Understanding that we have a democracy is the first step. Democracy does not happen on election day. Election day is merely the hiring process. Democracy is every day. That means that you need to be actively involved. It means shoving your face in your MP's day in, day out.
The reality is that It doesn't really matter what labour union (or lack thereof) your MP happens to belong to. They're all human at the end of the day, and humans respond to what's in front of them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say. So make sure you are the squeakiest wheel.
Remember, they're just an employee. Hired by you! Like always, if an employee screws up, it's not their fault. It's the management's fault for not properly managing the employee. So make sure you're not a bad manager. Do your job and everything will run smoothly, always.
We've been able to see wildfires for eons. Scary, but nothing that suggests there is no hope for the long-term future. We've equally recovered from wildfires for eons.
Yes, precise measuring tools indicate that they are becoming more frequent, which is concerning, but there is nothing to the naked eye that would allow one to recognize that. Our eyes are just not that sensitive.
Do you mean looking around the world with the naked eye? There is nothing visible in that spectrum that should diminish hope for the future. Life only continues to look better and better.
Or do you mean through the lens of precise measuring tools and mathematical models? If that's the case, then yeah, things look distressingly bleak.
No, they are not. The defining feature of a commodity is that it is interchangeable.
If you in Ontario try to charge me too much for a bushel of wheat, I'll laugh and buy it from a guy in Saskatchewan selling it at a reasonable price instead. Makes no difference to me. The product is the same either way.
If I try to charge you too much for a house in Ontario, it would make no difference to you to move to Saskatchewan? I suspect not. They are not equivalent products. Living in the Ontario home will be a very different experience to living in the Saskatchewan home.
If housing were a commodity, a lot of our problems would be solved. But, housing is not. It even has a popular slogan to remind you of that fact: Location, location, location.
The algorithm is primed by engagement. It is almost certain that progressives are most likely to engage with this ad and ones like it.
Why would anyone else? Those who lean right will think: "Not that blowhard again. Yawn." and those who pay no mind to politics will think: "I don't know who that is. Next." But the progressives will think: "Hey, I know that guy. I wonder what he said now? <click>"
Not to mention that if you look at what the $15,000 child cost includes, it already factors in things like transportation and shelter costs. Which @ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one includes again when budgeting parental costs.
Based on his numbers, removing the duplication, this single income supporting a family of three comes out comfortably in the black. And that's with childcare costs included! If you are going to pay for childcare, why not have two incomes supporting the family of three? Now you're saving money hand over fist.
If not being able to accurately calculate costs is the reason why Canadians aren't having children... Maybe it's best to keep that out of the gene pool anyway.
Great work sourcing. Too bad the message is misleading. Using those sources we can see, for example, his $15,000 figure includes the child's portion of shelter and transportation costs, which he then includes again when calculating the cost of housing and car ownership. You don't have to actually pay for those same things twice.
Children cost approximately $15,000 a year up to the age of 18.
Keep in mind this figure includes things like cost of shelter. It certainly costs money to shelter a child, so the $15,000 isn't invalid, but not applicable if you are going to account for shelter elsewhere. Double entry accounting doesn't mean accounting for the same thing twice.
Somewhere closer to $4,000 per year is what is generally accepted as the cost of the child alone, excluding such externalities which are a real cost, but reasonably accounted for elsewhere. This brings you back into the black with some money to spare.
Note, even the $4,000 (average yearly cost over 18 years) includes childcare costs. This means the typical parental unit should be able to double its income expectations from what you have presented. If one parent is foregoing an income to care for the child, then $4,000 would be reduced.
Oh shit, we’re in the red now with -$1,904.70
According to Statscan, the average woman is 29 years old when she has her first child. For the sake of discussion, we will assume the partner is of the same age.
Employment regulation varies by province, but generally one is expected to start working at the age of 14 and somewhere around 20 hours per week. There is a legal expectation of being under the care of an adult for those first four working years, which means it is, for all intents and purposes, pure profit.
If we assume a youngster is paid $10 per hour, that is $7,500 after tax each year. If we assume a 3% interest rate, that leaves one with around $50,000 in hand by the time they have their first child even if no further saving takes place after turning 18. But it takes two to tango, as they say, so actually a combined $100,000 is available.
Even if your family really is haemorrhaging $2,000 per year once you turn 29, you still have 50-some-odd years of runway. You could quite possibly have great grandchildren by the time you run out of money at that burn rate.
pay down debt
There is capital benefit to housing and automobiles, so debt may be justifiable there, but you have already included those payments in your earlier figures. What other debt could there possibly be? The average Canadian isn't starting a business and your cashflow figures are positive before the child comes along. No need to account for the same thing twice.
