Month: October 2011

To add to the evidence of the ongoing decline of legacy airlines in North America, flight attendants of airline dinosaurs Air Canada have reached an agreement with their union to go on strike at 12:01 AM Thursday, putting 6800 employees and the future of the airline in a compromising position.

This is all fine and dandy for competing airlines like WestJet, who are already making serious ground on Air Canada for Canadian air supremacy, but the government is viewing this work stoppage as an unnecessary headache for an already fragile economy. In a statement issued by Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, “We will be clear that a work stoppage is unacceptable in this time of fragile economy,” hinting at possible government intervention in the event of a strike, with references to a “forced contract” drawn up back in September in the Legislature.

Clearly, this is an infringement on the Labor rights such as access to a union and the ability to take job action. However, the government is in a tough position to protect the welfare of the greater good, and preventing the total shutdown of the nations biggest Airline is of great benefit to workers and companies alike. At what point does the government’s desire to protect the economy supersede labor rights, and has this point really been crossed?

Angry at the lack of accountability for those responsible for the destruction of America’s economy just three years ago, young, debt-ridden, and unemployed American’s took to the street as a collective known as “the 99 Percent”, referencing the gross gap in wealth distribution in the US where 400 Americans control the same amount of money as the bottom 40% (120 million).

But is this excitable energy coming from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds and cultures going to waste?

The protests lack a political orientation (so forget the left’s response to the Tea Party), any specific goals or targets (only working with vague statements involving wealth distributions and unemployment) and consistency (shameful pandering to Steve Jobs, a man who outsourced a majority of his production facilities to China).

If the “99 Percent” really want to affect change to the economic environment, they must decry the legislation that got American into this position (Bush-tax cuts, the 1.6 trillion in the Federal Reserve) and back the Democratic party, because God knows (or Joseph Smith) that Romney and Cain aren’t sympathetic. Case in point, Cain believes the people languishing in unemployment should be getting “educated and finding jobs”. That is powerful stupid.

For those of you who have never experienced it, the entire concert-going experience is a magical one. The “Christmas-came-early” feeling when you hear your favorite band is finally coming to your city, anxiously planning which piece of merchandise you’re going to buy from the table, the gradual loss of focus as the weeks turns to days leading up to the show and all in all, it’s a lot of good stuff.

So naturally the obvious extension is this: how can somebody make a gross profit off of this?

Enter Ticketmaster:

Already the primary dispenser of tickets to most medium sized to arena venues, the merger with Livenation in 2009 solidified their monopoly on the industry meaning only one thing; random service charges. Case in point, my recent purchase of tickets for a relatively cheap ticket for 28$  quickly included a 9.35$ “convenience” charge and a 5.65$ for order processing. For those of who specialize in hyperbolic math, Ticketmaster literally charges like a million dollars of fees.

Unfortunately for me, the excuse of being able to sing obnoxiously in the presence of  a stranger is worth paying the obscene charges, but for those who are blissfully ignorant to the joys and pains of the process of concert-going, keep moving; there is nothing fishy going on here.

LINK: Some Metal-head pulled out her calculator and calculated how roughly she was getting screwed.