Québec Students: You're Coming Along

After school is over you're playing in the park
Don't be out too late, don't let it get too dark
They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about
And grow up just like them, won't you let it work it out

As I type this, thousands of youth are out in the streets of Montreal, in defiance of a police decree set at 22h30 EDT that their protest tonight is illegal. They are ostensibly protesting the planned hikes of tuition fees set in the last Quebec budget by the tired and corrupt Liberal government headed by former Mulroney Conservative Jean Charest.

This Spring, they aren't out there looting after a professional hockey loss.

They aren't out there sitting in tents in a park like the Occupy movement.

They're rather mobile in fact, as if they well understand the difficulty for the police in hitting a moving target.

And they clearly aren't in any mood to negotiate.

As someone who watched in horror while the 2010 Toronto G20 summit devolved into a disgraceful showcase of police belligerence against peaceful protesters, I shudder to think of where this is all heading.

My question for CLASSE: was it ever really about tuition fee hikes? Or was that just an excuse to get the ball rolling on a push for revolutionary social change? And how many of your followers will follow as far as you want to take this?

In the context of a super-corrupt and tired Charest government, I have to think this is all becoming the biggest test of our social fabric since the '95 referendum.

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To work for nothing

Goddamn you all
Who expect me to give you my labours for free
Goddamn you all
Who go along with this concept that we should be
Grateful for the opportunities
To work for nothing
NOTHING
But the hope that
It could
Possibly
Lead to something
that might mean something
Or at least pay something
That might put food on my table
Mine and my children's
Yes, Goddamn you all
This is not an economy for working people
It is an economy for investment speculators
Bettors
Not my betters
Why don't we learn?

Meanwhile, my labours are not yours to exploit
They have a cost - because they have value
They will not be had for nothing

Greenbacked-up as hell and not taking it anymore

Roll out red carpets
Here come the China boys
-- The Payola$ (1979)

A report by Robert Fisk (the only Western journalist to ever interview Osama bin Laden) in today's Independent augurs ill for the continuance of the United States' dominance of world finance - perhaps a body blow to a crumbling empire:

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

Well that tidbit of truth is a wee bit disturbing.

Being in the "Pre-employment phase"...

...I instinctively know exactly what our Dear Prime Minister means when he speaks of all the projects in the "pre-construction phase".

Four and Twenty Assets

Four and twenty assets
Backing every paper
Graded "Triple-A"
'tho lacking pedigree
When they all defaulted
The value flew away
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set for you and me?

No Free Content for CanWest - Kudos to you J.T.

There is power in a factory
Power in the land
Power in the hands of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing
If together we don't stand
There is power in a union
--Billy Bragg

Being a life-long Quebecker and Habs fan, I have been an avid reader of the Gazette's Habs Inside/Out blog site since its inception a few years ago. They built an excellent and successful online community very quickly by providing informed round-the-clock reporting, together with an open forum for commentary. This was of course all leveraged off the parent newspaper's existing sports reporting infrastructure and access to the club.

Long-time Gazette columnist (and prolific HI/O blogger) Mike Boone was rightly proud of their achievements recently:

Speaking of how hard-working and indispensable we are, Google Analytics calculates Habs Inside/Out had 2,383,333 page views in February – up from 1,180,013 in February, 2008.

That's a 102 per cent increase.

And comScore MediaMetrix credits Habs Inside/Out with 92,000 unique visitors in January – up from 40,000 a year ago. That's a 130 per cent jump.

Are we great or what

Yeah Mike, that's great. But evidently not great enough to actually pay some of the people you've tapped to provide content. One of the regular posters on the site's Other Wing page - one of the people whose content has helped draw up those hit counts - has decided to take a stand on behalf of her profession, and stop providing that content free of charge:

I write here as an unpaid volunteer, and I've been having some serious second thoughts about what that means for others. I've noticed the increase in ads supported by the site, and earlier this week Mike Boone posted stats on the number of site visits, which are up more than a hundred percent over last year. In short, the Gazette makes money from HI/O. So, in an age when my professional colleagues in the newspaper business are struggling to keep their jobs and keep their papers viable, a site like Inside/Out could be an important source of work for them. Therefore, I believe it's wrong for me to undermine the work they depend upon for their livelihoods by providing content for nothing.

