By Julian Beltrame, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - While politicians in Ottawa still can't decide who is in the middle class, a new analysis suggests wealth is increasingly gravitating to the very top.
The report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that the country's 86 richest individuals and families — or 0.002 per cent of the total population — are getting exponentially richer and now have accumulated as much wealth as the country's poorest 11.4 million.
That's more than in 1999, when the richest 86 had as much money as the poorest 10.1 million and enough to buy up everything in New Brunswick and still have about $40 billion left over, according to the report, to be released Thursday.
The point of the exercise, says economist and author David Macdonald, who used Statistics Canada data and research from Canadian Business magazine, is to show that if income inequality is a policy and social justice concern — wealth inequality is worse.
In fact, the super-rich list of Canadian residents has little to do with income in the traditional sense, he said. None of the 86 are company CEOs — often the poster children of the Occupy crowd for their unseemly salaries and bonuses. Instead, the ones on the list are there by virtue of being company founders or related to company founders.
The super-rich have gotten there by creating and trading assets, whether companies, real estate or securities.
"We often focus on income inequality but that's a socialist paradise compared to wealth inequality," said Macdonald.
"The top 20 per cent only get half of all the income, but in terms of wealth inequality, the top 20 per cent have 70 per cent of all wealth. It's much more extreme and the concern is as you accumulate all this wealth, this wealth starts to buy you political power."
Inequality, whether in income or wealth, increasingly looks like it will become a key issue in the upcoming federal election, with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair seeking to make the case that Conservative policies have left the middle class behind — with little job security, higher in debt, and in many instances, living paycheque to paycheque.
The government has pointed to the growth in net worth most recently reported by Statistics Canada in February as an indicator their policies are working for everyone.
"After-tax disposable income has increased by 10 per cent across all income brackets," noted Employment Minister Jason Kenney at the time.
But Statistics Canada also showed wealth gravitating to the top. While median net worth rose almost 80 per cent since 1999 to $243,800 per family unit, the top 40 per cent possessed 88.9 per cent of total net worth, leaving the bottom 60 per cent with a mere 11.1 per cent of the pie.
Eye-opening was the data that showed the poorest 20 per cent of family units had more debts than assets.
The issue flared again Wednesday after Trudeau asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper if he thought that the problem of the middle class was a myth. Harper chided Trudeau for his inability to define the middle class.
But the issue is not going away. The NDP has been especially critical of the government's decision to severely cut corporate tax rates, even in the middle of a recession, and getting little job creation or business investment in return.
Some economists have also argued that nations with high levels of inequality tend to underperform more egalitarian countries in terms of overall economic growth.
The latest CCPA analysis also suggests that once someone gets to the top of the wealth ladder, they likely stay there.
The richest individuals and families in 2013 were pretty much the same people who made the list in 2005 and in 1999 — well-known family names like Thomson, Weston, Irving, Desmarais and Pattison.
Between 1999 and 2013, the report shows that the wealthiest 86 Canadians had enlarged their pot of gold from $118 billion to $178 billion on real non-inflationary terms.
Macdonald says a reason wealth growth is increasingly becoming concentrated is that it is taxed differently from income.
"If one Canadian makes $100,000 a year selling a company (or shares) while another makes $100,000 a year working at a job, the worker will pay twice the tax of the business seller," he said.
"A combination of a higher inclusion rate (for capital gains) and higher income taxes at the top of the income scale could go part way to offset the flood of wealth that is accumulating in the pockets of Canada's wealthiest and ensure some benefits are returned to the majority of Canadians."
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said median income rose to $243,800 per family unit but the figure referred to median net worth.
Comments
(Before It's News)
Cooper predicted the messianic rise of Obama to usher in hellish world war and spearhead final institutionalization of the totalitarian one world government and complete end to the bill of rights 1:41:45. Secret documents from 1970-1973 reveal a plan now unfolding before our very eyes.
William Cooper 1997: Many years ago I had access to a set of documents that I eventually realized was the plan for the destruction of the united States of America and the formation of a socialist totalitarian world government. The plan was contained within a set of Top Secret documents with the title “MAJESTYTWELVE”. The term honored the planned placement of ultimate power in a body of wise men who are destined to rule the world as the disciples of a Messiah front man. This Messiah will serve as a buffer between the wise men and the sheople. I discovered these documents between 1970 and 1973 while I was a member of the Intelligence Briefing Team of the Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet. The plan outlined the formation of a world totalitarian socialist government. It is to be ruled by a behind-the-scenes council of wise men. A so-called benevolent dictator, will be presented as the Messiah.
The Constitution for the united States of America and its Bill of Rights will be scrapped. A parliamentary form of government will take its place. All military forces and individuals are to be disarmed except for an internal police force which will carry only the minimum weapons needed to maintain internal order. The only military force will be a world police force under the United Nations in sufficient numbers with state-of-the-art technology so that it can field overwhelming force against any perceived threat to the world supra government – see State Department Publication 7277. The military of the united States of America is currently filling the requirement. The senior officer corps of all of our military forces have betrayed their oaths of allegiance to the Constitution and have joined the conspiracy. They are turncoats who are actively engaged in High Treason.
