Economics, Free Enterprise, Philosophy, Politics

Favre Speech Money And Lessons Learned

It’s a talking point I trumpet often with my clients. Your money is yours and you must know what you are doing with it and where it comes from. Somebody apparently forgot to share the message with Brett Favre.  He will now return 1.1 million dollars to the U.S. welfare system for money received for speeches that he did not give.

Investment advisors have been wrong often. Bankers are not investment professionals and typically don’t deploy investment analytics as they should in recommending investments. Nor, do they necessarily have a feel for the economic pulse.  Yes, they did not anticipate a “Black Swan” event in the context of a risky political environment. Portfolios have lost money and investors are assuaged with the mantra that they are in for the long term. 

It may be unfathomable to you that somebody can receive 1.1 million dollars and not know that it hit their account. I can actually believe it when the numbers get big and individuals don’t have the right financial professionals in place to question financial transactions. In fact, the accounting profession had lost its way ten years ago in the context of derivative books getting out of control while off balance sheet obligations went unscrutinized. When internal controls get loose during times such as these, temptations of the morally weak are incited. The environment right now is really interesting and I’m paying special attention. Governments are spending money like drunken sailors. The U.S. federal government just fired a watch dog responsible for overseeing disbursements from the federal treasury in the context of pandemic relief. There’s never been a more acute time in your living history to be educated in finance.     

Economics, Health

Pandemic Reveals Canada’s Health Care Cracks

While Canadians turn to twitter and laude the public relations campaign by Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer, Deena Hinshaw, let me remind fellow Canadian regarding the disparity of pay between her, and care aides tending to the elderly.

You see, The Canadian Medical Association for decades has ensured that Canadian doctors hit the gravy train right out of school with automatic jobs because of ridiculously tight spots in medical schools. Entrance standards at medical school have been set artificially high in order to serve a market demand favouring doctors.  Having come to grips with the problem, the importation of doctors from abroad became necessary.

The Edmonton Journal reports that Canadian doctors earn $349,655 per year. Many care workers tending to the elderly have been earning minimum wage. Do you see a problem here? Okay. Who do you think has the bigger voice when negotiating pay? You guessed it. Doctors. Mostly, front line care aides don’t actually have representation.

The health care budget in Alberta is near the 45 per cent range. Think about that for a minute. You as the taxpayer are so interested in your public health care system that you are willing to spend $0.45 of your provincial tax dollar to fund public medicare – yet today your Prime Minister has announced that the salaries of these aides for the elderly are going to be need to be topped up and you guessed it….there will be not mention of where this new money will come from. 

Sport

Tennis Fund For Lower Ranked Pro Players

Although a capitalist in every sense of the word, I do see merit in the position put forward by Novak Djokovic that a fund be set up for lower ranked players struggling financially during this pandemic. Tennis has always had a pay grade system which has richly rewarded the top achievers while paying first round losers a pittance comparatively. The thing about tennis is that those first round losers are phenomenal tennis players and the game would not be what it is today without them. Some move up and some move down. Few of them have had much to say about the pay disparity because they aspire to win and hope to move up the ranks.

These are not ordinary times and they are forced to the sideline. Dominic Thiem doesn’t like the idea and makes a justifiable point that nothing was handed to him as he fought his way to a number three ranking. He’s young, has come into wealth recently, and has ego pumping through his veins. I can’t blame him for his position.

Sport is social but it’s not socialist. The sought after victory comes with reward. However; context and backdrop can never be fully ignored because the human condition must be rational in its zeal.

Uncategorized

Pandemic logic

Is it okay to thrust logic into the covid pandemic equation? Let’s start with COVID-19 itself and its name. You see the folks in charge don’t seem to care that much about how they refer to it. First, it was Corona Virus but then someone said – no you can’t call it that because it’s only one type of Corona. Then it was assigned COVID-19 but then youtube was blocking this term because of its sterility and social media wasn’t generating the hits in lieu so folks went back to Corona Virus or “CV”. There seems to be much ambivalence now. Nobody really cares what you call it now because we all get the drift. However; the lack of succinctness in its name reference has eerily paralleled the lack on succinctness in executing policy around its existence.

Who is dying? It is the elderly and those who have “underlying conditions” mostly. Since there are few politically incorrect left who would dare opine online formally on a sensitive topic…i’ll just do it. I’ll say it. The elderly have been treated like second class citizens in the first world and this pandemic has elicited the fact. It’s a virus similar to others but more deadly and if you’re not in good health, it could take you out. Here is the thing – we are all going one day. However; had we treated the elderly better and provided them with the resources fitting of their esteemed contribution to society over their lives, they would have been better equipped to handle the pandemic. The allocation of health care dollars has been disproportionately been paid to doctors over aids to seniors. There is no escaping death but with so much treasure allocated toward health care, many deaths to seniors could have been prevented with better management of health care dollars.

You see. There are consequences to our conduct. If one votes in a lame brain for a President, you should expect poor decision making. If you vote in someone with poor character, expect decision making which reflects self interest instead of the common interest. If a leader doesn’t heed the wisdom of science and medical professionals then expect consequences of such irresponsibility in policy. You get what you ask for. Death could come earlier for you as a result of casting a vote carelessly. It seems like a stretch, right? But it’s not if the dots keep lining up one after another. Just last night Mr. Trump while standing at his podium pontificated injecting the body with “disinfectant” as cure against COVID-19. He did so with a straight face so Anderson Cooper brought in his medical panel for an interview on the subject.

If you hang carcasses of raw meat on the street for sale…are you not asking for a problem? If you don’t do something about the problem, do you really have reason to complain about coming down with a disease? If some government authority believes you are being racist for referencing the idiocy of hanging raw meat in the street, can you not take exception on the premise of simply the meat and the practice as opposed to the skin color of vendors of meat?

The frail needed acute protection at the outset but they were merely administered the same regulatory policy as all others. It wasn’t until long after numerous deaths did officials come to execute more precise protocols around the target market of this virus. Now, a major block of the populous is in lock down and financial quandary paying the price for officials’ complacency in permitting flights after the threat was discovered and interpreted by medical professionals in tandem with a failure to protect the frail with rigor at the outset.