Now I Can Say, “I Told You So, So Take Your Credit and…”

July 17th, 2010 Thomasso

As you have read if you are frequent visitor to my blog, then you know my stance on the Banking industry, and how much I think they are bunch of parasites, and that they have lost their one primary function which is help you store your money – and even that is something to question. Well, from an unlikely source, I was given an email last night that came from my University. What was interesting was the direct comment they used on spelling out the high cost of a service called a merchant’s account. The email said that after August of 2010 they will no longer take payments for tuition by domestic credit cards, and that you now must pay in other ways. I personally like cash, but that is me.

A merchant’s account is the credit card user account that a business must have to use and process credit cards from customers who enjoy spending on credit. The customer then pays later on to the credit card company to settle their debt. This is based on the rule of convenience whereby the customer does not have to carry around large sums of money, and has some form of security when being robbed. However, the card holder is “dinged” twice by the credit company for the use of this plastic instrument of debt. First, by an interest rate applied to the balance if you carry the debt over a certain period of time, and second, and service charge for the point-to-point transaction. Some accounts work differently, but this is the basic charge that the customer gets. The Merchant gets a charge also for using the card. It is like a back-end fee for taking the card as payment—and the Merchant is not allowed to pass that fee back to the customer! Funny, eh, how both the user and end user are charged a fee?

Sadly, the credit card, or merchant’s account user has depended on the “card” as a lifeline when faced with limited income, and who wishes to make a purchase that is well beyond the means of their income. This is where the term credit debt, or personal debts comes in. So credit cards are believed to have caused of the super fast and high economy leading up to 2008, and the consumer side of the of the 2009 downfall with massive credit debt.

Here is a copy of the email I received last night:

Kwantlen Polytechnic University will no longer accept credit cards for domestic registration fees and tuition payments starting for the Fall 2010 semester.

If you planned to pay your domestic student registration fees and tuition by credit card, you’ll need to do so before August 3rd or choose one of the many other available payment options we offer.  We will continue to accept credit card payments for many other fees and purchases.

Each year Kwantlen pays a significant amount in transaction fees to credit card companies. The change is aimed at reducing operational costs at Kwantlen without cutting services or programs for students. In fact, $250,000 expected from the savings will be put towards additional scholarships and bursaries for students this year.

For more details, other payment options, and Q&As, visit: Kwantlen.ca/creditcard

Some final words.

I have no idea how much this will effect some students. I know for myself this will have little effect as I have never paid using credit. But this story speaks volumes as I see it as the writing on the wall and the state of our economy. Not only has this card made monsters of debt out of all of Canadians, but it is also part of the cost of business that is sucking all of us in like a black hole.

I applaud the University for taking this initiative and mandating this tough decision. I know many businesses who are very reluctant to give up their merchant’s account because that is all the disposable income that their patrons have to buy with. They would go under if it were not for the credit card industry. But some day everyone will have to pay that

Posted in Diatribe, General, Photographs, Social economics, University classes | 1 Comment »

The Black Mark of a Credit Stain of a Corporate Shame

July 13th, 2010 Thomasso

This morning, as I was driving into work, I heard on the radio, CBC, that a couple had their credit history ruined by a black mark from the TELUS corporation from a bill that was never paid. This story intrigued me because I went through this exact same situation over fifteenth years ago from a couple called City Tell, from up in Prince Rupert.

What was so intriguing was the attitude from the customers, who obviously valued their credit rating, were out raged that something from so long ago was biting them in the butt now. From what I understand, when an account goes delinquent it is automatic for a company to put it into arrears, then  onto collections. I mean, I do this on a weekly bases at my second job, as I deal with delinquent accounts when searching for information on people who have moved, or for those do not want to be found: the Skip-Tracer. What I have found is that communications is the primary reason for ninety percent of all issues that I come across.

