September 2009
2 posts
Marketing and the Internet: A Love Story.
Media is changing rapidly. Marketers have the ability to reach people at a much deeper level and can create much more interaction. The video below is a good overview of how the marketing landscape is changing.
Enjoy.
A.
P.S: I embedded this video from the Economist and due to that fact the video does not mesh with my layout. Classic Tradeoff.
School is back. Less time = more posts.
Ahem. I will start with sorry for the nonexistence of posts over the summer. It seems that when I have more time I find it harder to write here. I think it may be a combination of summer weather and a need to relax.
Whatever the reason is it doesn’t matter. Now I am ready to get back to regular posting. I will keep my ear to the internet to keep you informed on developments in...
July 2009
2 posts
Everyone is human. Here's proof
Via Kempt:
“From time to time, a gentleman’s eyes may wander.
This is not to be taken as a sign of his character, but as a reflex of the eye resulting in a momentary suspension of the higher faculties. Neither priests, eunuchs nor husbands are entirely immune. And all things considered, the eye is one of the less dangerous organs.
So let’s not embarrass anyone whose wife might be...
A reason to love the U.S.A....drug innovation
Via Carpe Diem
Most all the world pays a marginal cost for drugs, medical devices, and procedures that does not come close to repaying the development effort that went into those products. Further, most of the world has regimented medical systems that have very strong immune systems against any sort of innovation. As a result, almost all medical innovation occurs and is paid for in the United...
June 2009
3 posts
Inflation!?!?!? Who's scared?
Via Carpe Diem:
“Arthur Laffer in the WSJ on June 11, “Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates”: As bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and...
Quick Fix
Via Mankiw
From MSN Money:
former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan is a fan of men’s underwear sales as an important economic indicator.
BM: Who isn’t? We need more exciting economic indicators.
Sorry for the hiatus
I have been completely swamped lately and unfortunately I have been poor at managing my time outside of work. With the NHL and NBA playoffs plus summer and work, I have had little time to blog on BusinessMinded.ca. That doesn’t make me happy.
This Sunday I am going to reorganize myself and get posting regularly again. So please stick around and read and comment and make this site fun.
Here is...
May 2009
8 posts
Women are in a happiness decline
Via Greg Mankiw:
“According to new research from Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson:
The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of...
Pay off your credit card on time? Now you will be...
Below is an exert from NY Times (via Carpe Diem). Credit card companies make most of their revenues from charging late accounts, but now congress is stepping in to limit the amount of fees they can charge. Uh-oh. Now credit card companies will need to make up for this slack (They can’t make less money. How will they support their affluent life styles?). How will they do that? Read...
The rich don't like taxes.
Via Carpe Diem
“Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.
Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day...
Norway - 1. U.S.A - 0.
Norway is doing something right. With the largest recession since the Great Depression, Norway’s economy expanded by almost 3% last year and its government currently has a surplus of 11% of GDP and is debt free. Wow! The U.S. on the other hand aren’t so impressive. The U.S. government will be racking up a deficit of 12.9% of GDP this year and it will grow its debts to $11...
Amazing. →
This is outside the realm of my usual postings but this is truly amazing and sounds so beautiful. Enjoy. (Click the title to go to the link!).
P.S. I am thinking of sharing some of my music via BusinessMinded.ca now. I want to make this site a little more personal.
Diamonds are Forever
With the global economic slump, demand for diamonds is down which should mean falling prices but not if you cut supply too. If you can believe it, Russia has surpassed De Beers as the largest diamond producer and with that has gained an ability to control prices through its significant control of the world supply of diamonds. With demand down, the Russian diamond company Alorsa has cut its...
Competition to the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Could there be another NHL team coming to Southern Ontario?
Jim Balsillie, CEO of Research in Motion (maker of Black Berry), sure hopes so. Balsillie has made his third attempt to get an NHL team into Southern Ontario.
In the past he had made offers to both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators, but both were rejected. Now Basillie has made the “third time is a...
