Angry Puppies in Parliament

A conservative senator recommended that some advocates "shut the f--k up" about pushing their agenda or risk a backlash. Naturally the opposition parties in the house are all in an uproar over this behavior, and with PM Steve off somewhere it falls to Sidekick Baird (pictured, who can always be relied upon to participate in political discourse with calm reasonability) to answer for him.

The answer? It isn't appropriate behavior....

In Question Period, Mr. Baird tried to assign blame to the Liberals, accusing them of wanting to mount a culture war against his party.

In one respect, he's right, in that if the opposition parties didn't make an issue out of this there would be no issue to address. Why not let this issue lie where it belongs, under the rug?

GOD HATES DEBTORS

Unreal.

A post by Seth Godin led me to an entry by Dave Ramsey called The Truth About Debt. Mr. Godin's article is well formed, and makes the usual pitches for avoiding consumer debt. He even comes up with some history that I was not aware of -- namely being that consumer debt was an invention to increase total consumer spending.

I don't know why Mr. Ramsay's article got linked. In it, Mr. Ramsey spends a lot of time saying that use of debt as a tool by the "wealthy" is not as frequent as we have been led to believe. But the kicker -- the reason why debt is not a good idea?

Boy, what a reach. I could spout the myth with enthusiasm, but life and God had some lessons to teach me. [...] I was confronted with this scripture and had to make a conscious decision of who was right – my broke finance professor, who taught that debt is a tool, or God, who showed the obvious disdain for debt.

That's right, debit may be bad because it means you spend more of your money to bankers rather than saving it for your own use and all that, but what seals the deal is Proverbs 22:7.

Personally, I think debt is a tool. Debt can be used to buy things that you cannot afford right now. And while using debt for investing purposes means you should buy things that appreciate -- for example, theoretically housing -- there are some things that we buy that do not appreciate that debt will probably be used for.

From Mr. Ramsey's article:

Imagine how much you could put toward retirement if you just didn't have a stinking car payment?

The problem with this is that it presents a very dim view of financial management. To wit: sure, you don't have a car payment because you paid cash for your car -- good for you! But where did that cash come from? If you want to have cash for the next car, you'd better be saving for that -- not retirement! And yes, it does mean that if you are saving for the future, interest works for you rather than against you, but in practice the difference is probably not that great. So there will be extra money for retirement, but it won't be the entire amount of the car payment.

Just because you use a tool improperly doesn't mean that the tool is bad. It is a poor carpenter financial planner who blames his tools. Isn't there something in the Bible about that too?

Pity they didn't keep going

Pizza Pizza Scam Scam

(Sent 26 January 2010 to sparweez223@pizzapizza.ca; no reply)

Dear sir:

On Sunday 17 January 2010, around 2:10 in the afternoon, I entered the Pizza Pizza restaurant at the Centrum Plaza in Kanata.

I ordered a slice of pepperoni and a can of pop. Whereupon the employee assisting me conducted the transaction illustrated in the attachment 'pizza.jpg', a scan of the receipt from that transaction.



When I was informed the total, I handed over the money to pay. However, since I had been standing there for a minute or two, I recalled that the cash register had been displaying the deal illustrated in the attachment 'IMG00209.jpg', a camera-phone picture of the cash register displaying the promotion "A New Walk-In Special, slice & pop $3.49".



Although I had not seen my receipt at this point, I quickly calculated that the transaction price of $3.49 would not result in a total after-tax price of $4.74. I asked the employee, and I was informed that since I had not requested the deal advertised, I could not have it as the transaction could not be reversed. I was assured that if I requested the deal next time, I could have it.

I completed my transaction, and enjoyed my pizza.

I do note that although the camera phone photo is blurry, the terms and conditions displayed on the offer appear only to limit the deal to certain types of pizza, certain types of clients (ie walk-in), and advise that appropriate taxes will be applied. Nowhere on the terms do they indicate that the customer must specify that they wish to have the deal instead of having the elements charged individually.

So I have some questions regarding this.

1. Is this a general policy to Pizza Pizza, or is it specific to this individual store, that requires customers to specify that they wish to have the deal?

2. If yes to either, why is this policy not posted on the offer?

3. If it is not a general policy, and it is not a policy specific to this individual store, why does Pizza Pizza point-of-sale equipment make it possible for a customer to buy things counter to the current set of promotional offers? Could you provide me with a contact email for the corporate Pizza Pizza person or department which is responsible for point-of-sale policies that might be able to explain this?

