Watch Rick Mercer's sketch - "Hole Town." ... There is much truth in jest.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Rick+Mercer+Report/ID/2587997421/

Upper middle class Americans are rapidly losing ground ...

A recent posting detailed how upper middle class Americans are rapidly losing ground to the one-percenters who averaged $5 million in wealth gains over just three years. It also noted that the global 1 percent has increased their wealth from $100 trillion to $127 trillion in just three years.

The information came from the Credit Suisse 2014 Global Wealth Databook (GWD), which goes on to reveal much more about the disappearing middle class.

1. Each Year Since the Recession, America’s Richest 1 percent Have Made More Than the Cost of All US Social Programs

In effect, a reverse transfer from the poor to the rich. Even as conservatives blame Social Security for being too costly.

Much of the 1 percent wealth just sits there, accumulating more wealth. The numbers are nearly unfathomable. Depending on the estimate, the 1 percent took in anywhere from $2.3 trillion to $5.7 trillion per year. (All numeric analysis is detailed here.)

Even the smaller estimate of $2.3 trillion per year is more than the budget for Social Security ($860 billion), Medicare ($524 billion), Medicaid ($304 billion), and the entire safety net ($286 billion for SNAP, WIC [Women, Infants, Children], Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Housing).

2. Almost None of the New 1 percent Wealth Led To Innovation and Jobs

In 2005, for every $1 of financial wealth there was 66 cents of non-financial (home) wealth. Ten years later, for every $1 of financial wealth there was just 43 cents of non-financial (home) wealth.

What happens to all this financial wealth?

Over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market and real estate. Business startup costs made up less than 1 percent of the investments of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

On the corporate side, stock buybacks are employed to enrich executives rather than to invest in new technologies. In 1981, major corporations were spending less than 3 percent of their combined net income on buybacks, but in recent years they’ve been spending up to 95 percent of their profits on buybacks and dividends.

3. Just 47 Wealthy Americans Own More Than Half of the US Population

Oxfam reported that just 85 people own as much as half the world. Here in the US, with nearly a third of the world’s wealth, just 47 individuals own more than all 160 million people (about 60 million households) below the median wealth level of about $53,000.

4. The Upper Middle Class of America Owns a Smaller Percentage of Wealth Than the Corresponding Groups in All Major Nations Except Russia and Indonesia

The upper middle class in the US, defined as everyone in the top half below the richest 20 percent, owns 11.9 percent of the wealth. Indonesia at 10.5 percent and Russia at 7.5 percent are worse off, but in all other nations the corresponding upper middle classes own 12 to 27 percent of the wealth.

America’s bottom half compares even less favorably to the world: dead last, with just 1.3 percent of national wealth. Only Russia comes close to that dismal share, at 1.9 percent. The bottom half in all other nations own 2.6 to 10.2 percent of the wealth.

5. Ten Percent of the World’s Total Wealth Was Taken by the Global 1 percent in the Past Three Years

As in the US, the middle class is disappearing at the global level. An incredible one of every ten dollars of global wealth was transferred to the elite 1 percent in just three years. A level of inequality deemed unsustainable three years ago has gotten even worse.

Solution: A Financial Transaction Tax (FTT)

More appropriately called a Financial Speculation Tax, it would help to limit the speculative trading that contributed to the financial meltdown in 2008.

The FTT has extraordinary revenue-generating potential, on a global scale. The Bank for International Settlements reported in 2008 that annual trading in derivatives had surpassed $1.14 quadrillion. Just one-tenth of 1 percent of that is a trillion dollars.

It’s also a fair tax. While average Americans pay up to a 10 percent sales tax on shoes for the kids, millionaire investors pay a zero sales tax on financial purchases. They pay just a .00002 percent SEC fee (2 cents for every thousand dollars) for a financial instrument.

In addition, the FTT is easy to administer and difficult to evade. Clearing houses already review all trades, and serve as collection agencies for transaction fees.

