Category Archives: COMMENTARIES
TALKERS vs DOERS
Talkers – politicians, bureaucrats, managers giving orders, committees (“committees are notoriously known for not accomplishing anything”). Generally speaking, people on power trips who shy from being held responsible. Or, who enjoy ‘talking’ about all the impossibly difficult chores they have done – although it was others who worked hard and have done them, with their own two hands. Like: “I built a house, or a road or a bridge”.
When I say: “I renovated buildings including roofing, drywall, framing, flooring, tiles, and also grading roads and building wall for my own buildings, or building miles of fences for my horses”. That means, I did this using my own two hands and ‘elbow grease’, and if needed my trusted old 4-wheel drive truck. That also means that I did my own hunting in winter. Alone, or going out with my horse.
During my twenty six year in Alberta doing town and country construction for myself, I met a number of very impressive ladies. They worked hard. Ranching women. I never forget the lady to whom I had rented my land for grazing their cows, heifers and some young bulls. She arrived with a large truck/trailer which incidentally broke down in my yard upon arrival. Her partner, an Alberta cowboy, stood by while the lady went under her truck fixing it. As a women I find that rather impressive. I am like wise impressed by anything I can not do, such as using a big chainsaw, climbing up a big tree and start cutting from the top. That guy can impress me. And of course the many friends helping me with any technical construction work that I cannot do or are qualified to do.
But people who talk, talk, talk, not doing anything, just working with their mouth, no, does not fly with me. The downside is, of course, that rush decisions doing something have cost me a bundle. So, there you go: Talker vs. Doer.
NIGHTMARE CONDO
Continuation of my discussion on Condo Ownership. It can go very well or it can backfire. Costing the unsuspecting buyers their life savings. It is totally understandable that many who buy a home/property that is classified as a condominium may not fully comprehend what they are buying into. Primarily, unlike buying one’s own home on one’s own lot or land, with a condominium one buys (a) a commonly shared building, and (b) commonly shared land. The smaller the building, the easier it is to manage, in terms of repairs, regular maintenance and operation (heating, water, sewer, other municipal expenses). Operation also includes managing contracts for gardening, cleaning the building and grounds, and garbage removal etc. All these costs are shared by a number of owners who have purchased a share and reside in their own (four walls so to say) suite, for which they are responsible, and which they may improve or renovate, or repair. All owners also pay regular monthly fees for any of those expenses that affect the common shared portion. More often than not, there exist property management companies who under contract with all owners have the responsibility to manage the building and grounds, finances and insurances and sub-contracts for repairs, maintenance and operation. One of the major components of a good financing plan is (a) receiving sufficient monthly fees from the owners to build up a good solid contingency fund for future bigger expenses; (b) to be accountable to all owners and provide regular financial statements including audits by an independent auditing company; (c) manage a larger building responsibly, with transparency and allowing for regular information disclosure. Else, the situation arises of the NIGHTMARE CONDO. Because not only does the management of a condo corporation involve one property manager, but also a whole committee or group of people – themselves owners – who regularly meet and take decisions. Which is commendable, being volunteer positions, but can backfire when certain elements of “being on a power trip” play into this. From the four condo homes I have owned and never had any problems, until now, a slight warning: When buying a condo, look carefully at all condo documents (‘subject to purchase’), check the contingency fund (how much money is available for future larger expenses). With older buildings, after 30 or 40 years, one could assume that there should be a healthy fund. If monthly fees were not raised for years, then there is not enough money. Also new now as a rule is the Depreciation Report which is a fairly large document showing what systems or parts of the property need larger expenses within which time frame. If future expenses – let’s say 30 years forward – exceed the assessed value of the building, a purchase of any unit in that building would not be advisable. A good rule of thumb is: Buildings depreciate when they age, while land appreciates. All in the context of rising or falling property markets, of course.
Example of 2013 flood damages caused=video
TCPL Resources / Trans Canada – a history
TCPL Resources, 1980s subsidiary of Trans Canada Pipelines. Inside the culture. Eye witness account. During the 1980s, when Canada’s National Energy Program almost killed the oil industry in Alberta, many of us employed by those oil companies under false promises suffered. I personally was subjected to two company takeovers (Hudson’s Bay Oil & Gas Company takeover by Dome Petroleum around 1980 – HBOG does not exist anymore). I left HBOG after 4 years as a Sr. Systems Analyst/Designer shortly before its takeover. To accept a Senior IT position with Maligne Resources Ltd. (also does not exist anymore). By 1983 Maligne Resources [ http://www.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/finances/index.html?query=MALIGNE%20RESOURCES&field=org&match=exact ] was taken over by TCPL Trans Canada Pipelines Resources (Division).