April 2009
23 posts
Obama's Law
Interesting post by Greg Mankiw:
“Via the WSJ, here is the view from a “secured (sic) creditor” of Chrysler:
“Like many others I made the mistake of buying what I believed was ‘value,’” Mr. Gwin says, adding that investors who bought at the time believed the loans were worth more than their market price. “We did not contemplate having our first...
Fuel Efficiency doesn't equal decreasing demand...
Very interesting Article I stumbled upon:
The Fuel Efficiency Paradox by Jeff Jacoby:
It seems intuitive: Increasing the fuel efficiency of automobiles - or anything else that runs on gas - should lower the demand for oil. It was with precisely that expectation that Congress enacted the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in 1975, following the Arab oil embargo. At the time, US oil...
Unemployment Worsening in Canada, but EI not...
(Photo Credit: etftrends.com)
Unfortunately just when most people thought it couldn’t get any worse it is going to get worse. The number of people applying for employment insurance (EI) is up 19% from January, but the number of people receiving EI only increased by 7.8%. This means there a fair number of people needing EI who are not receiving it. With the number of unemployed...
I didn't want to talk about this.
But it seems I must. Swine Flu. If I have to hear about this anymore I am going to go crazy. Honestly the regular flu kills people all the time. If you are healthy chances are even IF you get it, you will fight it off.
There is no need to live in fear because of the swine flu. The media ALWAYS blows things out of proportion. Swine flu is not very prevalent in Canada or the U.S.A. The...
GM down to four core brands.
Via Eco Auto Ninja
“This morning, GM announced they were cutting 21,000 jobs and getting rid of Pontiac. Plans are in place to close more factories as the automaker fights to avoid bankruptcy.
GM has been surviving on on $15.4 billion in government loans and revealed that it envisions receiving an additional $11.6 billion. But if GM’s restructuring plan can’t satisfy the government by...
The Financial System of the Future...
Found this link on Greg Mankiw’s blog. I decided I would post it as well. This is a really interesting idea and may not be all that farfetched. It would solve a lot of informational problems, especially moral hazard. It basically allows people to adopt all the risk and not banks and other corporations. Therefore there are less likely to be risky dealings as people don’t want to...
Is outsourcing to India a thing of the past?
(Photo Credit: UMass Lowell Sunrise Radio)
Finally many companies are realizing that outsourcing customer service to India is really a whole lot more expensive than initially thought. The cost isn’t in terms of dollars, but in terms of frustrated, angry, upset, displeased, aggravated, and unhappy customers.
The Globe and Mail has reported that Primus Telecommunications Canada will be...
Geithner hopes to fool people.
(Photo Credit: p3books.com)
Tim Geithner announced that a vast majority of banks are well capitalized in the U.S., but Paul Krugman, among others, was quick to rebuttal this statement and rightfully so. This statement is incredibly misleading. While technically Geithner is correct, it is a classical example of lying with statistics.
There are over 1,722 large commercial banks in the U.S and...
Happy Earth Day.
(Photo Credit: caglecartoons.com)
Happy Earth Day. I hope today makes people a little more cognisant of their actions on this beautiful planet. We all, myself included, are very ignorant towards the fact that our actions are causing serious harm to this planet. We think that we can continue our wastefulness and excessiveness infinitely because the planet is indestructible.
Starting today...
And the interest rate falls again
The Bank of Canada has cut its key interest rate (the overnight rate) to 0.25% which is the lowest the Bank has ever gone since its opening in 1935. This move is the Bank’s respone to try to increase inflation to its desired 2% target. It will be expected to stay at 0.25% for the next year until the economy begins to rebound and inflation increases back to its desired level of 2%.
Will...
How many pillows are on your bed?
(Photo Credit: Nicolekiss.blogspot.com)
I just got back from the Business in a Recession Panel Discussion put on by the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph. It was a great discussion and a lot of really informative things were said, but I think what I took away the most was the analogy put forward by Bruce McAdams. He had recently attended a conference for hotel...
