The Paradox

The world is changing and the pace of change is accelerating but for all that change, we have failed to make the world a better place. Instead we are building a bigger and bigger paradox, one that may eventually be too big for us to ever overcome.

We have more security all around us but are less safe and feel less secure. Violence is increasingly more random and less targeted.

We have more government but less satisfaction with how our nations are governed; increasingly higher taxes but more government debt and fewer government services.

We have more expensive and sophisticated educational opportunities but only teach students what, not how, to think.

We provide better clothes, more gadgets and expensive education  for our children because we love them but we spend less time with them. Instead, we fill their free time with play dates, organized sports, dance classes and other activities to replace the time we don't have for them.

We have more channels on television than ever before but less and less that is worth watching or remembering.

We have more opportunities to become informed but prefer simply to be entertained.

We have more mainstream news coverage but less actual news reporting. Truth is biased, controlled, edited, scripted, manipulated, massaged, distorted and often just ignored.

Canada's Council Of Fools

Canada's Council of the Federation

The provincial premiers of Canada met this past week in what they have come to call the Council of The Federation. These semi-regular get togethers used to be called First Ministers’ Meetings but that appellation was no longer grand enough for a group of political hacks who see themselves as leaders and statesmen.

A better name for the meeting would be The Council of Fools because that is precisely what they are, a group of cynical, self-serving politicians with little to no vision and just enough authority to be dangerous to the nation's prosperity and future.

For decades, this group of provincial premiers gathered regularly to condemn the federal government while at the same time begging for more federal money. They met, had nice lunches and dinners, provided quick sound bites for the television news shows, posed for photographs and then trundled off home after agreeing to study their latest 'agreements in principle'. It was then, as it is now, all talk which accomplished nothing.

Tax The Wealthy

In less than just a few decades, countries around the world have all but managed to bankrupt themselves. It has not just been the result of catastrophe or war but too often the result of bad government and an unwarranted sense of entitlement fueled by greed by too many within our different societies.

Infrastructure is crumbling. Unemployment is rising or is static as jobs are disappearing to more tax-friendly jurisdictions. There is an absurd lack of prudent financial planning for environmental or other catastrophic events thanks to a complete lack of discipline by politicians and special interest. 

Every special interest group has its hand out for more government largesse and politicians and political parties have been only too happy to pander to those demands in order to get elected or re-elected and it has all been financed on borrowed money.

Don't Bank On It! - They Aren't Called 'Piggy' Banks For Nothing

So, it was time to renew our mortgage.

This should be an easy process……right? Wrong. Nothing is easy if you’re dealing with one of the Big 6 Canadian Banks. These guys are so bureaucratic they make the government look positively innovative. 

We ‘used’ to deal with the main branch of the bank that still held our mortgage and went in to discuss renewal well in advance of the renewal date with the bank. The young guy who apparently was our account manager had it pretty easy up to this point because we had moved our checking and savings accounts to another bank months earlier because of continual mistakes and errors. at his bank.

Dancing In The Dark - Hi dee Hi dee Hi dee Ho!

“St. Paul the persecutor was 

a cruel and sinful man.

Jesus hit him with a blinding light

and then his life began.

 I said yeah, yeah, oh yeah!”

-The Rolling Stones

Light! 

We associate it with all kinds of things but especially with knowledge. Educational organizations often use a stylized illustration of an ancient oil lamp to symbolize knowledge and most of us are familiar with the light bulb over the head symbolism for getting an idea.

We have expressions like, “I see the light” which usually means, “I understand” and “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel" which means “things will be better soon”. We are led to believe that dead people are told to walk towards the light but we don’t need to talk about that right now. If you’re reading this hopefully you won’t have to worry about walking toward the light until later.

I mention all of this because lately there seems to be an awful lot of dim bulbs around and to be honest; it is beginning to become more than just a little wearying. Except for the gratuitous violence, it has become boring.

My Response To Those Offended By My Article On Student Entitlement

I’ve received quite a bit of commentary about my article on the demands by students that taxpayers should give them more support.  Not all of the comments were posted on my blog, many came in the form of direct messages on Twitter and some were public tweets. I can’t address them properly in 140 characters so I will address them here.

The comments can be broken down into three categories. The majority were quite supportive of what I wrote which tends to illustrate just how tired taxpayers are becoming at always having to cough up more cash for one group or another.

Up To Our Necks In Dinosaur Poop!

"Doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result each time is the surest way to guarantee that sooner or later a dinosaur is going to bite your ass."  

- Gorak Einstein, one of Albert's ancient ancestors

One of the few things I like about having a problem is that it does provide an opportunity to rise to the challenge. At first, that may sound a little perverse to some but it really isn’t. How many of us don’t feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for having met and overcome a challenge that was otherwise a problem we first thought insurmountable?

Sometimes we don’t succeed and I personally am less fond of those problems.

Nonetheless, problems exist and we have only three real options for dealing with them: do nothing, meet them head on or……………pretend to meet them head on by fixing something related that isn’t actually part of the problem.

We see a lot of that third option these days.

What Ever Happened To Integrity?

(photo: defense.pk)

In Canada, there is a furor unleashing over the recent Auditor General’s report on the purchase of F-35 fighter jets. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been exposed for misrepresenting the true costs of the purchase while bureaucrats and military leaders have been exposed for outright misrepresentation and manipulation of ,and during, the procurement process.

This is nothing new. The previous Liberal government under Jean Chretien lied to get elected and worked overtime to hide the true facts of Adscam which saw millions stolen from taxpayers to line the pockets of Liberal bag men and supporters. People went to prison for that one.

Entitlement Addiction

Greece is in meltdown. It’s no secret and their economic devastation is complete. Riots have replaced a once stable society and even common sense. The government has been forced to implement a draconian austerity program just to borrow enough money to keep the country functional. Those measures have led to economic ruin for many and even suicides.

Greece is not unique; it is merely the end result of entitlement addiction.

Government Takes Over Where The Mob Left Off

The Ontario Government in Canada is overhauling its casino operations. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) is planning to close some casinos and open others with a view to expanding the games offered in its casinos. 

This, in and of itself, isn’t really big news. Governments in democracies around the world are involved in gambling although they prefer to call it 'gaming'. Some own and operate casinos, most operate lotteries and it isn’t really all that surprising that they would revise their services from time to time. They have to in order to achieve the revenues they need to combat the deficits they’ve incurred.

A Scot and A Bear Try To Explain Government Debt - I said 'try'

A very long time ago, my Uncle Jack  and I got into a heated debate about government borrowing. He was an assistant deputy minister of finance in the federal government and he was adamant that I didn't understand that it was quite harmless for the government to borrow money because essentially, we were borrowing from ourselves. Apparently it wasn't ok or else borrowing from ourselves evolved into borrowing from others and now most of the world is in hock up to its eyeballs....and stupidly, we seem to be in debt to many of the same countries to who we either lend or provide foreign aid.