My Fool-Proof Plan. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Tomorrow looks all fucked up, but I am a mission-oriented person.

I have a plan, not exactly fool-proof. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I had a flat tire the other day.

That is to say, earlier this morning—

Here's what I said on Facebook.

 

"This morning, I had fifteen totes full of dough-balls all set to go. The boss was a bit late, so I stepped outside and saw that the right rear tire was flat. I managed to snap the nuts loose...rain coming down. When I tried jacking it up, the jack was headed for China, as the parking lot at the shop is gravel, very soft in the mild conditions. Luckily, I found a short bit of 2" x 6" in the back forty. It made a big difference, jacking the car up rather than forcing the jack down. Once I had the doughnut spare on, I noticed that I still had my step-dad's tire puncture repair kit, and upon examining the tire, I was fortunate to find a hole, still gushing a bit of air. I managed to get the rasp in and out a few times, twisting and turning it to clean up the hole...I also managed to get a plug through the little slot in the end of the tool, and then I managed to get the plug in and the tool out, as it were...locking up the shop after the boss left, I drove across the street and put a buck's worth of air in it. Checking it later, it seems to be holding air. I will check that again--I have a pressure gauge. And then I will need to find a place to change that back."

" I sure as hell can't do it here in our Lake Steeves & Rozema parking lot."

Yeah, so, anyways, the plan for tomorrow goes something like this: I get up at the crack of dawn, sort of drive the car to a parking lot somewhere that isn’t flooded, and change that fucking tire back from the doughnut to the real one. And then, go to the bank, take out money, go across the street, get some fucking gas and a fucking coffee, and then head down to the smoke shack, get some fucking smokes for me and the fucking neighbour, and then drive to work, hopefully on a tire that I repaired myself and one which is, presumably, still holding pressure.

Wish me luck on that one, but, even driving on that fucking useless, 80-kph, fucking doughnut spare tire, temporary use only, I could still make the smoke-shack, the liquor store…maybe even a tire shop. But honestly, I think it’s fixed.

Oh, yeah, and after all that, I get to go to work, to make the dough.

But here’s the thing. I can still abort—take Wednesday off. Go to the dentist appointment first thing Thursday morning sort of thing…wait for the fucking parking lot to dry out a bit here in this Steeves and Rozema Residential Apartment Building.

In that sense, I really am kind of my own boss, with a fair amount of day-to-day latitude.

#superdough

Here I am on fucking Smashwords.

Thank you for reading.

Payday Loan Scam Still Going Strong In Ontario. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Simple charity will never be the solution to poverty. The problem is simply too great, too pervasive.

There are too many reasons. There is no one, single cause of poverty in this province and this country.

The subject is so complex, it is best to tackle the reasons one at a time.

***

The payday loan scam is still going strong here in Ontario, presumably in the rest of Canada as well.

This is the one, where people who are already well below the poverty line, whether working full or part-time, on the Ontario Disability Support Program or the so-called Ontario Works benefit, (welfare), the elderly, the mentally-ill, and yes, the addicts and the alcoholics, line up to borrow a hundred bucks, perhaps a couple of hundred, in order to make it through the month.

Sometimes it’s some small, unexpected emergency, a car repair or the kids need clothes for school. There are certainly legitimate reasons for a small, short-term loan in the family household.

Whatever. Ultimately, the scammers are taking the taxpayer’s money out of the mouths of the hungry.

My neighbour went to a so-called ‘cash-store’ last month. She says she went twice. She borrowed a total of $220.00, and at the end of the month, when she got her ODSP benefit, she repaid a total of $273.00.

The total term of the loans were less than two weeks. That is fifty-three dollars and some small change on a loan of a couple of hundred bucks, for less than two weeks. These interest rates are usurious, and the worst part, is, she’s starting off the next month, almost three hundred dollars down—in a hole, and her total benefit is the provincial disability benefit of $1,151.00 per month. She doesn't actually get all of that, due to some help from CMHA.