Business in a Recession - Panel Discussion
If anyone will be in Guelph this Sunday April 19th I encourage you to come to the Business in a Recession Panel Discussion being presented by the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph. The participants will be explaining the cause of this recession, the ways out of it, and how much longer this recession will last for. Warren Jestin, chief economist at ScotiaBank, is a...
Exams...
Sorry I haven’t been posting this week. I am incredibly busy right now with exams (studying fundamentals of corporate finance right now!) so I won’t be able to post anything until Friday. I hope all is well with everyone.
Ahren
WatchThis video is a great explanation of the current credit crisis. If you have trouble understanding how the credit crisis started then watch this movie and you will have a clearer understanding of the reasons. If you already know then still watch the video because it is just a great presentation of what caused this current crisis. Basically, human greed is why we are where we are. Check out...
Consume our way to destruction
“We do not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children.” Chief Seattle (from Nolberto Munier’s Introduction to Sustainability)
How do we get out this recession? We need to get consumers spending. We need to get their unlimited wants started again (seems like a good idea?). This is what many economists and government officials think needs to be done. ...
Jay Leno’s one man comedy stimulus plan
Jay Leno will be giving two free stand-up comedy routines in the Motor City (Detroit) in what he is calling Jay Leno’s Comedy Stimulus Plan. Detroit, which is home to the big three auto manufacturers, has been hit worse than most American cities by the current global recession. Mr. Leno hopes to give a few hours of entertainment to many of the unemployed workers in Detroit who have faced...
Canadian Government to Honour GM and Chrysler Cars
The United States has already committed to guarantying GM and Chrysler vehicle warranties in case either declares bankruptcy, but only today did Canada also decide it too would guarantee all vehicles purchased from April 7th, 2009 and on. This is to help support GM and Chrysler by giving consumers confidence that their vehicle warranties will be honoured regardless of whether GM and Chrysler...
G-20 - The London Summit
The 20 largest economies (plus some other organizations, which means the London Summit wasn’t official a G-20 meeting) in the world met last Thursday, April 2, 2009 in London to discuss stability, growth, and jobs. With the recession, all three topics are hot issues, as lack of stability in our current economy has turned growth negative, and taken many jobs with it.
The following list is...
Obama - President by Day Superhero by Night
How do you know Barack Obama has become a huge part of pop culture? By clicking here.
Obama actions figures. Obama, solving America’s problems by day through new policies and fighting evil by night! It will be interesting to see if his popularity remains as the economy continues to fall.
For all those out there who are worried an action figure won’t be made of you if you pursue...
U.S. Unemployment hits 8.5%.
And it keeps climbing. I hate how impersonal this is made to seem. These are actual people with families losing their jobs. It is really sad. It is going to be hard times for a lot of people. Here is an arcticle via Bloomberg which explains the 25-year high for unemployment in the U.S. I truly sympathize with all those who have lost their jobs, in Canada as well. Hopefully, after this...
Tight on Cash? Sell off your Gold Grills.
Over the next few days I will be cutting down on original material (hopefully still make a few original posts) due to overload of school and job related tasks. So in absence of original material, I will offer you interesting things I stumble upon. Here is one that I find quite amusing:
“A couple years, one gaudy fashion was the trend for diamond and gold grills. The pair shown above,...
Goodbye Pension.
(Photo credit: Cartoon Stock)
Meet the Federal Pension Guarantor. This is the federal agency that guarantees 44 million Americans’ pensions in case of companies going bankrupt and no longer able to meet their pension plans. In the months before the financial crisis, the Federal Pension Guarantor had a great idea - to take on a riskier financial strategy and try to eliminate the deficit...
Victim of the Recession: Greg Mankiw?
(source: The Crimson)
For anyone out there who follows Greg Mankiw’s blog and is not a hardvard student or harvard alumni, you will no longer be able to read his posts for free. Here is the post on his blog:
“With Harvard having lost so much of its endowment lately, the university has asked me to stop providing this blog free of charge. Going forward, therefore, this blog will be...
March 2009
38 posts
Off for the day
Sorry everyone, but being a student I am very busy with end of the year projects and exams. Please come back tomorrow as I will have a new post.
