they government wants you to keep paying taxes instead of dying.

caning and flogging them would be ok.

that last time I went to the courthouse, I had a seat belt cutter/glass breaker on my keychain. The guards confiscated it because "it had a blade". Yeah, a blade surrounded by enough metal and plastic such that the only thing that one could really cut with it would need to be less than 1/4" thick and flat. I'm sure the people in the traffic court were relieved such a dangerous tool was caught at the door. Sheesh.

If his backpack is waterproof, he could dump everything out and use it to carry water.

It also should be noted that the provinces are in charge of the systems. IIRC, the Feds just collect and share the revenue, so your experience in Quebec may be totally different than what is done in SK.

A way to fix that would be to have a "student minimum wage" that's a significant percentage lower than the regular adult minimum wage. It would encourage businesses to hire kids.

Just raise the stupid gas tax and have it adjust each year based on the CPI or make it a fixed percentage of the price. The Federal tax hasn't been adjusted since the early 1990's, so it's long overdue for it to be changed. I'm not sure how often Oregon has changed theirs.

Here is a country comparison: http://news.engineering.utoron...

Hunting of these animals brings in money and meat for these communities, so they will protect the animals from poachers. That is why the areas that allow hunting are experiencing population growth for these animals (as opposed to where it is banned and the animals are considered to be pests by the people who live there). http://www.campfirezimbabwe.or...

They were also available with PS/2 connectors , so you can use a PS/2 to USB converter if you need to use them on a machine without legacy ports.

It's a simple problem. If the device doesn't work for you, send it back for a refund and find something that does. If they aren't accepting returns, then that's an example of crappy customer service.

The population is also growing from people coming from other parts of Latin America.

More people are moving to Mexico from the US than the other way around since it is easier for them to find jobs at home than it is here. It has been that way for the last few years since the recession.

and clothes, electronics, etc, etc. Fuel is much more expensive (ex: gasoline was about $3.80/gallon in Jan) except at cities on the border which are closer to US prices. On top of that, there is a 16.5% tax included in the price of most consumer goods. Because of that, lots of people used to travel to the US to buy clothes, school supplies, and other items for "back to school" time or Christmas. Given the rise in the USD:MXN exchange rate, that's not as attractive any more especially when factoring the cost of fuel to get there (unless you are also buying a few 55 gallon drums of gasoline to sell when you get back home). Income taxes can be higher too.

Unfortunately, most farmers or anyone else that produces a commodity do not have that much control over what they can sell the product for. Sure if the farmer sells directly to people at markets or any other venue, they can raise the price as they see fit. However, most do not have that option. Given that strawberries are perishable items that can't be stored for long, they don't have as much flexibility as grain farmers who can store the crop and wait for prices to go up. Instead, if growing strawberries is unprofitable, they'll switch to something else like you mentioned. If enough people do that, then the supply goes down and the price will eventually go up if demand doesn't drop too much.