Original post available here: http://on.fb.me/1Ylx0jy

The AMS is not “your” school. It’s a student run voice for students and their “priorities are determined by you”. Talk to them about advertising if it’s an issue for you; I’m sure they would love to talk. Food prices, tuition prices, book prices, all these things cost money and their prices are all increasing. These food vendors are not charities, I’m sure you know that. Naturally, these businesses need to cover their expenses which include some of the highest rents in Vancouver. I agree that the prices are high, but they are not higher than they would be elsewhere. I would encourage you to spend your money wisely. There are promotions everywhere! Tipple O’s has deals on Tuesdays. Sprouts has free food on Fridays. HeWe has food by donation every month. Moreover, there are coupons for the soup outside the Sauder lounge right now. Lot’s of these places have loyalty programs that you can use. There are creative ways around paying full price. Having said that, if you are unwilling to make your own lunch and you want UBC to subsidize it you will have to pay a premium.

At the end of the day, you are the consumer. You get to vote with your dollars along with every other student, while many will choose to buy prepared food rather than make their own, we all get to pay these prices. It’s just supply and demand.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1Ylxbev

We’ve been talking about low cost and differentiation as business strategies but we haven’t really touched on the roll of monopolies. Monopolies can be effective in bringing in income if you have the new idea, but there are many problems with them. Consumers complain that prices get raised too high and that innovation disappears because firms have no need to compete for market share. That being said, companys who compete still jack up the prices, customers are just happier about it.

We’ve all seen the “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads and we remember them because they created such a personal connection with the brand. Apple effectively disrupted the PC market and created its own elite group of fanboys who will do anything for their product effectively giving them monopoly-like powers.

I want to see a new company come in and then create its own competition. As an entrepreneur begin by selling a new product; once you establish your product, develop a second version. Rather than releasing Product 2.0 you create Brand 2.0, instead. At the same time the original company secretly introduces a second company to separate the market while controlling competition. From here they can engage in a variety of cost leadership, differentiation, and entry barrier techniques to raise demand and further restrict new partners. The key to this is it must remain a secret: that way the person at the top can effectively have monopoly-like power without government intervention.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1YlwHFr

In response to: https://blogs.ubc.ca/chayabains/2014/11/

Zappos, an online shoe retailer based in Nevada, has been selling shoes with an interesting business model. Zappos prides itself in taking care of its employees. By slightly lowering salaries they are able to give employees great medical and preferable hours. All this would be great, but Zappos sells shoes, an industry in which “Child labor is … very common”. These “employees” also are paid less but receive none of the improved working conditions. Zappos is clever in the way they create shared value, by taking an industry renowned for adverse working conditions and sugar-coating it with sandwiches for their direct staff. In so doing, Zappos is able to conjure the illusion of actually caring about their company’s actions. While customers believe they are supporting a conscientious company they are, in effect perpetuating the “inhumane working conditions” of children overseas. Consumers continue to be duped by the halo affect, this is shown by the huge increase in predicted profits expected by the end of 2015. At the end of the day, everything is marketing and consumers need to take a step back and evaluate whether or not what the company promises is actually what they deliver. These shoes are not as wonderful as they are made to seem.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1YlwiTr

In light of the recent attacks on Paris, Facebook has introduced another profile picture filter to appease its lethargic user base. Facebook has made it increasingly simple to pretend to show support for a cause you most likely are largely uninformed on. While people may argue they are raising awareness, “if not backed up by money or deed, it’s little more than lip service”. Furthermore, people suggest that if enough people change their photo it will unite us and will “help shift cultural norms”. Unfortunately, the shift we are seeing is towards people feeling they are helping a cause by doing little more than clicking a button.