Interesting, how large oil & pipeline corporations can create divisions, departments, and subsidiaries in a blink of an eye, for the sole purpose of either taking over other oil companies or divisions, or for the purpose of instigating massive layoffs (“culling”) campaigns. Mostly accompanied by a blatant disregard of human rights.
As a professional having worked for over 40 years in the IT and computer services field, in many international organizations in Europe and then – following my graduate IS program at Syracuse University, USA – many years in the Alberta oil industry. The experiences in the Alberta oil patch cannot be compared to anything I had experienced anywhere in the world, as far as professional conduct is concerned.
Hudson’s Bay Oil & Gas Co. was a good solid company. Too bad, they had to go down in history, after several takeovers. The worst experience was with – what does not exist anymore now – TCPL Resources, presumably at the time during the 1980s formed to takeover Maligne Resources Co.
[ more on this : https://renataveritasopinion.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/secondhand-smoke-tcpl-resources-ltd/ and http://renataveritashistory.com/2013/07/03/trans-canada-pipelines-tcpl-resources/ ]
SECONDHAND SMOKE – TCPL Resources Ltd.
Innocent bystanders swallowing poisonous smoke from smokers. Basically, I don’t care if anybody smokes or how much they smoke, the more the better.What I as a non-smoker care about is, though, to be forced to inhale that poison that others blow out. In other words: Swallow it. So, that I can continue to live.
A horror story follows: While working in Alberta’s oil industry from 1977 until the beginning of the 1990s, I was exposed in the workplace, in the offices, to second hand smoke. Myself I do not smoke, but many employees – particularly in the computer systems departments – did. This kind of (socially irresponsible) behavior lacking any controls or policies for protecting their employees resulted during those years in sickness, diseases of the lung and respiratory diseases. This to employees who were innocent bystanders, so to speak. Not only did our clothing get burned by employees walking around the workplace, burning cigarette in hand, but also during the last few years in the beginning of the 1980s while employed with TCPL Resources [ http://www.transcanada.com/splash/ ] this situation defied all descriptions. Arriving before 8 am for work, by 12 noon the air in the offices and corridors could be cut with a knife. Worse, because we in the computer department were sharing the air freely while working in open cubicles.
TCPL Resources took over our company Maligne Resources (a division of Dow Chemical) in 1983 . By fall I needed my first sinus surgery. Since the atmosphere inside TCPL Resources was such that we were not allowed to take out extended sick leave, I needed to go back to work soon after the surgery. My days were horror! My bleeding throat was almost choking me, while at the same time choking on others’ cigarette smoke. Of course, I commented on this situation, especially since already in all elevators in those Calgary, Alberta, high rise offices were notices posted on NO SMOKING. Result: By 1986, the new management (sent down from Toronto) started laying employees off in droves.
First to go were those (complaining about the smoking) and single mothers – like myself. The heavy smokers were kept.1986 was a bad year for finding any employment as a female systems professional (single mother with child). Not only did I loose my (almost vested) company pension benefits, but had to leave behind my home in Alberta and my son, go East (Ontario) and finally launch a job as a Systems (self-employed) contractor.
Years later, I found listed among others in relevant sources on companies and their social responsibility status, TCPL Resources (this arm may not exist anymore). Makes me really sick, when companies deliberately ‘kill’ their employees, than apply dirty business practices for layoff, then appear – newly born and re-invented – as socially responsible!
SMOKING CAN KILL – the Lung Association British Columbia : [ http://www.bc.lung.ca/ ] [ http://www.ilo.org/safework_bookshelf/english?content&nd=857170157
CONDOMINIUM OWNERSHIP
(continued)
In all those years I am in Canada I have bought, owned and re-sold my homes. After the very first one duplex that we rented, me and my little son. But not for long. In Alberta, homes with land. Not in all those years have I made any profits on it. Typically, buildings depreciate, while land appreciates. But all depends on location and demand. More than often locations where infrastructure is being developed will appreciate faster. Unluckily, I had sold land before the great boom in land prices and before an area near that piece of land would be revitalized. Condo’s or Condominiums – share ownerships in a condo corporation – whereby shareholders own a portion of the building, the grounds and have their own little suite where they can live and renovate, improve, or more likely maintain and repair. Advice is only given here based on my own experienced. The market is not only dependent on supply and demand, but also on fluctuations in the overall financial markets. One of the real frustrating concepts in condo ownership is twofold: (a) loss of control over one’s investment; (b) cost sharing.
