overthere
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Posts posted by overthere
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Given the imminent horrific danger, when will they stop sending all those tankers up the St Lawrence River? Burrard Inlet?
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Ticket sales are included in revenue from which revenue sharing is paid out from.
Are you talking about revenue sharing between teams in the league, or revenue splits between teams and players?
Because I don't think there is any sharing of ticket sale revenue between teams.
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As with all of our public services, there is no competition in the conventional sense to drive efficiency. The size of the workforce is determined by some bureaucratic means, and the reasons aren't transparent. Individual wage hikes depend on the public's general emotional response to these people, which is favourable.
As with our other public services, we need to create a new subset of the public to look at the facts here. It's difficult, though, as there is much secrecy around budgets and procedures.
Public sector wage hikes have little to do with public perception.
What drives civil service wage hikes is the willingness of management(politicians, ultimately) to restrict wage increases to what the government can afford. Since there is no effective brake on tax increases, there is no accompanying brake on civil service wage hikes. There are rarely votes to be gained from a politician telling staff they are paid enough and won't be getting a raise. Civil service unions see it as natural that their salaries and benefits continually increase, because that is the norm in Canada.
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Prediction: approved with conditions and perhaps a different route to Kitimat.
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The closest Target took over the Zellers store, completely renovated and expanded the space, which was in dire need.
I'm no shopper, but it looks like Target shares somehting with the old Zellers: a lack of customers. I've been in it only a couple of times, but it looks really empty and the parking lot never seems to have many cars.
Walmart took over a Zellers space at another mall, and it looks a lot busier now.
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The revenue sharing in hockey is limited to those chunks of cash that come to the league, which is primarily league wide TV contracts in Canada and US, and some merchadising bucks. There is no profit sharing between teams, each team has several local sources of money that they get to keep: local or regional TV and Radio and very importantly ticket sales. Floridas days are limited, they will have trouble meeting the cap floor, and won't have to worry about the cap limit. Without much greater ticket sales, Florida will lose more and more every year.
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your MO is to just slander employees
Where did I do that?
I commented on the quality of CPC management, which is generally poor.
I have spent way too much time at CPC HQ and in their Operations groups in the regions and major plants to have any other opinion.
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how confused are you? Canada Post Pension assets... are assets... investment assets... of the pension plan. You've made numerous incorrect references to these same pension plan assets in terms of the corporation proper! Again, how confused are you?
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Not a bit confused.
For Canada Post, the obligations of the pension plan are a growing concern, in part due to low interest rates. While the plan has assets with a market value of $17 billion, its pension solvency deficit – the amount needed to meet obligations if it were wound up – is estimated at $5.9 billion as of the end of 2012.
CPC is winding up, but first we have to have a few years of grandstanding and handwringing, its the Canadian way.. They cannot make money or even come close to breaking even doing what they do, their core business is folding despite a delivery monopoly. Even if they slash costs they will also increase prices dramtically a, which will drive away their business further. Their core 1st class business is not Granny sending Billy a birthday card, it is businesses sending out millions of bills and statements monthly- and they are all finding other ways to do that. They're pooched. No govt including the current one will tolerate indefintie operating deficits. Their UNFUNDED pension liability of $6 billion can't be addresses by CPC while they have operating deficits. It doesn't mean shit if they have pension assets of $16 billion or $$16 trillion if they have a whopping liability to go with it, and a number large enough they can never catch up. That UNFUNDED laibility can only grow as they reduce their workforce, all of it is defined benefit stuff andf there is no escape except sale of the corporation. And of course, nobody sane would buy a supposedly $7 billion company with a whacking great pension liability that cannot ever be covered out of profits.
Harper gave them four more years because.... they don't know what to do. They gave Air Canada a similar extension last year for similar reasons, but AC has far better prospects of survival than CPC.
The govt overall has a huge pension shortfall, but they have more numerous and many more revenue sources than CPC.
Taxpayers will end up eating the CPC pensions shortfall, there is no other way.
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Why can't it simply be a government service, like the passport office, Parks Canada, public works, etc.?
