Our generation's lack of work ethic and money skills.

[Red Squirrel]

What needs to happen is an entire change to the system. We need to reduce the number of ongoing costs to life. Get rid of property and sales taxes, as a start. It's sad that you have to work all your life just so you can keep your house that you worked hard for. Should be able to work hard but retire at 40 and be able to just enjoy rest of your life. Take a job here and there if you want to buy something nice. But all the bills that come in don't allow that, since you need a constant income stream to pay them.

In general, we don't need more money, we need our money to simply go further. All costs of living, and of everything, need to be brought way down to more sane levels. In general we make a lot of money now days compared to say, the 90's, it's just that everything keeps going up at a much faster rate. I make almost 90k just watching monitors all day. I can't really complain, or even ask for more money (never going to happen, we're lucky to even have a job and not be automated out), it's not like I'm a CEO or something, I wouldn't expect a 6 figure salary for what I do. But with the costs of living I would need a 6 figure salary if I want to have extra money to save, which is a bit absurd. Back in the day a 6 figure salary meant you were a super rich big shot and could buy one of those big houses in the rich area of town with a double garage. But now days you're basically, doing well, but not more than that, if you make 6 figures.

 

[WelshBloke]

Fiscal behavior has a cultural influence and the general American is loose goosey with spending.

East Asians are cent counters, where a difference of even 50 cents is the difference between a transction made or avoided.

50 cents this way or that is not going to change anyone's savings outcomes!
Simple fact is that most young people have been priced out of home ownership. They could save everything they have and still not ever get enough to buy their own home. And, TBH, rent rises are so extortionate compared to wages rises that I'd be surprised if they had anything meaningful left over!

Homeownership is a legal trap where you gradually let everyone know you have targetable equity for a lawsuit. Also, it really isn't ownership like owning personal private property.

Dude I paid my mortgage off a decade or so ago and I've had zero lawsuits trying to claim some of that equity.

 

[WelshBloke]

What needs to happen is an entire change to the system. We need to reduce the number of ongoing costs to life. Get rid of property and sales taxes, as a start. It's sad that you have to work all your life just so you can keep your house that you worked hard for. Should be able to work hard but retire at 40 and be able to just enjoy rest of your life. Take a job here and there if you want to buy something nice. But all the bills that come in don't allow that, since you need a constant income stream to pay them.

Or we could just try to narrow the ridiculous wealth gaps that exist and tax companies profits a bit more rigorously.
Companies are making record profits.
Company executives are getting record renumerations.

It's not the taxes that are screwing you. There is a class war going on, it's just that only one side realises it and has a winning plan.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Dude I paid my mortgage off a decade or so ago and I've had zero lawsuits trying to claim some of that equity.

It could happen though, you find yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time and someone decides to sue you. And you can then lose your house over it because they will look at that as money you have, and not just your bank account balance. I don't know how often this actually happens in practice though... but it's also why insurance is so expensive and as things like houses and cares keep going up in price so will insurance. Insurance is what normally saves you from that happening.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Or we could just try to narrow the ridiculous wealth gaps that exist and tax companies profits a bit more rigorously.
Companies are making record profits.
Company executives are getting record renumerations.

It's not the taxes that are screwing you. There is a class war going on, it's just that only one side realises it and has a winning plan.

That too. At very least the tax brackets need to be adjusted to encourage the wealthy to spend their money and put it into the economy instead of just hoarding it. People in lower/middle class should pay way less tax. It should also be possible to write off life expenses like utiliy bills, mortgage/rent, insurance, groceries etc. Basically the necessities. Then you only get taxed on the profits. That's how it works for companies so why can't it work like that for individuals.

 

[K1052]

Simple fact is that most young people have been priced out of home ownership. They could save everything they have and still not ever get enough to buy their own home. And, TBH, rent rises are so extortionate compared to wages rises that I'd be surprised if they had anything meaningful left over!

The irrational refusal in the much of the US and UK that housing prices cannot be addressed by simply building lots more housing is unlike anything else I've seen in the rest of the world. It is a peculiar sickness thats doing a lot of damage.

 

[Pohemi]

Okay so all we need to do is eliminate ALL taxes and magically reverse inflation (something that hasn't happened since towards the end of the Great Depression) to make our money go further. That will solve everything and prevent me losing my house because I get randomly sued.

 

[WelshBloke]

It could happen though, you find yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time and someone decides to sue you. And you can then lose your house over it because they will look at that as money you have, and not just your bank account balance.

Makes up scenario

I don't know how often this actually happens in practice though...