I would like to tell you that at this time I still consider the full price of the items reasonable value, and I still intend to visit this and other Pizza Pizza locations in future. However, like everybody else I don't wish to spend any more money than I have to. So if by specifying the offer I can save money, I will do so in future; caviat emptor.

It has long bugged me that even though many point-of-sale devices are completely computerized, the onus is still on the customer to arrange his order in such a way to minimize the expenditure. I work with computers, and I don't understand why if you have a deal that is 'a slice and a pop for $3.49', and the customer orders 'a slice and a pop', the point-of-sale device can't recognize that as a qualifying deal, and charge the deal price instead of the individual prices.

Thank you for your attention; I look forward to your reply.

Flush Pharma

The Ontario government announced that they want to restrict the price of generic copy drugs to a maximum of 25% of the cost of the original, down from the current 50%. This is an issue because the generic copies are functionally identical -- being a copy of the original and all -- and therefore can only compete on price. The story goes that the current arrangement is for pharmacies to receive "kickbacks" on drugs purchased from particular vendors.

The pharmacies have responded by saying cutting these kickbacks will result in reduced customer services -- ie reduced hours, lower staffing levels, charges for deliveries, increased dispensing fees, etc.

While true, they miss the point.

There is a cost to these services. The services yield higher value to the customer, true, but there is a cost, and the difference is that up until now the customer has not been paying directly for these services. However, through the higher generic drug prices being paid, they are in fact indirectly paying for them.

Having the costs of these extra services laid out for all to see and directly passed on to the consumer is a good thing. Now the consumer can make the choice to have the extra services at an extra cost, rather than paying for services they may or may not actually use.

Memo to the Pharmacies: if you have to trick people into subsidizing services, you are doing it wrong.

Stick a fork in it, it's an Ex-hibition

CBC: The Ex takes money problems to city

Seems like this train wreck keeps looking for a place to happen. The Central Canada Exhibition, or Super Ex, aquired land on Albion Road back in 2002 but still somehow managed to not get kicked out of Landsdown Park until next year. Now they admit they can't pay $200K from last year, and some articles report that unless the city forgives $600K in debt Super Ex might not run at all in 2011.

Oh, they also have no plan. Even though this year is moving year.

Why is it that these "popular" businesses always seem to need government help?

Sure, maybe the CCE was a viable business back in the '70s and '80s... but it obviously isn't one today.

Shut 'em down.

CRTC: No to Fee-For-Carriage

I don't think that the broadcasters deserve extra money from the cable carriers.

The cable companies are providing me a service, that is access to a signal of better quality than I can get over the air. For that, I pay.

On the other hand, the cable companies are providing local broadcasters with access to an audience beyond their ability to directly broadcast over the air to, in effect increasing their audience and the value of the commercial airtime that they sell. They do this for free -- in any other business model, the cable companies would charge the broadcasters for carriage, to monetize the extra value that they bring to the local broadcasters.

Witness what happened when the WNPE/WNPI PBS station was almost dropped by the Ottawa cable company. It would have devastated the PBS station. The station reported that Canadian contributions made up 70% of their pledge revenues. Given a choice, I am sure that PBS would have paid a fee to be carried on the Ottawa network.

The fact that cable companies make money reflects the fact that they provide a service that has value to their customers. The fact that broadcasters are losing money reflects the fact that their audience is shrinking due to increased competition for their attention.

I don't see why I as an end-viewer should have to pay extra to compensate some broadcaster for their inability to attract my attention.

And it will be me as the end-viewer who pays the extra fees. The cable companies would be well within their rights to pass on increased costs to viewers. If such a rate increase costs them subscribers, then everyone loses -- both the cable companies and the broadcasters.

If I am going to be required to pay a per-household fee for these channels, I should have the ability to pick channels a la carte -- why should I pay for channels I don't watch? But even this in the end affects the cable companies, since it will lower their revenues. If revenues drop, profits will drop, and eventually prices will rise.

I remain unconvinced by these "Local TV Matters" commercials telling me what a good thing it is that such-and-such a local interest has access to a local broadcaster to get their message out. The issue isn't about access to a local audience -- it is about who is going to pay for the platform providing access to that audience. And while these local interests are beneficial in the long run for the community, it does not change the fact that I as a cable subscriber am going to have to pay for that platform they use.