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/