That's a pity — Canada would benefit from rates above inflation.
Tariffs must be capped at 150 percent now, from rates that were as high as 550percentt.
Apart from rates, other factors may make it harder to buy or refinance a property in the coming year.
He said rents had gone as high as the low $60s from rates in the high $40s.
"We learned in the energy business to decouple efficiency from rates and reward efficiency, and we could do the same with water".
In the long term, manufacturers want to switch the system away from rates based on property values to a valuation based on the income generated by a property.
Seventy per cent of a songwriter's income comes from rates set by the government, rather than by the songwriters and publishers, on the free market.
South Korea and Hong Kong will be lucky to see GDP growth of 2-3% this year, down from rates of 9% and 10% respectively in 2000.
The wealthy are unlikely to slow their consumption much if their income tax rates return — as Mr. Obama has proposed — to their pre-Bush levels (an increase from rates of 33 and 35percentto36and39.6percentercent).
Mr. Shochat said at a news conference that a tax known as the purchase tax would be cut on 630 goods from rates that are now as high as 85percenttoto as little as 5percentt.
Inequality is also at a historic low, with the Gini coefficient (which measures income inequality) dipping under 50 in 2009 for the first time since records began, a significant decline from rates nearer 60 a decade earlier.