The fault of two fold. First, companies are lazy. It is easy to set up the billing account and have it sent off through the post office, email, or what ever other form of billing there is. There is usually a different department for each process of services; for example, the government, which is the worst for having multiple departments running the same account. Then if the account changes, there is most always a lag in the chain of command before the action is finished. I found in my little world that forty percent of my cases the fault started with the company and its inefficiencies on handling account. This is where the customer has given the correct information and followed through with the proper legal steps to change the status of the account. Also, most customers actually have over paid at this point. The remaining case the customer simply allows the count to go delinquent, mostly in protest.  Second, and the larger slice of the pie chart, the customer simply vanishes, and what information the company has, goes towards that customer’s credit information. The recovery rate, in my cases, are about seventy percent. So here you have total communication breakdown.

My advice to this couple would have being simply to implement legal action against the corporation, and then start the negotiations. I mean, only if their credit rating with worth that much to them would this have been worth the effort and cost. You must use justice in business as it was intended for – to fight a wrong and seek damages.  Of course, a $200.00 bill it a tough case to consider going to court over, but I have seen this done.

I also believe the couple has put too much into their financial institution for going public against TELUS like this. It is obvious that they use credit, and have a lot at stake with their money. Perhaps they should consider becoming rebels and start dealing with cash only instead and not ever have to worry about the credit scores again? Just a thought.

But I applaud these people for the guts it took to stand up and go public with this.  Bravo for them!

Here is the story: Credit ruined over unknown Telus bill: Company says privacy concerns prevented search for couple

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social Justice, Social economics | No Comments »

Tom’s Big Fat Diatribe – What Canada Should Do Instead.

June 4th, 2010 Thomasso

Today I took a side, a stand, if you will, about the proposed Bank Tax that Europe and the U.S. wish to impose on Banks so that bailouts like what happened in 2007, and 2008, do not happen again. I sided with the idea that Banks should have a tax imposed on them. My reasoning is simple, in that the public should not be the one on the hook for giving out corporate welfare to them, like we did. Sure. Banks supposedly paid us back in Bonds and other assortments of money, but the burden was placed squarely on the tax payer, and the public purse to bail them out. That should have never happened.

Perhaps in the Conservative mind set, this was appropriate action to take, and what had happened that lead up to the downturn was also acceptable. However, the lessons learned most certainly do not take Canada off the hook as we were well knee deep in this mess that transpired in the U.S. and around the world too. The idea that capitalism can look after itself now has a big black mark against it. Banks now have proven that they cannot look after themselves, and that they need regulation and strict punishment to protect the public, the tax payer, from the harm that they can ensue. It is shameful that our minority government has so staunchly sided with the notion that Banks should be forgiven and then be given a clean slate. To loosen the regulations and give the Banks the wide open range that they so eagerly want is social suicide.

Greed is the problem, and short term thinking is the mantra that I hear throughout the media. The writing, signs and signals are everywhere, and it says that Banks should not police themselves. When the goal of the all the players in the organization is to make as much profit as they can, the result is the zero sum game, the mentality to be the king of the hill at all costs and capture as much of the money as you can. When the corporation stays stagnant, then the shareholders are angry, the lenders and borrowers are burdened with no incentives, and anything but growth is considered a fail in the lexicon of the money speak. So growth is encouraged at any cost, even with the selling of troubled mortgages and loans from the low end of the middle class and packaging them up as the new gold rush of today. Banks have being extremely clever over the last few years, searching and inventing ways to inspire profit, that the guarantee that the ratio of real money versus credit is called into question. We seem to be the victims, the suckers, as we fall into their traps.

Of course the harm is that we will all pay. We pay in terms of the total value of our net worth as a society. We as a society have being given a new drug on our streets called credit, and we are addicted. The personal debt load in Canada, per capita, is about $28,390.00 in 2005 (Stats Canada, January 2007), and it is still growing starting over the last two decades. We are saving less and borrowing more on credit to keep up with our current lifestyles, and the Banks seem to be more than happy to oblige, even when the signs are there that debt will go critical for some very soon. So what happens when the taps are shut off? Do you have a cushion to fall onto? Could you survive up to six months without any income as jobs disappear?

