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Subtle strike commentary? Perhaps I disagree with Post columnist Terence Corcoran when I read much of his work - so much so that I tend to avoid buying or reading the Post to avoid getting a nasty case of "I can't believe you said that, do you have life?" And yet, I can now forgive the last 100 times he's annoyed me after his spot on front page editorial piece in yesterday's Post : While the Mayor goes down in the media and with the public, union leaders chug relatively unscathed through their ritual assaults on taxpayers, good sense and rationality. Mark Ferguson, head of Toronto Local 416 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents garbage and other outside workers, turned up in a weekend Toronto Star profile as soft-hearted New Wave mystic. He reads works by the Dalai Lama and allegedly seeks to avoid confrontation in favour of fairness. What Mr. Ferguson also reads, however, is the same old union class-warfare texts that have animated union power...
Toronto's on strike. Two of the city workers' unions are , anyway. And from one union only 5% of union membership turned out to vote on the long weeknd in May. Great timing on the part of union leadership to ensure that they'd get only the diehard "hell no, we won't work" crowd to come out. The city no doubt knew this was a foregone conclusion given they invested thousands of dollars in "out of order" signs for public garbage cans. No wait, I take it back. Turns out garbage workers were already on strike for eight days and I hadn't noticed. Oh well, it's still bizarre to be putting up these signs. No wait again, that article is from 2002 . The strike just started. Brilliant. I wonder if any lazy journalists will start plagairizing from the 2002 article anyway? We can only hope, for the laughter. Oddly enough the first thing CBC does is reference the 2002 strike talking about 2009 . Going back to those signs, I've already seen kids ripping...
I'm shaking my head. You might be shaking your fist too, after reading this , in response to the plan to limit executive pay to a cool half million dollars US as part the American economic bailout plans: “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.” Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms. I completely understand his logic. And it fails miserably. If you're experiencing boom times there are still problems with executive compensation, but at least you can try and argue that they're earning...
The internet is full of lively conversations about Canada's proposed federal budget. @krisjoseph Tomorrow morn Jack Layton will pitch the burial of C Party leadership as a shovel-ready infrastructure project As with most parliamentary democracies, the government's budget must be approved by the elected officials in Parliament before it is accepted. If it is rejected - a risk in minority government scenarios such as the one Canada finds itself in - the government falls. The opposition can try to assemble a coalition government. Failing that, an election takes place. It must have been a little annoying to be a young CA tax professional with the thought in mind "this may never end up actually becoming the country's budget if the government falls tomorrow," while rushing to complete an astute summary of the budget to share with all the firm's clients and the general public. Knowing that everyone likes a little publicity, the firms promptly posted their highlights...
I'm having some food in the kitchen and I hear the TV in the other room. It's CNN talking about the plane crash. Larry King, being himself: "What did the pilot do right?" Survivor: "I think it was all in the landing." Enlightening, thanks. The victim's answer is correct and to the point. I have a problem with the idiotic line of questioning. I guess he has to fill his hour on TV with something. A shame there's UN headquarters getting blown up and no one seems to care . Well, I guess they do care, since CNN reported on it, but given the blanket media coverage, but some happy "yay everyone in America's doing good" news will trump gross human rights violations any day of the week. Sad.
Since November 6, most undergraduate students at Toronto's York University have been suffering from a strike that has shut down the university. CUPE, the union involved, represents both Teaching Assistants (read: horribly underpaid grad students) and part-time professors. Presumably if no professors were in this union the university could have just kept on going without its TAs. As the photo above suggests, I didn't go to York for my undergrad - but all Ontario CA students spend the month of June there at the School of Accountancy, where this photo was taken. It's a mix of small seminar-sized courses with 30 people or less, and a few larger lectures where SOA-wide announcements are made to all - generally right before or after the practice tests. For CA students, I'm curious to know what effect this strike will have.on the SOA - will it still be at York University this year? Or if classes resume and get pushed back into the summer, will the venue of that august institution...
Are the Elgin Marbles going back to Greece anytime soon? An opinion reversal? I already wondered about this earlier - and my view hasn't changed. It's just not likely , especially if you read something like this . DBRS did the math as well - and although they point out the scenario is unlikely - the math is what it is: DBRS ran the number on this kind of doomsday forecast in October, and said the value of the assets didn't meet the debt. DBRS managing director Paul Holman wrote: "This base case default scenario results in a decline in enterprise value of BCE ... to roughly $34.4-billion or 33 per cent lower than the $52-billion enterprise value when the privatization was announced on June 30, 2007." In an interview, Mr. Holman said: "In a default scenario, we show total assets would be less than total liabilities and senior lenders would be covered but the unsecured and subordinate lenders would not be covered. There's a healthy discussion going on in the...
I just wrote a post inspired by an earlier article by Steve McIntyre-Smith, but that wasn't the only commentary on his writings I decided to prepare. I was also intrigued by his note regarding the fact that only 953 people, out of 2357 nationally, successfully passed the UFE in Ontario last year . He goes on to speculate about the demographic time bomb facing the profession. In the near future, the baby-boomer CAs are going retire. Steve, as are many, is worried that not enough students are joining the profession to fill their spots. He argues that current CAs should do more to "sell" the CA designation. When asked "what do you do?", they need something captivating to share with the listener, instead of just saying, "I'm a CA". Instead, saying something like "I make millionaires" through the work you do is more likely to grab people's attention. When speaking to junior staff, I myself have always liked to half-jokingly point out that...