And as evidence of its suitability, three of the top five countries on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom are Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland, all of whom have FTTs.

People in the US and around the world are being rapidly divided into two classes, the well-to-do and the lower-income majority. This severing of society will change only when progressive thinkers (and doers) agree on a single, manageable solution that will stop the easy flow of wealth to the privileged few.

Gettting back to the hog trough at Ontario Power Generation...

Recently some outfit has been running infomercials for OPG and Hydro One (not mentioned in the commercial) saying that Ontario customers are paying less for electricity “than telephone, internet and cable combined. 

I don’t buy it.

My hydro bill for the month of October was $117.00. That’s $3.77 per day. My internet bill was $53 ($1.70 per day). So where are they getting their numbers from? My guess is OPG, Kathleen ‘Wonder,’ and Charles “let them drink coffee” Chiareli.

Actually, according the official ‘Sunshine List’ there are 8,000 OPG employees making over $100,000.

Proportional Representation: We've been too long without it!

Thanks to thousands of you, last weekend #PR2015was trending on Twitter in Canada! Working together, with allies such as Leadnow, Democracy Watch, the Council of Canadians and many others, we WILL make proportional representation a 2015 election issue. We can elect a majority of MPs committed to making votes count. Help us build the campaign for fair voting by SIGNING and SHARING the Declaration of Voters' Rights - www.fairvote.ca/declaration - 41,600 signers today!

Home mail delivery is being phased out. Deepak Chopra says it will be good excercise for seniors...

To date there has been no mention of an alternative for seniors or the disabled. However, along with this story I thought I'd resurrect this one which the government and the press quickly hushed up.

Harper Gives EU Leaders $300,000 Plane Ride For Free: CBC Report

A high-priced 'victory lap'

Among the invited guests at the Royal York Hotel event in Toronto was Greg Thomas, director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation — a supporter of free trade but not of lavish spending. Thomas said his organization would send a cheque to the government for the cost of his attendance, and added that the Airbus freebie was a waste of taxpayers' money.

"Victory lap or not, there's no excuse on blowing 300 grand on short notice for what amounts to a political show."

"Many Canadians," Thomas added, "can stomach the expense of hosting the royal family when they come to Canada." But, he said, "having royal treatment afforded to European bureaucrats is not something that's going to go down, I think, in any part of the country.... They could have done this in Ottawa. They could have saved $300,000 and it would have had the same effect."

The NDP's Don Davies, MP for Vancouver Kingsway, agreed.

Hydro One rates just went up again. Here's one of the reasons why...

The Canadian Press reported that in the 2013 Sunshine list, a list of $100,000 earners, Tom Mitchell, the president and CEO of Ontario Power Generation, was the highest paid bureaucrat (in all Ontario) at $1.7 million. 

 Mitchell was paid a salary of $800,000 in 2011, unchanged from the previous two years. He also received incentive pay of $1-million in 2011, bringing his total compensation to $1.8-million, $500,000 higher than in 2010.

The so-called sunshine list of workers earning at least $100,000 — which includes doctors, nurses, teachers, police and firefighters in addition to civil servants — increased 11 per cent last year to 88,412. The number has jumped 38 per cent since 2009.

However, the government says the average salary on the list deceased by $41 from 2011 to $127,566.

Another shocker is that nearly 8,000 other people who work at OPG also made the list of $100,000 earners as well.

 Hydro One CEO Laura Formosa made $1.04 million last year.

 When there are seniors paying more for hydro than groceries, one wonders how Wynne and Chiareli can look at themselves in the morning.

 It is disgusting beyond belief.

News from the Nanny State: 'Uncle Tom's' $5B Daycare Cabin'

After a while you begin to wonder if politicians have any money sense at all. To make this ill-conceived scheme work, he proposes to get the Feds to kick in 60% of the cost. Bulletin to Mulcair: Whether it comes from the Feds or the provinces, there is only one set of taxpayers, and in Ontario, those taxpayers are already paying $40B in child benefits. Moreover, many of those over-burdened taxpayers are seniors and childless singles, so this Mulcair proposal only ads insult to injury to those folks.

