At Christmas , when children were in the house, two gifts were traditional.
One was a paint-by-numbers poster. The other was a jigsaw puzzle of hundreds of pieces.
After the excitement of opening gifts, the family activity for the rest of the day , would be completion
of one or other of these two projects. The paint-by-numbers posters became harder to find .The jigsaw puzzles were a perennial.
The satisfaction of piecing together the puzzle within the time was immense. Doing it together added to the excitement.
I've found life to be similar to the jig-saw puzzle. Dozens of small indiscriminate pieces make up the whole.
They are all there. Everything has its place . In the end the picture will be complete.
Yesterday a small piece went together with no help from me.
I had referred to the role Swiss banks play in helping wealthy Americans evade taxes. It wasn't the focus of the post.
A lengthy , obviously knowledgeable response seemed to refute that minor detail.
A headline appeared last night on one of those twenty-four hour news channels:
The U.S. government is having discussions with Swiss banks about rich Americans using Swiss banks to evade paying taxes.
I think I probably learned in school about Swiss neutrality and the role of their banking system.
That's a long time ago.
U.S. government discussions with Swiss banks have probably been ongoing for years with neither energy nor success.
I think the U.S. economy, other practices like shipping jobs offshore ,leaving Americans
with massive unemployment and realization of "the dream" not being realized , gradually filtering down to the masses , may have put a burr under the saddle of the powers that be.
I can't help thinking about the Royal Bank and the speedy reaction of Canadians to the story about bank employees being required to train non- resident replacements for their jobs and government work permit rules being exploited .
Whether the bank stopped the practice is not clear . What was clear was Canadians lost no time
reacting against the bank.
I think the social media had a hand in that.
A piece of the puzzle dropped into the right place. .
Thursday, 29 August 2013
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15 comments:
Of course Switzerland is not the only place you can do sock away your riches. The Turks and Caicos (a wanna-be Canadian province) is a tax haven as well.
Talks have been ongoing for years between western countries and so called "tax havens."
What is also interesting is that the I.R.S. in the United States has come up with a requirement that all American citizens, wherever they reside, and regardless of how many years of such residence - even if they haven't been back to the U.S. for years, must all file returns.
So if an American citizen has lived in Canada for 40 years and not visited his/her native country during that time, he/she will be required to file a return with the I.R.S.
Where does this land in your jigsaw?
The common link in most stories including the Senate mess is the economy. Sadly the politicians have not been paying attention. Now they are beginning to take heed but a lot of damage has been done. Maybe too much in some instances.
" It's Better in the Bahamas " ?
Clint Eastwood and his wife separate
Note to Self: Don't let the wife catch you talking to the furniture.
We are going to be in trouble for leaving the Aurora pond. Maybe someone will comment on the forthcoming public meeting on the new Bell tower in town. Is it going to be just another Ballard production number with the complainants from along Bathurst or will the current proposal be given a fair examination?
It would be interesting to find out how many of these public meetings with Bell across the Region have resulted in any changes of location or have resulted in any compromise with Bell? That type of history would help residents and council understand what can or cannot be done when Bell addresses these plans to the town. I’m sure Councillor Ballard has already explored /investigated this and will be prepared to give us all a great performance
A real dog & pony show. You did see the neat pole disguise that Christopher had on his site. Not sure we need anything on our site as there are poles all over town that non one notices. Some are very hard to even find. But Ballard does need his piece of raw meat.
It would be interesting to see a picture of this proposed tower.
The one on Bathurst Street is an anomaly. There are about 20 other communications towers scattered about Aurora. These are round pole-shaped things about the size around of 4 telephone poles.
If we want to have the ability to communicate we must put up with the towers that permit us to do so.
I am concerned that a bunch of hot-heads from the western edge of Aurora will go to the meeting September 3 spewing forth the usual crap that emanates so often from Clr. Ballard.
I don't suppose the town's communication gurus could manage to stream that thing for us?
What is the mater with the Councillor? He is always looking for a fight & his language invokes battle terms. He talks & quotes about war and defeats. " Sabres at dawn ", for heaven's sake.
08:58, he's not even the most combative councillor.
09:28
A little good humour would be a step in the right direction. And fewer playings of the legal threat. It is too much to expect a total change in his behaviour.
@ 9:28
I realize what you are insinuating but only councillor Ballard goes after the messenger, be it another councillor, staff or an outside source, instead of concentrating on the message.
20:27, maybe someday the scales will fall from your eyes.
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