General Politics Discussion

[tomh009]

Our whole economy is structured to enrich a small percentage of the population, rather than serving the needs of everyone.

Not as bad as many other countries but there is still much room for improvement.

[nms]

I'm not surprised at the top three. What did Iceland do to cut their coefficient by half?

On a related note, Iceland's population is around 400,000

[Kodra24]

Um, I'm sure I'm going to get major flack here but do we really want to be reaching for a Gini coefficient of 0? Do you want surgeons to make the same income as a grocery cashier?

[KevinL]

It's never stated as the goal, just the perfect (and thus unattainable) ideal.

One day we may get Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism, in the Star Trek vein, but we can gradually work in that direction.

[ijmorlan]

Um, I'm sure I'm going to get major flack here but do we really want to be reaching for a Gini coefficient of 0? Do you want surgeons to make the same income as a grocery cashier?

No, that would be completely insane, although I’m sure there are people sufficiently economically ignorant to favour such an outcome. Like a lot of measures, it is not one to be maximized or minimized without regard to other considerations. But I think it’s fair to say that really extreme inequality is some combination of a symptom of various problems, and a cause of problems in itself.

[tomh009]

I'm not surprised at the top three. What did Iceland do to cut their coefficient by half?

On a related note, Iceland's population is around 400,000

Not really half, because the scale starts at 0.20. 😊 It looks like it dropped from 0.281 in 2007 to 0.227 in 2014. I believe this was due to the 2008-2011 Icelandic economic crisis which saw three major bank collapses and a stock market crash. I should assume that the investment incomes dropped dramatically, and that would have mostly been impacting the high-income people.

Another way of looking at Iceland's current gini coefficient is that the ratio of disposable incomes, top 20% vs bottom 20%, is currently about 3.5. This is certainly not the same for everyone, but a massively smaller gap than the US, for example. More info on the Icelandic statistics agency page:
https://statice.is/publications/news-arc...-for-2022/

[danbrotherston]

Um, I'm sure I'm going to get major flack here but do we really want to be reaching for a Gini coefficient of 0? Do you want surgeons to make the same income as a grocery cashier?

Who said that was our goal? Why do you think you’ll get “major flack”. 

That said I do think it’s worth some self reflection on how our society values people.

[greybird]

Does anyone have a comparable chart that's more recent than 2014? Would be very curious to see the changes, not only in Canada.

[tomh009]

Does anyone have a comparable chart that's more recent than 2014? Would be very curious to see the changes, not only in Canada.

There is an interactive chart here:
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/...ality.html

[ac3r]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation Monday in the face of rising discontent over his leadership and after the abrupt departure of his finance minister signaled growing turmoil within his government.

France 24

Good riddance haha. RIP the Liberals, they're finished come October.

[panamaniac]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation Monday in the face of rising discontent over his leadership and after the abrupt departure of his finance minister signaled growing turmoil within his government.

France 24

Good riddance haha. RIP the Liberals, they're finished come October.

October?  The election will be in May.

[bravado]

I look forward to people expecting everything to change with a new federal government without realizing that their suffering comes from the province and city hall <3

[KevinL]

Good riddance haha. RIP the Liberals, they're finished come October.

October?  The election will be in May.

There's a remote outside chance the new Liberal leader convinces the NDP to prop them up, but it is unlikely.

[panamaniac]

October?  The election will be in May.

There's a remote outside chance the new Liberal leader convinces the NDP to prop them up, but it is unlikely.

After Singh's comments today, it would seem virtually impossible

[tomh009]

Good riddance haha. RIP the Liberals, they're finished come October.

October?  The election will be in May.

May or June, I expect, yes. The next session of Parliament will start on 24 March with the throne speech. I would expect a confidence vote within a couple of days as the government would need to pass supply bills for funding government operations, and those are always confidence votes. If (when) the government loses a confidence vote and the G-G calls an election, the government automatically receives interim funding during the election campaign.

So, say 24-26 March, plus 36-50 days. That would be somewhere between 29 April and 15 May. I expect they'll choose to use the maximum-length campaign period of 50 days (still about 300 days shorter than the US) so maybe mid-May.