When I last wrote about gas prices, the price for a barrel of oil was just under $100 and gas prices were fluctuating all over the place.
Today the price has plummeted to $69 a barrel yet gas prices for the most part in Canada have remained stable and high. In the GTA we on average pay about $1.13 per litre, while in Detroit USA, they only pay .87 cents per litre!? Once again Canadians are getting gouged at the pumps.
We (the world) are currently over producing 1 Billion barrels of oil a day. Yes, that's right, a day. Oil producing countries are all fighting for market share, which has led to an abundance of oil and hence gasoline. So the consumer markets in most parts of the world are adjusting to the supply and demand equation, except Canada.
Why can't Canadians get passionate about being ripped off the way we get about a hockey game. When our team loses two in a row, we boo, throw our team sweaters on the ice and beer at the team bench. We get timid though when companies or the government continue to rip us off. The government for sure is asking for the prices to stay high as they collect the 5% GST tax from every fill up. If prices fall as they should, they are out million of dollars of revenue. This is especially true of the federal government who has promised to balance the books next year, which just happens to be an election year here in Canada. The finance minister must be shacking in his boots as I know they projected revenue on Oil staying above $80 a barrel. Now he must tell the Prime Minister not to make to many tax credit promises as they don't have the money!
Yes even in the every day pricing of gas, it gets political. The provinces too are worried as they collect hefty taxes on our gas for their revenue as well.
Politics be dammed! We need the price break at the pumps. Just think how much of those saving could go to buying more Christmas gifts this year. Such spending would be real help to our economy. Or of course we could use it more wisely and pay down any personal debt.
Show us the money!!!!
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Self employment?
For many Canadians who are struggling to find work for many various reasons, the prospect of self employment is an attractive one.
I have been looking to self employment as a way to secure income, as finding employment in my current field is unattainable.
The trouble is finding what your skill sets are and are they transferable into self employment framework. If you are skilled in the trades, making the shift to being your own boss is not that difficult. You can run your business from your home and go onsite to your customers to perform the work. The set up costs are minimal.
But what if you do not have a skilled trade to switch into your own business. Can you learn something new? Take a hobby and turn it into income? Some people have taken hobbies such as baking or sports memorabilia collection into a self employment opportunity. Using EBay or other such entities to buy and sell their collections on, with the focus on making a profit. Others have turned their cooking skills into a brick and mortar business, from which they sell their goods. These are all good formats, but some of us do not have transferable hobbies which can be turned into a business. So what are we to do?
Coding! Yes it is a growing field with many opportunities.
So how does one start, especially if you have been out of school for some time now. Well thankfully there are some free websites which are educational based and offer easy to follow courses to learn the different languages of code. Codecademy is one of the best free sites to learn how to code. It's courses assume you are a beginner and walks you thru slowly all the steps for the various languages which are used to create websites and more.
While I am still learning some new languages, I have enough under my belt that I am using a text editor outside of Codecademy that I am using to write my first website which could be posted to the internet. With this tool I will be able to build sites for others for a small fee. A great start!
So look at your skill sets, give it some thought. And if coding catches your imagination then start your journey today and I will guarantee you will not be disappointed.
I have been looking to self employment as a way to secure income, as finding employment in my current field is unattainable.
The trouble is finding what your skill sets are and are they transferable into self employment framework. If you are skilled in the trades, making the shift to being your own boss is not that difficult. You can run your business from your home and go onsite to your customers to perform the work. The set up costs are minimal.
But what if you do not have a skilled trade to switch into your own business. Can you learn something new? Take a hobby and turn it into income? Some people have taken hobbies such as baking or sports memorabilia collection into a self employment opportunity. Using EBay or other such entities to buy and sell their collections on, with the focus on making a profit. Others have turned their cooking skills into a brick and mortar business, from which they sell their goods. These are all good formats, but some of us do not have transferable hobbies which can be turned into a business. So what are we to do?
Coding! Yes it is a growing field with many opportunities.
So how does one start, especially if you have been out of school for some time now. Well thankfully there are some free websites which are educational based and offer easy to follow courses to learn the different languages of code. Codecademy is one of the best free sites to learn how to code. It's courses assume you are a beginner and walks you thru slowly all the steps for the various languages which are used to create websites and more.
While I am still learning some new languages, I have enough under my belt that I am using a text editor outside of Codecademy that I am using to write my first website which could be posted to the internet. With this tool I will be able to build sites for others for a small fee. A great start!
So look at your skill sets, give it some thought. And if coding catches your imagination then start your journey today and I will guarantee you will not be disappointed.
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