Mainly for that reason, I am withdrawing from The Other Wing.

Good for you, J.T. As I wrote in the comments on her final post, there is a difference between providing comments and being a featured (published) poster. As the latter, there is a greater benefit to the publisher, and it competes in the same space as paid professionals. Add to that, J.T. has an established career in media as a CBC radio broadcaster in Newfoundland. Content from a pro like herself has added value based on her training, abilities and experience.

For J.T. to be expected to provide free content is no different from expecting a plumber to fix your pipes for nothing more than positive word of mouth - no matter how much they may enjoy their work.

If you want to send J.T. some love, she has a thoughtful site where she writes on her own terms: The H does NOT stand for Habs.

J.T.: This out-of-work writer salutes you!



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EI came through blessedly early

I almost feel ashamed.

While some have been waiting months to receive any EI payments, mine has gone through in just over two weeks since submitting my Record of Employment (or RoE).

But even though it's less than half my former salary, it couldn't have happened at a better time, since I continue to wait for my final paycheck and severance pay from my former employer.

Meanwhile, a friend tipped me off to a Marcom writing job at my alma mater.

I applied within hours.

Because even though it's just a one-year contract, the pickings are too slim not to get excited about it. It's a good thing I have up to forty weeks before the EI money dries up.

-- 30 --

The New Collection-Based Economy

How bad will it get?

One of the scariest examples of the world economic melt-down is the experience of Iceland. Yes, the tiny but proud country with the Björk-based economy likely did themselves no favours relying on the quirky but prolific pixie-like recording artist for over 45% of their GNP.

(I know that's true cuz I saw it somewhere in an Onion article once...)

All kidding aside, Iceland's real problem was that their banks' finances were way too heavily beholden to the Bullshit Bush financial model, where carefully concealed Bullshit is repackaged to become the investment option of choice for organizations worldwide.

It wasn't Björk's fault the Icelandic banks found themselves holding six times as much debt as real capital to cover it late last year.

The relative health of Canadian financial institutions should be a source of comfort for those of us lucky enough to live here, right? Well, not entirely:

Lost in Traslation?
Apart from the obvious need for political cover, I really don't see the point in Quebec Premier Jean Charest's decision yesterday to haul the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec onto the carpet after suffering its worst year on record.

"As with all other investors, the first element that explains our return this year is the global financial crisis that broke out in the fourth quarter," said Caisse president and CEO Fernand Perreault.

However, he said the fund's decision to delve heavily into asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP)also cost it dearly. The Caisse invested $12.6 billion in the form of short-term debt, making it the largest holder in Canada.

With the market for the debt frozen, ABCP accounted for $4 billion of the Caisse 's total losses in 2008.

Perreault now admits investing so heavily in ABCP was a bad idea.

"In hindsight, we placed too much confidence in these securities …. It was a mistake to accumulate so much ABCP," said Perreault.

"We mistakenly believed that these products were as safe, or almost as safe, as other money market instruments."

Of course, the decision to go so heavily into asset-backed commercial paper can be easily explained by the usual Quebec excuse of the unfair language barrier sticking a knife in our backs. (Mais Jean, c'n'est pas juste! We thought they said "acid-backed paper". We thought it had industrial applications, hôtie...)
[Note to Icelandic bankers looking for some kind of excuse: you're welcome, and don't worry, we won't bill you.]

What knee-jerk Quebec media don't understand is that mammoth funds like the Caisse handles are too big not to be a reflection of the underlying economy on the whole. Yes, Quebec lost 25% of the supposed value of its nationalized pension fund (if you choose the highest benchmark as your relational point), but what else did we expect? Of course the fund managers did the same things as their counterparts worldwide who were using paradigms for risk that assumed triple-a securities were rated accordingly.

