[GTALUG] Are you on the watch list?

[James Knott]

On 07/16/2016 07:22 PM, Russell Reiter wrote:
> Has there ever been a truly poor government worker or politician? Even
> if they started out that way, they don't stay poor.

My ex worked for Revenue Canada for several years.  She certainly wasn't
well paid.  Many government employees look good these days because they
haven't lost as much over the years as the rest of us.  There have been
many things that have lead to the overall drop in the standard of
living, over the past 3 decades.  One, Citibank, in the U.S. came up
with a plan to make it's clients wealthier.  That plan included, among
other things, cutting jobs and cutting wages.  Then, in the 80s we had
Reagan and his trickle down nonsense.  We also had trade deals that were
promised to create jobs, but in fact did the opposite, but greatly
enriched the large corporations.  Here we had Harper with his cut
business taxes to create jobs that never materialized and had those tax
benefits that would mainly benefit the wealthy, but he couldn't do
anything to help those struggling on a meager CPP.  Incidentally, you'll
often hear about "respect for the taxpayer", ignoring the fact that many
taxpayers will be hurt my their plans.  Then we have Walmart, which pays
so little employees have to rely on state benefits just to survive. 
According to what I read, the average Walmart employee in Wisconsin
costs taxpayers some $4K per year.  I also saw a graph that demonstrated
the shift in wealth since the 80s.  It was essentially an exponential
curve with a line drawn across it.  If you were below the line, you were
worse off.  Only the very wealthy were above the line and by a large
amount at that.  On top of this, we also have soaring exec
compensation.  One thing that's clear is the financial problems are
caused by those at the top, with the help of their pals in government. 
It is in no way the average person or even unions that are causing these
issues.  It's the so called "1%".