You are showing your own significant biases and lack of perspective framing voting as something that basically only property owning investors can have the knowledge to participate in.
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Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!
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You are showing your own significant biases and lack of perspective framing voting as something that basically only property owning investors can have the knowledge to participate in.
You're a couple phrases shy of complaining about how those darn young people just need to grow up and stop buying their avocado toast.
I was an 18 year old too. I am by far the most politically active in my family and I counted down the days before I could vote, especially since I missed the 2011 election by 2 years. Which if I could have voted at 16 I would have immediately went to the polls to vote against Harper. See how anecdotal evidence works against you?
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That's a fair point, but... the part about paying property taxes and managing those... acronyms I never heard of (and I'm in my 30's but we might call them different things in QC) is not helping your case here.
You're in your 30's and never heard of RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) or TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account)? They're federal policies.
How? It's not particularly outrageous to say people in high school have little experience supporting themselves financially just like saying the elderly have little care for the environment or social issues.
Ah. No I have not seen those acronyms before. They are called REER (Régime enregistré d'épargne-retraite) and CELI (Compte d'épargne libre d'impôt) here. :P In any case, plenty of grown-ups (like my brother who is over 40) don't even have those because they're pretty poor. Hopefully you aren't insinuating that he shouldn't be allowed to vote...
That must be why millennials are saving twice as much as baby boomers, because they're so bad at managing their finances.
But please, go on.
I think a 40 year old has had enough time to form their political opinions. I'm not framing it in any way whatsoever that people who have money should be the only ones who should vote. I'm just saying that people who are removed from high school, had time to work and form more balanced opinions would make for a better voting population.
I'm not a boomer, I don't know why the hell you keep on bringing them up like it is some sort of insult. I'm 30.
Okay. I don't know if I agree but that's a better argument than the stuff about homeowners and savings plans management.
That's just what a boomer would want us to think.
I literally never said you were a boomer and used the above to illustrate a point. Namely, it's complete nonsense to assume young people are lacking in experience pertaining to personal finance and the organization thereof because they don't have an RRSP.
why do you hate old people so much? LOL
Life sucks when you get old and shit doesn't go according to plan
Life sucks when you get old and shit doesn't go according to plan
16 year olds absolutely lack experience pertaining to personal finance. So too do most 18-21 year olds. After that it drastically changes. Most people in that age group aren't supporting themselves and are still relying on their parents.
But please continue to tell me that 16 years old have more than enough experience working their 10-20 hour part time, minimum wage job and please continue to insinuate that people do not drastically change in the few years after leaving high school.
How much did your parents lend you to buy a house or begin investing? Did they help you find a job? Did they support you in anyway through Post Secondary. If so to what time?
I lead with...
"Get back to me when you know plenty of 16-18 year olds who have plenty of experience paying income and property taxes"
I was talking about expenses and finances in general. It's very easy to jump on social issues when you're younger without consideration of some of the other policy platforms. I hated Harper, but Trudeau screwed TFSA's which actually helps lower income earners and is of little benefit to high income earners and lowered parental tax breaks as well for the middle and upper lower class.
This is bordering on the realms of "you'll vote Conservative when you're older and understand how the Real World™ works, sunshine" territory with it being so dismissive towards the intelligence of young people and highly presumptive as to where their financial support stems from, not to mention their work life and hours.
Not a single cent for my home which I purchased last year.
I lived at home while at University, graduating when I was 21 and moving out. I'm not really sure why that is relevant?
I voted for Trudeau. Care to misrepresent what I'm saying again?
I'm not being dismissive to the intelligence of young people at all. I'm recognizing that your opinions drastically evolve once you leave the bubble of high school, start working (or attending university) and start supporting yourself other than paying your cell phone bill.
"I'm not conservative, I voted for Trudeau" doesn't magically erase the content and tone of what you've written.
Speaking of Justin Trudeau, some actual news: www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/03/06/bill-nye-challenges-justin-trudeau-to-justify-kinder-morgan-pipeline-expansion_a_23378554/
It helps if you actually read what is written instead of reading partial sentences and developing your own narrative. It also helps if you recognize that politics isn't either hard left or hard right.
I was a completely dumbass from 16-23 years old. but I did vote in every Federal and Provincial election.