What I would like to see, and mandated from the federal government, is to put street crime versus corporate crime in the same light. That a White Collar criminal be given the same punishment as a Bank Robber. Sure, many argue that the two are not the same, but lets look at the harm that each causes:

• Both the Bank Robber and White Collar criminal steal/take money. Although each uses different methods, the end result is about the same—the victims are the people who lost the money.
• The money is very rarely recovered. Yes, even when the White Collar criminal and Bank Robbers are caught, the money is hardly ever given back, or recovered.
• The White Collar criminal has more opportunities to take money than the bank Robber. It is true. The Bank Robber has to go through many levels and layers of security, and needs to use direct force to a small group of people in order to take the money, were as the White Collar criminal pretends to be your best friend, the one who is always looking out for your best interests, just before when he/she takes off with your money. I say the level of harm, albeit on two different levels, exacts about the same level of victimization over time and space here.
• Both are repeat offenders. Once bitten by the “easy money,” stealing money become a routine and necessity. And whose to say each group here is using the stolen money for drugs and other illegal activities?

I think taxing the Banks and using that money to bail them out with when they fail is a brilliant idea. Canada is no way a perfect player with its financial institutions when I stop and reflect back on the beginning of the down turn. Remember that we were enjoying some of the highest prices for our raw resources back then—now look at the those industries—funny how only the Banks came out on top, yielding profits less than a quarter term, in that fiscal year, after the downturn started.

Update, June 5, 2010: Apparently the links below were broken. I think they are fixed now; thanks C.K., for brining that to my attention.

Sources:

Crime rates for Canada, Juristat, 2007.

A good country for crooks: Canada’s losing war against white-collar crime.

Canada’s handling of white-collar crime is a crime.

Bank tax still on G20 table despite PM’s pleas – Toronto Sun, June 4, 2010.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social economics | 4 Comments »

Inflation and the Kick in the Butt it Gives

May 21st, 2010 Thomasso

Yesterday a friend of mind was challenging me on the merits of why the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) will be a great thing. I went to the library where on my course web site, there is a budget calculator, and on that calculator you can factor in how much more you will pay for good with the HST implemented. You can choose your daily needs and services that you use into this, and then change the items and services you would normally use to try and fit the new tax into your budget. Regrettably I cannot link the calculator here because my course outline is password protected and the link comes up with a 404 error.

The Calculator is also not perfect as there is still a lot of information about the HST that is not known and put into it. Added to the missing information, I did notice that the calculator could not do projections or a itemized listings for each change I did.

So what does this tell me about the HST? I will pay more with my current lifestyle. On a monthly bases, my increases will be 3.8 percent! Does not sound like much, but when this is money that will be taken from my everyday cost of living, this is money that I will do with out, and items such as food and clothing will be the first to be adjusted as they are usually the most fluid costs that people can budget with. My rent, fuel, insurance have also gone up, (out side the new tax) so all around the HST has come at a very bad time.

What does this mean? I like to go to restaurants and have dinner with friends. That will stop, or get reduced a lot. Camping will done more, out in the woods, as apposed to public and privately run campsites. When I travel up country to seminars and workshops, I may think twice about renting a hotel room, but RV instead somewhere it is free like a Wal-Mart parking lot.

My tuition have jumped a lot too. Currently I enjoy paying one of the lowest rates in Western Canada for university, about $407.00 per three credit course. Now the new rate will be $497.00 starting this September.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social economics, University classes | Comments Off

Time Travel through Old Catalogues – The 60s and 70s weren’t that Bad were They?

April 3rd, 2010 Thomasso

I was searching the web for some information on a old prehistoric computer, one called the Commodore 64, and its predecessor, the VIC-20. Many many years a go I had both of these bad boys, and I used them a lot. Anyway, while searching for pdf manuals, I hit upon this little website that threw me back even further into nostalgic mood of my humble past. Yes, somebody took the time to scan and copy as many of the old Sears catalogues as they could find and post them so that everyone could look back into this archive of an era gone by.

Sears – Wishbook Website Link

The first thing that hit me about looking at these old gems are the prices for everyday items such as a early microwave oven, television and basic clothing. I have being working one a problem that most people go through when they try to a “Adjusted for Inflation” algorithm into the research data. These old Sears catalogues made it that much more difficult.