I propose that for the next trending world disaster an NGO pairs with Facebook to create value from the demand for photo filters. Creating a system where you can only apply the filter to your photos after you donate two dollars to the cause could actually tangibly help the situation. Similarly, for those struggling financially, implementing a quiz on a few articles would at least promote the proper information and add value to the “raising awareness” argument that often is wasted. There is enough demand for support on social media so it’s important that we turn it into real support.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1PFntlV

Original post available here:  https://blogs.ubc.ca/adrienneellis/2015/11/08/unintentional-workplace-discrimination
In a world still prevalent with discrimination it begs the question, should you share a photo of yourself on your LinkedIn? LinkedIn suggests that “adding a photo makes your profile seven times more likely to be viewed”. While this seems great, if you happen to belong to a minority you might decrease the amount of views that actually result in connections. One study claims that “job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.” If your name is enough to cost you an interview, a photo is surely going to be worse.

I was fired by Grouse Mountain in 2014 after I decided to get dreadlocks. I was only three days into my second season as a ski instructor when they fired me for my hair. Cypress Mountain, however, hired me immediately, placing the value on my experience rather than appearance. Despite our best attempts as a society, we still have a large part of the world that discriminates against future employees. If you want to work for these companies, you are going to have to conform and perpetuate this problem. I, however, will not readily conform. So please post a confident, professional photo of yourself alongside your perfect resume and let people hire YOU.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1Ylxjuu

The “problems” with the one-for-one business model are identical to the forces restricting innovation: people fear change. Whenever new technologies or, in this case, business plans are introduced people scream that we will lose our jobs. This ideology is what is holding our society back from a better standard of living. As a society we need to embrace change including modern business models such as the one-for-one business model.

The beauty of the market economy in which we live is that there will always be an invisible hand ensuring the eventual success of our society. Based on our history, this success will not be smooth, but it is certain that innovation will lead to a higher standard of living in the long run. As a society we need to stop worrying about disrupting the current state of being and, instead, strive to flip it on its head. Our society is far from perfect and holding it still is not going to fix it.

Photo: http://bit.ly/1YlwRwz

Telus recently announced they were going to invest 4 billion dollars’ in fiber optics for Vancouver. Telus’s current assets are 2.2 billion and current liabilities are 3.5 billion which leaves them with a current ratio of 0.6. A current ratio below 1.0 is often a cause of concern to investors because the company’s liquid assets are not currently able to pay off their debt. That being said, this can often mean that the company is growing. In an effort to prove the latter, Telus emphasised the experience “[the company] gained through 60 such projects (with 28 now fully built)”.

Telus is investing heavily to satisfy the ever growing customer demand for faster Wi-Fi. This is however, still a risk. Even last year, despite fiber optics becoming increasingly popular, there were people looking to find even more advanced technology than fiber optics. Howard Milchberg, a professor at the University of Maryland is developing a technology to rival fiber optics, one that will only use “air to guide the light”. With the ever-evolving field of technology an investment this size will always be a risk, the question as to weather or not the company will succeed is dependant on the nature of the risk and how they present it to their investors. Just minutes into their press conference their stock began to rise, clearly, they are keeping investors happy.

Graph from Market Watch http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/tu

Humans have always been working on ways to grow more food; one of the biggest advances was the introduction of pesticides in the late 1930’s. Thanks to pesticides, food production increased exponentially and has allowed the population to grow and to eat. However, since the introduction of the National Standards for Organic Products in 2002 our demand for pesticide free food has markedly increased which, paradoxically, is reducing the amount of food produced per acre. At the same time, there are “roughly 800 million people [who currently] suffer from hunger and malnutrition” on Earth, yet we are demanding industry reduce the amount of food produced. Even McDonalds has announced an organic burger.

