Merry Snowmas

The Vancouver area has been walloped with a ton of snow in the past few days, and my car is hopelessly buried under a snowbank. Featured below are pictures of a night scene while walking on the sidewalk, some playing around in the back yard, and my attempt to snap off a picture of the robins frolicking in our holly tree.

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Some Perspective On The Recession Fears

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is now toning down the fears surrounding the deficit, although the fact the government will be sinking into one is now a foregone conclusion. He is promising that the January 27 budget slated for the reconvening of Parliament will offer ways to escape next year’s deficit, even as he discussed the dwindling surplus. The government blew $600 million in October, leaving them $200 million above treading water seven months into the fiscal calender. Some brave talk:

“We’ll show in the budget itself how we will come out of deficit,” Flaherty told a news conference in Toronto, after reiterating his commitment that the slide into the red will be temporary.

“So it will be clear to Canadians that as the economy recovers, the deficit will disappear and we’ll be in surplus again,” he said, providing assurance to ease concerns among some that this could be the start of an extended period of deficit financing.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government may have to inject up to $30 billion in additional government spending and tax cuts to deal with the recession and stimulate the economy.

“We will ensure that spending that puts us into deficit is temporary, is for finite purposes, so that we will not be into a permanent deficit,” Flaherty said at the news conference held just prior to his meeting with his newly created council of economic advisers.

So glad we don’t need to install a coalition government when Mr.Harper and Mr.Flaherty are doing their work for them.

Moving along, however, local writer Frances Bula has a very good article that attempts to reconcile the faulty comparisons between today’s recession and yesteryear’s Depression drive to Californi’ to find employment in the Grapes of Wrath:

As far as I can tell from reading media coverage and listening to people talk, this is the new Depression:

You try to haggle with someone in a store to sell you a blender for only $200. You don’t open your investment statements. You put off buying a flat-screen TV for the bedroom. You wonder if you could pick up a secondhand car at a good price, given the world economic disaster and all. You eat out at restaurants with $20 entrees instead of $30 ones.

Sheesh.

The only thing that’s possibly more annoying than those stories is the glee of all the anti-consumer types who are tearfully envisioning a scenario where impending economic Armageddon will somehow prevent hordes of teenagers from splurging on Ugg boots and True Religion jeans, while their parents will be forced to forego even more serious spending.

As Ms.Bula says, it’s going to take a lot more than a few months of economic uncertainty for the kind of devastating prognostications we’ve heard blathered about in the mainstream media. Certainly there will be some tightening of the purse strings, but even as I sit here staring at my brand new flat screen LCD monitor I just purchased for $100, I have serious reservations about declaring the imminent apocalypse. And now that our “conservative” government is promising a coalition-style infusion of taxpayer cash into the economy, we can’t fail. Right?

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Here’s A Tip: Don’t Get Old

Two seemingly unrelated articles in the news yesterday that I present for your scrutiny. The first regarding a B.C. court of Appeal that has rejected a constitutional challenge launched by military spouses over death benefits paid to widows. The benefit is double the annual salary, but the federal government legislation reduces that benefit by 10% for every year after age 65 that the person has died. The challenge was based on age discrimination. The verdict:

The spouses appealed to the higher court after their challenge was rejected in B.C. Supreme Court.

The appeal court says the reductions don’t constitute age discrimination because the overall death benefit and pension scheme is designed to cover competing interests of various age groups covered by the plan.

The court says the death benefit is aimed more at younger members of the plan who die unexpectedly and where the spouse is not protected by a pension.

As already mentioned in the comments of the CTV article, why would it somehow make sense in the twisted logic of a bureaucrats skull that the younger widows require more money than elderly ones? Some choice comments about this decision:

“What is wrong with Canada?”
“What is wrong with this system?”
“SHAMEFUL!”
“We can give money to bail out Auto makers and banks but cannot look after the men and women who serve / served Canada.”
“What a joke. Lets have a look at the the judges pension or better yet all the so called politicians.”

The next article for perusal is one in the Globe and Mail and talks about Patrick Brazeau, 34 year-old appointee to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. So while the image of military veteran widows getting cheated by the government of Canada is fresh in your minds, read the following:

If the current National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples remains in the Red Chamber until 2029, he will walk away with a pension worth 63 per cent of his indexed annual salary, which currently stands at $130,400. In today’s dollars, that’s an annual pension of $82,000 – indexed for life – starting in his middle age.

“That’s a ticket to the good life,” said Kevin Gaudet of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “If he lives to be 100, he’ll be able to be on the Senate pension twice as long as he was a senator. That’s the generosity of these plans, especially when young people are appointed.”

If Mr. Brazeau wants to earn the maximum pension – worth 75 per cent of his salary – he will have to wait an extra four years, until he turns 59.

It’s worth noting that if Mr.Brazeau leaves the Senate in order to fulfill the aims of a democratically elected Senate, rest assured he won’t be left in the cold:

But even if he retires earlier, Mr. Brazeau, like all senators, will be eligible for a monthly pension after only six years in Parliament, earning annual payments worth 3 per cent of his annual salary for every year of service, starting at age 55.

Yes, it seems Canada rewards the young in this country. The old, well, get over it. Not everybody can be as lucky as Patrick Brazeau:

Only one of the new appointees, 71-year-old lawyer Fred Dickson, has four years of service and will be forced to retire without a pension.

Related

Harper asks us to “support military families”. Perhaps he could start by giving the same benefits to all families.

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The Unbearable Lightness Of Drudgery Jobs

Mr.Collins has tagged me in a meme which goes into one’s private life far more than I would care to share but… I’ll play.

It’s simple. Just list all the jobs you’ve had in your life, in order. Don’t bust your brain: no durations or details are necessary, and feel free to omit anything that you feel might tend to incriminate you. I’m just curious. And when you’re done, tag another five bloggers you’re curious about.

In no particular chronological order:

Library Page [shelving books]
Labourer [summer]
Walmart minimum wage earner
Sport Chek Sales Drone
Obligatory 18-year old attempt to write novel for 6 months [miserable failing]
Telephone survey interviewer [I hate phones ever since]
Statistician
Dishwasher [twice]
Factory worker [1 day]
I.T. Lackey [programming]
Architectural Glass and Metal Mechanic [fancy term for construction worker]

So there we go. Now we know the truth. No fancy shmancy jobs for this dear fellow, although to be clear, I eschewed a life of computer drudgery in a cubicle for one in which I embrace the elements every single day in construction. And do I regret it? No, not one bit. Now here’s an interesting twist on the meme:

What would you do if you could go back to that crossroads moment of your career and do it all over again different?

Me, I’d have to say I would be a journalist. No question about it.

Oh well, there’s always next life, right? I’ll have to convert to Buddhism or Hinduism first though.

And I tag from my list of suspects:

1. Joanne
2. James
3. Jennifer [She responded here]
4. JJ [JJ was already tagged it seems]
5. And just to buck the trend of J’s, Bruce. [Added in the comments]

If you don’t want to write your own post, you can leave your list in the comments. Or you can tell me to bugger right off, which is likely the best solution for those who don’t want to share their life story on the internet.

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