Description: The Lipstick Index is perhaps one of the most unusual measures of economic performance you may have encountered. Essentially, this measure says that when times are tough, consumers will still avail themselves of smaller luxuries like skin care and perfumes in the face of cut backs on larger purchases. Leonard Lauder, the former CEO… Read more »
Posts By: Brent White
News Deal with Google
Description: The government of Canada and online giant Google have finally reached a deal regarding use of Canadian news on the web. The deal comes three weeks before the federal government’s Bill C-18, the Online News Act, comes into effect. Google has agreed to pay $100 million a year to Canadian news organizations for use… Read more »
Crunch Time for Ontario Universities
Description: Universities in Ontario are banding together to try and find cost savings through efforts like joint procurement and combining course offerings, all in the shadow of provincial government pressures to find efficiencies before they will be allowed to increase tuition fees. But the Council of Ontario Universities stated the fiscal situation is becoming “increasingly… Read more »
Our Tax Dollars; Korean Jobs?
Description: The governments of Canada and Ontario are taking some heat after revelations that 1,600 workers from South Korea will be arriving in Windsor, Ontario to install equipment at the NextStar battery plant. Canadians may be rightly concerned, as the provincial and federal governments have contributed billions to bring the battery plant and the related… Read more »
Is Self-checkout in Trouble?
Description: The self-checkout may be in a bit of trouble as some retailers are reconsidering the future of this mode. Increased losses due to shoplifting is certainly a factor for retailers to consider. Adrian Beck of the University of Leicester has studied self-checkouts for over ten years, and he notes they may account for one… Read more »
New Limits on RESPs
Description: If you are post-secondary education student benefiting from of a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP), you may have some good news for your finances. The federal government has upped the amount full-time students can withdraw from the education assistance payments (EAP) portion for their first 13 weeks of study from $5,000 to $8,000. The… Read more »
No Strike at No Frills
Description: A last minute deal has averted a strike at discount grocer No Frills. Union President Lana Payne said the new “agreement delivers pattern wages and many other improvements for our members.” An immediate raise of $1.50 an hour appears to be one of the gains. The union had noted that it has been a… Read more »
“Here is how platforms die” – The We Work Story
Description: Like a number of other highly-hyped organizations, We Work, a company that was supposed to reinvent the office by giving temporary space to the workforce, has failed. We Work tallied up $16 billion in losses since introducing its first location in New York in 2010. John Andrew, a real estate consultant, said that “They… Read more »
A Good Year for the Wealthy
Description: According to Statistics Canada, 2021 was a good year for the wealthy. Canada’s top 1% of income earners saw their incomes go up by 9.4% that year, with the top 0.1% doing even better with an increase of 17.4%, pushing them to an average of nearly $2.1 million. Statistics Canada noted similar increases were… Read more »
International Accounting Day
Description: Friday, November 10, was International Accounting Day. For a discipline that is used to operating out of the limelight, this is one day of the year that focuses on what exactly it is that accountants do. Accounting can be traced back thousands of years to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. International Accounting Day comes… Read more »