I voted LPC when I turned 18 and voted FUCK NO in the 1995 referendum when I was 20.
But aside from Canadian Unity, I had fuck no clue about RRSPs, mortgage, facts of life until I actually turned 28.
16 year olds are too easily brainwashed by the ideological extremes, weather it's Hard Left, Hard Right, Commies or Separstisste.
in 1995, the Francophone youth voted in Quebec voted for the YES camp.
if voting age was 16; the YES would have won.
Look at GREEN vote among young Anglos. It's insanely high (double meaning, high)
I voted LPC when I turned 18 and voted FUCK NO in the 1995 referendum when I was 20.
But aside from Canadian Unity, I had fuck no clue about RRSPs, mortgage, facts of life until I actually turned 28.
16 year olds are too easily brainwashed by the ideological extremes, weather it's Hard Left, Hard Right, Commies or Separstisste.
in 1995, the Francophone youth voted in Quebec voted for the YES camp.
if voting age was 16; the YES would have won.
Look at GREEN vote among young Anglos. It's insanely high (double meaning, high)
I have to agree with the sentiment that 16 is too young to vote. 18 makes more sense to me. I'm not opposed to kids voting but...I'm not particularly motivated to crusade for it because I don't think a 16 year old has enough insight into fiscal policy. Social issues, sure, but less ideas on realistic ways to fix problems.
Also, morrigan...many friends of mine are in the lowest tax bracket; a TFSA does those people a lot of good.
Also, morrigan...many friends of mine are in the lowest tax bracket; a TFSA does those people a lot of good.
I am trying to get you to gain some perspective on why this issue isn't absolute. Evidence shows young adults rely heavily on their parents well into their late 20s and early 30s. Further the financial position of your parents can significantly materially and therefore politically affect you throughout your life. It basically negates any discussion of dependence as a useful metric for determining voting age.
this, especially those who stay longer in their parents' home through out their 20s.
I stayed with my parents until I was 28. What it actually did was delay my adulthood when it comes to the real world.
I've lived overseas away from my family for almost 10 years. I've supported myself that entire time, plus my wife and son.
Before 18, it's pretty much a certainty that you do not support yourself whatsoever. There are exceptions obviously but the vast majority of kids do not have any meaningful experience in seeing how economic policies impact themselves, except through the lens of their parents.
The end result is generally extremely progressive voting for parties like the Greens with the youth, and the inverse in that older people tend to look through the lens of their finances and vote conservative as they age. Neither extreme is particularly useful for the majority. Given people in the younger age group rapidly evolve, it's highly likely that even in 2 or 3 years their political views are vastly different from the ones they held earlier. Are those viewpoints pertinent when considering voting ages? I personally don't think so, others obviously disagree.
From my experience, when I was 22 I would have barely recognized my 18 year old self, and I know I made a lot of terrible judgements and decisions when I was 18. Even if I thought I was intelligent.
In this day and age people aren't really mature until they are well into their 20s or 30s. Still, voting is simply now a right you acquire when you have the legal age of 18. It's the age you can be put on trial as an adult, the age you can be declared a legal guardian of a child, the age at which you can drink alcohol and soon be able to smoke Marijuana. I didn't follow the infighting and conversation regarding this very carefully but outside of permanent residency and adulthood there isn't much else you can have as a requirement for voting. Just like people are easily influenced and make bad decisions in their everyday life they can do so too while voting. Everyone is trying to get what they want but all are equal with one vote (withstanding election fraud by the rich and powerful). Young people and old people also have different priorities and expect different stuff from the government and the political party have to deal with this. Young people and old people have also different attendance ratio for exercising their voting rights. I don't think it's much of a mystery that when you are young and have few fiscal responsibilities that you vote for a leftist party and while you grew up and start to have a lot of fiscal responsibilities and you progress in you career you get much more conservative fiscally. Senior citizens probably also care more about their federal pension plan not being gutted than investment in supervised drug injections centers and a lowering of tuition fees. Some of them might also be totally out of the loop with what is going on economically and politically in the country just like the young voters. Just like people that live in poverty will vote for parties trying to lift them out of their misery while the burden will be on tax payers of higher tax brackets. The opposite will be also true in that richer folks will try to get tax cuts and tax breaks instead of more expansive government programs that increase their tax burden.
