A drive to Tobermory in winter

I've been making a slow rebound from that nasty flu that's been going round, and the Farm Manager's been keen to get out of the house, so this morning she says, hey why don't we take a tour up the Peninsula.

I'm as sick of my company as she is, so I said, why not?

And away we went! First stop Wiarton, to ransom my Globe and Mail from the Korean extortionist. We were hardly out the drive when the CBC news comes on. Top story; Donny J admits to making shit up in his meeting with Justin a few months ago.

How is this the top story? How is Donald Trump pulling a whopper out of his ass even newsworthy? According to the Toronto Star's official Trump Fib Tracker Daniel Dale, Trump is up to 1,314 whoppers as of today. Trump lying is the top story? Surely there are more newsworthy goings on in the world.

Got our Globe, grabbed a pie at New Orleans, and up the Highway 6 we went. Turned off at Colpoys Bay road and headed for Lion's Head.

A hundred years ago the north shore of Colpoys Bay was totally built up all the way from Wiarton. This area was home to a major fishery at the time. In fact, fish from here went all over the world in those pre-globalization days. Entire trainloads of frozen fish departed Wiarton multiple times per week, in an era when you froze fish by storing ice from the bay year round.

Then another unintended consequence of global trade, the sea lamprey, decimated the fishery. Wiarton has yet to recover.

But it's hanging on. It's the last chance to pick up a Globe and Mail before you head up the Bruce. And while there's a couple of liquor stores further north, the Wiarton Foodland is an essential pitstop if your diet gets fancier than hotdogs and KD.

Went through Lion's Head, circled back to Highway 6 because I wasn't keen on trying the Forty Hills Road in winter, and ended up in Dyer Bay. That's a quaint enough cottage community just past the middle of nowhere. Still, a half decent waterfront shack is gonna run you half a million or more.

From there we made our way to Tobermory. I popped into the local grocery and came out with a bag of plums from Chile. $1.99/lb. Under five bucks for a bottle of Aquafina (tap) water and a bag of plums in the dead of winter.

Is this free trade thing  great or what!?

In the Globe there's an opinion piece by Jeff Rubin called "Has global trade liberalization left Canadians behind?" Rubin used to be the top economist at CIBC. He's saying today what I've been saying since the middle eighties... "left behind" is way too kind... left for dead is more like it.

But then, it's one thing to figure this out in 2018 as a big-time economist. Maybe somebody will pay attention.

When I was saying the same thing in 1988 I was a shop-floor workee... what the fuck would those guys know? Anyway, the horses are so long out the barn its beyond ludicrous to think you're gonna corral them now.

Stayed on the no. 6 all the way back. The FM remarked on what a boring drive it was, and she wasn't even driving. She's right though. I've done this drive a hundred times and the only time it's interesting is if you're the last car off the ferry in Tobermory but the first car to reach Wiarton.


That's how accidents happen, she says.

Canada's big biz boffins show their utter contempt for Canadian workers and taxpayers

Couple of news stories caught my eye over the weekend. Seems Bombardier big dog Alain Bellemare backed away from the 50% pay hike granted to Bombardier's senior management team, not because 50% pay raises for the brain trust behind a failing company is an obscenity, but because they were getting bad press over the issue.

The rationale behind granting a 50% pay raise to the wankers who have run Bombardier into the ground is this; you have to pay top dollar to attract and retain top talent.

Huh?

Top talent?

How does it take "top talent" to mismanage a company to the point where they can't deliver streetcars to the TTC within two years of the contractual due date?

Ya, you gotta pay big bucks to keep that talent! Not to mention that C-series jet that's what... four years behind schedule and four billion dollars over budget? The C-series is the biggest boondoggle this side of the F-35. Compared to Lockheed-Martin, our Bombardier buffoons are mere babes in the woods... meaning there's probably tons of headroom left in the bamboozle-the-taxpayer file at Bombardier.

The other story came out of CIBC. Seems the bank that cleared 1.4 billions in profit last QUARTER is gonna save a few bucks by shifting Canadian call centres to India.

Of course it's got nothing to do with screwing the workers.

CEO Dodig spells it out for you; "companies that stand still don't stand the test of time."

Huh?

What the fuck is that? Keeping jobs in Canada is "standing still?"

Both these greed-bag CEOs are million-a month guys more or less. A Canadian working full time at minimum wage won't hit a million bucks even if she works from age 18 to 65.

Too bad for the workers.

At least our companies aren't standing still.

And the million-a-month CEO types aren't standing still either.

Ontario PCs banking on retardation of electorate

I see where wanna-be Preem Christine Elliot is trying to fire up the voters with the promise of lower corporate tax rates.

This is her "economic plan."

How retarded does she think we are?

If lowering corporate tax rates led to good outcomes in the economy, the last forty years of lowering corporate tax rates would have led to us living in a utopia!

Are we?

Apparently not; here's a timely headline from the CBC; Job quality in Canada at 25 year low says CIBC.

So one of the big banks has discovered that the course we've been on for the last two or three generations has resulted in lots of shit jobs and an impoverished middle class, and Christine Elliott plans to get elected by doing more of the same?

In a way it's almost a moot point; corporations of any consequence all offshore their profits into zero-tax tax havens anyway, so till we drop the corporate tax to zero, none of this foolish talk will make an iota of difference.

And once we've done that, we'll still have to match the likes of Scott Walker in Wisconsin if we're to be serious competitors in the race to the bottom.

Maybe it's time to try something different.