Tiberius wrote: ↑Tue Jan 12, 2021 6:19 pm
This is an interesting discussion, but I came across something today that should put things into perspective.
There are 2 single mothers at my office. Each has a son around the same age, roughly 8 or 9 years old. Each of these ladies are receiving child support.
The first mother, lets call her Alice, works a full time position with my company and rent a modest apartment in town. She also works as an uber driver and has a side hustle selling pottery on Etsy. She also does a bit of work on the side for her parent’s business. She’s not on any sort of assistance whatsoever with exception of a small stipend from the government to help pay for her son’s therapy, as he has a disability.
The second mother, lets call her Jeannette, lives in a subsidized 3 bedroom single detached house. Her rent is equivalent to that of a small barley legal bachelor apartment for 1 person on the odd side town, approximately $1000 a month, not including utilities. In addition to the salary she pulls down from her full time position at my company, she is enrolled in a myriad of government programs and receives an additional income equating to about $4200 a month.
How I do know all this? Well clearly, Alice was the one who told me about Jeanette; Jeanette, who was quoted as saying she plays up the “single-mother thing” to get all this money. Some additional perspective, Jeanette isn’t really good at her job and is looking forward to another lock-down where she wont have to work. She also doesn’t grasp economics or the implications of, and I quote, “just let them print more money”.
So what is the take away here? The point is, relating to taxes, the carbon tax, etc., is that there are too many Jeannettes in this country (and Tyrones for that matter). People who have no shame, no second thoughts about
OTHER people paying for their life-mistakes. Children are not an entitlement or a right, they’re a responsibility, and I don’t see how any reasonable parent chooses to have a child without factoring in how they will support that child financially, and/or without positioning themselves to do so accordingly.
Now this got a little off topic with minimum wage. The point with minimum wage had to do with mentality of certain people and how it relates to Carbon taxes. Too many people get emotional on these subjects but we’re talking about money. And money doesn’t care one way or the other. It’s not impossible to come up from minimum wage so as long as you don’t make dumb decisions. Simple math. You either make more, or you spend less, or you do both and with the surplus, you invest.
When I was young, I used to make minimum wage when it was about $8 to 10 per hour. My rent was $400 - $500 a month for a small bedroom in a shared house with 5 other tenants. There were no trips down south, no living it up at the club with bottles of Crystal or Hennessey. And Hell, definitely no girlfriend back then either, at least in the earlier years. If there was a night I wasn’t working, it was some beer, chicken wings and a movie. I bought my clothes at Walmart and sometimes even
Giant Tiger. I used to steal napkins and packets of salt and ketchup from MacDonalds. There was barley any points in my 20’s when I didn’t have less than 2 jobs. But I made a simple budget with a simple formula: 1/3 rent, 1/3 expenses, 1/3 savings. Any surpluses from overtime or extra hours got put into savings. When I had enough in the bank, I did some training. Learned a trade (in construction), got a better job with better pay, I learned what I could, moved up the ladder, and I kept working with same formula. Wash, rinse repeat. Now, with a degree and a diploma later, (and no debt) and some years working in consulting, I’m not doing too bad, not bad at all. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I had a kid, or if I didn’t make sacrifices.
Now I see there is a ‘stuff-happens’ factor that a lot of people point out and I think that where some of you get emotional because there’s some personal relevance in it for you. In understand, I worked with an ailment through my 20’s which required extensive surgery by my late 20’s. But I learned 1 thing in that time:
no one cares, do not bank on the sympathy of others to get by in life. Stuff happens and you’re on an island by yourself with no rescue or reprieve, so it’s up to you and you alone.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that there shouldn’t be a safety net, but it is meant to be temporary. Clearly there are people who abuse it for no other reason than they can and they don’t care. Those are the voters now. When you factor these type of people into the equation, there is no choice but to institute a large onerous tax on the working population and with no measurable end or outcome.
Welcome to Canada in 2021.
