LATENIGHT - HALIFAX

Friday, January 18, 2008

Poor Nova Scotia

Skyscrapers from Lower Water Street.

I'm waiting, right now, to hear Bush release his economic stimulus package for the United States in a couple hours and passing the time catching up on local news. It's not that I don't follow what's happening everyday, but sometimes I need to sit down and compile it together in terms of my own future strategies. In the short form, the move to Toronto is back on the table and nigh certain. Our trip to Korea is uncertain, and likely postponed, but that frees us up to grab 2008 by the horns and go for the gold.

What gold? There's not much around here, it seems. That's the news. While the U.S. is on the brink of economic collapse, I think Canada might be able to weather it but it's not going to be pretty. And, if you're starting out from a have-not position, it's going to be ugly as sin.

The big news today, in Nova Scotia, is health care. Rodney MacDonald has announced he's accepting a report with 103 recommendations on how to shape the future of health care in Nova Scotia over the next three years. The cure, says MacDonald, is not so much about improving it, but learning how to better deal with the inevitable shortfalls.

The Herald is describing Nova Scotia's health care as near collapse. The Daily News also offers up its prognosis along with a column by David Rodenhiser.

It certainly does not give one hope that things will get better and no one is satisfied with the status quo now. I don't know if the grass is greener on the other side of the St. Lawrence, but the waiting lines are shorter, it seems.

At least education should be taken care of in the future. It seems there's a glut of new teacher. Getting back to health care, however, the same problem exists there. There's plenty of nurses graduating but the province won't hire them. It doesn't stop them from pretending there's a shortage, though, as that's a more convenient excuse.

Even cabbies are thinking of going on strike, though being a media guy professionally, I'm more keen to watch what happens with the looming strike at the Toronto Star or if the financial trouble besetting Quebecor World bubbles over to affect Quebecor's other holdings, namely SunMedia and the Toronto Sun (cut all the reporters you need to but hands off the Sunshine Girls.)

So we're thinking again about moving up to the big smoke. Maybe we'll hang on long enough to see if Canada's New Government's tax cuts give us a better starting platform come April... though by then, it sounds like they could be Canada's Former Government but nothing's carved in stone.

Perhaps we should go up next month. Ontario has announced that they're granting a new statutory holiday in February. In Nova Scotia? Nope. Premier says we're too poor to afford a day off. Canada's Ocean Playground already has the fewest holidays of any Canadian province and I suppose it makes little sense to celebrate Family Day in a place where it's damn near unaffordable to start one.

Labels: economic collapse, education, health care, Nova Scotia

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Shop at the Gap

Halifax grain terminal.
I was out all evening at a meeting and just got home. Rather than let the day go by without a word or a thought, let me point you to a report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, entitled, "The Rich and the Rest of Us". It basically looks at the growing wage gap in Canada and illustrates how we are making less money now than we did 30 years ago, yet the rich keep getting richer.

Average income is always a useless statistic that the government uses to convince us the economy is getting stronger all the time. We should really be measuring median income. There's close to a 30% difference between the two. Median Canadian income hovers somewhere around $20k/year. It's hard to believe that if you're standing on a street somewhere, odds are that either the person on your immediate left or the person to your right will be living off less than that.

Labels: demographics, economic collapse

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Is it Black Tuesday?

Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax.
Stock markets started doing swan dives today and everyone's wondering what will happen when markets open shortly in Asia for Wednesday's business. The Chinese stock market plunged about 10% yesterday, the biggest one-day drop in a decade. Markets around the world started to follow suit. A Slow down in the already catatonic U.S. manufacturing sector (ours is no better) was a more immediate culprit according to some. There were also suggestions that the attempted assassination bombing on Dick Cheney in Afghanistan had rattled faith as well. (Maybe the stocks would have gone up had it been successful?)

I'm no economist. I'm just a Chicken Little-esque catastrophe-propounding doomsday hack. Still, maybe I'll do a quick inventory of our canned goods stockpile anyway. That always makes me feel better in times like these.

Labels: economic collapse

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Pushin' Papers

Big House on Bedford Basin.

It's Flag Day but I don't feel much like wrapping myself in the flag these days. Maybe it's the colder weather or lack of sunlight but I've been a bit down in the dumps over the state of things.

To begin with, I do believe in astrology and predicting the future though I admit that I don't follow my own horoscope too often. I take a glance at it every now and then, more out of curiosity about the astrologer's ability than as a means to plot the course of my life. Yesterday however, I read this:

CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Delays in matters related to publishing, the media, travel and dealing with foreign countries are likely now. However, you can also resolve old problems in the same areas.

That pretty much hits 90% of the elements that govern my waking life. It was the day after deadline so I checked to make sure that our issue reached the press alright. Then my mind started wandering back to teaching overseas. As happy as I am with my job, it doesn't come close to giving me the disposeable income that I had in Korea. I'd put it out of my head lately though, since we're talking about buying a house and that implies we'll be settled here for good. Still, now I'm having second thoughts about long term income potential in my field, here in the Maritimes.

If only the powers that be would take note of a recent report. A University of Missouri-Columbia study has found that newspapers that invest in their newsrooms, sell more papers. (Link via Fark.)