The source of this conspiracy will be found in the body known as the Illuminati. It is made up of the highest adepts of the combined total of the so-called fraternal orders and secret societies. They are bound together by blood oaths, a secret religion, and the promise of an elite status within regional government, or the world supra government. Their religion is based upon the Kabbalah, the Luciferian Philosophy, and the worship of the Sun. They are not bound by any oath or allegiance save their own. They are loyal to no government or People save their own. And they are Citizens of no country save their already in place secret world government. In their own words, “If you are not one of us you are nothing.” To garner some sense of “feel” for the concept see the movie They Live.
“It is a largely ‘open’ conspiracy, in that much of its membership, structure, methods, and operations, are matters of public record, however scattered and obscure. Its manner of coordination is atypical. Two nuclei – the elite core of the Wall Street clique (orbiting the House of Rockefeller) and the elite core of the European financial clique (orbiting the House of Rothschild) – coordinate this global conspiracy by waging psychological warfare on the rest of the conspirators, telling each no more than is necessary for him to fulfill his designated role, often with explicit recognition neither of his role, nor of the unarticulated rules that govern him. Thus, the overwhelming bulk of the conspirators do not know, but only suspect, that they are part of and in service to ‘a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it’ (quoting Woodrow Wilson).” – Daniel Pouzzner
You cannot hope to understand the philosophy (Illuminism) of any branch of the “Mystery School” (Illuminati) without many years of study and a complete knowledge of their “symbolic” language. You must understand that like many other organizations they attract those who completely miss the boat… or are just too stupid to “get it”. When an individual joins a branch of the “Brotherhood,” by any name, Freemasonry, Theosophical Society, Anthroposophic Society, Fraternitis Rosae Crucae, Knights Templar, Sovereign and Military Order of the Knights of Malta, or any other fraternal order or secret society, no one ever sits down with them and explains the meaning of anything. An actual literal esoteric education would be too dangerous. It could result in a public expose’… something which the Illuminati must avoid at all cost. But to give those who might understand a shortcut… Illuminism is COMMUNISM. Full text with links here http://www.hourofthetime.com/majestyt.htm
But oh would the people cheer their scripted antichrist. Oh how would they swoon for this prophecy and this ruin, how they would chant woefully calling out for their own destruction in this deception and treason and degradation of human decency and morality. Oh bomb us… Oh bomb us…
As the shadowy fascist ruling from behind thinly veiled curtains march seemingly inexorably towards their new world order of absolute control, running drone attacks on any country they see fit and sending troops to invade and occupy any territory they see fit, risking nuclear winter with the few nations formidable enough to create a bulwark to the one future “planetary regime” (as Holdren so eloquently put it), and mass executing vast swaths of population over generations with cancerous toxins added to the food,water, and air, while indoctrinating us like rab rats in some sick scripted society drenched in propaganda mass psychology century of mind control.
Slaves to the monetization; awakened souls are ravenous for the truth and to win back humanity. We wish them God Speed and fearless prowess in their quest to neutralize threats of war and ruin for humanity. Some of the most unsung heroes are these enlightened gentiles if you will, as smart as the elite and rich beyond any bank balance, but in traits lacking to those really in the know, and really in the game of societal ruin and depopulating heinous wars of mass murder and oppression; these true heroes have a fiber of moral conscious entirely lacking in the truly corrupt and wicked fomenting wars and raining destruction of every kind on humanity. Perhaps the elite truly are soulless if there is such a thing; when you really consider the scope of the oppression and mass murder inflicted by the powers that shouldn’t be.
Those in the know, those awakened with blood on their hands, and immoral covert ops on their consciouses; must storm the airwaves and announce their allegiance to truth and justice and their desire to expose and reverse the depopulation agenda of planet Earth. Perhaps they would take this short window of opportunity to speak to power, to call out heinous crime supposedly secretly committed for a greater good that cannot be allowed, a world order that cannot and must not be permitted to continue. A chance to truly work for the greater good instead of for a lie and a future where the ends cannot and do not justify the means by any stretch of the imagination.
We can coexist peacefully. Overpopulation is a myth. War is always avoidable and never morally rational.
History is ripe with tales of leaders who rose up and led humanity in peace and prosperity, and its time Obama or a replacement institute a whole “new deal” and then get bulletproof fast too because were in more trouble now then them ole days, and we need a course change fast the way these warhawks in Washington are baiting the remaining few countries not either run or currently being bombed by the “glorious” USA military arm of our benevolent world conquest master race fascists.
Don’t even contemplate the war scenarios your overpaid so called brass hand you, maybe read over the ones from agents that have disappeared instead, how this so called project for a new century is in fact a project to sacrifice the USA and its military might in a scripted battle to depopulate Earth and recapitulate it after the long war in a state of absolute control and openly forced depopulation with a repressive monolithic one world government.
If you think your in this club and you think you will be spared, your blood is pure enough; well ask yourself; do you have a soul, do you really know what its like to be a human being? Do you not even long for compassion, for receiving praise for good deeds, for the human drive to lift up your fellow man?? Turn back to the light now in this short respite before you and your fellow misguided prodigies bring down humanity and all your lineages with them in ruin beyond your worst nightmares.
Reverse the depopulation agenda.