I’ve been talking about how immigration is an important aspect to finding a solution for the situation whereby our population has become top-heavy with senior citizens and less represented by productive wage-earning taxpayers.  We need more people in the country if we’re to continue supporting and maintaining our social security net in Canada.  Health care and pension costs are rising, yet there’s fewer people around to pay into these programs, putting the entire system at risk.

That said, my investigation into the benefits of immigration revealed to me something that caught me by surprise somewhat:  that a large number of immigrants, once accepted by Canada and living among us as fellow Canadians, will leave Canada, mostly for the the United States, but also return home, sometimes not long after arriving here, and sometimes after twenty years has passed.

Continue reading “IMMIGRATION EXODUS” →

We’ve got a bit of a problem, and that is that we’re growing old.  Not that growing old is a problem, it’s usually a pretty good sign that you’ve maybe lived a good life and have been blessed with good health.  Where the problem arises is when we grow old at the same time.

Canada, like many other developed countries, is experiencing the challenges posed by an aging population. Some of the key problems associated with this demographic shift are difficult to ignore.  Obviously, when a huge chunk of your population leaves the workforce through retirement, then there’s going to be an impact on things like employment, pension plans, insurance policies, health care costs, you name it.  Having an aging population, with fewer people paying taxes to maintain social security services and more people drawing upon these same services as they age, creates what may turn out to be an untenable situation for any government of a liberal-democracy.

First, an aging population has an economic Impact  It leads to a shrinking workforce and a smaller proportion of people contributing to the economy through taxation and productivity. This can result in a reduced capacity to support social programs, healthcare systems, and pension funds.

With respect to health care costs, older adults tend to have more healthcare needs and chronic conditions, which can place a strain on the healthcare system. As the proportion of elderly individuals increases, healthcare costs are likely to rise significantly, and that potentially leads to shortages in funding and resources.

Continue reading “CANADA’S AGING POPULATION POSES CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD” →

When I first heard the news, I was so proud and so touched that I cried for a bit.  Not because I was personally involved, or had anyone close to me involved, but because it represented for me a profound justice, eighty years after the fact yes, but still a recognition of the bravery one young man showed on a most profound date in history.  Perhaps long overdue, but nevertheless, no less sweet.

On January 19, 2020, the United States Navy announced the name they would give to their brand new Gerald-Ford class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, CVN-81.  Henceforth, the ship would be known as the USS DORIS MILLER in honour of Dorie Miller, a Cook-Second-Class on the battleship USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

How does a cook get an aircraft carrier named after him?  And yes, Doris is a he, since the midwife that assisted at his birth thought he was going to be a girl rather than the future heavyweight boxing champion on the West Virginia.

The story goes like this.

Continue reading “CVN-81 NAMED FOR SAILOR DORIS MILLER” →

I’ve said this before, but gosh, it seems I have no choice but to say it again.

Elon Musk is a child.  A petulant, spoiled, snot-nosed child.  I don’t know if money did that to him, a privileged background, a top-shelf engineering brilliance, or whatever, but the fact remains that the man is a world-class dick of adolescent proportions.

The latest proof of this is his threat to sue independent researchers who found, through their impartial studies, that Twitter, or X as it’s now called, is extremely tolerant of hate speech directed at a number of targets, but primarily anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ.

Musk, the self-proclaimed champion of freedom of speech, will have none of it, and has threatened to sue the Center For Countering Digital Hate for, as he claims, attempting to drive advertisers away from X, once known as Twitter before Musk bought the place and and started swinging his wrecking ball.

It should be noted that, in fairness, advertisers were fleeing Twitter at break-neck speed already, and even before the report from the CCDH, so I’m not sure why the invective directed towards this non-profit, but then again, Musk answers email requests for comment with a poop emoji, so there you go.

The defender of speech can’t stand the criticism.  It’s his achilles heel, really, and he goes absolutely sideways when anyone has the temerity to question his decisions, comments, or dubious business practices.  Although he’s probably not capable of feeling stupid, he still rankles anytime someone points out how much money he’s losing on the whole Twitter thing, money he began losing the moment he bought the joint for about $20 billion more than it was worth in the first place.  So maybe he’s a little sensitive about that, and all the other ridicule that’s come his way ever since, what with the paid subscriptions, the validation check marks, the reinstatement of abhorrent personalities to the platform, the employee-bashing and firings, and the generally haphazard ad-hoc approach to the business.

So sensitive, in fact, that Elon can’t even play by his own rules.  He’s not the defender of free speech, he’s the defender of free hate speech.

Some people have theorized that Musk is so clever that he’s doing all this to endear himself to followers of one Donald J. Trump.  And so, why would he do that?

It seems Tesla sales have really gone gangbusters in the liberal/elite demographic, but that market has tapped-out until government subsidies make electric vehicles more affordable to the dwindling middle class.  So, as the theory goes, maybe he’s taking aim at a new demographic, hard-right Republican conspiracy theorists with money, the people who I guess Mike from My Pillows was hoping to attract to his pillows.

If true, it doesn’t make him any better, but actually makes him morally worse, if such is even possible.  He is worthy of being a villain in a Mike Myers comedy.

I’ve never been on Twitter, and have no plans for X.  I can’t afford a Tesla, and have no plans to be a space tourist.  My internet is fine, so I don’t need StarLink.  And I hope Ukraine prevails over Russia, unlike Elon himself.  So he and I breathe different air.

I may have less money, but I have better air.

Okay, so yesterday I was a little harsh with respect to the Cuban-American population of south Florida, suggesting they swim back to the island if they didn’t like my idea of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States.

I have to be fair enough to understand what it might be like to be a refugee from your homeland, denied permission to ever go back, and to be estranged from family and friends left behind when you made the decision to make what was likely a somewhat dangerous journey to get to the United States.  So I shouldn’t be surprised at all to find that many Cuban expatriates loathe the Cuban government and view it as the author of all that misfortune.

Yesterday I left much of the blame for poor relations at the feet of the United States, sometimes prodded along by the Cuban diaspora.  But I have to assign commensurate blame at the feet of the Cuban government as well.

Continue reading “CUBAN EXPATS HAVE LEGITIMATE CONCERNS. IT’S TIME TO OVERCOME THEM.” →

How is it that, as we sit in 2023, relations between Cuba and the United States are really no better than they were back in the late 1950’s, a product of both the cold war and the power of American capitalism?

An island nation of some 11 million people, a scant ninety miles from Florida’s shores, classified as an “enemy” nation not by decree, but through the actions taken against it.

Fulgencio Batista, the dictator and murderer of some 20,000 Cubans after his 1952 coup versus Fidel Castro, a lawyer and revolutionary who stood against Batista’s tyranny.  And who does the United States support?  As counter-intuitive as it may appear on the surface, count on the Americans to put money before principles, even as they wave the flags of liberty and freedom.  To them, Batista meant stability, which meant that American financial interests, including, and most notably, the mob, could continue to operate their huge money-making operations on the island, considered as it was at the time as an American playground for tourism, gambling, and vice.  It was, in a way, the Las Vegas of the southeast.

When Castro’s revolution came out of the hills and toppled the Batista regime, the Americans were outraged.  Not because Castro was any worse than Batista in the human rights department, but because he went about nationalizing American interests.  The American money interests lost their collective minds, and sought any number of ways to get things back to the way they were.  Assassination of Castro was one plan, the invasion of the island another.  Both plans failed.

Continue reading “TIME TO BRING CUBA BACK IN FROM THE COLD” →