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Retirees can go from being milked to milking the cow
© by Mike Keenan 
Canadian citizens have noticed a strong odour emanating from Parliament Hill where the first results of prorogation has been leading to some interesting "recalibration" from a government intent on thinking outside of the box in order to address our colossal debt as a result of, I believe the technical term is "spending like drunken sailors" in order to stimulate us to spend more money so hard-working bankers can reward one another with huge bonuses. Bonuses? Don't ask. Don't you know that if there are no bonuses, highly skilled people move to another firm? Dah!
Anyway, it's lucky for the Conservatives that Bob Ray is around because he suffered through the same problem when he was ruler of Ontario. Probably the government saw how well it worked for the NDP and now they are in the same pickle. Look for Stephen Harper to join a radical new Alberta Party, the Rambling Roses. But back to the odour. Because the government must pay off billions of dollars of debt in the next few years or receive a bad credit rating by US intelligentsia (don't laugh), there must be some creative problem solving and that's where we seniors come in. The quick-thinking boys (I think they are mainly boys) in the PMO have come up with an incredibly brilliant idea: first, take the CPP and the Old Age Pension and cut them in half. Second, give every senior citizen a cow. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking they must be nuts, but wait, that prorogation has given them valuable time to think this over. Remember that great movie, The Graduate, which starts out with Dustin Hoffman trying to remain underwater in his family's pool, not wanting to emerge in front of his parents' friends and business associates? So, he finally comes up for air, and this large, successful capitalist leans over and whispers, "Plastics." Don't you wish that your father had leaned over you in the bathtub one day and imparted such similar wisdom, whispering, "Microsoft ?" You would be a multi-millionaire by now. Anyway, the magic word for seniors is vanillin, a chemical that gives the vanilla bean its wonderful aroma and flavour. Synthetic vanillin was patented in 1875, but from 1875-1925, it was made from clove oils. From then on, it's been derived from wood-pulp by-products from the paper industry. Then, along come the Japanese, just as they did with cars, and they discover how to make the sweet smell of vanilla from the farm smell of cow dung. Are you starting to connect the dots like our brilliant tacticians in Ottawa? In one hour of heating and pressing, the Japanese produce vanillin at half the cost of the original. Everybody wins: politicians, dairy farmers, seniors. Seniors will become independent producers of a marketable commodity. By milking the cow, they will also obtain nutritional milk and exercise for fingers that will surely become rheumatoid without the constant squeezing action. What's left over after heating and pressing are finished can be placed in the garden to stimulate growth of vegetables which seniors will need to grow in light of reduced pension allotments. We squeeze the cow; the government squeezes us. There is one warning for seniors who by now are getting pretty excited at the prospects of owning a dairy cow. Do not under any circumstances assign a name to your bovine, especially when the grandchildren are around. Cows are like us; they get old, and you know what happens to old cows. All of this will take some time, of course. Municipal governments, who never get consulted in these schemes, will have to perform massive rezoning and change their Oficial Plans to conform to the business of a cow residing in an urban setting. In India, it's a normal part of the day, but here, it might take a few years for the concept to catch on. By then, our crafty government will have prorogued and recalibrated once again to remain one slight step ahead of the curve. |
