StatsCan on Wealth Distribution

update (December 14, 2006 11:54)

The Globe and Mail has an online poll today regarding the wealth distribution pieces that have been all over the news lately. The Globe Poll reads;

"A recent study shows the chasm between rich and poor is growing. Last year, those in the top fifth of wealth distribution had a median net worth of about $551,000 while for families in the bottom fifth, the value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts. Where do you place yourself on the 'wealth' scale?"

The possible answers are "Top 20%", "Top 40%", "Right in the middle", "Bottom 40%", and "Bottom 20%".

When I answered the poll, there was a disproportionately high number of people who categorized themselves as being a part of the richest 20% of the population. I wonder if people might be misunderstanding exactly how few people actually hold all that wealth, or perhaps the lack of scientific value of online polls is being clearly demonstrated, or readers of the Globe and Mail are those people in the top 20%, or maybe we need more people to answer the poll in order to get values that reflect the findings of the studies - or more likely, it's a combination of all those reasons. Regardless, the results of the poll can be found here.

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StatsCan has released some new data that is a good companion piece to my post a couple of days ago on the disparity of wealth distribution in the world.

"Of the total household wealth in Canada in 2005, the top 20 per cent possessed 75 per cent of it."

This article focuses more on the cost of housing as a factor in the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada.

"Most of those (95 per cent) in the top 20 per cent bracket owned a home, and the median value of that home grew by $75,000 between 1999 and 2005. Only six per cent of those in the lowest wealth group owned a home."

"Statistics Canada said the median net worth of the poorest group has stagnated over the past two decades. 'The value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts during the 1984 to 2005 period.'"

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President Harper

I think I've said it often enough, but I'll say it again; we live in world comprised primarily of uninformed idiots and the masses can not generally be trusted to decide most matters of public interest.

So when Stephen Harper announces that he wants to go U.S. style (this seems to happen a lot with Harper) and have members of the Senate elected by the people, I cringe, furrow, shake my fist in the general direction of Ottawa, and open up Blogger to have my say.

I don't think people, myself included, have enough information about experience, job descriptions, responsibilities, candidates, reputations, and all the other things that may be of importance for these positions. Sure, the simple answer is to get that information out to the public - whom we know don't pay much attention to these matters. Back to square one.

Besides my gut reaction to this announcement there are other issues; first, we have the usual unbalanced representation that favours the East over the West where "a province like Nova Scotia is represented by 10 senators, while a province like Alberta, with about five times the population, only has six senators."

Secondly, while it would seem that Harper has left a window open on the possibility that nothing will really change because the election results will be non-binding and the ultimate decision of who to appoint will still fall to the Prime Minister. Currently the Prime Minster appoints senators without public input - so why are we bothering with this new bill if basically nothing changes? Because "if passed into law, the bill would allow Harper to make changes to the Senate without reworking the Constitution, which would require co-operation from the provinces." Yep, it's just another bid by Harper to change the Constitution or to change it without actually changing it all without the bother of getting National support. That guy can not leave the damn Constitution alone - just like Bush keeps taking runs at their Constitution.


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Words

mordant [MOR-dn't]

-biting; caustic; sarcastic

"I have never injured anybody with a mordant poem; my verse contains charges against nobody. Ingenuous, I have shunned wit steeped in venom - not a letter of mine is dipped in poisonous jest."

-Ovid

Chasing The War On Drugs

Harper and his cabinet minsters have been quietly liaising with U.S. officials since before June. The ministers have been consulting them regarding their drug policy with an eye to developing a version of it for Canada. Right. Because it's widely acknowledged that the American style War On Drugs is the model of success? Oh right, that's a load of crap. The American War On Drugs is laughable and at best only marginally successful - and even then, only in spite of itself. This plan of course runs totally counter to the extremely successful programs being run in Europe where the drug problem is categorized more as a health issue than a criminal or 'moral' problem. Not only that, but the European model favours a harm reduction approach whereas the U.S. and Federal Conservatives' style is more along the lines of being an asshole and seeing how far that gets you.

Currently evidence shows that the European model more effective by leaps and bounds over the hard edged American style where there is no good evidence to support the approach. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the current government plans to unveil it's revised American-style National drug strategy next year.