[referred to as: “mitgefangen, mitgehangen” – meaning, if a large repair is needed for a condo building, then all owners must share the cost]. For larger and especially older buildings this can become very costly. Moreover, if a property management company had been in control for years and either mismanaged funds or neglected the upkeep of the building, or both. Example: Of the four condominiums I had owned and re-sold three of them meanwhile, the last I still live in has been a disaster. My out of pocket cost I paid for my share has been let’s say $240,000 in an area where most condo’s go for much more usually. The last assessed value is pegged at $25,000 for the building – as per 2013. The major balance of assessed value is for the land.
The ‘new kid on the block’ that came along is the DEPRECIATION REPORT. That’s now standard for all older condominium buildings. At least here in BC, Canada. Pretty straight forward: Estimate the cost of all facilities and assets of the building, the improvements inside and out, and then look forward for the next 10 years or longer, what needs to be replaced. Prepared mostly by engineering firms who simply estimate all repairs, replacements and maintenance to all building systems and facilities in order to budget the cost for these, to be born by the owners of the condo building and lands. These predicted estimated cost fore casts can largely exceed the assessed value of the property. When only considering the building. At a certain benchmark – let’s say 5 years from preparing the Depreciation Report – when all predicted costs to keep the building ‘alive’ far exceed the assessed value of the building at that time, then the decision should be made to sell out to a developer, land value only.
If I were in a position of funds to permit myself NOT to live in a condo, I would run as fast as I can away from this unfortunate concept of ownership.
[http://homebuying.about.com/od/manufacturedhomes/bb/manufactured.htm]
BIG PHARMA
Lack of transparency to the public about drugs is definitely the most significant reason why many prescription drugs turn out to become ‘diseases’ or are leading to death in patients. Who is to blame ? Governments working in conjunction with the pharmaceutical industries, the big corporations.
Governments: In many countries Governments ensure that clinical studies on new drugs in particular and by the pharmaceutical industry are made public. In order to approve pharmaceutical products, these studies are relied upon. This process is obligatory in most of the industrialized countries. These studies also permit independent researchers to offer their input into any new drugs. Often this is not done. The Big Pharma industries have become too powerful.
On the other end of this scale, the question is: how can patients protect themselves against adverse effects by prescription medications ? From my personal perspective, I can only say that, in all those years that I am in this particular city, in this particular country, I have discarded most prescriptions for questionable medications that were given to me by doctors. And with our current Medical Health Insurance system, most prescription drugs must be paid by the patients anyways, unless they are cheap and ineffective drugs. So, I might as well spend some time researching medical drugs data bases and reports on any drugs prescribed to me to ensure it is safe. And believe you me, no drug is safe. Prescription drugs mostly contain chemicals harmful to the body. To say the least, in the long run a patient may suffer from at least kidney failure, if not worse. Some interesting links follow:
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Big Pharma |
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Author(s) |
Jacky Law |
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Country |
UK |
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Subject(s) |
Pharmaceutical industry |
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Genre(s) |
Science writing, medicine, investigative journalism |
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Publisher |
Constable (UK), Carroll & Graf (US) |
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Publication date |
16 January 2006 |
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Pages |
256 |
| ISBN 978-1845291396 | |
Big Pharma: How the World’s Biggest Drug Companies Control Illness is a 2006 book by British journalist Jacky Law. The book examines how major pharmaceutical companies determine which health care problems are publicised and researched.[1]
Outlining the history of the pharmaceutical industry, Law identifies the failure of a regulatory framework that assumes pharmaceutical companies always produce worthwhile products that society will want.[1]
Law has written about health care for 25 years, seven of them as associate editor of Scrip Magazine, a monthly magazine for the drugs industry.[2]
Big Pharma industries relying on the fact that transparency = disclosure of relevant information to the public and ultimately the patients is not enforced by governments as it should be. Resulting in massive fines for inadequately tested drugs with wide-ranging side effects. [http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/bigpharma].