The second thing were the styles. OMG, am I ever glad people didn’t embrace the cyclical styles of the 70s and 80s. Both men and women’s style, in my opinion, sucked compared to today. And the colours of the 70s? What up with that? The furniture was scary then.

With men’s skin tight disco pants, who needed a man’s purse to carry their wallets around, to women’s 2.3 kg of underwear and hairspray, I think this last decade is a whole lot better looking in comparison. However, I do have a soft spot for the 60s. I don’t know why, perhaps becuase I never live through all of it.

Posted in General, Humour, Photographs, Social economics | Comments Off

The Last Few Seconds of March

March 31st, 2010 Thomasso

I just thought I would throw up a quick post tonight and try and get some content up for March, being that this month was so dismal from me not having much time to post and care for my web site. I thought I would talk about some things I have noticed about the world around me in terms of the economy for spring of 2010. To sum up in a nutshell, stuff is getting more expensive and access to money is getting harder, and having more strings attached becuase it does not grow on trees any more.

Two things that hit home for this week, transit fee increases and the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) being pushed down our throats by the British Columbian government.

Transit fees are no laughing mater for those who have but no choice to use it. I have looked at the fare increases, and I am judging this from the perspective of a University student who needs it to travel to and from home to school, and if need be, to work. When I heard that students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University were not getting the same rate as their UBC counterparts, this caused me to question the current state of Translink and its sub-jurisdictions, the municipalities that it serves. The official excuse was that it needs the added revenue and any new rates would reflect this need for generating revenue. Any government should realize that it should treat people fairly, or the government gets voted off the island.  For myself, I now believe that it is cheaper for me to drive to my classes than take the bus(es). I do not pay for parking any more, and the time that I save driving does not encourage me to take transit on any level, and the $5.00 per day is probely close to what I spend on gas for that same trip. This is an added effect to inflation, especially on students, the poor and those who can’t drive. Of course there is always walking.

The HST debate is a fun topic at the water cooler. The Pandora’s box that was last opened came from the introduction of the GST back in the days of then prim minister Brian Mulroney, January 1, 1991. Oh those were the days. The GST was supposed to help clear up the, then manufactures’ tax, and end duplication of taxes from business, and was only to be collected and born by the consumer. Sounds very right wing doesn’t? However, it did have a cascading effect becuase it made businesses responsible for the collection the tax, and created a whole new branch of criminals. When we had the roaring 2007 year, I remembered getting a letter by my beloved provincial government asking me if I made any purchases outside of the Provence, bluntly saying that I would need to pay the tax ( the BC, PST if buying from Alberta+ GST if outside of Canada) if I did. The government has become very dependent on this tax as one of its major sources of revenue. It would make sense to me to use a HST becuase it would cast the tax net very wide and hit consumers where they are not getting hit now.

With just these two increases in the cost of living, I wonder how long the economy will go before it stops growing and starts to reverse. Notice that I am saying that this is inevitable? I have already cut back on my personal spending, and have made adjustments to my lifestyle accordingly. I eat out less at restaurants, go on fewer trips and impulse buying it now the thing of the past as a result of the slowing economy. I’m saving more and more now, preparing for that inevitable work stoppage, creating an emergency fund, as businesses around me slow and some take the bankruptcy pill. I think with the HST being pushed down our throats, consumers are going to have to adjust their spending habits in this new era. Hey, this just might create a whole new branch of criminals: the HST fraudsters?

Hey, feel free to comment if you think I’m on the right track, or completely off my rocker? I would love to hear whet other people think of these two topics I just posted about.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social Justice, Social economics | Comments Off

Post New Years Disorder

January 4th, 2010 Thomasso

Now that everyone is nicely in debt, suffering from the flu, and ready to get back to work, I now must take a step back and see the world that I am part of and ask myself why people do what they do, especially pondering the question of why is everyone so pissed off this time of year? Since the new year has started I have noticed a shift in the people around me, and more so from those who I work with, but this also applies to some of my friends too. However, I think there is more to it than meets the eye?