From there, the need to get in the game and follow the other lemmings takes over naturally. If everyone else is doing it, it must be okay, right? Over the cliff with us!*

The Bush Trickle-down Bullshit Model
Not if the "assets" on the backs of all that paper amount to utter Bullshit.

It all boils down to the Bullshit right-wing deregulation of the financial markets in the United States. The United States under their Bullshit President and their Bullshit Republican-controlled Congress became a bastion of utter Bullshit generally. And if the right-wing "trickle-down" concept applies to anything, then surely it applies to Bullshit (especially when coupled with governmental leadership).

Because as Bullshit ruled the White House, so did Bullshit rule the way American financial markets were run.

As did it rule the way American companies were run.

Right down to American household economies, where buying a house with nothing down and a 40-year amortization on a mortgage with no principal paid-down in the first few years became common-place. And then, they get a new flat-screen TV and cable and end up watching home renovation shows where the illusion is propagated that 22 minutes later you've got a beautiful, modern kitchen gleaming in the morning sunlight. Add some happily-scrubbed children's faces, munching on microwaved pizza pops and you're in the Promised Land.

So it becomes normal to not just over-leverage your household income, but to dream about over-leveraging it even more (like all the other lemmings in your neighbourhood), and go to that beautiful church-like Home Reno warehouse store and get a Home Reno Platinum Card (fine print showing 28.75% interest, compounded daily, subject to change at the issuer's discretion), and spend, spend, spend to make your own home the temple You Deserve since you don't have any other spirituality to cling to and make sense of your daily existence.

That's what it meant to be a good little consumer in the consumer-driven economy of the Bullshit George W. Bush America.

Dead Stop
And what are we left with? A world where the Bullshit has trickled down world-wide. Hence Iceland. Hence pension funds exposed to have little real value. Hence world-wide panic that filters down to a financial and economic dead stop.

No one is paying anyone for anything unless they absolutely have to. So the new economy is a collection-based economy. At least that is how it appears when I look in my email inbox, where I see the hard-working little application at Workopolis.com has sent me links to the day's new job postings - and more and more of them are related to people trying to lean on other people to pony-up (three out of four today):

Your Job Search Results
We’ve found new jobs that fit what you’re looking for! Click the links below to find out more.

AN UNNAMED COMPANY
Bilingual Customer Service Rep- English/French Required (2/25/2009)

GROUPE MONTPETIT RESSOURCES HUMAINES INC
Collection administrator bilingual - (english and french) (2/25/2009)

HSBC Finance
Collector (2/25/2009)

HSBC Finance
Collector (2/25/2009)

Please, World, Scare me Some More
Meanwhile, with the unknown effects of what's looking more and more like runaway global warming, will all this seem quaintly anti-climactic a generation from now?

Antarctic glaciers are melting faster than previously thought, which could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels, scientists said Wednesday.
The warming of western Antarctica is a real concern. "There's some people who fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

Sea levels will rise faster than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summerhayes said.

An IPCC panel in 2007 predicted warmer temperatures could raise sea levels by 76 centimetres to 120 centimetres this century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee.

"If the west Antarctica sheet collapses, then we're looking at a sea level rise of between one metre and 1.5 metres," Summerhayes said.

Researchers found that the southern ocean around Antarctica has warmed about 0.36 F in the past decade, double the average warming of the rest of the Earth's oceans over the past 30 years, he said.

Obama doesn't have a monopoly on change. A complete shake-up of society is upon us.

- 30 -

*Turns out the meme of lemmings mindlessly running over a cliff to their deaths is another piece of US-propogated bullshit - this one exposed long ago by the Canadian CBC. The staged lemming "mass suicide" part comes just over a third of the way in.

Job Hunt: The Craigslist Test

Recapping my situation:

I got laid-off from my job late last month.

Right now, I am still at least five weeks away from my first potential EI check (of unknown quantity) and have gone unpaid from my former job since mid-January, including my severance pay owed. I have every faith in them paying me once they have the cash on hand to do so, but I am not sure when I can count on seeing it.

