Category: economics

Calgary Transit wasting money, again

On By Rick McIn economics, product endorsementsLeave a comment

The latest in my many photos of smashed Calgary Transit bus shelters.

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Stop #8954

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Stop #8755

Calgary Transit simply keeps raising fares to pay for all damage rather than finding a more durable way to build shelters.

This is a good example of how natural monopolies are flagrantly unaccountable for cost.

Once again I’ll send this complaint to Head Office. They’ve never once replied. Leave a comment if you know someone who would respond.

UPDATE:

Thank you for this inquiry. Calgary Transit contracts out all shelter maintenance and as a result we pay the maintenance firm so many dollars and it is their responsibility to repair the shelters. So, if there were no broken shelters we pay the same as when there are many broken shelters. However, if a shelter is broken on a regular basis then we remove it.

Cathy Baker
CSR Coordinator
Calgary Transit

Kudos to Cathy and Calgary Transit for responding. And promptly.

They should give Cathy a RAI$E. Design different bus shelters. And budget LESS for maintenance.

moblogic.tv

On By Rick McIn economics, geek babes, government, videocastsLeave a comment

When yet another geek babe online videocast arrived, it got some negative buzz on the internet.

MobLogic is a web show that covers news, politics, and pop culture. Every day host Lindsay Campbell hits the streets to find out what issues are on the minds of Americans.

“Streeter” interviews are “easy”. You can always find people to mock.

Yet now, moblogic.tv is one of my favourites. It’s evolving into quite a personal soapbox for the appealing host. Samples that are not street interviews:

what’s best for poor people

On By Rick McIn economics, education, humourLeave a comment

White people spend a lot of time of worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day.

They feel guilty and sad that poor people shop at Wal*Mart instead of Whole Foods, that they vote Republican instead of Democratic, that they go to Community College/get a job instead of studying art at a University. …

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original – flickr

… It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

Stuff White People Like – #62 Knowing what’s best for poor people

death by a thousand paper cuts

On By Rick McIn bad news, economicsLeave a comment

Title is a precious homage to master Headline writer Tom Mangan.

Tom survived yet another round of job cuts at one of America’s most important newspapers, the San Jose Mercury News in California.

By now he must be Publisher. How many people could they have left on staff?

Tom’s insight into the future of newspapers:

Here’s what I think will happen: everybody who bought newspapers in the last three or four years will go bankrupt because they bought the top of a market held aloft by the phony housing boom, and some clever operative like Warren Buffett will come in and buy them up at pennies on the dollar.

Most of us will be forced to get real jobs, like school teachers or dogcatchers.

I knew the first time I clicked on a link in my circa-1995 Netscape browser that print newspapers were toast. Thirteen years later, it’s finally playing out. It had to. …

What’s up at the Mercury News these days

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Infinite Monkeys

Dave Adlard likes newspapers. Cannot forsee a day when he can’t get a newspaper delivered to his cabin in North Idaho.

I’d like to think he is right.

But I’ve met a few inside the biz who do not think papers can survive in their current awkward, nostalgic form.

music will be free – whether we like it or not

On By Rick McIn economics, musicLeave a comment

He puts it even more bluntly than I do. But Michael Arrington speaks truth:

It is becoming more and more difficult for the music industry to ignore the basic economics of the their industry: unenforceable property rights (you can’t sue everyone) and zero marginal production costs (file sharing is ridiculously easy). All the big labels have now given up on DRM. They haven’t yet given up on trying to charge for their music, but it’s becoming more and more clear that as long as there is a free alternative (file sharing), the price of music will have to fall towards free.

You can disagree as to whether it’s “fair” that the price of recorded music will be zero or near zero, but you can’t disagree that it’s going to happen.

…

Personally, I think a new era of free recorded music and paid live performances is a very good thing. Recorded music will become a marketing tool to get people to pay for concerts and merchandise. Overall the music industry will be smaller in terms of revenue. But the artists who are driven to create their art will continue to do so, and many will make a very good living from it.