So no actual rage, just more funny contributions to the entertainment machine which happen to portray a raging character?
Makes sense. I was starting to wonder there for a minute why someone would waste their free time being upset. But, I do recognize the fun in posting stupid shit that makes no sense.
Whoa, whoa. We spent good money on developers to add OpenGraph support to our news platform in order for us to have full control over what is shown on Facebook. Now you want us to just throw that away? Do you know how much software developer time costs? There must be a better solution. What if, and hear me out... Facebook paid us to use that work we did?
Is it a manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy? One goes in thinking they'll have a good time, and when it proves to not be, instead of trying something else, they feel that the time will be wasted if they don't eventually find it in the way they originally planned?
There were Amber alerts sent out notifying the people of lockdowns. For example,
But, yes, it is foolish that we have to rely on Bell/Rogers/Telus/Apple/Google to get the word out. Canada Post is the entity which is supposed to be responsible for disseminating such information.
Why? It seems this publisher thought it was a good idea to blur its article text in an effort to boycott itself.
As a side tangent, I can see why Facebook stopped allowing links to news articles. It is annoying and pointless to click on a link and then find there is nothing there; an increasingly common practice amongst news sites. We should consider disallowing news links here too.
if you want to see higher birth rates then housing needs to be affordable.
Canada's birth rate has held stagnant for the last 50 years. No time in the last 50 years has housing been affordable? Hell, Toronto had a housing crash in the 1990s. And it still wasn't affordable right after that?
If your answer is no, it is likely that it is fundamentally impossible to make housing affordable. It ultimately uses up a lot of labour and resources, while removing food growing capability and damaging the climate, for no productive benefit. Good for the individual, but a terrible strain on society as a whole. The cost reflects that.
and that is difficult today
And for the last 50 years, it seems. Even if we can wave a magic wand at housing, how can we be sure that doesn't end up "I can't have kids, food is too expensive!" and then "I can't have kids, internet service is too expensive!"?
The reality is that life has never been affordable. The only thing that changed 50-some-odd years ago was the invention of the birth control pill. And the harsh reality is that life can never be affordable. There is not enough time in the day.
Technically GMI, but we've always conflated the two. The study Ontario tired to conduct a few years ago, which was oft-referred to as a UBI study, was also GMI, not UBI, if you look at the implementation details. There are subtle differences, to be sure, but they probably don't make much difference in practice. The conflation isn't the result of them being radically different.
Further, when you have unskilled people doing the work, as we do, it is likely they would be unaware of the difference. So what differences do exist, even where impactful, are ultimately immaterial in any practical sense. Call it UBI, GMI, GBI, MBI, or the many other names thrown out there, and you'll get the same response every time: "You what? Oh, you want to give people money? Okay. Umm. I don't know what that entails, but I'll think of something!"
The number one reason young people tell me they do not want kids these days is because they cannot afford it.
So they say. I always wonder what the real reason is.
Kids don't cost much. Moreover, they are a complete time sink. Anything that you used to spend money on vanishes as you won't have time for it anymore. It is likely the the average person will come out net ahead. And as the kids get a little bit order, they start to become productive, which becomes an income multiplicative factor.
If the average woman in Niger, where the average income is $50 USD per month, can have seven children, anyone in Canada can afford at least one child with ease.
I expect it is the "16 and Pregnant" movement that has dissuaded people from having children. The whole "Don't ruin your life having children, go to school and get a good job!" message that keeps getting perpetuated. People don't want to be seen as the rural hick woman pumping out babies. That stereotype has become the scorn of our society.
the Liberals have basically stated that their immigration policy is intended to suppress wages.
Policy fail, then. With the exception of the height of COVID, wages have beat inflation since Trudeau took the Prime Ministership. Even the BoC has stepped in to try and stop it.
We did have UBI going. It set inflation in motion, as the naysayers always said it would, and we had to reel back.
UBI doesn't have have to cause inflation, but implementation has to be careful to ensure that. You can't throw any random desk jockey at the job and expect sunshine and rainbows. Trouble is, those who have the right skills aren't interested in doing the work. We don't subscribe to slavery, so...
Understanding that we have a democracy is the first step. Democracy does not happen on election day. Election day is merely the hiring process. Democracy is every day. That means that you need to be actively involved. It means shoving your face in your MP's day in, day out.
The reality is that It doesn't really matter what labour union (or lack thereof) your MP happens to belong to. They're all human at the end of the day, and humans respond to what's in front of them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say. So make sure you are the squeakiest wheel.
Remember, they're just an employee. Hired by you! Like always, if an employee screws up, it's not their fault. It's the management's fault for not properly managing the employee. So make sure you're not a bad manager. Do your job and everything will run smoothly, always.