I know I must resume bringing home the bacon pretty soon or there will be payments defaulted upon, and the dread fear of foreclosure.

Last week, I started aggressively seeking work in my field by creating profiles on job-hunting and job-recruiting sites over the past two weeks.

Quantum.ca
Workopolis.com
Monster.ca
Sapphireca.com

Earlier today, I noticed a randstad.ca office in my neighbourhood, so I dropped by and explained that I am an out-of-work copywriter/tech writer/journalist and what might they have for someone with my skills? Unfortunately, they are more like office clerk/secretary/administrator recruiters. I was told they couldn't help me.

I came back home to review the jobs posted on the four sites above, only to find nothing new in the past 24 hours. I did apply at one place on Monday, but have not heard back yet. I would have responded to other job postings but they either sought skills I lack, or were out of my sphere. The one job that matched me well enough to apply for looks like a lot of sweat, and comes at a 25% (or more) pay cut from my previous job. But I can see myself taking that job enthusiastically.

With no other good news, today I went on Craigslist.com and did four things:

1. Searched for posts of people wanting anything I can viably offer.
2. Posted my resume.
3. Posted a notice for my mandolin/guitar services.
4. Posted an ad to finally sell all those comic books taking up space in my apartment.

This is serious stuff. I am not yet at the end of my rope, but I sure can see it clearly from here.

- 30 -

UPDATE: Portions of the original post have been removed to respect the wishes of the person they made mention of.

Canada's EI - the staff are great but the process bites

Well I'm evidently not the only one left confused by the Service Canada website's process for registering Employment Insurance claims. Another blogger, the Rural Canadian, has had a pretty tough go of it himself, with no action on his claim after 16 weeks - 16 weeks! - of fruitless effort.

That's enough time for any number of financial horrors to befall a family. I know I couldn't hold out that long.

So, no time to waste: I went down to my local EI office yesterday afternoon, and I found it was staffed with courteous, bilingual people and my visit took just 20 minutes altogether, including wait time. The reason for making the trip was simply to produce the RoE (Record of Employment), and since I'd already entered the other info online, the only thing left to do was to stamp my RoE with the date it was received. They then offered to give me a photocopy - which I gladly took since it was the only type of receipt available.

The agent then mentioned the importance of going online or calling in with an update bi-weekly, and how by missing just one, my benefits would be cut-off. So this process begins immediately, and that's the part you have to go through the "epass" login to do. (I swear I could sense she was bracing herself for my reaction to this news, like it was her least favourite part of her job. But I just nodded, having already seen that warning on the website.)

I suppose some people lay into the poor Service Canada employees who are helplessly forced to explain this nasty little policy.

I was also told not to worry about the erroneous End Date I'd initially reported, which I had been forced to enter in order to finish the original application (three weeks ago now). I am not able to correct it myself, they said, and someone in Service Canada would see the true date on my RoE and make the necessary correction.

In retrospect, I notice the webpage for my local office has a fax number listed, so I wonder if making the trip in person was in fact obligatory. Perhaps faxing in the RoE would suffice, but I feel better having a copy that shows a stamp confirming they got it.

I just want to say once again how professional and empathetic the two staff members were (and the woman from the phone centre too). It was truly heartening to be made to feel like a human being, and the understanding they showed reminded me of the sort of feeling you get when you're in the hospital and scared and in pain and - by some stroke of luck - you just happen to get that sympathetic nurse who knows exactly what the term "caregiver" is all about. In short, I left feeling like I knew what I had to do, and the visit was well worthwhile.

Oh, and this was toward the end of the day on a Friday, during what must be the busiest time they have ever seen. Well done, Service Canada employees. I salute you. Now can somebody please tell me why the website is such a terrible mess? And get to work on Rural Canadian's claim, which by all rights should get fast-tracked like nothing else.

16 weeks. I'm still having a hard time digesting that.

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Copywriter/Editor/ITIL-knowledgable Process Designer for hire

Well, there's no more hiding it - the word is out (thanks, Simon!). Scott in Montreal got laid off and is seeking gainful employment in his field.