After new drug action plan is unveiled, the Conservatives want to send diplomats "to do outreach with the U.S. and our like-minded countries." Since when are we a "like-minded country" Harper? The most recent indication that this country is not behind Harper and U.S. on this matter came in the form of national polls and protests over the Conservative government's plan to shut down the supervised injection site in Vancouver (Insite) that follows the ideal of the European harm reduction model. The Conservatives wanted it shut down (as would an American drug policy analyst), but the public, opposition governments, NGOs, health organizations and law enforcement agencies across Canada all lobbied the government to keep the doors of the safe injection site open. Insite won a few months reprieve, but the Conservatives plan to attack it early next next year - flying the face of public will once again.

Canada is not one of Harper's and America's so-called 'like-minded countries', but is our government listening? Do they know who they represent? So they even care anymore? I'm afraid the people's power is waning and they don't even realize it.


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Poor Vancouverites

We've had a rough winter so far in Vancouver. We've had flooding, a weeks long boil water advisory, downed power lines, a crippling snow storm, downed power lines, and now last night, more downed power lines.

Another wind storm kicking up gusts of up to 115 km/h hammered the city yesterday. The commute home was brutal; dark, raining, crawling through major intersections navigating the hazard of thousands of idiots who have no idea how to manage a four way stop. The ferries weren't running, trees that survived our last few storms toppled all over town, and this morning, power still hasn't been restored to 190,000 people.

BC Hydro has been very busy for the last couple of months and things aren't going to get any easier - the forecast calls for more strong winds tonight and tomorrow.


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Update (December 13, 2006 15:53)

For those keeping track, the continued high winds we've been experiencing in British Columbia has left 70,000 people without power today. That's 40,000 who haven't had electricity restored since the last wind storm plus another 30,000 affected today!

$2,200.00 USD

Sadly, having just $2,200 in wealth (household wealth was defined as the value of physical and financial assets minus debts) is all you'd need to be placed in the top half of the world's wealth distribution - but only the bottom 49% of that top half. The newest figures show that this distribution sees 1% of the total world population holding 40% of the planet's wealth. Meanwhile, "the bottom half of the world makes do with barely one per cent" of the world's wealth.

"The authors note that "many people in high-income countries — somewhat paradoxically — are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth" because they have large debts."

This means that those who have at least $2,200 in household wealth and can be considered 'middle class' are only a tiny portion of the total world population. Scarier still is that the 50% of the population below that has to make to with splitting only 1% of the wealth.

So we have major problems income and distribution of wealth inequality that seem to be getting worse every year. The rich get richer and poor die off while trying to get a portion of the world's wealth scraps.

Disheartening isn't it?


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Does Anyone Trust The Cops?

I don't even know where to start on this story. Saint John's finest targeted a man (LeBlanc) who was taking pictures of a protest and three officers pinned him to the ground. He was arrested, charged with obstruction of justice, and police later testified that he was resisting arrest (a favorite catch-all accusation preferred by law enforcement personnel). The good news, for the victim, is that there is video evidence showing that he was peacefully snapping photos before being tackled out of the blue by police for no apparent reason.

"The video speaks for itself. It's very strong evidence, that video," [Judge] McCarroll said. "He's taking pictures. The next thing is, you know, he's down on the ground with three officers on him."

Police had testified earlier in the week that LeBlanc resisted during his arrest, but McCarroll held up a picture of the police walking LeBlanc peacefully across the lobby of the conference centre. "This doesn't look to me like someone who is resisting arrest."

The versions of the story told by the police are contradictory and inconsistent, and I didn't even get into how they set him up via his blog and then tried to deny any knowledge of knowing who he was before seeing him at the protest.

The judge so thoroughly blasted the police that the defence attorney is confident the case will be won and has decided there is no need to call any of his witnesses.

I'm very glad the judge spoke up about all of this, but I'm more concerned about the actions of the police in the first place. Sure, this guy will probably be found not guilty, but how will that address the fact that cops are engaging in shady business to frame innocent people? And since when is it illegal to take pictures of a public place and event unless you are a journalist? Did I miss something in the Anti-terrorism Act? I didn't realize the full extent of the Act's infringement on civil liberties if that's true - and it was scary enough with what I did know.