I'm not really in the mood to argue. I mean, I've had some excellent food lately, which should really put anyone in a good mood. But I'm still shocked and appalled. And I really should've replied to the news that photography is banned from the station with a chilly, "what for?" You see, according to the best guess of the Montreal train station's security, I apparently must look like a terrorist. Wow, they should've seen me when I was all scruffy and bearded in university. One of my friends from back then thought I was a History, rather than a Commerce student, for that simple fact. This is the second time in two months that I've been witness to an instruction from security to stop taking photos in a government-owned facility. And it's so stupid I wish I got drop the hammer on someone the way America's Henry Waxman does two and a half minutes into this video . Waxman is understandably annoyed with the stonewalling he gets from the EPA about...
Way back in university I developed an intense dislike for psycho activists. You know the kind. You say something innocuous. Say, for example, that they should buy the green bike instead the blue one, and they start screaming "HATE CRIME!!!!!!" in your face. Above: Alternate Strike Vehicle #1 The news from Steve Munro's blog is worth reading, especially the comment by an operator - click here - who explains that it looks like another conspiracy by the psycho activists . As a T.T.C. Operator, let me give you my take on this situation. I was shocked when I found out from Bob’s phone call that the members voted against the contract. 3/3/3 increases, upgrades to benefits, and most importantly, no concessions. However, this wasn’t good enough for the maintenance department. They want guaranteed lifetime jobs. The commission is buying new vehicles and like all new vehicles they have warranties. The maintenance people don’t like this as they think they will be laid off because the...
The US is paying Iraqis to fight Al Qaeda. Smart move. The men are complaining, however, that they're not getting paid now. Bad move. This is, in its own way, a continuation of two posts - the one I wrote about unions and strikes , and on pervasive qualities . If anyone deserves to get their fair pay, it's these folks. Thanks Videosift , for pointing out this, sadly, horrible and tragic story . It's bad enough to be an employer who skimps on paying their employees for showing up to a standard 9 to 5 job. These guys are risking their lives. The November elections can't come fast enough.
The TTC's workers are threatening to go on strike again next month, the CBC reports . The rather angry comments left in response jive with me to some extent, though my reaction is muted by the fact I've seen how much idiocy the drivers have to put up with. Part of the TTC union's campaign is to divide the public transit service's economic value by the number of employees and to settle on the result as the employee's value added. Before the economists in the audience bust a gut laughing or just have an aneurysm explode all over their monitors, this quote from the above page's comment list nails the fault in that logic: Do the TTC employees honestly beleive that they are each worth a million dollars? Who are they kidding? I work for a company that has revenues of 346 Billion. With 40,000 employees, does that make me worth $8,650,000.00? Well put. Having said that, some of the TTC's employees do a hard job while still showing customers a polite and friendly face...
Last fall I was ready to write up a little article about the lack of glamorous in business travel. Well, then I got busy, put writing on hold, got to travel to Europe for a couple of weeks of work, and found the idea had shelved itself but quickly and quietly. Having said that, check out Gelato baby's account of a 36 hour trip home from Helsinki with an emergency stop in Glasgow to see how quickly things can go sour. It's a very amusing article. It also reveals how quickly travel can go wrong. All you need is one big missed flight to throw you for a loop. Which segues to the fact that it's been almost a year since my last vacation. It's about time to start planning the next one. This time it's going to be the West Coast. I'm not done going through the list of friends who have put down roots out there, but at the moment it's looking like I'll be able to see 15 or more people in 7 cities over a 10 day period. Wait, I just thought of another three. Make it...
Courtesy Videosift, footage of a Dubya visit in Portland. There's a lot of anger in the US. The media seems to automatically assume anyone protesting something is in the wrong, it seems, ignoring the disproportionate police response. Be advised, quite a bit of NSFW language. In case you're wondering, crazy homophobes attack the anti-Bush crowd, and the media spins it into an anti-Bush riot, even though the anti-Bush crowd was asking the violent homophobes to leave. And that's why everyone chanted "Corporate media lies."
The photo posted above is the closest image I could think of in my little picture library that resembles the question, "What???" I had to post a quick follow-up to the piece I wrote moments ago when I saw another gem of insanity on Mankiw's blog, again quoting the office of the POTUS : We don't think you should raise taxes to pay for more spending. People have various colourful expressions for the moment when your brain stops working. Typing out that sentence would have to be one of them. How else, exactly, will you pay for more spending? If they mean to say they don't want to spend more money, I understand, but according to US Government Spending , a handy little website, it looks like since Dubya was granted the presidency by the Supreme Court, spending has increased by roughly a trillion dollars federally, and 1.5 trillion dollars in total. It's amazing how much a quick Google Search reveals - the previous link mentions the total numbers. The Financial Times...
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