DIARY
The
latest grasp (or gasp) at economic straws
by
Robert LaFrance
Some things are as predictable as a
dog chasing a squirrel. As soon as any election is over, or almost over, there
will be a great outcry for ‘proportional representation’ which will be
forgotten a week after the new premier or prime minister takes his or her
office.
So it is with ‘the undergound
economy’ which we hear about and read about practically every day lately. When
governments get desperate and politicians find that they may have to curtail or
reduce their fact-finding missions to New Zealand and Bermuda, they get worried
and start talking about this.
“Government loses billions on
undergound economy,” shouts one headline, and the reporter gives an ‘estimate’
of just how many billions are being lost. It’s called ‘taking your mind off the
billions we’ve been wasting’.
Suppose you had a bushel of apples
still quite good after a winter in the root cellar and you knew a guy in the
Grand Falls area who sells hens’ eggs. You make a trade. According to the
government, if you were a real Canadian, you should estimate the value of these
products and report it to the government so they could sting you for HST.
Note: The government dismissed the
idea of road tolls and a raise in HST as being “too easy”.
My theory on these folks in
government who believe that should happen is: “Oh look! Pigs flying over!”
Another theory I have is that all these fact-finding missions to warm areas (in
winter) should be taxed as well, and the cheque sent to me.
I have a feeling that this would
happen about the same day that I am named the Senator from Tilley, New
Brunswick. Oh wait. I don’t live in Tilley, not since I was a teenager, so I
couldn’t claim to be a citizen of that hamlet any more.
*************************
Following is a list of short
subjects that I have noted over the past few months:
Watching an ATV newscast last week,
I saw a story about a family who had to move out of their house because of
mould or some other scourge. The reporter said they had to move to ‘alternate
accommodations’, which, if I understand it correctly, means ‘somewhere else’. We get so used to this
puffed-up language that we don’t even notice it any more.
My cellphone is a big help to me and
I usually carry it, and I usually carry it turned on. This is a fairly common
thing among those of my gender, but the other gender (I have learned this from
observation, not prejudice) tends to also carry their cell phones, but they’re
either turned off or buried under the detritus in their purses. I should
mention that ten minutes after I typed this, Flug dropped by. He was carrying
his cellphone and it was turned off. I can’t seem to win today.
Not to pick on government too much,
but it’s SO EASY. Employment figures for New Brunswick came out shortly after
the first of May and we heard the welcome news that our province’s unemployment
rate had dropped 0.2% in the month of April. So things are really picking up,
right? The next revelation was that the reason for this was that an extra large
number of young people had gone out west in a search for work. A pat on the
head for NB, and then a slap in the face.
So much of the modern electronic
equipment is designed with the idea that we are all idiots. Recently I rode in
a car whose doors lock automatically a minute after it gets on the road. That’s
all right; we have the same feature on our Corolla and all I do is push the
button to unlock all the doors. However, this other car I referred to had an
additional feature; whenever I unlocked the car door, it would lock itself back
up within a minute. Am I being unreasonable here? I really don’t want to be
locked in a car at the whim of Toyota or Mazda, and I don’t like a car to
override my wishes like that.
Ah, the rites and rituals of spring.
One of mine is to go have some fish and chips at Tilley Takeout which I did on
May 8th. Having been born in Tilley, a mile up the road from TTO, I
have to go there each spring and have those fish and chips. We are blessed in
this area with a plethora of great takeouts and I can’t name them all; it’s
just that a Tilleyiker has to go back now and then to refresh his soul. Up to
now, few people realized that a takeout can sell soul food.
-end-
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