Letters to the Editor
ncarey
Published Letters: 132 Editor's Choice: 27
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This reminded me of something
[Read the article: Free trade, but not for the flag]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A couple years ago I was staying at a pension in Turkey, and they had decorated their balcony with flags of the countries where a lot of their guests came from.
It was really bizarre, because almost all the flags had little errors in them. The Canadian maple leaf had some extra points and some funny angles, the US flag had the wrong number of stars...I think they also had 12 stripes as well, the Union Jack was too symmetrical, and they decorated that Australian flag with 5 pointed stars where there should be 7.
I was left wondering if these were made by some company that honestly didn't know better, or if there's some sort of licensing fee you have to pay to print up national flags, and by making them just a little bit different, they were able to produce cheap knockoffs.
Anyway, like I said, strange, and it left me wondering who was making them.
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I've always found this "Foreign Oil" obsession quaint
[Read the article: A compromise -- or a cave in -- on offshore drilling?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand that offshore drilling will have no effect on the price of oil, but it is DOMESTICALLY produced.
Oil is a globally traded commodity. Where it comes from is largely irrelevent. Unless you can produce enough oil to satisfy domestic demand, and then require that oil be sold domestically first, thus creating a seperate oil market, it really doesn't matter.
The profits stay with shareholders, who will likely be a mix of nationalities, and biggest beneficiaries, as always, will be rich people who are already spending as much money as they want, so aren't likely to increase spending, just hording.
The only domestic benefit is in the employment creating by this drilling effort.
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That's brilliant
[Read the article: Teen pregnancy: "Rational long-term economic choice"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is actually probably one of the most enlightening bits of research to be done on this topic in a long time. Thanks for drawing attention to it.
It occurs to me that another one of the advantages overlooked here may be the implied seniority of mothers. What I mean is...my wife turns 30 tomorrow, and has recently been forced into job hunting again. But she is often treated like she's still a kid, regularly being told that she "has to start off somewhere," and I can't help but feel like being childless is part of that. When you can talk about your kids, you're automatically assumed to be more experienced...just a psychological quirk common amongst humans.
Then there's the networking opportunities. Young mothers may be disadvantaged when they're 16 and struggling to balance school and family responsibilities, but when they're 21 with a five year old, the other parents they meet through their child can be excellent connections for advancing a career.
However, I don't think this why someone would become a parent at a young age, but does definitely suggest that maybe we shouldn't always confront it as a bad thing.
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Holy crap
[Read the article: Barack Obama's super marketing machine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Reading your first paragraph...I just realised that Barack Obama is Santa Claus.
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Deregulation is Terrible.
[Read the article: Texas' deregulation sticker shock]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live in Canada's Texas (Alberta), which is also a deregulated electrical market. Deregulation has done nothing for the consumer.
It's not just prices...customer service is also terrible. Every time I have a problem with my bill, I have two different companies (the one who sends me the bill, and the one who reads my meter/owns the power lines) telling me to talk to the other one in an endless loop. In the end, I just have to pay whatever they tell me to pay, because the only alternative is to get cut off. Which then leads to massive fees to get hooked up again, not to mention the credit rating impact.
And here's the thing about prices encouraging new supply. Anyone with deep enough pockets to bring a noticeable amount of new supply online profits more from high prices than increasing production. A friend of mine worked on a project that would have brought in massive hydro generation, big enough to meet 30% of demand in this province. I would have also been great for the environment, as it would displace a lot of coal. It was scrapped before construction began because it would have lowered prices, thus hurting profits.
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Success here as well
[Read the article: Growing pains for Kiva]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've had 3 loans successfully paid back, with two currently outstanding. I suppose I'm not really bothered by the prospect of default, since the only thing I expect to do with money paid back is send it out to another borrower. 3 of the 5 are in Africa.
I am glad Kiva is taking steps to make steps to protect the money it's been entrusted with, but these sorts of issues are what you expect in dealing in developing countries. The infrastructure simply doesn't exist to do background checks on everyone involved, so there's a certain level of trust required. Luckily, trust is usually rewarded.