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(((stereofect)))
Joined: 09/02/01
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1333
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So... how's things where you are?
Us Canucks have us a new Parliament (welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss...), a new Cabinet (a shuffle mostly, a few new faces), with a new mandate. Nationwise things are pretty quiet right now. It's pretty much the same ol' doom and gloom shit everyone gets forced down their gullets on a daily basis. Realistically though, everyone is focused (seriously) on what's happening south of the border. So not much will happen in this country 'til Nov 5th when we find out who the new President is.... or will be come January. (FWIW 47% of Canadians want Senator Obama to win)
Our dollar is doing much better, though at the moment the American dollar is worth more than ours. That durn 700billion dollar cash infusion kickstart caused our dollar to tank. But we're taking it in stride. Canadian response has been to scale back personal spending.
It's nice to have the price of a litre of gas hovering around ninety cents again (thank you OPEC). Makes the twice weekly filling up of the family sedan less harmful to my bank account (though I can't say the same for the environment).
Some of you may already know this, but we Canadians love (and fiercely defend) our social programs. Especially our Health Care. But, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, programs like we have are very expensive to pay for (personal income tax here is among the highest in the world). And not everything is covered. And as a result of the recent economic clusterfuck our Minister of Finance now tells us that our country will be running a deficit. Roughly half a billion dollars. That may not sound like much, but for a country that hasn't run a deficit for quite a while it's not the kind of news we want to hear. The Feds are already saying Transfer Payments (the money the feds give to the provinces to be shared with municipalities) will no longer increase at the annual rate of 15%. What that means for the tax payor is that our precious social programs (those paid for by the state via the tax payor) will suffer unless the Province raises personal income taxes again. D'oh..!! I, and pretty much every other middle to low (or as I put it little to nil) income earners in this country, already lose about a fifth of our paychecks to deductions and then the two Governments (Federal and Provincial together) rob us of another 15% every time we make a purchase at the till. Means there isn't much left over at the end of the month.
On the bright side though we got our first snowfall of the season. Which reminds me... I gotta get those snow tires installed.
So... how's things where you are..??
I'm sure they're much worse than they are here....
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein
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