Thanks for reading businessminded.ca.
Ahren
White Collar Hero
“The new president of Quebec’s pension fund manager is giving up the performance bonus and other perks that usually come with the job. Michael Sabia sent a letter this week to the chair of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec saying he will renounce bonuses for 2009 and 2010, even if the fund performs well. Sabia, 55, is also giving up the $235,000 annual pension that he...
Bye, Bye Wagnor. Hello Viability for GM?
On Sunday, GM CEO Rick Wagnor resigned after significant pressure from the Obama administration. The administration threatened to withhold the much needed bailout funds GM currently needs in attempt to “smoke out” Mr. Wagnor. Needless to say it worked. Frederick Henderson, G.M.’s president, will takeover as chief exec.
GM has used up the $13.4 billion in bailout funds it...
What's the big fuss over harmonized sales tax in...
(Photo Credit: Kranky’s cartoons)
Starting on July 1, 2010, Ontarians will start paying a single 13% sales tax. This is from the recently released provincial budget. The province will now be combining GST and PST into one tax. Many of you may be saying “who cares I already pay both GST and PST and this will just make it one tax instead of two separate ones.” Well, you may...
Smile, You're on Google Street View
“People strolling past homes, stores and even strip joints across Canada will soon be captured and frozen in time by Google’s camera, to appear in high-resolution street-level images on the internet. Google will be driving around 11 Canadian cities across the country again “in coming weeks” to take images for the Canadian version of its Street View service, which it hopes...
Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe Coming to an End
(Photo Credit:blog.iconflict.com)
For those who didn’t know, Zimbabwe has spent the past several years in hyperinflation with inflation at rates that are hard to comprehend. Here in Canada, our inflation rate hovers around 1-3%, but last July inflation was 231,000,000% in Zimbabwe. Pretty astonishing.
There is a good example to help understand how drastic inflation is in Zimbabwe, but...
CBC to Make Hard Decisions
It has been mostly banks and automakers in the news lately and their hardships in the current economic storm, but now CBC, the heart of Canadian media, has been beaten down by the recession.
CBC has projected that it will be $171 million short for the 2009-2010 year. CEO and President of CBC, Hubert Lacroix, announced that there would be 800 job cuts to help wheather the storm as well as a...
Kidnapped Children are Tax Deductible
Proof that the IRS thinks of absolutely everything. This is a post, I believe, originally from The Prestigious Internet Blog (see link at the end). I do sympathize with any parents who have had their child kidnapped. So if you have ever wondered about the tax deductibility of kidnapped child, here is the answer: “Specifically: Can I still write off a child as a deduction if they’ve...
Ontario to Spend, Spend, Spend
Evidently Premier Dalton McGuinty and company believe strongly in Keynesian economics. Under Keynesian economics, it is believed that large increases in government spending can raise an economy out of recession. This is due to the fact that government spending, if done properly, creates many jobs and these people with new jobs start spending money and that creates more jobs and the cycle...
Tax the Hell Out of Bonuses...
Today there will be a proposal to the Senate to tax bonuses of employees at institutions that receive bailout money from the government. The tax could be as high as 90%. This should be interesting. I somehow find it hard to believe this will be given the go ahead, but we can only hope. No one should receive such lucrative bonuses for helping in the destruction of America’s economy. It...
Private Sector: Buy Toxic Assets and Avoid...
As we have all seen, the U.S (and Canadian) Government has been buying up toxic assets in an attempt to clean up banks’ balance sheets. Well, they can’t do it all themselves anymore especially since there is a major problem in how to appropriately price these assets.
The new plan from Tim Geithner (U.S. Treasury Secretary) is to start a public-private investment fund. The Treasury...
What Would Obama Do? (To get us out of this...
For all you out there wondering what tools Obama and his administration are going to use to get the U.S out of this recession here is a quick synopsis:
1) Government expenditures. Increase government spending through infrastructure development and investing in new technologies like green energy. This will create new jobs, new money, and lead to more spending which will hopefully stimulate the...