In a previous millennium, that field was Quick Service Restaurant Management (what, "fast-food" doesn't sound prestigious enough?)

But surely returning to that isn't the fate for someone with a BA in Communications and Journalism; plus over six years of experience writing marketing, technical and process documentation for different high-tech companies working in IT support activities.

At least that is my hope.

My first priority is getting the EI benefits set up so that if I don't find something soon, my kids don't find themselves foreclosed upon. As someone who has been actively working since he got his first paper route at 13, and has been without a job for less than 6 months cumulatively in the 26 years since, let me start by saying I have never, ever, received any government handouts (unless you include universal child bonuses and child tax credits). I have worked my whole life, and a good deal of it for minimum wage or slightly above. Even when I got my first McDonald's paycheck ($3.54 an hour, back in 1985) I was paying into the UI/EI fund.

Given that my former employer has seen all its usual avenues for financing dry up completely, and they can't even make payroll right now - despite having just had the biggest selling year in their company history - they have only promised the bare minimum required by law in severance pay. At that, they even demanded I come in and work during that two week period. So the upshot is: I haven't received any income since mid January, and only received my Record of Employment, required by the Canadian government to process my application for benefits, yesterday.

Being a hip, online type of guy, I decided to start by setting up an account and application on the Service Canada website on the day I received my layoff notice (I and 25% of the staff of the small Montreal head office, where my whole department was slashed). The website even recommended beginning the process immediately, whether the RoE was in hand or not, so that's what I did.

Before long, I found the form and started filling it out. Then I got to the place where it asks for the End Date of my employment (which was to be, officially, February 6th). Only: the application wouldn't accept my entry since it was later than the current day. Well I'd gotten this far and there was no overriding it so I decided the best way to proceed was to enter the current date, and then I would go back and correct it two weeks later, once the actual End Date came up.

Well, ITIL best practices for online service delivery demand an email notification and Access Management in the form of a username and password - the standard sort of thing Yahoo or Google or most utilities and online banking use for security, validation and service customization/quality of service.

Nothing like that over at Service Canada. As far as I can tell, they have their own proprietary practices, and I'm sorry, but they ain't the best.

Since putting in my request, I have been unable to retrieve it in any form; I wasn't allowed to print or save a copy, nor was I sent an email to tell me (or allow me to verify) my access credentials, or any link to where I might even view and edit it.

I did get a form letter in my (snail-) mailbox the following week, with an "IMPORTANT PERSONAL ACCESS CODE" (four digits) but no specific link on their website to actually, you know, enter my Access Code on, and, you know, actually access my application or anything.

They did include a 1-800 number, good during business hours and evenings. This proved to be useful after I was unable to navigate on their site back to my application, nor to any login button or place I could enter my spiffy four-digit "Access Code".

However, all three times I have tried to use the 1-800 number, I received a message telling me all their lines were busy and informing me to try again later. I wasn't even given an option to wait in a queue for the next available agent. Yikes.

I guess this is all part of making sure we don't lallygag about while living luxuriously off the public teat.

I'll post more on my experience soon. Right now I'm going to try the online service again and see if I didn't miss something the first 300 times.

- 30 -

What was that about corporate greed and corruption?

Just in case you missed it at the congressional hearings into the AIG collapse, here is a sweet little tidbit:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., also said that even as losses were engulfing the company, AIG executives depleted AIG's capital through stock buybacks and higher dividends.

Pretty much sums up a sick and twisted situation for you. Looks like things are going to get ugly, and we have barely scratched the surface.

For more blood-boiling AIG outrages - even post-bailout! - see this stuff over at dailykos.

- 30 -

No Depression?

Oh joy:

The word “recession” wouldn’t describe the deep structural problems affecting everything from the U.S. housing sector to the Canadian oil industry, said Bank of Nova Scotia chief economist Warren Jestin.

“You have to invent a new word to describe what we’re in now,” he said after the banks presented their perspectives at the Economic Club today.

How about: Global Economic Shitstorm?

But please, no depression. (Apologies to Uncle Tupelo).



- 30 -