Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The End Of Traditional Christmas Cards?
Has anyone noticed a decline in the # of Christmas & Holiday cards received this year? Last year, at our office, the cards we received the tops of two filing cabinets! This year, as of today, the number totals 15 about one quarter of last year! A similar trend has happened at home! On the other hand, the number of ecards has increased so this is obviously becoming the accepted way of wishing happy holidays to friends and business associates!! Ecards are free, sent without any postage cost, have virtually no impact on the environment and can be as elaborate as one is creative - not a bad substitute! My sense is this is a positive trend!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Too Much Profit?
The Globe & Mail reports that the Ontario Government is considering selling all or part of some of our Crown Corporations. One of these is the LCBO. The LCBO's revenue in 2008 was reported to be $4.3 Billion and yielded a whopping Net Profit of $1.4 billion or32.5% of revenues. AND this does not include the duties and taxes that are payable to the Federal Government! Whilst the LCBO may serve residents of Ontario well, it is a monopoly and has no competition. I only wish that private enterprise like Interwood could show even a quarter of the % return of the LCBO! The total amount of money paid to all levels of Government needs to be published and every resident and tax payer in Ontario needs to see and understand the contribution that the users of the LCBO make to funding our various levels of governments!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
What One Tonne of CO2 Looks Like
Most of us would be aware of the controversy around CO2 that is emitted by many things – one being petroleum that gives us our gasoline, heat, air conditioning and so many other things. I have often wondered what it might look like. Finally, someone has visualized it – at the Copenhagen Climate Conference this month! Here’s the link!
It looks like a smaller version of a square hot air balloon. The visual impact is startling. According to The Nature Conservancy's calculator my household generates 77 tonnes of CO2 each year – the average American family generates 110 and the average of a 4 person household globally generates 2.2 tonnes of CO2. Imagine what 77 balloons would look like!
Quite a picture!
In my mind, anytime we can do to reduce this would give all of us a cleaner and healthier world
It looks like a smaller version of a square hot air balloon. The visual impact is startling. According to The Nature Conservancy's calculator my household generates 77 tonnes of CO2 each year – the average American family generates 110 and the average of a 4 person household globally generates 2.2 tonnes of CO2. Imagine what 77 balloons would look like!
Quite a picture!
In my mind, anytime we can do to reduce this would give all of us a cleaner and healthier world
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
What A Different Holiday Season This Year!
What a difference a year makes! This time last year, the global financial world had fallen apart, the US was in a major leadership transition from an unpopular president, H1N1 was a looming major threat, Canada's government had been prorogued and I remember thinking what more could go wrong.
This year is so different - the end result is much calmer, more secure and confident state of mind for everyone as the holidays approach and that's something to remember. Most of the time, these "disaster's" have a habit of righting themselves!
This year is so different - the end result is much calmer, more secure and confident state of mind for everyone as the holidays approach and that's something to remember. Most of the time, these "disaster's" have a habit of righting themselves!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Much More Than A Roller Coaster
What a week. I don't remember the time that there has been such turmoil in the markets. Imagine, the TSE closed UP today 848 points! Great new and indicative, I trust, that all of the steps taken by the various central governments and US authorities has finally given a sufficient level of confidence that we have a from of stabilization! Let's keep our fingers crossed that nnext week falls into line!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
There is certainly a lot of financial turmoil happening right now. It’s a bubble bursting – long overdue to many in the know – and although it leads to scary times, the greed and excesses at every level of the US housing market from the consumer who purchased a house that they could not afford to the major bank that sold/insured these bundles of worthless mortgages are now seeing the consequence of their actions. Lax regulations helped make it easy for it all to happen. Let’s hope that the crisis has been adverted and stability will return.
There is certainly a lot of financial turmoil happening right now. It’s a bubble bursting – long overdue to many in the know – and although it leads to scary times, the greed and excesses at every level of the US housing market from the consumer who purchased a house that they could not afford to the major bank that sold/insured these bundles of worthless mortgages are now seeing the consequence of their actions. Lax regulations helped make it easy for it all to happen. Let’s hope that the crisis has been adverted and stability will return.
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