Month: December 2010

Mega search engine and advertiser Google is purchasing Groupon for an estimated $6 billion. Groupon is a rapidly growing online coupon website that offers special discounts ranging from 50-90% on selected goods and services. These offers are made daily and are constantly changing plus are subject to restrictions such as minimum number of customers and limited membership. The website offers deals in 160 different cities around North America and works in conjunction with local businesses in those cities.

With this extension, Google will be able to once again come out on top on the advertising race as Facebook has recently been the leader for traditional web advertising. An advantage of Groupon is that it operates in lucrative areas such as social and location-based marketing, which would also give Google and added edge against Facebook.

The Canadian equivalent website to Groupon is StealTheDeal, which operates out of the major cities in Canada offering the same types of deals as Groupon.

With this acquisition, Google will be back as the leader of the pack in web-based advertising.

Link to the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/google-on-verge-of-buying-groupon-for-billions/article1818669/

Link to Groupon’s Vancouver website:

http://www.groupon.com/subscriptions/new?division_p=vancouver

Link to StealTheDeal’s Vancouver website:

http://www.stealthedeal.com/vancouver

The Canadian economy has grown less than what was expected by 0.3% in the third quarter down from 0.6% in the previous quarter. Speculation is widely existent at the moment as to why that is and analysts are trying to pinpoint the main causes as to how and why this has happened. One major possibility is that Canadians are spending much more on goods. Another idea is that the goods-producing industries outpace the service industries, which means more goods are being produced than being consumed. This is bizarre, because the two seem to contradict each other. Perhaps suppliers are continuing to push their resources towards increased production expecting the demand will be existent for their goods.

Over consumption is a bad habit in our nation momentarily, especially with the holiday frenzy fast approaching. But in order to regain economic and social stability and fully recover from the world-wide recession recently experienced, Canadians’ spending habits must become more conservative.

Manufacturers will continue to push consumers to spend more and this will never stop, but Canadians view on spending will need to change if the economy is expected to grow at sufficient rates.

Link to the article:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/11/30/money-canada-gdp.html

The economy of the world almost collapsed, which would have driven society into a state of complete depression and turmoil. The roots of this problem originated , as they always usually do, with some extreme fault in the United States. But not just one factor, but a few that contributed to this almost occurring catastrophic meltdown. The documentary entitled “IOUSA” highlights these factors and how they all added to America’s-and the entire world’s- near economic and social collapse. 

As the baby boom generation grows older and reach their moments of retirement, they will be expected to receive pension funding from the government. So who pays for their pension plans? The working class taxpayers are the one’s responsible for their pension funding. Therefore, portions of worker’s salary must go towards an aging population of this generation that don’t even work anymore. Without the baby boomers in employment and them receiving pension funds, it becomes a ‘double negative situation’ with no money being fuelled into the economy by the BB and additional income being passed on to the BB-without them no longer contributing anything to the economy.

America and the rest of the world dodged a gigantic bullet that could have seriously impacted the lives of many people. By saving up funds and income, moving away from cost dependency, and building stronger leadership, America-and everywhere else- will be able to maintain economic equilibrium; and, if this trend continued, a prosperous future could be ahead for all of us.

Link to the YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo