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HST: Yay or Nay?

Taxes. No one likes them. And when politicians play around with them, the public gets annoyed. The New HST is a very contraversial issue. Being from Alberta and having never experienced a ‘PST’ before, I did not know much about the difference between PST/GST and HST. The only thing I was sure of was the fact that British Columbians did not seem happy with the new HST. So, I did some research.

It turns out there are multiple issues with the HST, both good and bad.

BAD: Economin Downturn-Some business suffer quite a bit. (Real estate and restaurants). Now, customers must pay a 12% tax on purchases, versus the 5% GST that was charged before. Does this sound like economic stimulus and an incentive for people to buy more? Uhhhh….no. Also, when examining alternatives, such as buying food at a grocery store and not paying HST, to not building and moving to a new house and save money, these options become attractive.

GOOD: It seems that the HST might benefit middlemen and sellers in one sense. They get HST rebates when they buy supplies needed for their business. Therefore, only the consumer pays the HST. The hope was to drive down prices with the lowering of taxes for business. Yet, in my opinion, the results of that still have to be seen.

Sorry, Mr. Campbell…not too sure i agree with you.

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Competition’s Tough in Cell Phone Industry!

Source: CartoonStock

Wind Mobile, a cell phone company based out of Egypt, has tried to enter the Canadian cell phone market and provide consumers which cheaper unlimited plans. Since coming to Canada in January, Wind has set up towers in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver. Yet, the company is faced with lots of challenges, especially competition. Chat r, a branch of Rogers, tries to compete with Wind. Since Rogers has the majority of the country covered in reception, it does not drop calls when leaving the cities. Wind only has towers in major cities, and therefore calls are dropped when one leaves a Wind home zone, and then relies on Rogers’ towers. Rogers takes advantage and drops Wind customers transferring away zones calls. They do this to increase their company’s prestige. (Chatr has fewer dropped calls).

This is dishonest and anti-capitalistic. Not only is Rogers promoting their own company into deceiving the public to believe it is a better company, but it attempts to get rid of competition. In reality, Wind just does not have the coverage yet to provide for itself, therefore it has no choice but to rely on rogers. With Rogers slowly crumbling Wind’s growth and profits, competition becomes more and more limited.

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Rivalry: The new Blackberry Playbook vs. Ipad!!!!

The Blackberry Playbook was announced today by RIM. With it’s seven-inch screen, it is definitely becoming a rival to Apple’s iPad. The advantages of the Playbook are clear: it’s smaller, has Adobe flash player and TWO cameras: one on the front and another on the back. Also, Blackberry’s O/S, which is very conveniant for email and messages. Another cool feature of the Playbook is the abilitiy to connect with a Blackberry phone through bluetooth and use it’s data plan. You can also see exactly what’s on your ‘precious’ BB phone. Although, the iPad is definitely advantageous in being able to connect to 3G, i’m sure RIM will create a new model soon. 🙂

I think this is a GREAT rival to the iPad. Sure, Apple was in the market first, which gives it a good headstart against ANY competition, but with the right marketing techniques, RIM could surpass Apple. Since many business people have Blackberrys, this device will become very popular. It basically increases your phone in size. YAY! GO BLACKBERRYS!

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Asian workforce demands fair pay!

Striker leading a group in Cambodia

It is no new story that the labour force in developing countries are displeased with their wages. Earlier this year, Honda factory workers in China went on a strike to raise their salaries. After quite some time, salaries were finally raised. In Thailand, garment workers have seen the positive effect of going on strike and have decided to fight for their rights to receive proper pay. Yet, it is interesting to note that they are not only striking against manufacturers, but also against the government. The government allows companies to pay such small salaries but keeping a very low minimum wage. Although, the government has agreed to raise minimum wage, the workers are still unhappy with the number and continue to go on strike. It is clear that the Asian workforce has seen that they can achieve better working conditions in terms of income if they try. Since manufacturers don’t have much of a choice, as there are not that many countries to go to, they must succumb to their workers’ wishes. It seems that exploitation of labour is on it’s way down, meaning prices are on their way up. Might this also have an effect on the workforce?

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