Is Canada corrupt? You go to work every day and pay your taxes. Your taxes are intended to provide services which benefit the public good. Naturally, human resources are required to administer such services. Your government also assesses your country’s standing in the world and maintains relationship with other nations in the context of preserving freedom and quality of life for citizens.
Then we have
a system of commerce which operates under the guise of “capitalism”. In a
capitalist system, small businesses and large businesses operate with particular
reasonable regulations relevant to their industries and such regulations are
imposed also in the context of the “public good”. An inherent trait associated
with “free enterprise” is the right of business to “fail” due to whatever underlying
factors are confronted. It is not the business of governments to pick and
choose winners and losers through political bias, personal relationships, or
preferential treatment due to the geographic jurisdiction of stakeholders. If
such a landscape was permitted to exist, free enterprise would lose its appeal
as a viable commercial system to engage with freewill unencumbered by systemic
bias.
Today, as
learned through an ethics report – your country has failed you because in spite
of you playing by the rules, you’ve come to learned that your federal government
has a interfered in the legal process of a defendant charged with improprieties
in the name of “picking winning and losers” in the capitalist system. One must ask, as a nation, are we any
different from third world countries which make ever day habits of conducting
affairs on such terms?
Apparently the plasticity of the brain is lesser in
adulthood. Hence; you are going to be more challenged to identify pitch. In
fact, musical scholars are claiming that an adult may not be able to develop
perfect pitch but with training and could obtain proficiency in “relative pitch”.
So, don’t despair, this relative pitch is what we need the most when picking
out the next chord in a progression. A key has limitations with respect to
which chords are available and consequently the adult brain now gets to work
with finite possibilities in relative terms.
My youtube channel has one song which I posted that I knew
didn’t sound right but given the nature of my channel oriented around progress
and learning, I didn’t think much of it during the upload. Today, I revisited
the song and searched around on “ultimate guitar” (website) to review some
reader feedback associated with the
chord structure of the selected piece and discovered two flaws. Somebody with a
better ear than mine not only knew it didn’t sound right as scored but he was
able to offer the two corrections. I now look forward to the “redo”. The
process gives me comfort in that I may be going from the phase of “not knowing
what I don’t know” to “knowing what I don’t know” in the context of chord
recognition. At this stage of my development, I am still only reaching for a
chord because of a memorized sequence and not because of ear sense. This contrasts to a professional musician who
made an exclamation on his youtube channel that he showed up at a weekend
festival and was introduced to 18 new songs of which he went right to work on learning
and in short order played rhythm for the band in support. The take away is that
I must listen more carefully to the sounds instead of anxiously searching my
memory.
I am what you could call a normal bike riding enthusiast. I
don’t have the best bike and I don’t go the fastest but I break a sweat and
burn calories in the spirit of active living. The occasional trek gives a
non-competitive cyclist such as myself much to ponder while travelling the
trails of North East Calgary.
Today got me thinking about common courtesies and the urge
to rush. Occasionally, we’ll run up behind a pedestrian. From experience we’ve
come to learn that mankind seems to have this propensity to deploy technology
at every opportunity. In this case it would be the “bike bell”. I can see
reasons to use it but not in every situation. When it’s a quiet morning and a
pedestrian is sauntering along in thought, I’m inclined to find a way around
like a wide pass that doesn’t jar him / her out of their serenity. Call me strange
but I’m just not in that much of a rush. Then there are those vehicles which offer
a wide pass when it’s safe for them to do so. You know they’ll be looking back
in their rear view mirror. I’ll give them a wave.
Many drivers have an urge to rush and this behaviour is elicited
by vehicle incursions at intersections and through cross walks. You know they
feel guilty when surprised by a bicycle. Traffic regulations require vehicles
to stop in advance of the stop line or in absence of a stop line, slightly in
front of the stop sign. If intersection visibility is unclear, drivers should
then sneak forward. When folks cheat,
pedestrians and bicyclists can be put at risk. Law enforcement seems to have
better things to do than patrol this poor driving habit. Always be on guard at
intersections.
Distracted driving is a reality and it is a material hazard.
Pedestrians will not mind sharing a sidewalk with a bicycle if the bicycle
yields to pedestrians always, passes with care, and slows down while passing.
It simply makes good common sense to use sidewalks when road conditions such as
narrow shoulders are unsafe to share with drivers.
I’ve seen some initial reaction to this deal and thought…why not take a closer look at what is available for information. Did you know that there is a “land option” within this deal whereby the Flames have the “option” to acquire and develop nearby lands which have not been wholly disclosed in total? What’s the option price and the current market value of such lands? The “majority” of event revenue will go to the flames and it appears by induction we are lead to believe that this “majority” amount will be 98 per cent with 2 per cent ascribed back to the city as a “facility fee” capped at $3M for the first five years. CTV news has me believing this is all the city is going to get with respect to revenues. Just so this is clear….Calgary will pay half building costs and receive back 2 per cent of revenues. No parking. It’s Just 2 per cent of aggregate revenues. You best hope that people still like hockey in 20 years.
Break even cash flow is what’s going to prevent a tax increase. I’m suspect….yet the city apparently is promising no tax increase in lieu of the deal. The facility fee would be the biggest single revenue source with respect to the city’s interest and this is a huge variable dependent upon the Flames ability to book events in addition to its hockey games. The naming rights are chump change. Would there be finance charges associated with the City’s construction and demolition component? How is the non-sporting taxpaying Calgarian supposed to benefit from a non-descript “community engagement program” or “community sports funding”? Are these payments back to the city indexed for inflation? What if the Flames organization runs into financial trouble and becomes ill equipped to pay these amounts which are the second most material source of city benefit? Yes, benefit and not cash given the funds would be allocated to special interest group(s) and not available to appease shortfalls. As for accessory tax revenue from adjacent businesses – well in theory alternative developments would also generate such revenues.
What is a market maker? A market maker was an investment industry professional who had a responsibility to create a market in an environment of low liquidity. This was manual job when automated trading was not fully deployed. The market maker represented a firm with a seat on the exchange and would put up a bid or sell order in order to create the market among stock issues of low or nil volume. With fewer retail investors looking to trade, the market maker has taken up business elsewhere. Why is this topic relevant you ask? Well, Jim Rickards – author of Currency Wars claims that when the next stock market crash arrives, it could be a quick turn south without market makers stepping in to purchase during a panic. Sure, there are triggers to seize trading amidst a panic but what about when the light turns green once again.
In a market which quickly turns negative, mutual funds would
be relying on fund managers to be decisive and quick at the switch – but with mutual
fund’s exposure to such large relative weighting in one stock compared to a
retail investor, how orderly could an exit be? The mechanics of trading in a
stock market are worthy of anyone’s attention. Are there hedge’s available to
you, the retail investor, which are not being disclosed to you because of a
misconceived “fiduciary duty” which a broker thinks he possesses. That is, a
notion that you lack sophistication to understand a hedge. Education in finance
is important to all. Bankers should not be suggesting you lack capacity and of
course you’re familiar with your responsibility to manage your finances.
