William Pigott's Blog

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-09/canada-banking-system-is-world-s-soundest-economic-forum-says-in-survey.html

When people think of Canada being 1^st in the world in some category, we think immediately to hockey, which we should always be 1^st in, but for the 3^rd straight year Canada’s banking sector has been ranked has the worlds soundest.  In the time of bank failures and bailouts it should be a source of pride to be ranked as the soundest banking system in the world.  This can be seen as a thumbs up to the regulation of a countries baking system, and a lesson to our neighbours from the south that treat government regulation like the plague.  It’s not like our banks didn’t suffer, they did have to write off billions of dollars, but they did not have to get bailed out by the government.  Many citizens are concerned that the Canadian government has had to go into deficit but they have to be thankful that the government didn’t have to bailout banks like the US government did, if that had occurred the deficits would have been a lot larger.  As Canadians we can be proud that our banks are run by people that aren’t crazy, and thanks to that our money is safe.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/cnw/article.jsp?content=20100915_094503_7_cnw_cnw

Many industries are deemed ‘safe’, and will hardly, if, ever experience a serious downturn; one that is probably the safest of all of them is food manufacturing.  No matter what the economic situation is people have to eat, this is an area that the population will cut spending in but will never stop spending.  An example of this is the Canadian food manufacturing sector which unlike its other manufacturing brethren didn’t experience negative growth during the past recession, though its growth slowed it never dipped into the red.  In these times where people are constantly looking for a safe bet to invest in, if they are even brave enough to put their money in the stock market, food manufacturing companies such Nestle or JM Smuckers.  The companies that produce basic living necessities seem to be strong in times of economic hardship, and they can be safe bets to invest in, the major exception is the housing industry which is extremely susceptible to economic downturn.  People always need to feed themselves and with our more and more urban culture as long as population is growing the food manufacturing industry will grow.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLNE6AO03H20101125

Airline security is starting to get ridiculous, there seems to a constant stream of potential ways to cause havoc on an airplane flowing into the offices of the TSA, airport security agency in the US, making them place new restrictions on carry-on items and new additions to the airport security screening regiment.  Now they starting to place more and more full-body scanners in airports causing outrage in the public, but the alternative is a pat down from a lovely TSA agent.  Luckily CATSA, the Canadian version of the TSA, isn’t jumping onboard with the TSA’s quite intense pat downs, though full-body scanners are still used in Canadian airports.  These intense security measures can be bad for the airlines because of all the travelers there are 2 groups that will be most affected by this, and it could be trouble for airlines.  The first group, are those who infer that because of these security measures the terrorists are everywhere and will avoid travel out of fear.  The other group, are those who will avoid travel in order to protest this invasion of their privacy.  The ‘Don’t Touch my Junk’ crusade against the TSA could end up costing the airlines.

The government of Canada advertises Canada as a vast country with many investment possibilities but the government’s bureaucracy is causing Canada’s investment market to shrivel.  The government of Canada are regulation fiends, they seem to hold a stranglehold over every industry in the country, I’m not saying this is a bad thing, government regulations keeps us safe from dangerous materials in what we eat for example, but they also seem to be keeping us safe from competitive prices as well.  One example is in cell phone services, the government has only recently brought deregulation into the telecommunication industry but the big 3 still have the control of the market.  The big 3 are; Bell Canada, Telus, and Rogers, and they may not actually collude but they work together to screw the Canadian consumers.  Canada has some of the highest cell phone usage rates, but also some of the highest service fees, and the government abstaining from the deregulation of telecommunications industry allowed the big 3 to get large enough that it would be nearly impossible for a company to break into the market.  Government regulations may keep our bodies safe, but they don’t keep Canadians’ wallets safe.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151307/air_canada_clears_wifi_for_takeoff.html

Where isn’t there Wi-Fi theses days, whole cities have been immersed in a Wi-Fi bubble, and restaurant from Starbucks to McDonalds now offer Wi-Fi in some fashion, the next frontier is the air.  When most people are on planes they accept the fact that they are out of communication for the flight, with the lecture of the NO cell phones also being preached to the passengers but now Air Canada is joining other airlines in offering Wi-Fi on board some of their aircraft, but for a fee and only on a few US-bound flights.  The fees are understandable with the airline industry theses days where EVERYTHING has some kind of fee attached to it.  Also it is only offered on US-bound flights because as per usually there isn’t the infrastructure for this service in Canada.  Yes, Canada is mostly vast wilderness but the continental US airspace is all covered by 92 towers, so its possible to put the system into Canada.  A problem that is common to most projects in Canada is halting the progress of Wi-Fi friendly Canadian airspace, the government, there is no license issued by the government, therefore no Wi-Fi.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-27/air-canada-forgoes-buying-planes-to-cut-debt-as-bonds-gain-canada-credit.html

The commercial airline industry has gone through many ups and downs over the past decade, with September 11^th and the high oil prices being the major points of heartache for the industry.  This decade has seen many of the worlds top airlines go into bankruptcy protection, Air Canada was one of them.   The choice of Air Canada to forgo the replacement of some aircraft in order to pay off close to $1 billion in debt is a very smart decision in these economically turbulent times.  Many airlines that are laden in debt are having to cease operations because they cannot pay creditors, so cutting down on debt should be placed ahead of new aircraft.  Sometimes fleet replacement should be prioritized but Air Canada need not worry since it has 18 new Boeing 777, while the rest of the fleet has had a facelift to the brand new interiors.  The current market for airlines is more favourable to the airlines that aren’t crippled by debt, not those who are expanding at non-sustainable rate, for that reason the decision makers at Air Canada made the right decision to pay off debt instead of replacing some aircraft.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/09/07/hurds-move-to-oracle-do-business-ethics-matter/

We had to write a blog for this class on business ethics and I not knowing that much simply googled business ethics and found this article which surprisingly caught my interest.  This article talks about Oracle, quite a huge company with a crazy rich founder, who hired a new co-president Mark Hurd, a good business man that brings questionable ethics into the picture.  At first I had no clue who Mark Hurd was but I used the so hated Wikipedia to figure out this man, and after reading about his experience at HP laying off so many, than the sexual harassment claims, I was thinking that this was the worst person to hire to run a company.  I will now critic Oracle on their decision, Oracle is one of the largest companies in the world and now they bring in a questionable executive, this could ruin them.  The tidbit of information that I noticed was that the CEO of Oracle is one of Mr Hurd’s good friends, Larry Ellison.  Mr. Ellison and Oracle, I know that you are BFFs with this guy but he isn’t a good guy, stop helping your rich corrupt friend get richer and spread his corruption.  And Mr. Hurd, it seems you get a second chance but don’t screw up, and I still think you should be in prison.