Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-major-problem-with-pepsi-true-2014-10

Same as the Barcelona has Real Madrid, Coca Cola has Pepsi. This legendary rivalry has been going on for years and if you don’t believe check this out

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMTSr8hbow
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekaHlWga5yA
• And my personal favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVndvFoQt34

Now that you can see what this brands are capable of doing to each other it wont surprise you the recent turn of events, where Pepsi just released its ‘Pepsi True’ just a month after Coke released its ‘Coke Life’. I am grouping these two products together because they have a very similar characteristic: they both target anti-sugar consumers by adding stevia and mixing it with sugar. Despite the great research done by the PepsiCo, analysts predict that this new product will ultimately fail.

It is true that innovation is an important in the competition for every market, specially so when there is so little differentiation between both rivals. However, the customer decides between these two companies mainly based on brand loyalty, which is in turn, based on the costumer’s personal tastes and the flavor of the soda itself. The decision rarely takes more than 10 seconds, so no matter what innovations Coca Cola or Pepsi come up with; the overall market share will not be affected drastically.

In spite of this, more and more companies are investing in stevia despite the lack of good responses because the public image of soda is very related to obesity. People mock soda’s alternatives such as Coke Zero or Pepsi Diet and instead is shifting to a more healthy life style. This is the reason why the soda market has been decreasing steadily in the last 10 years. With more and more investment in stevia as an attempt to improve soda’s image, who knows what will the soda market look in the next ten years.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-are-so-many-of-canada-s-young-people-out-of-work-1.1370260

I would like to start this post commenting that I am international student who, like about 2000 more this year, have registered in UBC because we believe that it is the best university to help build our future. As such an article like this, which informs that many universities advertise misleading statistics about the employability and salaries of their graduates” is concerning to say the least.

This article informs that young unemployment is rising but more troubling than that, recent-graduates have trouble finding a job that fits their education level and end up taking jobs for which they are over-capacitated. The article suggests that this may be done because of the increase in competition. Since more people have become educated (an increase of 25.5% of people with degrees in the last 21 years) there is more supply of skilled workers for the same number of jobs. In other words there is a case of excess supply that can be better explained in the following diagram.

As we can see in the upper diagram the supply of skilled workers is greater than the demand for them. In this diagram demand stands for job capacity available. The result of these phenomena is that there is a gap, and many of prospective workers are left in the air.

The result of this, apart from the economical obvious consequences, is that students are less encouraged to seek for a further education, as seen with the 19 year old Mathew Deuck.

However, it is true that at the end, it is up to the student to highlight itself from the rest. Co-op programs and apprenticeship programs are offered in the universities and if us students don’t take on the opportunities then we are just brats who feel entitled to something we don’t earn the right to get.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Unilateral+park+declared+Tsilhqot+includes+Prosperity+mine/10192766/story.html

The source of this post refers to the Tsilhqot’in claim of sovereignty over vast areas near Fish Lake, including proposed area of “the $1.1-billion New Prosperity copper-gold project”, which further compromises the future of said project.

The area designated to the project is outside the 1750 square-kilometer area that the Tsilhqot’in are supposedly entitled to, however the First Nation aims to expand its boundaries and make the site a Tribal Park Boundary. This would prevent Taseko and any other company to set up projects in that area without the approval of the First Nation government and in return will only allow small-scale projects which will benefit Indian employment.

Being from Peru, a country which has to deal with Amazonas tribes, some of which have never been in contact with civilization, I empathize with the First Nations. Governments usually forget that the country they rule was originally populated by other people. People whose rights have been ignored again and again throughout history. It has happened in Canada, it has happened in Peru, it happens everywhere.

It is true that the Tsilhqot’in have no “legal” right to the area they are claiming and that they have acted in a rush and in an authoritarian way However one may argue that there might be reasons to it. The Prosperity copper-gold project has been rejected twice by federal government because it supposes a danger to the environment, which being so close to the Tsilhoqot’in boundary would endanger it itself.

In my opinion the best solution would be for Taseko to create a plan that wouldn’t damage the environment and to employ First Nation people on it so in that way both parties are satisfied. The extent of how much can this be done is up to the Tsilhoqot’in and Taseko.