On Wed, 9 Sep 1998, Tom Walker wrote:
[ snip ]
> 1995 is a watershed year for inequality and poverty in Canada, precisely
> because federal and provincial budgets introduced in that year have
> drastically increased income inequality. There is something disingenuous
> about calling Bueckert's item "misleading" because of underlying technical
> omissions in the reporting of data and at the same time neglect to mention a
> technical feature of the data that makes Canada's record look more
> favourable than it currently is. Is the pot calling the kettle black?
Touche. But you can say the same thing about Australia, the U.S., and
budget cuts across the EU in anticipation of monetary union. Talk about
budget cuts' impact on social security, check out Sweden: cuts in the
order of 7% of GDP (out of around a totol social security budget of around
36% of GDP) to take effect 1995-99, bringing aggregate social-welfare
spending in that country back to its level at the beginning of the 1980s.
I bet that country won't rank so high in subsequent rankings.
Cheers, Peter.