All three of those you mention are revenue dependent undertakings, all are expected to sustain themselves in whole or part through fees charged. In the case of Public Works, the fees are most often charged for services provided to other govt departments for services provided by PWGSC. It's been that way for about 20 years there, longer at Parks and passport office which get most of their cash from the public. .
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They are actually less top heavy than they used to be, and their executive people are more competent, less old boys and political hacks than previously.Very, and they're a nasty bunch, let me tell you.
It won't matter though, nothing can fix their business now.
I agree they are a nasty bunch.
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"no - by definition, market value... more correctly, "fair market value" (FMV). "
what is the market value of Canada Post today? No, not using Canada Post assumptions, but in the real world?
I don't think there are any buyers, period, not with their a) cureent balance sheet and
prospects for the future, where they are intent on driving away their remaining business.Would you buy it? Would anybody sane buy it?
Maybe they could bundle the sale of Canada Post with a typewriter manufacturer for added value.
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Just saw another movie I really liked: Nebraska.
It is set in the Great Plains/small town America and beautifully shot in black and white, a vast Prairie landscape.
If you are still reading this, it's a gentle sort of movie with a central theme about family and aging. If it matters to you, there is no sex, a little swearing, very mild violence. Bruce Dern is terrific, so is Will Forte. There's a good supporting cast of small town winners and losers doing what smalltown people do. Directed by Alexander Payne, who also did Sideways and About Schmidt, a pair of fine movies about ordinary people.
Recommended.
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Alberta should pay for everything.
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"a couple of cents difference in the case of Whitehorse versus Vancouver"
But you don't fill up in Whitehorse, then in Vancouver (a market of 30,000 vs a market of 2 million). You fill up in Watson Lake, then 500 km later in Fort Nelson where it is more expensive. The gas in Watson Lake casme from Ft Nelson by expensive tanker truck.
I guess its a cheap price to pay to live in The Best Place On Earth.
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Your enthusiasm for creating greater supply of consumer products is not always shared by oil companies. They like to control refinery capacity very carefully. When supply gets tight, margins go up.I'm all for building new refineries as well.
Oh and regarding refinery maintenance, I guess they do a lot of that just before long weekends.......
Sure, they pay their bills. Europe too.You mean like China and India?
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"Of which one is a horrible example of 74% literacy.
Now what? "
Where was that?
I used US UK and India as places that are functioning democracies with significant private education components, which cointradicts his assertion that democracy and private education are not compatible. They are, or can be. Those countries also have public systems in place, but not exclusively
I used Cuba and Kerala(the only communist state in India) as examples of communist governments that have wonderful rates of literacy within a public education system: 99% in Cuba and 93% in Kerala. China is around 95% adult literacy in a decidely non democratic environment.
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"as it stands, Canada Post has $16 billion in market assets... "
that is strictly, strictly book value.......
In reality, the market price would be far lower. Purolator is worth maybe $1 billion on the market and while profitable their profit ratios are well below industry standards and well below competitors like UPS and FedEx so a sale would not get any kind of premium.
Much of the supposed CPC 'value' is in the business itself, but unprofitable businesses have no goodwill value, partiuclarly ones where their customers are fleeing en masse. They do own real estate but in some cities- Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary for instance they no longer have big chunks of downtown. They own a billion or so in sortation equipment, much of it newer. But.... it is worth pennies on the dollar as it is specific to their industry- who would buy it at anything close to what they paid?
Harper is just delaying a decision regarding the pension liability, in the end no buyer will assume that liability because there is simply not 6 billion worth of gravy in the business- not for CPC, and not for anybody else either.
Stick a fork in them they're done like dinner. All they'll do in the next few years is seriously piss off their remaining customers as they charge them exorbitant postage in an effort to stay afloat. CPC always counted on the legislated monopoly to save their bacon, but the Internet was an end run they did not see in 1981 and cannot counter now. Harper and subsequent govts will wank about pretending that the inevitable isn't inevitable. Once the community mailboxes are implemented everywhere it will be easier to get rid of the rest and farm it out to contractors. Oh, and pay pensions for the next half century.
