Ripped off

Just got my hydro bill. Every two months I am reminded of the back-handed ways that business and governments screw the average Joe who is just trying to make it to the next day. While we are being chastised for not stashing enough money under the matress to make up for the lack of fiscal responsibility within the Canada Pension Plan, every level of government and every type of business just reaches deeper into your and my pockets to make up the difference. Never mind that real wages have not increased in years, we are somehow expected to do what our masters seem unable or unwilling to do themselves.

Case in point - the old Hydro bill. Now, I have tried to be frugal, turning lights off, keeping thermostats low, and plugging the cracks in this old house of mine. Yet - when I get my hydro bill, it clearly states in the weasel-worded fashion of the day - just how sleazy and brazen our sacred institutions really are. Artificially capped, nonetheless, the bill shows that my frugality paid off (to a point) as in 60 days I used a reasonably small amount of electricity in a 3 bedroom house in the city. Actual usage is stated as $179.00 - not bad by any means. Add on the "delivery" charge of $92.61 (like I could pick it up in a basket)? and a "regulatory" charge of $19.49 as well as the wonderful "debt retirement" charge of $19.62 means that HALF of my bill is a fabricated web of lies to soaqk the public who has no more money, and fewer options when it comes to heating, cooking, hot water, lights and all the other "luxurys" we enjoy in this modern society.
Noe Dalton McGuinty and his crew want to "stimulate job creation" and make us all "more competitive" by introducing the Harmonized Sales Tax - which will fill the irresponsible government's coffers while draining the meagre reserves of the citizens of Ontario. Great.

So -= Happy New Year - and if you do anything to change your fortunes in the new year I ask that you just once - not roll over this time. If the people spoke up as they did during the push for negative or reverse billing by the cable companies - or the rebuke of the John Tory Conservatives over full funding for religious schools - who knows, maybe these "civic leaders" and "business hirearchy" would learn to live within their means - like the rest of us.

Just don't bet on it.