No words yet just links
The power of the Internet and new media - take a look at this wonderful pic. Life on the modern picket line!
One from the professor - Robert Wasburn that is: here
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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Just an ornery guy, not quite a curmudgeon
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10 comments:
Re the Viceroy syndrome. Nothing short a grassroots, cultural makeover is going to reverse this trend. As long as people line up at Walmart boxes, and it's relatives, to buy cheap foreign goods we'll continue down the " long and winding road " of decline. Canadians will wake up one day to find these stores too expensive to shop in, as our purchasing ability deflates while the price of foreign imports rises. The Reformers have a hand in this, or more to the point, they have no hand in this at all. That's the tragedy.
The Japanese are buying foreign goods -- modular houses made by Viceroy. Hence the move to Richmond BC. It's closer.
Anon. 2,
if " closer " is the determining factor, why don't they simply set up shop in Japan ?
The lesson of Viceroy: when the business you work for gets sold to hardnosed owners in Russia, one thing to avoid: taking a vote in favour of job action.
No business can survive unless it continues to meet the needs of its customers, whether they be long term or short, long-time or new. As needs change, so must the strategy to satisfy them adequately. All jobs owe their existence to that maxim. No job can exist indefinitely in the environment created by economic reality.
No one is owed a 'job', period.
As individuals looking for stable income, we hope to find and hold on to as long as the economics allow, a job that meets our needs and appears to have the capacity to meet our future needs as they materialize. Conversely, we must also be prepared to adapt when that is no longer the case. (Look at the fisheries as one example.)
If a change (move to a different location) serves the customer better, then it is folly to ignore that reality. If your 'job'(business that sells your time and expertise) has to move to better meet the needs of your employer (your customer), then you must adapt just as your employer must, to that economic situation.
These facts provide little consolation to those who cannot or will not adapt (in some cases, perhaps relocate), and that is a problem, but in time, those problems will be resolved, and the resulting hardships will be very real for some. The bigger concern is that this will not be the last, but far from it. We need to take some heed from these repetative situations and prepare ourselves for when the same reality strikes at our own doorstep, rather than simply expect the 'job fairy' to make a new one out of nothing, just like the government thinks it can.
There's more, so much more, but I'll save you from my babblings and stop here (if you're still with me, that is). 29.5
Manfred, no one is against change, I think. But it's better to be a participant in the change, don't you agree. We are seeing signs in this country of a systematic change in who owns and controls our resources and what's left of the manufacturing base. The perception is that the average Canadian is being factored out. You say, " No one is 'owed' a job, period ". Indeed. The PMO couldn't have said it better.
Manfred wrote: No business can survive unless it continues to meet the needs of its customers ... blah ... blah ... blah....
Errant nonesense, premised on discredited foundations such as the quaint notion that markets of rational actors are efficient allocators of resources.
To say nothing of the fact that it is all thoroughly self-serving.
Nice try, Manfred, but no cigar!
Anon wrote "We are seeing signs in this country of a systematic change in who owns and controls our resources and what's left of the manufacturing base" Please refresh my memory and tell me when the opposite was true, when the signs indicated that Canadians were systematically gaining (or regaining) control of Canada's resources and manufacturing base. I'll stick my neck out and say that this is not a recent development in Canada's short history.
If Canada wants to play with the big kids on this globe it has to bet big enough to stay in the game and that means betting your assets against the others', in hopes of coming out ahead, but only betting if you're also prepared to loose the bet, which can easily happen and often does.
When something changes ownership it usually does so on the strength of the compensation offered and paid. If Canadian business isn't willing to ante up to keep or pursue ownership of its businesses and resources and willing to let other interests succeed, do you propose that in every such case the government should buy it all? If not, who? What is your recommendation and proposal? How would you reverse the trend?
I suggest that there is little to prevent Canadians from starting new ventures to compete with the ones being bought away and/or moved out. If we were able to do it in the first place and create a viable entity that someone else saw fit to buy or take over, we can do it again, and succeed. Business does it all the time. We don't need to wallow in self recrimination about 'loosing' our assets to foreign interests. This is what competing on the world stage is really about.
And as for being "owed" a job, just who would do the "owing"? You - me - Harry or Jane, the government, who - and on what basis? Doesn't matter who says it, it's still something that demands a cogent answer.
And of my dear friend William I ask "How long and at what cost do you estimate a business to be able to survive without adequately serving those whose needs are its only reason for even existing? I ask for more enlightening response than blah - blah - blah, that is, if you have one.
BTW - call me dim but I don't get the point of ANY of "Errant nonesense, premised on discredited foundations such as the quaint notion that markets of rational actors are efficient allocators of resources.
To say nothing of the fact that it is all thoroughly self-serving." - not even the faintest.
"Errant nonesense, premised on discredited foundations such as the quaint notion that markets of rational actors are efficient allocators of resources."
Socialism is premised on the discredited notion that the state or bureaucrazy are efficient allocators of resources. History has proven the fallacy of that premise.
Manfred wrote: I don't get the point if ANY of "Errant nonesense, premised on discredited foundations such as the quaint notion that markets of rational actors are efficient allocators of resources."
Of course you don't get the point, Manfred. That was my point.
Allow me to suggest, for your enlightenment, the lead article in the September issue of Literary Review of Canada titled "Did the Banks Go Crazy?" by Joseph Heath, in which the author argues that rationality and efficiency don't always go together.
Here's a link to the article in the online edition of LRC.
PS. Wally: I'm taking Manfred's advice and ignoring you, save to remark that you formed what few ideas you have about economics and finance early in life, perhaps in the cradle, and haven't examined them since!
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