 ERIC DUHAIME | QMI AGENCY

New Democrat leader Thomas Mulcair just announced his masterpiece promise for the 2015 election: a $15-a-day national child-care program.

The idea sounds seductive. But do you seriously think the nanny state can properly take care of your babies?

Let's first take a closer look at Mulcair's own sandbox. His home province has had a $7.30-a-day program for more than 17 years. And there are very good reasons why no other jurisdiction on the continent has copied the self-proclaimed "Quebec model."

Quebec taxpayers now pay more than $52 a day for each baby in the Soviet-style system.

As soon as a woman finds out she is pregnant, she rushes to put her name on a waiting list for a daycare spot. Like in the good old USSR, it's the queue that makes you pay.

Desperate mothers or fathers who want to go back to work try to bribe a public servant to get to the top of the waiting list.

 __________________________

To read the full article, go to: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/10/20141016-072020.html

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Yet another child benefit!

Federal government doubles children's tax credit to $1,000

The federal government’s decision to double the children’s fitness tax credit is getting support from parents, but many feel it isn’t quite enough.

Parents can claim up to $1,000 dollars for children under 16. They can get back up to 15 per cent of their children's registration or membership fees come tax time.

In 2015, the government will also make the credit refundable. This means parents who don't earn enough money to pay taxes can still benefit and get money back.

_________________

So what are senior and single taxpayers getting out of it? Diddly-squat. Child benefits, including education, must surely be approaching the $40B mark in Ontario alone [i.e. the Fraser Institute reported a few weeks back in the decade from 2001 to 2011, public spending on education in Ontario rose by 61%, from $15.2 billion to $24.5 billion annually] and the other list of over 39 grants, subsidies and tax credits must easily amount to $15B.

Actually no one knows the aggregate amount, so politicians at all three levels just keep throwing money into the pot on the basis that it wins votes from the majority at the cost of the minority.

It is utterly incomprehensible!

Wynne's Jobs strategy...

800 jobs at a cost of $687,500 per job, while risking 10,000 jobs = job creation. Huh?!

By Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The Harper government's $550-million small-business job credit will create just 800 net new jobs in 2015-16, while a freeze in employment insurance premiums could cost the economy 10,000 jobs over the same period, Canada's parliamentary budget office says.

The latest report from the budget office, released Thursday, says the credit will create a total of about 1,000 "person-years" of work at a cost of $555,000 for each person-year. A job that employs a worker for two years amounts to two "person-years."

The report also says that because EI premiums are frozen at higher levels than necessary to offset the costs of the job credit, thousands of jobs could be lost.

"PBO estimates the premium rate freeze will reduce full-time equivalent employment by 2,000 jobs in 2015 and a further 8,000 jobs in 2016," the report said.

Starting next year, the job credit will effectively lower EI premiums for small businesses with annual contributions of less than $15,000.

Critics of the measure have complained the government should have gone further with a direct cut in premiums that would provide an immediate benefit to all businesses and employees.

That broader slash to payroll taxes isn't happening until 2017, the government says.

The Conservatives haven't said why they're waiting for two years to implement that cut; the PBO report says EI premiums are currently 13 cents above the break-even level and will be 28 cents above the break-even level in 2016.

To read the full story, go to: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/conservative-changes-ei-could-cost-canada-jobs-budget-031008832.html

"Liberals appear to have learned nothing from the spending scandals at eHealth and the ORNGE air ambulance service," Ted Anott, MPP

MaRS bailout ‘parallels’ past Liberal government scandals

By: Richard J. Brennan – Toronto Star Newspaper.

There is talk about selling off the LCBO, one of the major revenue sources owned by the government, and yet Kathleen Wynne seems to have the money to bail out yet another corporation (this time a U.S. outfit) with taxpayer’s dollars.