We just got off of two long weekends in a row with two paid statutory holidays. We went through, for most cultures, the most festive season in the calender; of course, I am the exception as I don’t celebrate the Christian, Jewish or Muslim traditions, but the Season of Tom (sic), which is 365 days per year–I am not a lemming. I enjoy everyday and treat everyday like it is New Years. So most people gave each other gifts and had fun with family and friends, and I am sure it was time well spent, but what happened afterwords, when it is time to go back and renew the year, the week, and continue on with our jobs?

So why does everyone seem so pissed off? Is it becuase the party is over? Hum? No, I think it goes deeper than that?

I think part of the answer is in the frustration that times are leaner, and becuase of the tight economic era that we now live in, people are “taking it out” on the first person that they encounter becuase they are frustrated with themselves . People have over spent. As the cost of living shoots upwards, so does the cost of giving in the monetary sense. So far since I have come back to work I have heard nothing but complaining about how in debt everyone is, and how expensive things are getting. Also, the labourers seem unwilling to motivate themselves as one person put it, “How can I work for this much when it now costs me more to do the job in the first place…” When they complain, the management resorts to apathy towards them. When they come to me, they act sometimes so vulgar and pathetic that I tune them out too.

Take for example the “Coughing More-On.” Today while I was setting everything up to start my day, this one guy comes in coughing and hacking his lunges out becuase he is in the full throws of the flu. First, he shows up at work so sick that he could pass out from coughing so much.  He then starts coughing without covering his mouth. He told me that If he caught it, then it should get it passed around also so he can “give it back” to whom ever he caught it from down the line. Stupendous logic here, eh? I know for someone with AIDS, there is a section in the Criminal Code of Canada that deals with that, and under the Infectious Diseases and Control Act, there are provisions for dealing with those people, but there ought to be something in there to the flu too, especially on the job. But I ask this question, because he is sick, does that mean he must make everyone else around him sick too?

So money and health seem to be the first casualties of the new year. This does not surprise me? I heard on CBC Radio One that the stats on consumer spending surveyed by the Bank of Montreal says that Canadians are confident about the economy. First, a Bank telling us that we are happy with the economy – now that is a joke. But it also says that if the Banks are happy with the way we are spending, and unemployment is still increasing, than that only leave debt as the only logical answer to this social phenomenon. Throw in some flu germs and you now have the recipe for Post New Years Disorder.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, Social economics | 3 Comments »

Am-Canada We Stand On Guard for Thee

December 27th, 2009 Thomasso

Yesterday I was asked to travel across for the border with my friend who loves to shop. A seasoned world shopper, he is the type of person that scours the Intranet, news papers and radio for deals anywhere he can get one. He saves, listens and plans to the last detail on anything that he wants. Whether from a large ticket item, or just a box of soup, the routine is the same.

The mission for yesterday was simple: gas, boxing day sales and clothing. Buying gas in the USA is a no-brainier because their gas prices are less taxed than Canada’s. Actually when you drive a humongous SUV like my friend’s, filling it up with gasoline is a big deal. Buying it at $0.70 per litre is a far cry from buying it at the Metro Vancouver prices of a $110.0 per litre. Naturally you want to stock up on it too, so he had a spare tank installed last year, and he can make that fill-up last a whole month now. He drives a lot. Then there was the boxing day sales. The Americans are hurting, and as such, prices are literally rock bottom as their economy is still falling into chaos. As my friend put it, “when you start buying, you have to loose your sense of reason and start to think like an American when searching, and only then will you start to find those deals.” We went to a computer store just North of Everett Washington, and he purchased a very nice lap-top for less then $350.00 CND, about same type of computer as a $1400.00 unit at Future-shop here in Langley City. On our way back to Canada, he stopped at a Mall near Blaine, Washington, where there was a clothing store that was having huge discount price sale on everything from men’s suites, jeans to jackets, and he hoarded up. A pair of jeans were going for $5.99 each—and they were not those big-box store knock-offs either—all Red-Tab Jeans!