This organic trend is a step back in agricultural production. Countless studies show that the benefits of organic food are minimal, to say the least and often simply misconceptions fed to a hungry audience. Organic food still uses pesticides, produces less food per acre, requiring more destruction of virgin land. Recent studies even attest that “the global claim that ‘organic food tastes better’ is not valid”. As a society we need to adjust our priorities, getting food to those who are starving before superficially “bettering” ours. McDonalds can wait…

Fedoroff, N. (1999). Plants and population: Is there time? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96 (11), 5903-5907 DOI:10.1073/pnas.96.11.5903

Photo from http://mnoncology.com/about-us/practice-news/organic-vs-non-organic-foods/

As housing prices rise and the median income remains idle, Vancouverites are looking at creative ways to survive in the city. In order to buy a house in Vancouver the average person needs to be bringing in almost $150 000 per annum. Contrast this minimum income with the average individual income of $41 000 per year and the problem of affordability—or lack thereof–emerges. Stated starkly, the average family of two clearly cannot purchase a home. To address this problem, I propose we expand our views of marriage and aim to form families of four. Polyamory, if you will.

The economic advantages of polyamory are huge. By living together, these families of four will be able to pool their incomes, more easily purchasing a home in Vancouver. Additionally, by reducing the total number of families, demand for housing will shift left on the supply curve and eventually lead to an overall drop in housing prices. Housing prices will continue to fall as these polyamorous families satisfy their need to have children with fewer babies per capita. This drop in the birth rate will decrease the population of Vancouver with an accompanying decrease in the demand for housing. With the adoption of this new way of living, Vancouver may soon become an affordable city to live in.

Tencer, Daniel. “Here’s The Income You Need To Buy An Average House Across Canada.” Huffington Post. N.p., 11 Jan. 2015. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

Gold, Kerry. “For Vancouver, Housing and Income Don’t Add up.” The Globe and Mail. N.p., 07 June 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/24/debunking-four-myths-about-polyamory/

Put differently, when is it no longer financially worthwhile for Canadian society to keep you alive? These are the unspoken questions now being asked aloud in our society today.

Doctors have ethics; economists have opportunity costs: both have the following dilemma:

As we develop as a society our doctors are becoming increasingly good at keeping us alive longer.  But what is the opportunity cost of this additional lifespan worth it? Doctors consider quality of life arguments (opportunity), economists the financial burden to society (costs).

Your last year alive is costly. In fact, in Canada ‘about 25 per cent of all health-care costs are devoted to caring for patients in their last year of life’ (Globe and Mail November 28 2011, p. 1). Pretty expensive, most would say. These numbers, however, are silent when it comes to the quality—or value—of these last months of life: over 50 billion dollars to taxpayers. Money, that could be spent elsewhere in the health care system—or outside the health care system—and give a better return—certainly longer than the twelve-month window once you die. And consider those last twelve months if it was you or a loved one or a friend: loss of your mobility if you’re stuck in a hospital and often a painful experience leading up to your certain death.

Can things be done differently, you ask?

A new concept in healthcare was discussed on Freakonomics Radio recently. Instead of living your last days attached to a machine you receive a portion of the money that would have been spent on your medical bills and are encouraged to go on vacation, or pass down the money to your family. Put starkly, you’re being given a discount for your death. Everyone benefits. Perhaps.

The benefits—or opportunities—of this potential program sound great on their own: more vacation, helping your family, saving tax dollars and increasing hospital space for younger people (those likely to give a better return than twelve months alive). Our society has to decide an ethical dilemma: Is the opportunity cost of one more year with this person worth it? By marketing the advantages to the ‘stakeholders’ (Freeman, 2009), or in this case taxpayers and loved ones of those affected, the apparent marginal benefit will increase and our society will learn to see end of life care in a new light sufficiently surpassing the opportunity cost of one more year.

What would you do?

“How Much Does Dying Cost Canadians?” The Globe and Mail. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.

Levitt, Stevan D., and Stephan J. Dubner. “Are You Ready for a Glorious Sunset?”.” Freakonomics Radio. N.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

Freeman, Edward. “What Is Stakeholder Theory.” 15 Sept. 2015. Lecture.

Geoba.se: Gazetteer – The World – Life Expectancy – Top 100+ By Country (2015) Web. 15 Sept. 2015.

“Canada’s Health Care Spending Growth Slows.” Canada’s Health Care Spending Growth Slows. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.

Image created by Julien Hart On excel. Statistics previously cited.