Switzerland is a country that has managed to remain remarkably stable – the Swiss Franc is a byword for stability. It follows a formal policy of neutrality, established in 1815, and it has not been in a state of international conflict since that time. Wars can be raging all around, yet Switzerland manages to stand apart. Whatever one makes of the approach, it is hard to argue that it hasn’t served the nation well.

When income tax was first introduced here in Canada in 1917, the new Income Tax Act ran just shy of 4000 words. It was a simple document outlining a simple law. Since then, the rules and regulations have ballooned to just over 1 million words.

It’s easy to be hypocritical, and we’re all guilty of it sometimes. A little while ago, Florida’s Sun Sentinel examined the records of 3,915 officers who had traveled on toll roads in 2011. The paper found that nearly 800 of them had driven at speeds of 90 to 130 miles an hour, many either while off duty or in violation of department rules.

You may be familiar with the incredible true story of a con man named Frank Abagnale. Between the ages of 15 and 21, Abagnale successfully passed himself off as a commercial airline pilot with Pan Am, a medical doctor, and a lawyer.

It’s a challenging thing to create a new society. It does, of course, happen from time to time. One of the world’s newest nations at the present time is South Sudan, which declared independence in 2011.