This is a problem everywhere but I can think of a good local example. The Daily News, I've heard, reduced itself to just nine members in their editorial staff. I think they've hired on a couple more lately, but that's not confirmed. The problem is endemic in publishing. Editorial staff get cut to save money, and veterans are pushed out the door in favour of fresh journalism students who will work for half as much, or even free in the case of internships, just to build publishing credits that will never be enough to work them into the salaries they long for.

The result is the increasing transformation of newspapers into nothing more than ad rags with advertorials around them. It's only a short leap then, to losing the advertisers who want to be associated with a good product and not become the product themselves. Once the advertisers go, the paper folds or is sold to someone who only seeks to squeeze it tighter.

You'll never find a newspaper these days that is rolling in dough. As comfortable as I am with my job, I can't expect to be immune either. What I really need is to be assured of a good income that will last me at least two or three decades, especially if I'm looking at a 25-year mortgage, and any increases in my salary don't match increases in inflation. House assessments and taxes are up 10%. Power bills are going up 6%. Inflation in general is between 3% and 4%. The fact is, I have less take home pay now than when I started.

Across the country and across industries, the Gross Domestic Product rises, but only a handful of people see it. The Genuine Progress Index is a much more accurate tally of real income changes and it doesn't bode well, especially for Nova Scotians who are at the bottom of the list. Importantly, that list doesn't measure increases in purchasing power, so much as it measures decreases, because nobody is better off now than 20 years ago. In fact, we're much, much more worse off.

For more on the Gross Domestic Product Index, see GPIAtlantic or view their most recent newsletter, for February.

Labels: economic collapse, holidays, personal, publishing

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Fiscal Collapse: Do you buy it?

More Doomsday links for this Sunday, this time via Peking Duck who links to a discussion of the "Great (US) Dollar Crash of '07". With so much of the U.S. GDP tied up in consumer spending, and with such alarming reports coming back on personal savings, the author is predicting that the collapse of the U.S. dollar could come this year. With a debt already having reached $8.6 Trillion and no end to spending in sight due to increasing military campaigns, at what point does the dollar become worthless?

And if they go, how soon do we go? Canada's most significant export market is the US and if they stop buying stuff, we'll tank right along with them, despite our efforts to reduce our own national debt.

