So let's assume that if we really clean up EI, the rate gets reduced to 0%. (lol).

At 300 dollars a month, that means your taxable income is $15, 000 a month. However, if we assume 400% a month and a 1% reduction rather than 2%, your monthly taxable income is $40, 000. That makes it difficult to sympathize with you.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 500_Apples:
Would you be permitted to take a life insurance policy out after you're diagnosed with a terminal illness?

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

---

I'd almost agree with that except for the fact that when UI and welfare were easier to qualify for in Canada in the 1970's, our unemployment rates were lower than in the 1980's - UI and welfare were made harder to qualify for and jobs less plentiful during Ottawa's policy-induced recession of the 80s-90's.

Social spending was proven not to be the inflation boogyman conservatives made it out to be in the 1970's. Nobel laureates have described unemployment as a game of musical chairs. Enough jobs either exist or they don't, and pursuing low to zero inflation policies on behalf of big money costs a nation more than pursuing fuller employment.

Social programs, like UI before it was gutted by Mulroney/Chretien/Martin and transformed into UI-EI-Oh!, are not the cause of creeping inflation or soaring national debt - but rather high unemployment.

quote:

---

I'd almost agree with that except for the fact that when UI and welfare were easier to qualify for in Canada in the 1970's, our unemployment rates were lower than in the 1980's - UI and welfare were made harder to qualify for and jobs less plentiful during Ottawa's policy-induced recession of the 80s-90's.

---

Are you assuming a direct variation between the social spending policies of year X and the economy of year X? First, I would have guessed that economic health lags economic and social policies. Secondly, there are other factors... demographics, crime rates and the international economy were certainly better in the 1960s than in the 1980s, and all these things are independent of the fact Mulroney got more votes than Broadbent.

quote:

---

Originally posted by 500_Apples:
EI is about 2%.

---

Not only is it about 2%, but there's an annual limit of about $500/yr (maybe $600?).

EI is there for us when we need it - or it should be.

It's not exactly a license to sloth - you get 23 weeks or so, and it can take awhile to find a job. Nobody wants to starve at the end of those weeks.

That being said, I've recieved plenty of EI in the past (when laid off from this or that), and I'll be well into my 50s before I can even dream of complaining about that microscopic deduction from my paycheque without having some sort of hypocritical explosion.

quote:

---

Originally posted by 500_Apples:
Well I'm not a professional economist Fidel, but,

Are you assuming a direct variation between the social spending policies of year X and the economy of year X? First, I would have guessed that economic health lags economic and social policies. Secondly, there are other factors... demographics, crime rates and the international economy were certainly better in the 1960s than in the 1980s, and all these things are independent of the fact Mulroney got more votes than Broadbent.

---

I'm not an economist either. But Robert Solow is a Nobel laureate in economics, and I was trying to summarize what that American said about unemployment being the cause of rising national debts and not social programs. Canada's own Hideo Mimoto of StatsCan produced a report around 1991 or so which essentially buttressed Solow's statements about social programs not being a significant source of debt buildup.

And I don't believe there are many economists who disagree with him on that, so I think that makes your argument about lazy workers and welfare bums a moral argument and not nearly valid from an economics point of view. I think that as a citizen and taxpayer, it's in your and all of our interests for poor Canadians to have access to a decent income and job training opportunities associated with employment insurance programs. Dalton McGuilty here in Ontario is admitting that workers here are lagging behind in skills and in access to training, especially when compared to the more generous EI and training programs available to workers in other countries. This is part of why we are not competitive workers compared with other nations. Workers here can't access job training to satisfy increasingly fickle multinationals demands for skilled workers if they are not counted as unemployed and cannot access what few job training programs are available to them in this country.

In fact, I think the richest people in Canada and those with money invested in this country don't mind at all that only 40 percent of the unemployed actually qualify for EI benefits. I think there are large financial interests in maintaining a certain high level of unemployment in order to insulate wealth and assets of the rich from the deleterious effects associated with healthy levels of inflation and indicative of a bustling economy. I think those superrich people holding government long term bonds actually enjoy seeing Canada's national debt rise. They like it even moreso when Ottawa buys back those long bonds at compensatory rates when money in the economy is scarce and jobs harder to find. What do you think ?.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

What do you think ?.

---

First, I'm not sure who you're debating with, I'm not sure you're debating with me. You refer to my argument on lazy workers and welfare bums, where I have I made this argument? I actually would want to see welfare be somewhat more generous, I understand it has not kept up with inflation for a great many years. [Additionally I'm skeptical as to the validity of the inflation rate for lower-income people but that's for another thread.] Like I said, insurance policies should be insurance policies, and social programs should be social programs. Welfare is a social program, so we might as well do it properly.

quote:

---

Workers can't access job training to satisfy increasingly fickle multinationals demands for skilled workers if they are not counted as unemployed and cannot access what few job training programs are available to them in this country.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
This thread is obnoxious and inappropriate in this forum.

This is not a bash the workers forum.

---