She’s on disability. The Canadian Mental Health Association kicks in on the rent, I don’t know how much because she doesn’t either. She’s out on a Community Treatment Order. Her social worker shows up every day to make sure she takes her medications, otherwise its back to hospital for her—maybe even permanently, although her illness seems to respond well to continuing treatment.

She’s back there every month, (I mean the cash store), and this has been going on for years. 

Basically, they’re like pimps, living off the avails of someone else’s disability pension. Sure, its nickel-and-dime shit, but they got a lot of them.

I told her, that if she could just stay away from there for as little as two months, she would have beaten them.

(This coming from a guy who maxes out the credit card every winter when things are slow, and never quite gets it paid off in summer, when things are a bit busier. The yearly rate on the credit card is 28 %, which seems more than high enough. Yet compared to the so-called payday loan operations, it seems almost benign. But it isn't, not really.)

This business is so lucrative, that the money stores have sprung up like mushrooms after a summer rain.

There must be twenty of them in this town, and that is in a city (Sarnia) of only 72,000.

***

I know a couple of guys, they got sucked into transferring their credit card balances to a service provider offering a much lower interest rate. It was an introductory rate—less than half of what they were paying.

It worked so well, that they ended up transferring their balances around about every six months…and they signed up for a handful of new credit cards as well. After all, it was so much easier to make the payments, and they were both working. 

Naturally, sooner or later, they ran into trouble. A layoff, a slowdown in the work, illness, a bad break. They were always maxed out and therein lies the problem.

Ultimately it turned into a bad debt for all parties. Their credit was destroyed, and the debt was ultimately uncollectable. When all this occurred, they were so enthusiastic, they sucked a few others in as well. Oh, yes, they told me all about it. The thing practically sold itself. 

Anyone that could get credit, that is, and there are a few who can’t, and never will.

It was good for nobody, in the end—not everyone ends up like that, of course. Some people smarten up and learn the credit game in the end. Maybe they just didn’t have so many bad habits. Maybe they’re just lucky. Maybe they’re continuously employed somewhere…in which case they can make the payments.

Once you scratch the surface of the problem, it quickly becomes clear that the solution to poverty requires a plan, one that takes into account all aspects of the problem. A plan that attacks from all directions at once, a plan that involves all levels of government, federal, provincial, regional, county and municipal. It will require the cooperation of certain institutions, banks, business, commerce, industry, and private NGOs.

It has to involve the individual as well.

This plan will require some very well thought-out tools and an enlightened, long-term policy that all can commit to.

END

Image: Fair use of one sort or another.

Notice how I got all these books and stories available from Amazon.

Thank you for reading.

The Difference Between the Elderly and the Disabled.

Louis Shalako

My journey began May 4, 1989, when a plank in a scaffolding broke beneath me and I fell to my death.

Unfortunately, in some opinions, I survived. I have three compression fractures, at the T-6, L-3 and L-4 vertebrae. I saw a doctor the next day and he didn’t even bother to order an X-ray, although he did write a scrip for Tylenol-3s, 30-milligrams of codeine per tablet.

I’ve learned a lot, since then.

***

“You can earn up to a certain amount without telling us and without losing your benefits. For 2018, this amount is $5,500.00 (before taxes). This amount may increase in future years.”

At one time, a person on the Canada Pension Plan (Disability) benefit could earn as little as ten dollars and, because they were capable of doing some work, they would lose the benefits. 

That has since changed. Looking at the website, you can now earn up to $5,500.00 annually. 

What is really interesting is that you don’t even have to report it.

On the Ontario Disability Support Program, clients can only earn $200.00 per month, $2,400.00 a year.

In terms of operating a business, the paperwork takes me a couple of hours a month, including income, mileage and expense reports. People who are working for scab employers fill out a different form and for the most part, are too fucking dumb to claim expenses. It would be good if the Province of Ontario were to bring its policies more in line with the federal disability pension system. Note that the rates might be different in the two cases, my impression from years ago was that the federal system actually paid less than ODSP.