Knows scenario is spurious

but it's also why insurance is so expensive and as things like houses and cares keep going up in price so will insurance. Insurance is what normally saves you from that happening.

Links spurious, imaginary scenario to something unconnected that happens to 'prove' imaginary scenario.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Okay so all we need to do is eliminate ALL taxes and magically reverse inflation (something that hasn't happened since towards the end of the Great Depression) to make our money go further. That will solve everything and prevent me losing my house because I get randomly sued.

Tax is one of the highest costs of living. About 75% of the money you make gets taxed at some point and that's not accounting for companies being taxed too, which we pay for indirectly via price of product. So yes it would go a long way. It's not the only solution but it can be part of the solution. Greed is the other cause of inflation which needs to be addressed too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Makes up scenario

Knows scenario is spurious

Links spurious, imaginary scenario to something unconnected that happens to 'prove' imaginary scenario.

The point is, it can happen. The entire reason insurance exists is because of "made up scenarios". and the more likely those scenarios can happen or the more expensive they are, the more they will charge you.

 

[WelshBloke]

The point is, it can happen.

The things that could happen are infinite.

The entire reason insurance exists is because of "made up scenarios". and the more likely those scenarios can happen or the more expensive they are, the more they will charge you.

Yeah. They don't just make up scenarios though.
They actually work out how likely those scenarios are to happen using historical data, present situations and possible loss.

Unlike your example where you just made something up.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's because everyone has insurance. The insurance is what protects you from that scenario.

 

[Torn Mind]

50 cents this way or that is not going to change anyone's savings outcomes!

And this is exactly why the most common Americans dig themselves into a rut. Think just how many transactions a person will engage in for his entire life. It'll definitely be more than 1000. Even if it's just a thousand transactions, it's a difference of $500. And yes, it is literally 50 cents to a few dollar increase in the price of a box of food that is creating the pains of inflation. The difference of 1 dollar per gallon with regards to gasoline is yet another "small" dollar change that creates economic cries of woe, legitimate cries of woe.

Dude I paid my mortgage off a decade or so ago and I've had zero lawsuits trying to claim some of that equity.

You'd consider giving joint ownership to offspring or would consider not doing so in case that get into some major event that creates damages(i.e car accident). Businessmen often just put only their wives as the deedholder. Because you sound so carefree, you'd do such a thing.
And you don't get to bail out if you try after the even occurs, because by the times of Elizabeth I, they made into law the concept of "fraudulent conveyance". The Americans had a Revolution, but did not destroy the legal legacy from England.

And before the usual Torn is incompetent crowd comes charging in, very legitimate sources do parrot the same concept.

Why Adding a Child as a Joint Owner May Not Be a Good Idea | JD Supra

Individuals are often interested in ways to transfer their assets at death without having those assets go through a probate proceeding. Those same...

www.jdsupra.com

Frequently Asked Questions – Deeds | The Maryland People's Law Library

www.peoples-law.org

Be aware that your children will have immediate ownership rights to the property as soon as you add their names to the deed, not only after you have died. This can be problematic if the child is ever sued. Any creditors of the child can now go after the child’s ownership interest in the property to satisfy a claim. For example, the creditor could put a lien on or seize the property.

And this is a government source saying this.

 

[Pohemi]

Tax is one of the highest costs of living. About 75% of the money you make gets taxed at some point and that's not accounting for companies being taxed too, which we pay for indirectly via price of product. So yes it would go a long way. It's not the only solution but it can be part of the solution. Greed is the other cause of inflation which needs to be addressed too.

You think your taxes are higher than your mortgage, car payment, insurance, groceries and living costs, etc?

You must live in some fantasyland that taxes higher than Scandanavian countries.

You are the chicken little of taxes.

 

[Torn Mind]

What needs to happen is an entire change to the system. We need to reduce the number of ongoing costs to life. Get rid of property and sales taxes, as a start.

Government, being an entity on paper, always in need of revenues to function, bound in its power by the level of money inflows versus money outflows, will require a source of income from somewhere else. Removing those tax sources would simply redirect the money seeking to another source. Places with no "income tax" are usually areas where people don't naturally gravitate towards. You live in Canada, generally undesirable except for the hockey team cities. Sometimes, the way to acquire funding is through favorable laws for businesses and the resulting payment of registration fees to register corporations in that state(Delaware).

Property Taxes are never going away.
Landowners had to have some assets. That means the owner submitted a degree of proof that you got money and enough it to pay a few thousand. This easy money will not be passed up, especially since the property does have the government "survive".

