Your opinions please. Elderly 70 and over. Paper Bills and Paper Financial Statements | Page 3 | Your stories | Discussion forum

So what's the excuse for paying LESS for more productivity?

Why not just pay them nothing, make them all slaves and keep the cash?

Oh, right, that's how The U.S.A. became the great nation it is. And why it's still paying the price in social violence.

The US has a higher median income than Canada, with the 2023 US median around $80,610 USD and the 2022 Canadian median income approximately $50,656 USD.

The idea that higher productivity leads to lower pay = obvious nonsense.

"There are millions of unskilled jobs that should not exist, and instead require people to have a productive skill to get a pay cheque."

These jobs are usually filled by immigrants who often don't speak English or French. However, their children often make the highest mark list in their high school graduating class.

The top high school graduate a few years ago was a young woman. When interviewed she said all the credit goes to her father who drove a cab 24/7 to support his family.

COIN, you are misinterpreting my comments. There are currently millions of unskilled jobs that should not exist if the rate of innovation and automation was on par with other G7 countries. There will always be a need for some relatively unskilled labour for a range of needed activities such as janitorial services, retail clerks, servers, cab drivers et al, but Canada is stuck in a time warp with the percentage of labour toiling away in unskilled jobs. There are rampant manufacturing, industrial and construction examples everywhere where automation would be a huge productivity burst.

OECD has graphs depicting the slide by Canada in GDP per capita relative to other OECD countries over the past 10-20 years but I cannot now find the graph I was looking for. However, Figure 3 from https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/were-getting-poorer-gdp-per-capita-in-canada-and-oecd-2002-2060.pdf effectively tells the same story.

We risk falling out of first world status in the next 10 years or so if we do not get our act together soon.

cgouimet said

One of the reasons I switched to electronic billings and statements because at least once in while you want to get rid of the old ones, something I didn't want put in the garbage or recycle bin until it was shredded; tedious, time consuming and noisy. One keystroke lets you get rid of an electronic or online document, quite and effortless ...  

I finally just switched everything despite adoring paper records for decades, because of two reasons. (a) Shredding! Thanks for mentioning it, my cheap shredder overheats and takes forever to reset for use again, and (b) The post Covid greed of postal workers. The vast majority of people DON'T catch up with that resultant inflation, and also recognize reality when it's constantly in their face - insolvency of the Post office. I no longer agree to help fund their salaries because of their attitude, if I have a choice (with voting perhaps).

It's actually a relief to not bother going to the box in inclement weather!

mordko said:

The idea that higher productivity leads to lower pay = obvious nonsense.

Where did you get that idea? I was saying that lowering pay to increase productivity is unjustifiable.

I didn't see anyone saying higher productivity leads to lower pay.

dougjp said

I finally just switched everything despite adoring paper records for decades, because of two reasons. (a) Shredding! Thanks for mentioning it, my cheap shredder overheats and takes forever to reset for use again, and (b) The post Covid greed of postal workers. The vast majority of people DON'T catch up with that resultant inflation, and also recognize reality when it's constantly in their face - insolvency of the Post office. I no longer agree to help fund their salaries because of their attitude, if I have a choice (with voting perhaps).

It's actually a relief to not bother going to the box in inclement weather!  

you have the right attitude 🙂

Snail mail paper statement is just bad for the environment, carbon footprint and all.
One can still print if one choose to, from the digital copy !!

COIN said
"Snail mail paper statement is just bad for the environment, carbon footprint and all."

Do e-statements use energy and that energy has to be produced somehow?  

Same questions for EV cars... Where from electricity should come so EV are 'real green cars'. Not to mention destroying earth mining all those rare elements...

Then there is further energy expended if the client doesn't pay online, either by mailing a cheque back across the country to the biller, or by (most likely) driving/bussing to a bank to pay at the teller window.

Even Canada Post itself seen the eventual future and created Epost at the turn of the millenium (and shuttered it in 2022 when it didn't gain traction). I think a service like that paired with a low cost internet plan (most seniors don't need gigabit home internet) with an easy to use tablet would make the transition a lot easier for a lot of folks.

In this era daily mail delivery is unsustainable, both economically and environmentaly. Any efforts to keep it is just kicking the can down the road to create an even bigger problem in the future.

Yes, it has taken on a life of its own but the original premise still applies. The sweeping change to digital delivery is irreversible and either one can get on board sooner rather than later when one has better cognitive abilities to do so, or be steam rollered into irrelevance and oblivion.

Re post #57, there are plenty of easy-to-use and inexpensive tablets available on the market for $100-150, and there are low cost internet options such as https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/connecting-families/en if one qualifies.

Also in BC via https://www.planhub.ca/home-internet there are internet plans for as little as $29/month.

There is no excuse NOT to convert to digital.