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government couldn’t run a hotdog stand let alone a downtown Toronto office building, veteran Tory MPP Ted Arnott says.

Arnott grilled Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid on Tuesday before the legislature’s estimates committee, which scrutinizes government spending, about the $309 million bailout of Phase 2 of the troubled 20-storey MaRS tower in the shadow of Queen’s Park.

“We are not satisfied with the answers we heard today. We don’t have confidence that the government can run a hotdog stand let alone a downtown office building like this one,” the member for Wellington-Halton

Hills told reporters afterward.

Arnott told the committee Liberals appear to have learned nothing from the spending scandals at eHealth and the ORNGE air ambulance service, or the debacle involving the decision to cancel and relocate two gas plants at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion.

“From our perspective . . . we see parallels between this and what happened at eHealth, the cancelled gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville, the ORNGE air ambulance fiasco and we wonder if the government has learned a single thing — hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money being thrown around with very little accountability, very little scrutiny,” he said.

MaRS, which stands for Medical and Related Sciences, got in over its head with its Phase 2 tower, which turned off prospective tenants off with exorbitant lease rates — then dictated by a U.S.-based real estate company.

Word of the government bailout leaked out during the spring provincial election and since then, the Liberals have acknowledged negotiations were going on even before the election.

“Obviously the government wouldn’t have wanted that information to come out prior to the election . . . obviously the government had something to hide,” Arnott told reporters.

More recently the government announced it was paying out $65 million to buy out the American-owned developer, Alexandria Real Estate (ARE).

For the full story, go to: http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/10/07/mars_bailout_parallels_past_liberal_government_scandals_tories_say.html.

Fraser Institute: Cost of education rises 61% in 10 years, to $24.5B annually.

For quite some time now I have been ruminating about the cost of child benefits, including education. Of course, few people have been listening because they are either the beneficiaries of what I call the “baby industry,” or because I am merely a single taxpayer  who isn’t. However, now the prestigious Fraser Institute has come out with a report that confirms many of the things I have been saying. In particular: 1.     The cost of education has risen substantially, despite declining enrolments and diminishing results, and 2.     Schools are being turned into glorified daycare centres. Attached are excerpts taken from an editorial appearing in the Toronto Sun Newspaper Sunday, October 5. 2014. To read the full story, to: http://www.torontosun.com/2014/10/04/kathleen-wynnes-math-doesnt-add-up

We’re paying more for public education in Ontario these days and getting less.

As the Fraser Institute reported last week, in the decade from 2001 to 2011, public spending on education in Ontario rose by 61%, from $15.2 billion to $24.5 billion annually.

Meanwhile, student enrollment dropped 5.1%, from 2.16 million to 2.05 million.

Of course, higher teacher salaries account for part of this increase, along with inflation.

But that raises the issue of whether taxpayers are getting good value for money.

For the fifth year in a row, testing by Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) showed math scores in decline among elementary students in Grade 3 and 6.

In Grade 3, only 67% of students met the provincial standard in math in 2014, a four-percentage-point drop from 71% in 2010.

In Grade 6, only 54% of students met the provincial standard in math in 2014, a seven-percentage- point drop from 61% in 2010.

In applied math, only 47% of Grade 9 students met the provincial standard, a figure the EQAO described as worrisome, even though it’s up from 40% five years ago.

Instead of dealing with these problems, Ontario’s Liberal government, first under Dalton McGuinty and now under Kathleen Wynne, has poured billions of tax dollars into turning schools into glorified daycare centres, through its ruinously expensive all-day kindergarten program.

This may be good enough for government work, but it’s not good enough for the real world.

The problem is the person ultimately in charge of the system is Wynne, a former left-wing trustee with the spendthrift Toronto school board.

So hold on to your wallets, Ontario, because sadly, there’s no relief in site.​ 

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