Posted by Canadian Dream on December 18, 2009
Well for two weeks we have been under a blast of media coverage on the COP-15 talks in Copenhagen all asking the same question: will there be a new deal international deal on CO2? The answer has been known for months: likely NO.
Why all the media coverage? Everyone keeps hoping someone will cave in and they will get a new deal despite two years of negotiations between these governments. If you can’t sort out the major points like targets and funding in two years what makes you think you can get it done in days? The reality is everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room: Kyoto failed. With out China, India or the US it never stood a chance of making real difference to world for CO2 levels.
Which leaves us to an interesting conclusion. We can’t prevent climate change, that ship has sailed and we have missed the boat. So if you accept for a moment that we can’t prevent some of the effects, you can get over this obsession from people on needing an international deal. The reality is we can do this the old fashion way: via trade. What we need is for the US, Canada, Europe to pass their own CO2 reduction regulation and jack up tariffs on any high CO2 imports. Then if they also tie their technology and development adaptation aid to the country receiving the aid having a regulations in place you will seem most places fall into line. A deal without all the current drama.
The draw back between this method instead of an international deal will be trying to link up any cap and trade systems. Yet the reality is finance people will sort that out. Perhaps each country will have it’s own CO2 currency complete with exchange rates to other systems. If China has a poor verification system perhaps 1 tonne of CO2 reduction there is only worth 0.25 tonnes in a US system. In the end things will work out, but just too late to do any real prevention.
So that’s my thoughts on this whole mess as it goes into its last day. What did you think would happen at Copenhagen? Were you hoping for a deal?
Posted by Canadian Dream on December 17, 2009
I managed to keep a bunch of papers in my car for four months that was worth $330. They were dental claim forms for my insurance at work. I finally filed them this month and just got the cheques back yesterday. So why did I have them in my car for four months? I kept forgetting about them.
Or I would remember the papers when I couldn’t possibly get to them or when the dental office was closed and I still needed a signature on them. This tends to happen to me once in a while. I develop a block about dealing with something that will go on for months.
So where else can you forget about money? Well in my case here is some places I’ve done it:
- Not filing health or dental benefit forms.
- Not doing paperwork at the bank to reduce fees.
- Not investigate renewing my mortgage earlier (I could have done it three months earlier and saved some interest).
- Not contacting my bank to update my investor profile and have money sitting in cash for too long.
- Not contacting my service provider to reduce my service package when I no longer need something (last time it was removing something from my cable package).
- Not selling items in my house online that I no longer need. I have a least $100 of stuff to sell right now.
- Forgetting to use a gift card or coupon. I have a Home Depot one sitting on my night stand right now.
- Not moving money to my high interest saving account from chequing for months.
Each item is usually rather small but when you add it all up it can be a lot of money that is slipping through your hands every day. So how do you deal with it? To be honest I’m not sure. It usually works out in the end for me, it just takes a while to get there. How have you tried to remember forgotten money?
Posted by Canadian Dream on December 16, 2009
It’s amazing how the obvious can stare you in the face for a while before you actually see it. Case in point I finally got around to adding up all my none day job income for my family (ie: daycare + school board + investment income) and was a little shocked by the result. It almost exactly equals our spending. I’m right on the edge of not needing my day job at all.
Just about anything little change at this point will comfortably shove me over that edge. So if either my wife takes another kid in the daycare or we cut back a bit on the accelerated debt repayment and reduce my mortgage payment would do the trick.
I rather liked my wife’s reaction to this news, she said “No, you can’t quit your day job.”
To which I replied “No, I wasn’t even thinking about that.” Actually I was more still in shock of the result than anything when I said that. To suddenly realize I’m right on the edge of not needing my day job is liberating in the extreme. It’s not true financial independence where you don’t need any job at all, but it a huge step up from the typically wage slave existence that we typically spend most of your life in.
So this allows me a particularly useful gift. I can view my day job very differently. I’m no longer tied to my career. I need a job, not this job anymore. I’m no longer there to put food on the table and keep a roof over my head. I’m there because I choose to.
I’m there because I want to fund my complete financial independence from any job. Threats of a layoff or being fired are now not even threats but rather opportunities to do something new. Semi-retired just went from a idea to a valid choice. I’m not sure of the complete implications of this yet, but it does give me another avenue for thought.