If you try to add more requirements based on age, net worth or income or anything else you are more or less perverting what voting is about and doing voting suppression. It's a right everyone on the basis that no matter how bad or how great society is treating you that everyone is equal with one vote to influence how the government should act. Legally we put that up at the age which the law consider you an adult and will arbitrary it's fine considering all of the legal stuff that changes when you reach that age.
At this point you don't even need a majority (50+1%) to win complete control of the government and its finance anyway. I think in Canada the magic number was close to 37%. And this basically give the winning party a blank check to do anything they want. The problem might not be the voting age and requirements as much as the electoral system and the public agency in actively affecting the government.
If you try to add more requirements based on age, net worth or income or anything else you are more or less perverting what voting is about and doing voting suppression. It's a right everyone on the basis that no matter how bad or how great society is treating you that everyone is equal with one vote to influence how the government should act. Legally we put that up at the age which the law consider you an adult and will arbitrary it's fine considering all of the legal stuff that changes when you reach that age.
At this point you don't even need a majority (50+1%) to win complete control of the government and its finance anyway. I think in Canada the magic number was close to 37%. And this basically give the winning party a blank check to do anything they want. The problem might not be the voting age and requirements as much as the electoral system and the public agency in actively affecting the government.
I don't know any drug dealers that are very happy the government will be their new competition.
This reminds me. If Canada re-elects a conservative government, I'm gonna turn into a goddamn separatist, I swear.
And if Quebec contributes to that by giving the CPC a bunch of seats, I'm gonna turn into a Montreal separatist. Montreal as its own City-State! Who's with me? >.>
Sounds pretty cool. The extra specification on not being able to retaliate for employees discussing pay seems a bit pointless though. It's already completely illegal to do that.
I don't care about the rest of this silly conversation but the bit about the TFSA here makes no sense to me. As noted here, very few people fill up their TFSA, even at the $5500 level. I will leave it to you to guess what percentage of those people are low income earners. I'm roughly within the top 10% of earners in Canada and was absolutely delighted by the doubling to $10,000 but it was very bad policy that was going to cost the government a lot of money while giving extra benefits to the people who need it the least. The only people who can take advantage of that extra space are people like me.
I have to say it's a very minority opinion to say that a TFSA is of little benefit to high income earners. Those are the very people who have a lot to gain from tax shelters.
Can you tell me of a single 1%er that would care about a $4500 increase in a non-taxable account?
TFSA's are easily withdrawn with no financial hit, it is the perfect account for the low and middle class compared to deferred taxation that RRSP's provide. Most people in general don't realize what a TFSA is (they think it's a tax free savings account) with little understanding that it can be used for investments, mostly because of the name of the policy. It doesn't change the fact that it is the best tool there is for lower income earners, over RRSP's which are drastically more beneficial for higher income earners. If it is under-used, then it posed little risk to the government anyway.
TFSA's are pocket change for high income earners.
Trudeau has made huge strides on social issues since being elected, but he has certainly done some questionable things when it comes to increasing financial pressure on the lower and middle class. Namely he took a hammer to a number of family tax credits. If you're middle class, you're almost certainly taking home less pay.
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This Parliamentary Budget Office report on TFSAs is completely at odds with what you're saying prophetvx, and it's from before the limit increase.
Just from the executive summary:
and
And the figures:
Figure A-4 is the one that stands out to me, the highest quintile income group gets 10x the benefits of the lower group.
And since i'm skimming through the thing, here's the benefits in the double-limit scenario. Look how much the top-end benefits:
Just from the executive summary:
and
And the figures:
Figure A-4 is the one that stands out to me, the highest quintile income group gets 10x the benefits of the lower group.
And since i'm skimming through the thing, here's the benefits in the double-limit scenario. Look how much the top-end benefits:
TFSA only benefits you if you put in allot money.
TFSA is near useless if you put in small amounts.
An RRSP is for your future and the small amounts count more in the long run.
TSFA benefit high income earners,
It is garbage for low income earners
TFSA is near useless if you put in small amounts.
An RRSP is for your future and the small amounts count more in the long run.
TSFA benefit high income earners,
It is garbage for low income earners
Compare that to RRSP's and the skew would be far more significant. There is a very solid reason why financial advisors suggest filling your TFSA before contributing to your RRSP.This Parliamentary Budget Office report on TFSAs is completely at odds with what you're saying prophetvx, and it's from before the limit increase.
