10 posts tagged “economics”
The city of Vancouver today voted in favour of a trial to improve cycling on the Burrard Bridge. The bridge currently requires cyclists and pedestrians to share a narrow sidewalk, with only a curb to separate fast moving traffic. The speed limit is 50km/h, but traffic is moving much faster than that.
This is is a good move, and a forward thinking move. It's a recognition that bicycles play a vital role in transportation strategy, especially in the densely populated downtown areas.
I still want a pedestrian and bicycle only crossing of False Creek. This is a baby step in that direction.
Meanwhile the now Seattle Post Intelligencer, now an online only publication, highlights a study that should be so obvious as to be unnecessary, although the quantification of the amounts involved is welcome. For what it's worth, I spent CDN$18,035.98 on my car for the three calendar years 2006, 2007 and 2008, an average of $6012 a year That doesn't include a monthly payment, and I don't drive that much.
Ditching the car saves thousands, study says
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFFA typical Seattle resident could save more than $10,000 a year by cutting out a car, according to a new study.
The American Public Transportation Association's Transit Savings Report looked at the savings on gas, parking, maintenance, tires, insurance, registration, depreciation and finance charges if a household gave up a car and used transit.
Every once in a while when I refer to my car as the Swedish Rocket people ask me if I have a "Saab"http://www.saab.com/. Another reaction I get on rare occasions is that it sounds like a foreign exchange girlfriend.
The most common reaction, of course, is just one of confusion. I'm used to that though (and frankly, it's not only when talking about my car...)
Sweden is somewhat wisely deciding not to bail Saab out. This may result in a bankruptcy, but it does seems more rational than the American strategy of propping up businesses that have a failing history.
I do hope Volvo doesn't die. I like that new XC60.
Sweden Says No to Saving Saab, a National Icon
By SARAH LYALL, Published: March 22, 2009TROLLHATTAN, Sweden -- Saab Automobile may be just another crisis-ridden car company in an industry full of them. But just as the fortunes of Flint, Mich., are permanently entangled with General Motors, so it is impossible to find anyone in this city in southwest Sweden who is not somehow connected to Saab.
Which makes it all the more wrenching that the Swedish government has responded to Saab's desperate financial situation by saying, essentially, tough luck. Or, as the enterprise minister, Maud Olofsson, put it recently, "The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories."
The March 2009 cover of the Atlantic Monthly featured a series of "regional" covers highlighting an article by Richard Florida called How the Crash Will Reshape America. Apparently, the Atlantic considers Canada one region as the Vancouver area edition featured not Vancouver (mentioned in the article) and not even Seattle (the economic hub of our region) but Toronto. Yes...Toronto. 4000km away.
Although my feelings on Florida are mixed, the article isn't bad. He addresses some good points and every time a hole in his logical circle poked up he managed to plug it like a good little dutch boy. Some excerpts.
How the Crash Will Reshape America
Richard Florida, The Atlantic Monthly, March 2009"The world's 40 largest mega-regions, which are home to some 18 percent of the world's population, produce two-thirds of global economic output and nearly 9 in 10 new patented inventions...Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh, and Boston now have two or three times the concentration of college graduates of Akron or Buffalo...as globalization has increased the financial return on innovation by widening the consumer market, the pull of innovative places, already dense with highly talented workers, has only grown stronger, created a snowball effect...successful cities, unlike biological organisms, actually get faster as they grow older."
"Perhaps no major city in the U.S. today looks more beleaguered than Detroit, where in October the average home price was $18,513, and some 45,000 properties were in some form of foreclosure."
About damn time.
Nortel files for bankruptcy protection
Facing $107-million interest on debts, former telecom giant will likely be broken up and sold to foreign rivals
ANDREW WILLIS and JACQUIE MCNISH AND MATTHEW HARTLEY, From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 14, 2009 at 8:35 AM ESTFormer technology titan Nortel Networks Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, a move that will likely see what was once Canada's great corporate success story broken up and sold to foreign rivals.
Nortel's board of directors was meeting last night to deal with a financial crisis, as the economic downturn translates into a sharp drop in orders from phone company clients. The telecom-hardware manufacturer failed to find buyers for a number of divisions that were put up for sale in September, and faces the prospect of paying $107-million (U.S.) of interest on its debts tomorrow.
