Appeared in Business in Vancouver – February 25, 2014 Did the Winter Olympics in Sochi give Russia a big bang for the ruble? Close-mouthed time will eventually tell if the stunning US$50 billion investment in the Sochi Games bought enough tourism and worldwide positive PR to justify the cost. Put 10 number crunchers in the…
Category: Business in Vancouver
Banking on the business of love in B.C.
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – February 11, 2014 Love – hold on, don’t flip that page and go back to the serious stuff of business! Staring at the yo-yo of stock prices. Sweating whether the descending dollar will be good or bad for your sales. Because love is business (especially on Valentine’s Day, honouring…
Wrangling with investment realities of RRSPs and RRIFs
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – January 28, 2014 It’s RRSP season. The Coles Notes version of what follows is that I’m less decisive than ever about applauding – one-hand clapping – the Registered Retirement Savings Plan. Here’s my own RRSP/RRIF scorecard: 16 equities and equity funds, 10 winners, six losers (Penn West Petroleum, big…
Objective journalism takes another hit with VBOT protest coverage
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – January 14, 2014 Hello, business persons (I’ll ask other citizens some other time): Do you sometimes get mad at the media? Me too. But in my case the annoyance is as complex as love and as fat with conflict of interest as a Montreal mayor or two. At this…
Nursing more interprovincial business barriers in Canada
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – January 7, 2014 Poverty is relative. You knew that. In Canada we debate the definition – low-income cut off (LICO), absolute poverty and such. This puts things in perspective. Linda Barrett – not her real name – is a registered nurse and an adventurous Canadian. We met in Ontario…
Mandela’s legacy: A wise combination of capitalism and common sense
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – December 17, 2013 Nowhere in the tsunami of adulation have I seen acknowledged this about Nelson Mandela’s great accomplishment: he did it allied with capitalism. Also with the church, notably Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu. Not to overlook South Africa’s last white president, F.W. de Klerk. “It,” of course, was…
Debating the deconstruction of the putative pope of the environment
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – December 3, 2013 There is a distinct meanness attending reports of the aging and disillusionment – the two frequently are chums – of David Suzuki. A smirking triumphalism, as if over annoying, profit-averse environmentalism itself. Like a deathbed conversion, it cheers somebody. The obvious rejoicers include some business people…
Gratuitous violence, egomania eroding saleability of pro sports in Canada
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – November 19, 2013 Hail, Canadian Football League fans, and the plague take you if you pay a pigskin’s worth of attention to the inferior product south of the border. I leave to double-domed football experts the stats and strategies preceding the Grey Cup game next Sunday, and host city…
Jellyfish futures ring global ocean industry alarm bells
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – October 22, 2013 Absurd alarmism? Or scarifying prophecy? No, not nuclear Armageddon, overpopulation or even bee extinction. This all-purpose death-dealer is being benignly exhibited (to November 22) to admiring crowds at the Vancouver Aquarium. Jellyfish. Those pretty translucent blobs that the word “jellyfish” conveys? Who’d have thought? Few of…
Finding a Wild Thyme on Saturna Island
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – October 8, 2013 Big-shot CEOs take jets. Leah Johnson took the bus. Whereby hangs a tale of small-business smarts, creative marketing and success. It’s a narrative about a dear old British double-decker bus nicknamed “Lucy” – converted to a coffee shop-plus. Small business indeed. Well, Starbucks also began with…