Perceiving

If you are able to get fresh, clean and drinkable water from a tap like I did, consider yourself lucky! Fresh clean water from a tap Many people turn on their tap and get brownish water, or worse no water. Other people don't even have a tap and must travel far to fetch water. For those who live in the first world, we hardly give any thought to the value of water and its scarcity in many parts of the world. On this day, why not take a few minutes to get more informed? Here are a few good links to get you started: World water day in pictures:  http://gu.com/p/36c88/tw For Canadians, ideas on how you can take action on World Water day:  http://canadians.org/water/issues/World_Water_Day/ Al Jazeera's documentary on Canada's oil sands and its effects on the nearby rivers. These should get the ideas flowing.

As bank profits  continue to rise--already to the tune of one to two billion dollars per quarter among Canada's big five banks--it perturbs me that they continue to make fine print changes to gouge more money from the unwitting masses. This notice came with my monthly MasterCard statement describing a change in policy that any payments made to the outstanding balance will first be applied to items with the lowest rate of interest to the items of highest rate of interest. Basic money sense knows that if you are in debt to various lenders, you pay off the high interest sums first to reduce your total payments. How do banks claim to work for us when they make illogical policies that hurt the customer and not work in their interest?