Guess He Found The Killer

So get this; O.J. Simpson has a two-part television special airing during the November sweeps where he "is to speak in "hypothetical terms" about how he would have committed the 1994 killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman "if he were the one responsible."" It's titled If I Did It, Here's How It Happened. The special coincides with the release of O.J's new book, If I Did It. I wonder if it will be categorized under Fiction or Non-Fiction?

For awhile after the trial, it seemed like the dude couldn't believe he'd gotten away with it all. Now he appears to be so damn smug about it, that he's going to go on National television to tell everyone how he did it - 'hypothetically' of course. If the guy is innocent, why would he do this? And even if he actually is innocent, what kind of reaction did he think this would bring? Maybe he's just one of those killers that need to brag about their crime, or to be recognized for their work. Whatever his reasons are, I think the dude is fucked up.

By the way, thank you for this Fox Network.

Update (14:19 PST) - And just like that, the whole thing is cancelled. The owner of Fox television decided to pull the plug on both O.J.'s t.v. special and book.

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman.

I Love A Rainy Night

We had a wicked storm come through the South Coast yesterday that kicked up 100 km/h winds, knocked out power, and contaminated our three water reservoirs with dirt and mud (article). 125,000 people are still without power (down from the 200,000 from last night) and the whole Greater Vancouver Area was just placed under a boil water advisory. We're talking, all residents, businesses, the works, have to boil water before using it in any way - except for showers...just don't gulp down any water while you're in there.

The storm also allegedly knocked down a four story building that was under construction. Four floors of steel girders came crashing down crushing several cars - remarkably, not a single person was hurt. The construction crew happened to be on a break at the time of the accident, and nobody was in any of the squashed cars. The Sea to Sky highway had to be closed for several hours because too many trees had fallen across the road, and there is flooding everywhere.

And it isn't over yet; a new front is moving in and we already have a heavy rainfall warning for this weekend!



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Building Of Interest

In July of this year, local filmmaker Yun Lam Li embarked on a three-year documentary project entitled "The Reincarnation of W", to examine how changes to Woodward's affect people living in the area. Li says he wants to record people's predictions of Woodward's future now and compare them to the actual outcomes in 2009 when construction of the building is finished. The first chapter of his documentary is available on his website.

The point is; two minutes into the clip you get to watch a building implode. Always a good time.



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Rumsfeldless

Democrats have control of the House of Representatives and Congress in the States. Rumsfeld resigned. Bush is sad. I'm totally on board with all this change. Now if we can just stop Harper from taking a majority in this country next year... well, that would be the fucking cat's meow.


CBC article



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Definitely a Vancouverite

It was only 5:30 p.m. but it was dark. I was driving home from the office in the pouring rain, my windshield wipers on full speed to keep the shiny road surface visible. At a red light, looking at the wet scene around me, I got that warm nostalgic feeling as I suddenly thought, "It feels like Christmas."


In other news, we have a local flood warning in effect due to the rain!



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How Many Gifts?

Everyone in my office is invited to a surprise bridal shower for one of our co-workers, Joyce. The invitation also says that "Joyce and Jenn are registered at Pottery Barn & Restoration Hardware". If you are going to a lesbian bridal shower, are both engaged people going to be there?

Random Quote #5

At a bar in Waterloo, Ontario.

Johnny Good Times: "That was my ex-girlfriend."

Louis: "Did you fuck her in the nose?"

Good Times: "No man, I fucked her in the normal."



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Official Photographer

I've become one of those people who take pictures of everything. I don't reserve my camera just for special events, I also constantly snap shots of the every day. When a gathering does occur I relentlessly take photos of the festivities and as a result end up with lots of great moments caught for posterity - which means that I have been named the Official Photographer of the DMB tours I attend. Not by the band of course, but by my friends who also travel to lots of shows.

It's an honour to be responsible for capturing these memories, not to mention a whole lot of fun. And now someone who I think is amazing, has also taken note of my pictures. Recently I got some exciting information from a friend in Nevada; Mike Doughty posted some of my pictures on his blog!

Check out the three posts on September 20th, those are all my pictures from the show in San Francisco and Mike generously credits me for each of them. How cool is that?



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