analysis.
Maybe Ed could tall comrades Suzuki and McGuinty to quit trying to jack up the price of energy with the “green stupidity”.
Thanks, NV53, for a great post; it should get much wider play than in our humble cages.
I’m not envious of anyone in the private sector, and that includes unionized auto workers. I’m not envious of rich people who inherited their wealth; they didn’t take it from me.
I am envious of, for example, the latest (in a continuing series) subway collector photographed sleeping on the job (and not even waking up when a customer knocked on the glass in front of him) who is earning $28/hr, while the high school girl working a grocery checkout next door is working at least ten times as hard, and getting paid minimum wage. I’m envious of the Toronto library assistants who get paid $16+/hr to roll around carts and put books back on shelves (following the Dewey Decimal system isn’t that difficult). I’m envious of the office cleaners who get $65,000 to clean municipal offices, while the people doing the same job across the street at the Sheraton get paid $12/hr.
Maybe Ed Beetlebrain could see a pattern here, but I’m betting he won’t.
Thank you, everyone, for your positive comments.
I should add the standard stuff about economics: Capitalism is based on voluntary trade for mutual benefit (as opposed to profit for one and loss for another). The individual human being is so complex that only he can possibly know what he wants and/or needs at any given time, and decide when to change his mind. There’s no way that government coercion can improve on the free market because it cannot substitute for individual value-judgments. All the state is supposed to do is deal with force and fraud, and unfortunately it sometimes has a difficult time doing even that.
There is a line of thought in economics going around these days which claims individuals are not “rational actors”. Presumably the idea is to defend government intervention. But this is just another variant of the “government is omnipotent and omniscient as long as we’re in charge while you peons are morons” argument. And no one has ever been able to, or ever can, provide evidence for that.
This system based on voluntary trade for mutual benefit will produce a certain distribution of incomes, and it won’t be “equal”. It also won’t be a problem except in the eyes of people who want to redistribute everything owned by the productive while producing nothing themeselves.
I’m with KevinB. My daughter is a social worker and joined us for Easter. Like all public sector workers, she gets a four day weekend with two of those days paid for by people like my wife who works in retail for 1/3 the wage and no benefits.
Because Easter always falls on a Sunday and is considered a ‘statutory holiday’, gov’t workers get the Monday off with pay as well.
I would argue that if like July 1st – Canada Day – which can fall on any day of the week, that if it happened to fall on a weekend, they could argue for another day off with pay. But Easter? I can’t ever recall it falling on a Tuesday.
And a nurse friend of ours, when told what my wife pays for a prescription – remember, no benefits – showed us one of her prescriptions. The cost to taxpayers was $210.72.
Her cost? Forty nine cents.
It is the public sector that is the new proletariat, living fat off the 99% who work in the private sector.
@lookout,
Good find on Murray’s book. This work need to be read, critqued and understood by politicians, people and policy makers. Very important piece of work by a very bright man with some very serious consequences.
For some fun, read the Amazon reviews of this book and some of the knee-jerk reactions by the usual suspects.
-RaughKee
“In a free market capitalist economy, there should be a fairly standard distribution of incomes.”
That would be true only; if we had a free market economy.I just purchased a BBQ made in china with slave labor ie political prisoners.You know the guys that want democracy.Shipped here duty free as we have free trade with them.”There is; no free market economy its a myth”