This week, Canada learned that it has dropped out of the top ten and into 11th place in the United Nations' annual Human Development Index (HDI). The change has raised calls for the government to focus less on deficit reduction and more on education and income inequality in its upcoming budget -- two areas that helped propel us downward on the UN's chart. But does that make sense? Canada was penalized in the HDI because the average years of schooling our citizens complete has not risen since 2005; yet that average happens to stand at 12.3 years, which could very well be as high as we want it to get (or close to it) to avoid falling into the trap of boasting an over-educated but under-trained populace. Perhaps our economy would actually benefit from fewer university grads and a greater number of apprentices, even though such a change would hurt us in the HDI.
Of course, income inequality can be a demoralizing and divisive force in society. But even there, we should be careful to ask ourselves what the measure is capturing. As Will Wilkinson pointed out in a thoughtful analysis several years ago, what really drives a wedge between the rich and poor of a country is massive gulfs in real standards of living and what a rich vs. poor individual is able to buy for himself and his family, rather than income, and on that count the picture is rather less bleak. The Atlantic's Megan McArdle summarized the point nicely at the time:
"If the rich have access to broad classes of goods that the poor can't have, I find this worrying. On the other hand, if the problem is that Bill Gates has a really awesome 80 inch flat panel television, while the poor have to be content with a 32 inch CRT, well, I can't say my heartstrings are plucked very tight by this injustice."
The HDI is useful when looked at as a very broad-strokes measure of where countries on stand health, education and income. Whether a nation comes in 11th or 60th is a meaningful distinction. But given the limitations of the metrics, and the fact that improvement rather than raw numbers is what drives a high placement, sweating the smaller differences in rankings is pretty silly. For the sake of Canada's economy, I'm hoping Finance Minister Jim Flaherty thinks so too.
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Well you do, educated people don't use double negatives :)
What if lower education and income inequality is the goal of this Harper tea party government? What if they only intend to govern on behalf of and for the benefit of the top 1% in society? Harper's tea party cousins in the US under Mitt Romney came right out and said that was their goal and it was caught on tape. If their tea party version of conservatism had won their last election they wouldn't even bother to disguise their efforts to smash the middle class. Take an unbiased look and examine Harper's agenda and see how many of his policies are aimed at doing exactly that.
That statement is incorrect -- this government has not focused on deficit reduction!
The Nation's debt has been steadily rising under the Harper/Flaherty tandem and now rings in at over $600 Billion.
Put another way, every youngster born today starts off being $16,900 in debt.
Harper/Flarhety just blew $21 Million for 3 months of those "Action Canada" prime time TV Ads.
Yet, because of the highly corrupt Revenue Canada tax code, the 1% are making more money than ever.
If the writer wants to call for something, then call for a flat tax system and for that tax code to contain just two lines denoting the personal and business tax rates -- no exceptions!
Heck, Alberta is the richest province in Canada and can't meet a budget because of those paltry low oil and gas royalty's being collected and now the university students are now protesting in the Province!
The best way to improve the education system is for the citizens in the underachieving provinces to demand better.
Canada definitely should seek universal higher education, and yes, that may mean figuring out ways to encourage people to see more useful degrees, if it's true that the country has enough majors in some particular field. the real crux of higher education needs to be critical thinking, quantitative thinking, awareness of the depth and breadth of knowlege. those are the things that will let Canadians contribute meaningfully to the world. responsible government must find ways to support these goals: how colleges and universities pay the bills is very much a public policy question, and continuing to offload costs onto students isn't working.
the alternative is to settle into a mediocrity based on desecrating our landscape to extract resources.
Also, in so much as I can tell, the difference between income and purchase power does not seem to be getting better. Prices continue to rise, income doesn't. Look at the price of homes, gas, groceries. It's not getting cheaper. Where I live, currently, despite the increased demand, (ice road opens up the far north) the price of milk went from $7.49 to $9.19 (4l). When companies feel they can gouge, they will even with government subsidies and tax breaks.
Really? That's what you think the poor are struggling with?
Another blogger who blogs because she can, not because she has something (intelligent) to say.