Government retains the power to demand payment under the threat of tax liens. Another latent common law concept is that leaving property idle is not desirable, thus the concept of adverse possession exists to prod owners to do things(start a business, rent out) with their real property or else they'll let someone else take control. And should the landowner be under the power of an HOA, the HOA system is even more unforgiving than government. If you drop dead and stop making payments, they'll still have the powers to claim the fees against an estate.

 

[WelshBloke]

And this is exactly why the most common Americans dig themselves into a rut. Think just how many transactions a person will engage in for his entire life. It'll definitely be more than 1000. Even if it's just a thousand transactions, it's a difference of $500. And yes, it is literally 50 cents to a few dollar increase in the price of a box of food that is creating the pains of inflation. The difference of 1 dollar per gallon with regards to gasoline is yet another "small" dollar change that creates economic cries of woe, legitimate cries of woe.

You do know what the deposit on an average mortgage is at the moment don't you?
That $500 is making shit all difference.

You'd consider giving joint ownership to offspring or would consider not doing so in case that get into some major event that creates damages(i.e car accident). Businessmen often just put only their wives as the deedholder. Because you sound so carefree, you'd do such a thing.
And you don't get to bail out if you try after the even occurs, because by the times of Elizabeth I, they made into law the concept of "fraudulent conveyance". The Americans had a Revolution, but did not destroy the legal legacy from England.

And before the usual Torn is incompetent crowd comes charging in, very legitimate sources do parrot the same concept.

Why Adding a Child as a Joint Owner May Not Be a Good Idea | JD Supra

Individuals are often interested in ways to transfer their assets at death without having those assets go through a probate proceeding. Those same...

www.jdsupra.com

Frequently Asked Questions – Deeds | The Maryland People's Law Library

www.peoples-law.org

And this is a government source saying this.

Ok that was a weird rant.
I have never been sued for any equity in my house and I'm not aware of anyone who I've ever met being sued for that either.

 

[repoman0]

And this is exactly why the most common Americans dig themselves into a rut. Think just how many transactions a person will engage in for his entire life. It'll definitely be more than 1000. Even if it's just a thousand transactions, it's a difference of $500. And yes, it is literally 50 cents to a few dollar increase in the price of a box of food that is creating the pains of inflation. The difference of 1 dollar per gallon with regards to gasoline is yet another "small" dollar change that creates economic cries of woe, legitimate cries of woe.


You'd consider giving joint ownership to offspring or would consider not doing so in case that get into some major event that creates damages(i.e car accident). Businessmen often just put only their wives as the deedholder. Because you sound so carefree, you'd do such a thing.
And you don't get to bail out if you try after the even occurs, because by the times of Elizabeth I, they made into law the concept of "fraudulent conveyance". The Americans had a Revolution, but did not destroy the legal legacy from England.

And before the usual Torn is incompetent crowd comes charging in, very legitimate sources do parrot the same concept.

Why Adding a Child as a Joint Owner May Not Be a Good Idea | JD Supra

Individuals are often interested in ways to transfer their assets at death without having those assets go through a probate proceeding. Those same...

www.jdsupra.com

Frequently Asked Questions – Deeds | The Maryland People's Law Library

www.peoples-law.org

And this is a government source saying this.

TLDR but LOL at $500 over a lifetime making the slightest bit of difference.

 

[Torn Mind]

You do know what the deposit on an average mortgage is at the moment don't you?
That $500 is making shit all difference.

Ok that was a weird rant.
I have never been sued for any equity in my house and I'm not aware of anyone who I've ever met being sued for that either.

It's $500 assuming there's only 1000 transactions over a person's life, and there is $0.50 saved per transaction. That is a large underestimate of the number of transactions a person engages in over a lifetime.
It's $5000 if there 10,000 transactions with 50 cents saved, a full year's worth of property taxes

Your situation, it might not matter much regarding holding title to a house. But tell me, is it reasonable to extrapolate your situation to everyone else? Because the legal system already has taken body count of those who didn't make the "right" decisions with regards to their assets, including housing.

 

[Red Squirrel]

You think your taxes are higher than your mortgage, car payment, insurance, groceries and living costs, etc?

But it is. Think about all the taxes you pay in your day to day life from income earned to income spent.

Looking at my last pay stub I paid 22k in income tax alone in 2023 out of 89k. That's not counting other deductions that may as well be taxes, such as EI and CPP, which is money involuntarily taken by the government. But for sake of this I won't even count it. But they come up to 1k and 3.7k respectively if curious.

So income tax, looking at $1,800 per month. Now add property tax and water/sewer free, which is just under $500/mo. So now I'm already at $2,300/mo alone going to the government.

