Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for March 19th, 2008

In Ottawa we have a very flamboyant Mayor who came in to power with the statement that he was not going to raise taxes. This statement (I won’t call it a promise) seems to have disappeared and the latest levy he is talking about is a $50.00 surcharge per tax payer and business due to the high amount of snow in Ottawa this year (the snow clearing budget is over budget at least $23 M so far).

Last year we didn’t have a lot of snow, and this same fund ran a surplus, but I never saw a nickel back in my taxes. In fact this fund has run surpluses for the past N years, yet whenever that happened, no money came back to me directly, but now that Mother Nature has stepped in, I must now find more money to pay for bad planning? If I make the bad plan, I am the one that has to live with it, and I must live with the consequences (yes I still complain), but now I must fork out more money, due to there being no emergency fund for excessive snow? Larry, drop by my house and see if you can convince me I should pay this tax, because I don’t think you’ll get me on side with this one.

Easter Charity

I was very impressed to see John Chow campaigning for donations to a soup kitchen in the Vancouver area. John actually matched all donations, and managed to raise over $7,000 for that charity, and I applaud him for that.

For local Ottawa readers, the Shepherds of Good Hope is a mission that I support when I can, given I used to work up the road from them, and I have seen first hand the good works that they do. Remember Easter is a time of renewal and a time of giving.

Scary Statement for the Day

After the U.S. Fed lowered yet another of their key rates by 3/4% one analyst was actually heard to say, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rate of 0%…”, I almost fell out of my chair when I heard that one. I think this constant dropping of interest rate may help in the short run, but it is not resolving the main issues which is massive DEBT problems in North America. People are living outside of their financial capabilities, and it is eventually going to cause something very bad to happen.

Carnivals This Week

This week my posting The Seduction of Spending was mentioned in The Carnival of Everything Financial #15 hosted by Everything Financial .