Now the next step was getting the almost $4000.00 worth of stuff into Canada. In that same Mall there is a brokerage company that deals particularly with Canadian shopper’s. For a small fee, and I do not know how much, you can pay them to do the brokerage and shipping for you so that your goods will cross the broader without fail. They handle everything from customs, right down to the logistics. Usually within forty-eight hours they will have your stuff inside Canada waiting for you to pick them up. When in Canada, you sign some papers, give them money, fill out the decelerations, and you are set. Everything is paid for, the Man on both sides of the boarder, and the middle men are taken care of before you leave for home.

It was explained to me that cross boarder shopping is only worth it if you are planing large buys.  If you are one of those people who only spends about $400.00 down there, then you might as well stay home and buy it at Canadian prices because you are not saving that much, if anything, including your time.

Now for me, I was just there for the ride. But what I saw in the US made me really think about the state of the global economy, and Canada’s growing, yet very fragile, small economy, and I did some contrast and comparisons from looking out the window as we drove around. For every one billboard in Canada, there are least ten per mile of road in the US. I read a local new paper in Everett, and it might as well have been a twenty page flyer instead of a news paper. One of the public schools I saw had a ad banner promoting the football team with a food and beverage logo around it, and it was at least ten metres across. (I’m glad schools are at least “ad free” here in Canada, though I suspect that will change very soon.) I saw very few people smiling down there as I walked along with my friend into the shops and Malls. And the homeless rate in Washington State looks to be about the same as it is in the Lower Mainland.

I did not buy anything on this trip. I was just keeping the seat warm and being company as we waited in the line up at the boarder and the rest of the trip. The total trip was about ten hours, so a good day, and I had fun seeing the new sights.

I have a warning for Canadian retailers and the Canadian government at all levels. Watch out if you are planning on inflating prices and taxes. Shopping like this from the US is way too easy. Canada will have to make shopping in the US illegal, or put severe controls on cross-boarder shopping, if Canada wants to continue cranking up the cost of living. Consumers are going to find the best bang for their buck anyway they can, and from what I saw down in the USA, they want our money and they are making it very easy for us Canadians to go there and shop. With our dollar just around $0.05 below parity, the consumer’s power to spend outside of Canada is strong.

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Counting Madness – Self-Righteous Resistors

November 21st, 2009 Thomasso

Human nature seems to be built upon some very basic principles like survival for food and shelter, natural selection and achieving the most for less under any circumstances, to mention a few. You will have those who by chance stumbled upon great wealth, or managed to screw enough people so that they are now the dominate forces in their societies. On the other hand you will have those who tried but never found their American Dream, and could never have had the “luck” to reach their dreams. To add some theory to this, I turn to the work of Email Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, who came up with the idea that when you have a breakdown of social norms, and when your personal control and environment breaks down, people then go into a state of “normlessness,” where they exhibit anyone of the following categories called modes of adaptation: conforming, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion (Williams & McShane: 2004).

When I first heard that we were going to start our annual inventory early this year, I was not the least bit worried because we now have the smaller work force (since the recession started), and our inventories  are so little compared to this time 2008 that counting on our part would take less than an afternoon. We were given about one weeks notice to prepare and start out counts. I had posted the information and started personally telling each worker as they came in what was going to be required of them for this year’s inventory count. A series of emails were sent, and some of the higher volume technicians were given phone calls to aid them with there procedures. With a lot less to count and fewer categories of inventory as compared to last year, I figured that this was going to be a flawless count.

As the numbers started roll in on Friday, I started making calls to the employees who I had already foreseen as being problematic and assisted them – like a mother wiping a child’s bib, holding their hands, reiterating what was needed from them, reassure them – just to get the job done. But no matter how much one tries, or prepares, there are going to be those who just can’t get it on the right track, and they continually fall by the wayside.