It's less than a month now before Barak Obama's inauguration, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. The New York Times offers up some thoughts today in an article titled Obama Reshapes White House for Domestic Focus
For years U.S. politics has been dominated by foreign policy not domestic. Americans voted for Republican presidents bent on securing "America's place in the world" all the while ignoring the needs of Americans living in America.
Typically a Democratic vote reflects a local vote: a concern for home, rather than afar. The Clinton presidency was more focused on domestic policy than either of the Bush presidency's that preceded or followed it (though many conveniently forget that under Clinton the U.S. bombed Iraq pretty much every day.)
An Obama presidency focusing on domestic policy should be a good thin for the world at large, and Canada specifically. A stronger U.S. economy is a goal the entire world should share, provided a protectionist instinct doesn't take over.
With much of the world in an official recession, it I'm hopeful that doesn't happen, but only time will tell I suppose.
Charge Wal-Mart inciting the incident. Charge every single person in the crowd with conspiracy. Whatever it takes to send a message.
I hope the deal was worth it. Something needs to change here in people's value systems.
Wal-Mart worker killed in bargain-hunting stampede
ANNE D'INNOCENZIO AND COLLEEN LONG
The Associated Press
November 28, 2008 at 11:34 AM EST
NEW YORK -- A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled by a throng of unruly shoppers as consumers, who had snapped their wallets shut since September, flocked to stores before dawn Friday to grab deals on everything from TVs to toys for the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, feared to be the weakest in decades.
Retailers extended their hours -- some opening at midnight -- and offered deals that promised to be more impressive than even the deep discounts that shoppers found throughout November.
The 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., an hour after the store opened, when a throng of shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking him to the ground," a police statement said.
It was on "May 14, 2007 that Cerberus Capital bought Chrysler Corporation from Daimler."http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-05-14-chrysler-cerberus_N.htm That's about one and a half years ago: only a moment in the lifetime of an investment of that magnitude; a brief interlude in the lifetime of a corporation.
What's changed so dramatically in that scant 20 months that Cerberus capital wasn't prepared to deal with? A recession? Decreased demand for products? The latter, at least, was already happening when the purchase when through.
Apparently now American tax payers are being asked to bail them out of their deal. Hardly seems fair does it. If America does this, Canada will inevitably get on board, or risk losing all those jobs.
Chrysler adds its voice to calls for U.S. bailout
GREG KEENAN
November 13, 2008 at 7:59 PM ESTA government rescue package and alliances with competitors are essential if Chrysler LLC is to ride out the storm battering the auto industry, the company's chief executive officer said Thursday, shifting the focus of the Detroit crisis away from General Motors Corp. for at least part of the day.
...
Chrysler posted a video on its website late Thursday urging Americans to contact federal politicians and urge them to support assistance from the U.S. government for auto makers.
Why it seems like only yesterday that CIBC promised us that markets had found their bottom, and would be more stable.
It makes me wonder how they'll explain that big dip in the graph for today's markets followed by the huge climb, gaining back yesterday's losses and more.
Having participated, if not led, the nationalization of the financial services industry, it's interesting to see what will happen with the automotive one.
"Democrats Seek Help for Automakers
_By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE+
Published: November 11, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were ready to push emergency legislation to aid the imperiled auto industry when lawmakers return to Washington next week for the first time after the election, setting the stage for one last showdown with President Bush.
It's a tough choice, to be sure. The automotive industry is a massive part of North America's economic well being. It employs tens of thousands of people, with the associated multiplier effect of those dollars in local communities. It is the heart of many communities, and devastates them when hard times hit and plants close.
So what to do?
That least liberal of publications, Forbes magazine advocates for an even greater level of government intervention. At least they mention Marbury vs. Madison
Wrong, Forbes. $700 billion is too much. Wall Street tied its own noose under the free market doctrine of conservatism, and now they're asking someone else to untie it.
$700 billion is not enough. It also doesn't include the hundreds of billions of dollars that the government has already committed in earlier actions to stem the tsunami flooding the markets. The bill for American International Group could consume a significant amount of the new request, and the balance sheets of other financial institutions are sitting on trillions of dollars of mortgage detritus.
The Bush administration's request that the Treasury's actions be immune from judicial oversight is unconstitutional. Unless Marbury v. Madison has been overruled while HCM's attention was diverted elsewhere, all actions of the executive branch in this country are subject to judicial review. This request rings with the same troubling echoes of the most abusive aspects of the Patriot Act.
Read some Naomi Klein instead. She's thought the problem through more thoroughly than George Bush has.
