Debt and GDP should not be related

If you are a government, there are two basic ways to determine if you have a balanced budget: 1) Your income (taxes, service fees, fines) meets or exceeds your expenses. 2) Your income plus the GDP (money brought in from outside) meets or exceeds your expenses. I...

Sustainable Living – Education and Learning

We teach our kids what to learn. We don’t teach them how to learn. We also don’t inspire a passion to learn. These are two of the fundamental problems with the education system in Nova Scotia. I thought this was just my perception and then I visited the...

Nova Scotia Power – Part 1

We have now had the first power outage of 2018, and I hope you made it through alright. I hope you weren’t one of the many whose power was out for over two days. Thank you to the linemen, from both NS Power and from the other companies that were brought in. You...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and safe New Year’s Eve. Now that we are in to 2018, many of us look back at 2017 to remember how hard the year was. Some of us lost friends and family. Some of us lost our jobs. Things got more expensive for all of us. So...

Merry Christmas – Please stay safe

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Seasons Greetings, and Happy Holidays I hope that you and your family and friends have had a wonderful day, and have enjoyed the day in the way that you wanted. I also hope that, in the middle of the...

Happy 17th Birthday, William

My son, William, just turned 17. Happy Birthday, William. I have to wish him Happy Birthday here because his mother has done everything she can to block me from seeing my kids (in violation of our divorce order). In 1987 I got married and after a few years we adopted...

Energy, The Environment, and The Economy

Many people seem to think that the economy comes first, regardless the cost. Many others think that the environment comes first, regardless of the cost. The main argument, on the side of the economy, is that life is a lot harder if you have no money and no job....

Spend Less Than You Earn

Spending less than you earn is a very simple concept, but it’s also very hard to do. Spending less than you earn is also absolutely essential if you want to have a decent future. Nearly everyone borrows money to buy some things. I’ve borrowed larger...

Sustainable Living – Food

A friend and I were talking recently about sustainable — everything. The conversation was actually around sustainable food, sustainable housing, and sustainable energy, but it occurred to me that we actually need more than that. We all eat too much processed...