Credit Cards:

Banks spend a lot of money these days promoting their credit cards to young people.

What's the most important thing parents should tell their kids about credit cards?

It should be the fact that a credit card allows them to spend money they don't have.

That money belongs to the bank that issues the credit card and the deal is that if they do not repay the card promptly, the bank will charge them interest that can go as high as 25% or more.

When they issue a credit card, the bank is not doing anyone a favour. They're in the business of making money by issuing credit. What they are hoping to do is suck in the credit card holder to buy more than they can pay back, thus getting in deeper and deeper until they have to pay interest not only on the money they borrowed, but also on the interest they failed to pay back.

Credit cards are dangerous in the hands of kids or young adults because when they want something, they have to have it NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week. They can't wait until they have put away enough money to pay for whatever they just can't do without.

It is up to individual parents to figure out how to deliver this message to their offspring, but this should be a priority.

Also, is it being taught in schools? If our progressive teachers' unions think sex indoctrination is important in this rapidly-changing society, they should not ignore the importance of smart money handling.

And that should include being made aware of how not to get sucked in by the easy credit being promoted by the financial institutions.

That business of what's your score? is clearly aimed at kids with cell phones.

Post-National??

It seems our painfully progressive politicians on Parliament Hill have decided that we are in a new era--that of the post-national society.

I guess that means no more national distinctions. No more identifying as Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, or anything else. 

They are now ready, along with the United Nations, to declare a homogenized species--nothing to distinguish anyone from anyone else. No more differences of opinion. No more skin color. We are to see each other not as white or black, only grey. All the employed should be willing, nay, eager to give up a portion of what they earn to keep the idle classes afloat. Even gender is up for grabs.

Now, where have we heard something like that before? Could it be the principle of "....from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"?

If that sounds like Karl Marx, it's because that's who published it first. Marx's great brainstorm was to have the productive segment of society support the unproductive, no questions asked.

It didn't work in the Soviet Union. It didn't work in Cuba and it worked in China only after they gave up and introduced a more-or-less free market economy.

Darwin's theory to the effect that individual initiative is the way all life on this planet has been designed to evolve is correct. That includes humans. Anything else is simply an attempt by unimaginative politicians and immature ideologues to try to mold society to their own specifications. 

Any way you want to look at it, the much- ballyhooed post-national society is guaranteed to eventually turn out to be a post-rational society. 

It's not a theory. All we need do is have another look at the historic evidence.

Saving the Planet:

Apparently, there are 15 coal-fired electrical utilities still functioning here in Canada. 

These are power generating plants that have so far escaped being bombed by Save the Planet green energy warriors. Ontario's Dalton McGinty made a production of destroying Lakeview Hydro back when he led the recently de-activated Ontario Liberals. 

It is uncertain if this is why he was awarded Ottawa's Key to the City by its admiring mayor recently, but it would be unsafe to bet otherwise.

How does Canada's situation stack up against the on-going efforts of the Global Warming and Climate Change arm of the United Nations? Well, here is a sample of the concern of the international community according to stats. 

Statistics show that the European Union has 468 coal fired electric utilities and has slated for production 27 more.

Turkey has 56 coal-fired plants and is planning to launch 93 more.

South Africa has 79 and is building an additional 24.

India has 589 such plants in operation and is committed to add another 446.

The Philippines have 19 coal-fired plants and are building 60 more.

South Korea has 58 such plants and is building an additional 26.

Japan has 90 such plants and is building 45 more.

China has 2,363 coal-fired plants and is building 1,171 more.

So, in total, there are 5,615 coal fired hydro utilities in operation and scheduled to be built around the planet according to the survey. And our heroes on Parliament Hill think they can save the planet by destroying the 15 surviving plants we have in Canada, probably the coldest and most needy of electricity of the lot listed above.

It should also be pointed out that the remaining coal-fired utilities in Canada are mostly located in the flat lands of the Prairie provinces where mountainous terrain suitable for water power is almost non-existent and coal is plentiful.

Is it fair for us to expect the United Nations to pressure the Nobel Committee to hand our gang on Parliament Hill in Ottawa a Save our Earth award?

Note: Numbers posted above do not include existing and projected coal fired plants in the US and Russia, which should be significant.