“For 2016, the average monthly CPP disability benefit is $933.82 and the maximum monthly amount is $1,290.81. You will receive the basic monthly amount fixed for all recipients ($471.43), plus an amount based on how much you contributed to the CPP during your entire working career. If you are receiving a CPP disability benefit, your dependent children may also be eligible for a children's benefit. In 2016, the flat monthly rate your child can receive is $237.69. Read more about the CPP benefits amounts.”

So, that part's not very good. 

I did apply for CPP(D) but did not qualify, this was in 1994 or 1995. A recent news story indicates that fewer Canadians are qualifying for benefits. According to this story, there are serious problems at or with CPP(D) and that’s certainly credible based on my experiences with this whole industry—and an industry it is, one that employs thousands in relatively good-paying government jobs. At the provincial level, it takes up a good chunk of the budget.

As we can see, the elderly, (who can be equally vulnerable) are sort of favoured over the disabled, who may, admittedly, be younger. That is the only distinction that I can see—other than the fact that old age pensions are paid into by those who are employed. The disabled may never have been employed, and therefore, there is no public fund for their maintenance. I was employed for about twelve years—all my other work experience has been an entrepreneurial, hand-to-mouth sort of subsistence. I didn’t make contributions, and I didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance. Let’s just say I didn’t starve to death and leave it at that—

Anyways, the statute of limitations has run out and perhaps that is a good thing.

Disabled persons on CPP(D) have to have recently paid into the system. How much, and for how long, would appear to be closely-guarded secrets.

Such programs are notoriously underfunded. It is a hallmark of all such systems.

Retirees of sixty-five or seventy years of age can work while receiving regular Canada Pension Plan benefits with no penalty. There is no limit—you can earn a million bucks and still get this pension benefit. This is why scab employers such as Walmart, Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, Burger King, and a thousand grocery stores across the province and the nation love to hire retirees. Walmart greeters are famous for their average and collective age. But they don’t have to live on the money, whether it is full, or more likely part-time employment. 

They are using the additional earnings for luxuries, Christmas presents, travel, spoiling the grand-kids, (and rightly so), or simply attaining some quality of life not offered by a base government pension and no savings, no private pension in many cases.

Retail isn’t the only industry that relies on subsidized labour. When I worked as a security guard, it was surprising, just how many people were retired from the military, ex-cops, and ex-firemen. But they had their pension already, they were bondable, they had some relevant experience, and they didn’t have to live on the money. It is also true some had been bankrupted by divorce (sometimes multiple divorces), and genuinely needed the money. 

There was some poverty there, as anyone drinking home percolator coffee from a Thermos and eating stale, single-slice bologna sandwiches with a thin scrape of butter and mustard on a long midnight shift can attest. I saw many of those along the way, guys without much education but also no criminal record. If nothing else, they were bondable, although they might have rolled up their own smokes on the kitchen table in a kind of quiet, genteel, Canadian desperation.

A bunch of people must have had their applications in. A bunch of us were called in one day…there was a strike on, and the money was good.

I went from $14.00 per hour on strike duty (where we crossed the picket lines twice a day), to $5.35 per hour when the strike ended and we were lucky enough for the company to take at least some of us on. That company is still in existence today, and I have no doubt that their basic practices haven’t changed. One of the company principals was also involved with a temporary placement company—an employment company.

They’d get you a minimum-wage job somewhere and then take a percentage of your cheque for the first six months. Since it was a temporary job, one has to wonder how many folks ever got out from under that. These guys will exploit the vulnerable, the desperate, or even just the stupid. They’re not all that picky.

What’s interesting is that on polling day, election day, the place is crawling with senior citizens. While 12.6 % of Canadians suffer from some form of disability, it’s like they just don’t vote or something.

Or maybe it’s just that no one cares—unless they’re running a food bank for forty-five thousand a year and bucking for sainthood on the front page of some crummy little Canadian newspaper somewhere with all kinds of feel-good, bullshit glorification of Canadian food banks.

END

Louis has all these books and stories on Smashwords. ( - ed.) 

Thank you for reading.