Re: Canada Best Place to Live--UN Report

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Cool!  See what an injust, unequal, disgusting tax system will get you? I
wonder what the UN will say when Canada goes into bankruptcy (not to be
confused with the highest (second highest?) GDP debt load in the G7 that we
have now). In 15 years 1/3 of the country will retire (the baby boomers) and we
won't be able to pay for it through an absurd tax system because our taxation
levels and debt loads are already maxed-out. God forbid you promote national
economic well being & wealth creation to pay for high quality social programs.

Look forward to more complicated tax rules to hide additional taxation and an
increased pay per use taxation scheme. I pity the (fool!) middle income earner
with kids!

All aside, Canada is a great place to live. Hopefully farts and toilette humour
will carry us into the future!

- Curtis "really, I am not bitter" Johnstone
( http://www.taxpayer.com/ -- order your "Tax Me, I am Canadian!" cap )

Funny, just as I am writing this I hear two people in our office trying to work
through some arcane and unresonable details about a simple concept: a stock
option. Two intelligent educated people have been talking about it for 20
minutes now and the only thing they can agree on is they need some 'expert'
advice: "if blah blah falls below a certain value, and blah, blah, blah is
issued at "fair market value" then it is treated as such, otherwise it is
treated like this, and if it falls under what was released in the most recent
budget AND it qualifies for blah, blah, blah" we will be allowed to sneeze.
What kills me is that more tax $$ went into the creation and enforement of this
crap.


On Jun 30, Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> http://ca.dailynews.yahoo.com/ca/headlines/ts/story.html?
s=v/ca/20000629/ts/health_canada_col_2.html
>
> > Thursday June 29 7:06 PM ET
> > Canada Best Place to Live--UN Report
> > By Evelyn Leopold
> >
> > UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Canada, for the seventh consecutive
> > year, ranks as the best place to live in the world. But if you
> > are a woman, you are better off in Scandinavia, says the UN Human
> > Development Report 2000, released on Thursday.
> >
> > Norway is in second place in overall rankings, followed by the
> > United States, Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, the
> > Netherlands, Japan and Britain. Finland is in 11th place,
> > followed by France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria,
> > Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand.
> >
> > At the other end of the scale, the 10 least-developed countries
> > that provide the fewest services to their people, from the bottom
> > up are: war-devastated Sierra Leone, Niger, Burkina Faso,
> > Ethiopia, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Chad, Central
> > African Republic and Mali. This year's survey by the UN
> > Development Program, like its 10 predecessors, ranks 174 nations
> > according to income, health care, life expectancy and educational
> > levels.
> >
> > In addition to the ratings, the report this year looks at the
> > relationship between human rights and development and proposes
> > policies to promote and respect democracy.
> >
> > The statistical rankings have gained such exposure in the past
> > decade that the Canadian province of Ontario is using them in its
> > television commercials to attract business, advertising itself as
> > the best place to live in the world.
> >
> > But the report cautioned Ontario, Canada's richest and most
> > populous province, against complacency. It noted that the
> > provincial government was also using the report to justify its
> > full funding for Roman Catholic schools but not for those of any
> > other religious group. ``Canada's high scores in adult literacy
> > and school and college enrollment do not disprove religious
> > discrimination in access to public education--and in no way waive
> > the need for Ontario to remedy the situation,'' the report said.
> >
> > But income alone, the report says, did not automatically mean
> > better educational or health services. Guinea, Pakistan and
> > Vietnam, for example, have similar levels of per capita income,
> > but their placing in the index shows otherwise. Guinea ranks
> > 162nd, Pakistan 135th and Vietnam 108th, an indication Hanoi
> > spends more on primary health care to bring down infant mortality
> > rates.
> >
> > When progress for women is measured, Canada slips into eighth
> > place and the United States ranks 13th in the so-called ''gender
> > empowerment index'' that measures the number of women in
> > parliament, government, professional or technical jobs and their
> > average earnings compared to men.
> >
> > The 20 top countries in this category are Norway, Iceland,
> > Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, New
> > Zealand, Belgium, Australia, Austria, United States, Switzerland,
> > Britain, Bahamas, Barbados, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela.  No
> > statistics were available for France.
> >
> > Japan, whose high standard of living and widespread education put
> > it in 9th place in the overall rankings, was 41st on the gender
> > equality index, below that of Costa Rica, in 24th place.
> > Likewise, South Korea, which ranked 31st in the overall index,
> > fell to 63rd in the women's equality standings. Greece showed a
> > similar discrepancy from 25th place overall to 49th place when
> > advancement for women was measured. In Latin America, Chile with
> > an overall ranking of 38th, fell to 51st on the women's equality
> > measurement.
> >
> > Among the richest nations, the report shows relative prosperity
> > is also accompanied by pockets of poverty. While the United
> > States has the world's highest gross national product, it ranks
> > first in poverty rates among the 18 richest countries. Ireland is
> > in second place and Britain in third. The main reason was the
> > prevalence of functional illiteracy--about one person in
> > five--the report said.
> >
> > The report said 22 countries in Africa and Eastern Europe
> > experienced major reversals in health care and other social
> > services, largely because of the impact of AIDS in southern and
> > eastern Africa and economic stagnation in the former Soviet Union
> > and Eastern Europe.
> >
> > Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a coordinator of the report, said governments
> > should study the index for progress achieved year to year,
> > especially for the most deprived, rather than the absolute
> > rankings. ``Look at the Human Development Index to see where your
> > country stands--and then look again, and again,'' she said.
>
>
> --
> Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
> http://impressive.net/people/gerald/
>
>
>

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