The majority of the employees are in the category of conforming. They know that these events take place and they offer their full unquestioned obedience to get the job done. Next are the innovation people who see this as an opportunity to do maintenance and clean-ups, while they sort out their equipment and inventory. They see that they have time offered to them for this and they take on a multitasking approach to it. Then we have a couple of workers who are the ritualist’s, who see this as a another job routine, and they blindly go through the motion of counting and sorting, but only putting in the minimum effort and time to get through it. Lastly, there are the dreaded rebellious types who, although they only represent less than two percent of the workforce, they cause ninety percent of the headaches.

Make no mistake that I am comparing criminological theory to the workplace. There are just too many similarities among these two groups to let this go unnoticed.

The inventory was completed, and done on time, but I ended up spending an eleven hour day trying to keep everything together, but still, I had to do some of it from home due to some stragglers being so late, and one not submitting until midnight. The last four hour stretch of Friday was spent talking on the phone, endlessly going over the inventory procedure until I notice that I was loosing my voice.

Source:

Williams & McShane (2004). Criminological theory. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

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Letter to the Gammers: Don’t Over Spend Our Money!

November 7th, 2009 Thomasso

It looks like I’m a writer now. I mean, I’m writing for the general public on what I think are important issues, doing this for the sake of telling the world my thoughts. And yes, I’m doing it as a volunteer, and for some possible bonus marks for one of my classes. I thought that with all the hype going on with Vancouver this coming winter, a more sober look is needed with the Games. I think I lay out my concerns quite nicely here.

Current Opposition to the Olympic Games: Costs to the Taxpayer.

The media, such as CBC Radio in Vancouver, is busy with the 2010 Olympic
hype, but it is also allowing some voices to be heard who are in
opposition to it, mainly from the perspective of its costs and the
amount of taxes needed to pay for it. The Games could not have come a
worse time as the waning effects of the 2008 global meltdown are still
fresh in everyone minds. The worry is that with unemployment, market
uncertainty and huge government deficits growing, the Games may drive
government debt to unseen, or even unnecessary, levels never experienced
before.
Perhaps the greatest sense of opposition to the Olympic Games
are the cost associated with them such as the cost for the security and
policing, before and during the Games, which some estimates put them in
at over a billion dollars, according to CBC Radio in Vancouver on
November 2, 2009. With such a huge price tag, the government is
surely forced to dig deep into its pockets to pay for this. Ultimately
it is the taxpayer who will pay for this. This debt is going to be paid
through taxation, increases in the cost of services, user fees and
licensing, or met with reductions in government programs, but more than
likely all of these methods will be deployed at once to spread the
burden.
Added to this is the global down turn which is still gripping
the U.S., and is seriously effecting certain industries such as forestry
and tourism, areas of the economy that are vital to most of British
Columbia, according to CBC News. With unemployment still significantly
high in some regions of the province, the tax base is still weak causing
local governments to compound their debt loads to meet these
obligation.
The fear is that the money generated from the Olympic Games may
not be enough to balance the books and cover all the expenses that were
put into it after the event has finished. Based on information gathered
from past Games, almost all of these events have left past host cities
with debt that has either caused them to make drastic tax increases to
pay it down, or has stayed on the books for decades creating huge
deficits. An example of this is the thirty plus years that it took to
pay the $1.5 billion debt for the Olympic stadium in Montreal back in
1976, which CBC News announced back on December 19, 2006.
This then could be the greatest form of opposition to the games
from the perspective of those who live in British Columbia. Most would
welcome the Olympics, but for the property owners, workers and other
stakeholders, the burden of paying high taxes and leaving debt that
could be passed on to our grandchildren does raise some flags. Should we
be more prudent with our spending for what is essentially a two week
long party? The gamble here is that will the spin offs that are promised
by the Olympic Games be worth the risks that will give Vancouver and the
rest of the province a return on its investment.

Thomasso (Criminology)

This should, although I have not being told it has gone through final approval yet, be printed in the student paper at the University. I had some reservation about writing this becuase I know how much people really want the Games at their front door. I wanted to spell out that there is a down side, especially when the promised profits don’t appear, that we will being paying a huge prices as taxpayers to this debt. Am I anti-games? No, I’m a realist.

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