Well worth reading:The Music Industry’s Last Stand Will Be A Music Tax – TechCrunch

At least we can look forward to the end of RIAA guilt tripping.

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source

love libraries

On By Rick McIn books, economicsLeave a comment

More Americans have library cards than at any time since 1990, according to the American Library Association. …

… the 2 billion items checked out from U.S. libraries this year is 10 percent more than during the economic downturn in 2001. But books, DVDs and other material are only part of the story …

SF Gate – More people using libraries in tough times

In tough financial times more folks take advantage of libraries.

In fact, I think libraries could be a growth industry in the future. If only they could make going to the library “cool” for young people.

Vancouver Public Library
Vancouver Public Library

Calgary is planning a new central library. I really hope they do as well as Vancouver or Salt Lake City.

Our current downtown library is pretty crappy, a hangout for the homeless during the winter.

War on Pot: $42 Billion Annual USA Boondoggle

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

This is likely somewhat hyperbolic.

Still, the USA is nuttier than any other civilized country when it comes to soft drugs.

war-on-drugs.jpgWhat would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost — and there’d still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you’d hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what’s left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country — $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that’s what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. — $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

AlterNet: DrugReporter: The War on Pot: America’s $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle

If spending money fighting a “War on Drugs” is a good idea, why is it not working?

Reefer Madness (Restored Edition)

Reefer Madness – the movie

O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, governmentLeave a comment

Cory Doctorow is angry.

… a new version of the Canadian national anthem, in honour of the terrible proposal for a Canadian version of the US DMCA, a copyright law that has led to 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, terrible damage to innovation and free speech, all without paying artists or preventing infringement.

O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem – Boing Boing

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why I don’t shop at Safeway

On By Rick McIn economics, foodLeave a comment

I don’t need much.

But I need Twinings Earl Grey tea. Every day.

Cost of this tea varies a great deal. (As does coffee.) If you put the same tea in a smaller box, or a foil wrapper, expect to pay double or triple.

The best retail value in my town is buying 100 tea bags. I get them at Superstore.

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Safeway, Co-op and other grocery chains charge far more. How can they get away with this?

People in Calgary are too “fat”. Too affluent. They’d rather pay $3 more in an empty Safeway than crowded Superstore.

If you want the free market to work, you should support retailers that give you the best value.

Superstore also has no loyalty card program. As you know, loyalty cards are dead to me.

Disclosure: I do shop at Safeway for bagels. The Superstore bakery department is pitiful.

Canada to follow USA to digital warfare

On By Rick McIn bad news, economicsLeave a comment

The USA has handled the transition from old media to new digital media about as badly as possibly.

Right wing politicians there are easily easily bought off by lobbyists of the status quo industries. In the past they were bought off by tobacco lobbyists. Now TelCo lobbyists.

Canada has had a surprisingly enlightened and forward thinking environment. Until now. Harper’s Conservatives look to be joining the coalition of the willing to war.

Industry Canada says we’ll have a new Copyright bill by Christmas. Any day now, Industry Minister Jim Prentice will rise in the House of Commons and present the new legislation.

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Based on the Ministry’s hints about the bill to date, and on Stephen Harper’s recent throne speech, digital rights watchers are fearing the worst. Here’s what they’re predicting:

* “(It will) put digital locks on our computers, cellphones, iPods, other gadgets and tools and, ultimately, our culture” -Copyright lawyer Howard Knopf

* “There is every indication this legislation will be a complete sell-out to U.S. government and lobbyist demands.”
-Internet law Professor Michael Geist …

Search Engine | CBC Radio | Last chance to ask the Industry Minister about your copy rights.

It’s obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than 2 minutes that a lock down strategy is doomed to failure.

It means prolonging a shadow economy. Turning potential customers into pirates.

Sad.