Well, here’s something on this Thanksgiving weekend to be thankful about. Possibly.
Countless stories – perhaps all feeding off the same misinformation? – have reported that middle-class incomes have been almost static for 20, 30, even 40 years.
Wrong, very wrong. The median Canadian income increased ‘‘dramatically … from $25,771 per-family-member in 1976 to $39,200 in 2011, the most recent year of readily available data.’’ That’s ‘‘as much as” 52 per cent.
So says Vancouver’s Fraser Institute, citing studies by senior Fraser fellow Donald Boudreaux, economics professor at Virginia’s George Mason University and co-author of The Myth of Middle-Class Stagnation in Canada.
What skews, obscures or explains the truth? These factors: Inflation is over-estimated. Big advances in purchasing power. Shorter working hours for higher pay. Smaller families – fewer mouths to feed.
And the most easily overlooked, changes in government transfers such as the GST credit and child benefit payments. It’s (Canadian) human nature to look only at the pay stub’s “take-home pay’’ — as if the deductions are just wasteful government stuff. Like for our health system, pensions and much else.
In fact, the Fraser Institute itself encourages this line of thinking by calculating “Tax Freedom Day” — this year in B.C. it was June 5 — when taxes at all levels are paid off and families “start working for themselves.”
But also a factor is that some goods over time become much cheaper. Boudreaux cites the microwave oven, $579.98 at Sears in 1976 and $229.99 in 2011, while hours of average pay to buy one plunged from 109 to 10. More currently, think of the huge drop in computer costs and such while they vastly improved.
So, great Thanksgiving news – the definitive study, we’ve prospered! Until the left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives fires back with the straight goods. Yeah, sure.
• • •
And speaking of the Fraser: On Oct. 17 the institute will hold a celebratory luncheon for economist Herbert Grubel, Reform party MP from 1993 to 1997 for Capilano-Howe Sound (merged into West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky riding).
Grubel has an arm-long international C.V. But arguably his most important role was that as Reform’s finance critic he and Liberal finance minister Paul Martin had informal non-partisan talks about slashing the federal debt, Martin’s outstanding accomplishment (he modestly credited the Canadian people).
Grubel is still cranking out creative ideas. One proposed a Canada-U.S. shared currency called the amero. Sounds pretty good at present.
• • •
Fay Stannus, who died recently, was a longtime North Shore stalwart for the pro-life movement, a determined foe of the moral and demographic evils of abortion whose facts and figures are repressed by the establishment from the top down (Justin Trudeau but also the other party leaders), abetted by the media that know censorship is so dreadfully distasteful – that’s dictatorship stuff – while simply ignoring the uncomfortable is so easy. The movement isn’t dead, but you’d never know it.
• • •
One summer morning about 15 years ago I advised my three young children to get the hell out of the house because fire was shooting up trees down the block on the other side of the road. And if one fell on our side …
Didn’t happen. Our WV firefighters expertly snuffed it out.
For years the gated property’s For Sale signs grew old and died. Then, a few weeks ago, the lot – a substantial 1.55 acres, spilling down to waterfront – was sold by well-known real estate agent Jason Soprovich. Offered north of $16 million, it sold for a mere $14.5 million, Soprovich said.
That figure won’t make a West Vancouver eyebrow even twitch, while politicians and regulators nervously chew on how not to kill the golden goose, just maybe make it, well, silver – without, of course, actually interfering with the market, you know, helping the landless young but not their, um, propertied parents.
• • •
I can attest that UBC Theatre is uneven. Understandably. Young thespians, sometimes risk-taking or daunting plays.
Strongly recommended: Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II, running till Oct. 15 at the Chan Centre’s Telus stage. I can’t list all members of an exceptional cast and creative team, but Riley Bugaresti as the king and Daniel Curalli as his lover Gaveston are outstanding, direction by Mary Vingoe stunning, all far above usual university expectations. Well worth a bridge-crossing.
Former Vancouver Sun columnist Trevor Lautens writes every second Friday on politics and life with a West Vancouver bias. [email protected]
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via emaili by clicking here or post a comment below.
