Check out this column for the Globe and Mail about Stephane Dion's views on equality and free markets.
...The point here is not simply that free markets have transformed the lives of regular, ordinary people. It is also that they have transformed the lives of the poor. Mr. Cox and Mr. Alm: "By the standards of 1971, many of today's poor families might be considered members of the middle class." More than 300,000 poor American families (with incomes less than $20,000 U.S. a year) live in homes worth more than $300,000.
How can people remain poor and yet possess most of the trappings of middle-class life? By increased purchasing power. Among households living below the poverty line in the U.S., the cost of essentials (shelter, food, clothing) had fallen by 2000 to 37 per cent of all consumption, compared with 52 per cent in 1980, 57 per cent in 1950 and 75 per cent in 1920.
As become the blog convention to say - read the whole thing.
Comments (4)
So, Dion is French and a Commie. Who knew? Next he will be an alien or maybe a vampire.
Posted by Greg | December 15, 2006 9:39 AM
Posted on December 15, 2006 09:39
Well, he is French. ;)
Posted by Greg Staples | December 15, 2006 9:46 AM
Posted on December 15, 2006 09:46
I think it should be clear to everyone reading this, unless they’re a shut-in who usually only connects their computer to websites operated by Marxist-Leninists and/or CUPE, that Quebecers have been living in a subsidized socialist fantasy land for so long now that nothing short of the bankruptcy and breakup of Canada will be sufficient to teach them that in the long term one gets wealthy and stays wealthy by individual hard work and saving, not by voting for feel-good commie hucksters.
This is not to say that Quebecers are in any way fundamentally deficient in their morals, their intellectual capacity or their capacity for hard work. They’ve just been very, very, badly served by those who presumed to lead them, and have chosen to believe a lot of heinous lies about how the world works.
And attitudes in the rest of Canada are almost as immoral, stupid and lazy. It’s just that it’s more obvious in the case of Quebec (and eastward) because of the sharp dropoff in attitude that occurs in the middle of the Ottawa River.
You can pretty much count on the whole thing continuing to slide downwards towards the cliff, until you start to hear politicians talking like Neil Reynolds. I seem to recall that Mr. Harper talked this way, back before Party bagmen and hacks started to tell him “how to win”.
Posted by Anonymous | December 15, 2006 11:16 AM
Posted on December 15, 2006 11:16
You can pretty much count on the whole thing continuing to slide downwards towards the cliff, until you start to hear politicians talking like Neil Reynolds. I seem to recall that Mr. Harper talked this way, back before Party bagmen and hacks started to tell him “how to win”.
Ya, I miss that Stephen Harper. Let Stephen be Stephen.
Posted by Greg | December 15, 2006 11:43 AM
Posted on December 15, 2006 11:43