A few points.
Anyone who moved to Alberta during then non bust times and didn’t make it, didn’t really want to work.
Couldn’t find a job on the rigs, well lots if intown work even as a labourer that paid very well, and if you wanted to work a 60 hours week, the boss would have no issues with it if you were a great worker.
Secondly, for a little over 17 years I work on average 70+ hours a week, not including the times where I drove back to change the smokehouse, or repaired something that couldn’t be repaired during open hours, or the constantly thinking on how I was going to keep the push forward. For the first 6 years I made $25,000 a year. Yeah think of that for a minute, now it was 1995, but that was still min wage at a normal 40 hour week. I sacrificed at the start to reap the reward at the end, mine was a long term goal. And that is the vast majority of small, or any business.
As a normal employee, you have you to look after, as a business owner you have everyone to look after, right now 12 other people depend on me so they can make money and be able to live their lives. That is a contribution to society.
I have no issues paying a fair amount of taxes to help out. I’m at the max tax bracket. I pay a more taxes than someone who makes 50,000 a year just thru percentage, but just because after all my extra effort, I have more left over, does not mean someone else figures it my duty to give even more so they can be brought up to my level without having to put in the extra effort.
I agree, there are some who make more for less effort(lucky fuckers) there are also some who make less working way harder (poor bastards), but those are the outliers. For the most part, how hard you invest into your career is what you get out.
There is no point arguing about the outliers, they are a small blip of the reality. Thank good for the people who cannot work, their is a social net for them, and I have no issues contributing to that.
But buddy who just doesn’t feel like putting in the effort, but now wants subsidies because I’m blessed to have more, I don’t agree with, and unfortunately there is a lot of those.
And truthfully $200,000 a year, really isn’t that much money. You are comfortable, but by no means rich, you still can’t waste money on silly things. It doesn’t mean you can have a huge beautiful house or drive 100,000 vehicles and toys unless you accrue a lot of debt and then sacrificed somewhere else, like buying things on deals, or eating at home all the time. I watch the home shows with my wife, see people like me that have way more than I have, no way I could afford what they have, and some have very similar business, but are in the USA. A butcher shop owner in the USA that has a successful business in a smaller city like me is much farther ahead.
But there is a lot more population in the US to pay the taxes for the upkeep of the country. We pay extra to have this extra space, low pollution and so on. This extra space has really worked in our favour with respect to covid.
But man our politicians waste money so badly, and unfortunately the liberal ones really like to line their pockets.
But all in all my message is if you want more, go get it, don’t cry that your child tax credit wasn’t enough and the government should give more. And guilting me by saying I should contribute to society (which I likely already do more than you) because if I don’t contribute even more, makes me bad, makes me cringe as bad as when I hear the guilt posts about how if I don’t be really careful to not spread covid, or some 95 year old man, with cancer, copd and diabetes may die because of my choices (when I’m thinking that fucker is one foot on the banana peel, sucks to be you, and I’ll be there one day likely and it will suck to be me, but no way I’d guilt someone.)