But I'm not done. Any time I have to buy something I now have to pay 13%. I don't have an actual number per year because I don't track it but if I go by my YTD net income with the assumption that all my money eventually gets spent in some way, that's $7k in sales tax per year. So let's add that per month, and just to be generous round down to $500.

So now I'm already at $2,800 per month in taxes.

Now for bills, mortgage is $800/mo (I pay more so it's paid off faster but 800 is minimum), hydro is under $200, gas is almost $200, insurance is about $200, gas for truck around $200, internet around $60, cell around $30. might be missing a few things... Groceries around $400 maybe then let's just add like $200 for misc expenses. This is just rough estimates without me going through my bank statement, but looking at like maybe $2,000 per month in non tax expenses.

And don't forget all of those have 13% sales tax too (which I already accounted for) so if I wanted to be accurate I should probably deduct 13% from that but lets keep it at 2k since I probably missed some stuff anyway.

So taxes: $2,800
Other expenses: $2,000

So maybe not quite 75% of income going to taxes but it's still more than half, and these are only very rough quickly done calculations.

There are lot of taxes I did not account for like carbon taxes etc, which actually in itself, is taxed also via sales tax. There's also alcohol tax, gas tax (on top of carbon tax) and other misc taxes on specific items. I think there's even a special tax on tampons, but being a guy I am not exactly affected by that... (but they will be available in mens washrooms as per government mandate soon!)

Also can't forget of all the indirect taxes we pay. For example the natural gas price doubled a few years ago. That is partially because the natural gas company has to pay more carbon tax so they pass that cost to us.

Big companies have to pay massive land taxes for their buildings too, so guess what they have to make their prices higher. Similar idea as to why food in theme parks costs so much because the theme park gets a cut. Well government is basically doing the same in society. Taking a cut out of everything and everyone.

The government needs to stop handing out money to random select groups, but instead just lower the taxes across the board. That would do a lot to give relief to everyone. But never going to happen.

 

[Torn Mind]

TLDR but LOL at $500 over a lifetime making the slightest bit of difference.

1000 transcations is more likely to occur in the course of a year than a lifetime. The derviation of $500 is (1000 transactions)*(50 cents/transaction)= $500

There's also choosing much cheaper substitutes. Baking soda is an effective cleaning compound and the boxes are much cheaper than the numerous soap products sold in a store.

 

[Pohemi]

But it is.

No, no it isn't. But keep on flailing about paying them.

Around 25% of income for income tax...that seems about normal.

 

[Red Squirrel]

No, no it isn't. But keep on flailing about paying them.

Around 25% of income for income tax...that seems about normal.

That's only one type of tax. There's 13% sales tax, property tax etc...

 

[Pohemi]

Yep, other taxes just like everyone else pays (unless you're rich). Funny how only conservatives cry about it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep, other taxes just like everyone else pays (unless you're rich). Funny how only conservatives cry about it.

Because it's too damn high and makes up more than half of our costs of living. Taxes need to be brought down across the board. Liberals keep asking for more money, we're just asking for them to stop taking so much money from us in first place. That makes much more sense and is more efficient. Government keeps saying they're trying to make life more affordable. BS! They're the ones making it less affordable!

IMO it shouldn't be more than 10% total. We need to figure out how to budget when our costs go up because we can't just ask for more money. The government should learn how to do the same. It keeps growing and growing. It needs to shrink. Too many departments and inefficiencies.

The worse part is despite all this money we pay they still can't even balance the budget. Where the hell is all this money even going?! Turns out budgets don't balance themselves.

Canada's National Debt Clock : The Canadian Taxpayers Federation

www.debtclock.ca

 

[IronWing]

Because it's too damn high and makes up more than half of our costs of living. Taxes need to be brought down across the board. Liberals keep asking for more money, we're just asking for them to stop taking so much money from us in first place. That makes much more sense and is more efficient. Government keeps saying they're trying to make life more affordable. BS! They're the ones making it less affordable!

IMO it shouldn't be more than 10% total. We need to figure out how to budget when our costs go up because we can't just ask for more money. The government should learn how to do the same. It keeps growing and growing. It needs to shrink. Too many departments and inefficiencies.

The worse part is despite all this money we pay they still can't even balance the budget. Where the hell is all this money even going?! Turns out budgets don't balance themselves.

Canada's National Debt Clock : The Canadian Taxpayers Federation

www.debtclock.ca

Have you ever been to a low tax shithole? Low taxes have consequences, mostly felt by the poor and middle class.