Labels: Canada, economic collapse, United States


	Moonlight missives from Atlantic Canada ∙ HALIFAX, Nova Scotia
	Friday, January 18, 2008 Poor Nova Scotia Skyscrapers from Lower Water Street. I'm waiting, right now, to hear Bush release his economic stimulus package for the United States in a couple hours and passing the time catching up on local news. It's not that I don't follow what's happening everyday, but sometimes I need to sit down and compile it together in terms of my own future strategies. In the short form, the move to Toronto is back on the table and nigh certain. Our trip to Korea is uncertain, and likely postponed, but that frees us up to grab 2008 by the horns and go for the gold. What gold? There's not much around here, it seems. That's the news. While the U.S. is on the brink of economic collapse, I think Canada might be able to weather it but it's not going to be pretty. And, if you're starting out from a have-not position, it's going to be ugly as sin. The big news today, in Nova Scotia, is health care. Rodney MacDonald has announced he's accepting a report with 103 recommendations on how to shape the future of health care in Nova Scotia over the next three years. The cure, says MacDonald, is not so much about improving it, but learning how to better deal with the inevitable shortfalls. The Herald is describing Nova Scotia's health care as near collapse. The Daily News also offers up its prognosis along with a column by David Rodenhiser. It certainly does not give one hope that things will get better and no one is satisfied with the status quo now. I don't know if the grass is greener on the other side of the St. Lawrence, but the waiting lines are shorter, it seems. At least education should be taken care of in the future. It seems there's a glut of new teacher. Getting back to health care, however, the same problem exists there. There's plenty of nurses graduating but the province won't hire them. It doesn't stop them from pretending there's a shortage, though, as that's a more convenient excuse. Even cabbies are thinking of going on strike, though being a media guy professionally, I'm more keen to watch what happens with the looming strike at the Toronto Star or if the financial trouble besetting Quebecor World bubbles over to affect Quebecor's other holdings, namely SunMedia and the Toronto Sun (cut all the reporters you need to but hands off the Sunshine Girls.) So we're thinking again about moving up to the big smoke. Maybe we'll hang on long enough to see if Canada's New Government's tax cuts give us a better starting platform come April... though by then, it sounds like they could be Canada's Former Government but nothing's carved in stone. Perhaps we should go up next month. Ontario has announced that they're granting a new statutory holiday in February. In Nova Scotia? Nope. Premier says we're too poor to afford a day off. Canada's Ocean Playground already has the fewest holidays of any Canadian province and I suppose it makes little sense to celebrate Family Day in a place where it's damn near unaffordable to start one. Labels: economic collapse, education, health care, Nova Scotia posted by Ian at 11:18 AM - link ... 0 comments \| links to this post ... Thursday, March 01, 2007 Shop at the Gap Halifax grain terminal. I was out all evening at a meeting and just got home. Rather than let the day go by without a word or a thought, let me point you to a report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, entitled, "The Rich and the Rest of Us". It basically looks at the growing wage gap in Canada and illustrates how we are making less money now than we did 30 years ago, yet the rich keep getting richer. Average income is always a useless statistic that the government uses to convince us the economy is getting stronger all the time. We should really be measuring median income. There's close to a 30% difference between the two. Median Canadian income hovers somewhere around $20k/year. It's hard to believe that if you're standing on a street somewhere, odds are that either the person on your immediate left or the person to your right will be living off less than that. Labels: demographics, economic collapse posted by Ian at 11:47 PM - link ... 2 comments \| links to this post ... Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Is it Black Tuesday? Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax. Stock markets started doing swan dives today and everyone's wondering what will happen when markets open shortly in Asia for Wednesday's business. The Chinese stock market plunged about 10% yesterday, the biggest one-day drop in a decade. Markets around the world started to follow suit. A Slow down in the already catatonic U.S. manufacturing sector (ours is no better) was a more immediate culprit according to some. There were also suggestions that the attempted assassination bombing on Dick Cheney in Afghanistan had rattled faith as well. (Maybe the stocks would have gone up had it been successful?) I'm no economist. I'm just a Chicken Little-esque catastrophe-propounding doomsday hack. Still, maybe I'll do a quick inventory of our canned goods stockpile anyway. That always makes me feel better in times like these. Labels: economic collapse posted by Ian at 9:35 PM - link ... 0 comments \| links to this post ... Thursday, February 15, 2007 Pushin' Papers Big House on Bedford Basin. It's Flag Day but I don't feel much like wrapping myself in the flag these days. Maybe it's the colder weather or lack of sunlight but I've been a bit down in the dumps over the state of things. To begin with, I do believe in astrology and predicting the future though I admit that I don't follow my own horoscope too often. I take a glance at it every now and then, more out of curiosity about the astrologer's ability than as a means to plot the course of my life. Yesterday however, I read this: CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Delays in matters related to publishing, the media, travel and dealing with foreign countries are likely now. However, you can also resolve old problems in the same areas. That pretty much hits 90% of the elements that govern my waking life. It was the day after deadline so I checked to make sure that our issue reached the press alright. Then my mind started wandering back to teaching overseas. As happy as I am with my job, it doesn't come close to giving me the disposeable income that I had in Korea. I'd put it out of my head lately though, since we're talking about buying a house and that implies we'll be settled here for good. Still, now I'm having second thoughts about long term income potential in my field, here in the Maritimes. If only the powers that be would take note of a recent report. A University of Missouri-Columbia study has found that newspapers that invest in their newsrooms, sell more papers. (Link via Fark.) This is a problem everywhere but I can think of a good local example. The Daily News, I've heard, reduced itself to just nine members in their editorial staff. I think they've hired on a couple more lately, but that's not confirmed. The problem is endemic in publishing. Editorial staff get cut to save money, and veterans are pushed out the door in favour of fresh journalism students who will work for half as much, or even free in the case of internships, just to build publishing credits that will never be enough to work them into the salaries they long for. The result is the increasing transformation of newspapers into nothing more than ad rags with advertorials around them. It's only a short leap then, to losing the advertisers who want to be associated with a good product and not become the product themselves. Once the advertisers go, the paper folds or is sold to someone who only seeks to squeeze it tighter. You'll never find a newspaper these days that is rolling in dough. As comfortable as I am with my job, I can't expect to be immune either. What I really need is to be assured of a good income that will last me at least two or three decades, especially if I'm looking at a 25-year mortgage, and any increases in my salary don't match increases in inflation. House assessments and taxes are up 10%. Power bills are going up 6%. Inflation in general is between 3% and 4%. The fact is, I have less take home pay now than when I started. Across the country and across industries, the Gross Domestic Product rises, but only a handful of people see it. The Genuine Progress Index is a much more accurate tally of real income changes and it doesn't bode well, especially for Nova Scotians who are at the bottom of the list. Importantly, that list doesn't measure increases in purchasing power, so much as it measures decreases, because nobody is better off now than 20 years ago. In fact, we're much, much more worse off. For more on the Gross Domestic Product Index, see GPIAtlantic or view their most recent newsletter, for February. Labels: economic collapse, holidays, personal, publishing posted by Ian at 9:32 PM - link ... 2 comments \| links to this post ... Sunday, February 11, 2007 Fiscal Collapse: Do you buy it? More Doomsday links for this Sunday, this time via Peking Duck who links to a discussion of the "Great (US) Dollar Crash of '07". With so much of the U.S. GDP tied up in consumer spending, and with such alarming reports coming back on personal savings, the author is predicting that the collapse of the U.S. dollar could come this year. With a debt already having reached $8.6 Trillion and no end to spending in sight due to increasing military campaigns, at what point does the dollar become worthless? And if they go, how soon do we go? Canada's most significant export market is the US and if they stop buying stuff, we'll tank right along with them, despite our efforts to reduce our own national debt. Labels: Canada, economic collapse, United States posted by Ian at 7:50 PM - link ... 0 comments \| links to this post ...	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