Just from the executive summary:
and
And the figures:
An account where people can remove money without having a contribution hit is far more beneficial for people who have less liquidity.
How?
TFSA and RRSP can be invested in exactly the same way. Functionally there are no real differences other than a TFSA you can remove your money whenever you want and re-contribute the following year, RRSP you lose that room immediately AND pay tax on it. If you're paying 20% income tax, contributing to your RRSP provides little benefit compared to someone who is in the highest income bracket. Not to mention if you're a low income earner, you get virtually no RRSP contribution room in the first place.
Nope.
Only beneficial in the short-term when you need to withdraw now.
So the financial stuff is just beyond me, but if the idea is that RRSPs are supposed to lower the social burden of supporting pensioners, why is it taxed when you take it out anyway? Shouldn't the government want you to use that money when you retire?
Low and lower-middle income people tend to not have TFSAs, RRSPs, or much savings in general. That's why we have OAS and the CPP (and the Trudeau government had to be delicately design their CPP changes to not make those groups worse off during their working ages).
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RRSP is tax deferment. It reduces your taxable income when contributing. The idea is that the money will grow tax free, then you get taxed when withdrawing it, but strategically so that you'd fall in a lower tax bracket (theoretically) when retired.
You can invest in Google stocks with a TFSA if you wanted, it is no different. You just don't get a tax refund, but also don't pay tax when withdrawing it.
The CPP isn't like Social Security in the USA, it's perfectly healthy. OAS costs are going to balloon but the federal government's fiscal position is good (unlike the provinces).
As the Ontario election inches closer, for some reason I expect Ford to win because he's not Wynne. Is there any hope for NDP's to win? Every candidate in the conservative party freaking denies climate change ugh.
We still have an ageing population. It's obviously much stronger than SS, but it's hard to foresee a program like that existing in 40 years or that it would provide a livable income. I certainly wouldn't factor it in or bank on it in my retirement planning or you could be in for a world of hurt.
I grew up in Australia before moving to Canada. What was perceived to be a pretty strong pension system, was systematically wiped out over the course of about 15 years. Now the maximum age pension is ~$350/month and for any retirement savings you have as income, for every 2 dollars you earn over that per month, you lose a dollar of it.
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If the NDP can't win an election in Ontario against a universally despised Wynne government and the Patrick Brown upheaval in the PC party (and Rob Ford's brother winning the job), they ought to just outright fold and bail from provincial politics. What do they have to do short of crucifying effigies of LIBERAL Bob Rae to get themselves elected?
Good thing government policy never changes over the course of 30 or 40 years as well. What is our unemployment rate going to look like in 20 years with the emergence of automation?
TFSA are better for low income earners if they even knew it existed and utilized it.
Most low income earners don't even make enough to fill it. Don't even know enough about investing to fill it with the right products.
So saying it "hurts" the lower and lower-middle income families seems like a hypothetical since most don't max it anyway.
The kind of people who would best use them are the already finanmcially-savvy, and that will be either people who make enough big money to have the time to think about it, or who have enough money to hire someoen else to think about it.
I am pretty sure they studied this through and it ended up that rich families just started filling out other family members' TFSAs as part of their own tax havens. It seems made for richer families to store and hide their wealth more than it is for lower income families to benefit from.
Since its inception, if you were 18+ years old in 2009, you would have $57,500 in contribution room in total now. I don't think many low income families even have that much in ALL their accounts let alone a specialized account as a special investment vehicle.
It's great if the few people who are low-mid income and have enough savvy exist to make the most of TFSAs (like me .. trying to. I opened one as soon as they were available! but it's not even halfway filled yet!), but I think it would be misguided to say lowering the annual amount back to 5,500 HURT low income families in a significant way. I think you're just greedy and were disappointed, as I would have been.. had I had the money to max out lol.
Seems odd to think CPP is doomed because (I assume) you think the government's going to raid the fund for spending money (which they can't do) but also want the government to increase the TFSA ceiling which would reduce their revenues now and in the future.
Plus any changes to CPP require the approval of 7/10 provinces with at least 2/3 of the population. How is it going to suddenly become insolvent beyond your vague "aging population!" claim that is contradicted by the evidence.
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