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Unless Canada gets some customers for our oil other than America, this is not good news at all for our economy as we'll have another strong competitor virtually on our doorstep.Looks like we could be on the cusp of an energy revolution in North America. Between massive reserves of new oil and natural gas in Canada and the United States, and now this news from Mexico, North America could completely supplant OPEC in the near future.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-16/north-america-to-drown-in-oil-as-mexico-ends-monopoly.html
This is pretty exciting news, because the energy sector has the potential to vault us into a new era of prosperity, not only in construction and manufacturing, but also technology and innovation. And these jobs can't be outsourced. The energy's here, and so do the industry's employees.
Supply and demand, ya know?
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Without public education w would see democracy falter. Private schools create inequality and they are not healthy for democracy.
I have given multiple examples that demonstarate the opposite, from both ends of the political spectrum.
You just keep squawking the same things like some kind of gigantic parrot.
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Enough for every single major paper and tv station to run a long piece on the guy. Do they care? Nope, but they care enough that it was entertaining and newsworthy.
Lets look at that.
The local rags run Rob Ford news items because they are owned by Toronto-based corporate entities. My paper had Ford covergage because it was free, cost 'em nothing to fill the paper as comapred to local news that costs money to accumulate. They also had news about Justin Bieber.
It is comparable to sports networks like TSN and SportsNet(all Toronto based) running long stories across Canada about Leafs practices.
It's the same old navel gazing nonsense seen for generations in the Canadian media. CBC does it too.
It makes people from the GTA think the rubes give a shit. We don't.
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Public education is leader in promoting social justice.
Cuba and China have strong public education systems, but very little in the way of personal freedom, democracy or 'spocial justice'.
Explain the contradiction.
Take your time.
You still have not made any connection between public education and the strength of a democracy. Any timetable on when that might happen?
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Let's be honest.
People steal music and movies and books off the Internet because they can get away with it nearly all the time.
They would not dream of shoplifting a CD or DVD or print book because..... well not because they have any moral qualms about stealing from the store, but because they fear the consequences of getting caught.
On the Internet, they are unlikely to get caught, so they steal. Simple as that.
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The difference here though is who should take responsibility for the control of products and content. Its hard to feel sorry for a lot of these vendors because they mixed the core of their business (which is licensing intellectual property) with manufacturing (making cds and dvds) and they clung to this business model for more than a decade after it was technologically obsolete.
That is not a particularly articulate rationalization for the theft of somebodys property.
It does not matter if the vendor is an artist or somebody who has bought the rights from the artist.
Instead of trying to attack the nature of the internet, these companies should have been innovating. Instead of hiring armies of lawyers they should have been hiring armies of people to help them evolve their business model. Now... they got left behind and are whining for the government to fix all their problems.
ditto
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No matter how it is rationalized, downloading copyrighted material is theft.
It is not a victimless crime.
What to do with Canada Post?
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
They are certainly trying, the fees for passports and Parks Canada services have gobne up steadily. Parks has also cut services/staff pretty dramatically recently, especially in their Historic Sites side. Public Works is a much larger undertaking than either, and revenue dependency has been around for at least two decades there. They do have legacy programs like GILT(grants in lieu of taxes) that pay out perhaps a billion or more per year in kickbacks to municiplaities for property taxes on federal porperty. Hard to recover that, it is just cash out.
Not at all, I can certainly see a scenario where CPC will fail as a Crown agency. We are watching it happen now. They are 'arms length' but they are still owned by the Crown and report to the Crown, though given a lot of latitude to run their affairs.
That does not mean that the govt will also allow the pension scheme to fail, or leave retirees with nothing. But the inlcudion of the unfunded pension liability in a sale means 'no sale', nobody wouyld even think fo taking that burden on because there is no way for the current CPC to eliminate it or any imaginable buyer to carry it.
I noticed full page colour ads in our local paper yesterday by Canada Post, telling us they are looking to a bright future delvering our parcels.
The problem they will have with that scenario is that they have no monopoly and a few large, well run competitors. Their subsidiary Purolator already has a lower profit margin than UPS or FedEx, unless they seriously whack labour costs and seriously upgrade their management, they'll get eaten alive. Even so, they'll never make enough to touch the pension issue.