INVESTMENT STRATEGIES
[update & extension of my previous post – a link to a website article, precisely the way I think about this issue of FINANCIAL ADVICE: http://recessionista.com/work/3-typical-pieces-of-financial-expert-advice-debunked/?utm_source=taboola ]
“Stay away from Financial Advisers, do your own research, use your own experience, learn from your own experiences, and be careful with where you put your heard-earned money”. Two ways of loosing money in a Bank: (1) The Bank gets broke and has not enough capital to pay out all of its customers (remember world-wide banking crisis, or entire governments fail), once the big run for it starts. (2) You buy an investment and receive a little bit of interest. And it adds to your overall income and bumps you up into a higher tax rate, and erodes due to inflation. Meaning, money just sits there and does nothing for yourself.
Here in Canada we have another type of instrument – that is the Tax Free Savings Account TFSA. Depending on your Bank, the interest rates paid to you are typically low. If many are taking advantage of this TFSA, then the Government has some money to work with. In fact, it helps the Government more than it helps you because the interest paid is negligible. Other investments are usually more subject to losses, such as Mutual Funds, Trust Funds. Or, be careful, buying any IPO’s – Initial Public Offerings. Wait a little until their value drops.
I did my homework. Had some money in one of those Mutual Funds, a big fund, which in fact is a ‘Fund of Funds’. Dangerous stuff, because one cannot easily find out what type of companies, sectors or financial institutions this fund invests in. I spent one day to get to the bottom of it and found: Several obscure banks – of unknown origin and country – that did not even exist. Now I knew why I lost so much in this FUND OF FUNDS (which by the way had been solicited). Got rid of all my mutual funds. Mutual Funds (like Condominium ownership) work on the principle: We are all in the same boat, the boat goes down, everybody in it does. And my advice to investment advisers: Try not to sell mutual funds to clients who are into their 70s, because those funds are for the long haul.
MAY 8, 1945 VE DAY – WWII ENDED
Big celebrations – the day the war ended officially. And do I remember May 1945 when the armies marched in, I was 7 years old. The defeated Fascist factions in all European countries who stood beside each other helping to exterminate hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and the soldiers who killed millions of unarmed civilians. Big cause for celebrations, ring the bells, march, march, march and celebrate. And celebrate all the big heroes of war, including those who were guilty, changed their shirts and threw away their uniforms. They ran, like the rats leaving the sinking ship. You meet them again here in North America, in Central America and especially in South America. Still spreading their fascist propaganda, and instructing their children and their grand children in the heroic things their SS Officer fathers did over in Austria, or Germany, or Hungary, or elsewhere. Having lived abroad and in North America for the past 40 years, I do know these people are still everywhere. In fact they celebrate big time all sort of war remembrances in their Royal Legions. Ain’t that the truth !
Now, how is that for the other – still alive victims – you think they celebrate, for having lost their homelands ? Not so. I have no homeland, it got destroyed totally, and is now home to thousands of immigrants from all over the world. Carved up so to speak, by all sorts of incoming peoples. Including war criminals, who camouflage now as war veterans. Who on earth would like to live there ? Well, not me. On the other hand, the country I am now a citizen of, is neither my homeland. However, the moment North America will actively finally search and ‘destroy’ all those war criminals hiding out there, maybe then my new country can become my homeland.
DEGRADING ADVERTISING ^ STEREOTYPING WOMEN
From my life long observation of the ‘human species’ I must say that there are more men than women who have big bellies. [Pregnant females excepted herein]. Causes = from growing fat, life style, or beer drinking, or lack of exercise, or from bad posture or – what is more likely – from lack of caring, because as the saying goes, a men does not have to care about his appearance as much as a woman. This particular attitude is a typically male excuse. Usually, we refer to this condition as “ when will he be due for his baby ?. http://www.arimifoods.com/reasons-why-men-are-becoming-pregnant-and-how-to-avoid-it/ . Talking about – “as a man I don’t need to care” – go to any plastic surgeon and get a face life and ask yourself (or the doctor, if you know him well enough) – why don’t you ever get yourself a facelift ? Answer, most likely is: “I don’t need one, I am a man”. This may explain why most television commercials single out women as having big bellies and – Oh, those poor creatures – needing all sorts of dangerous para-medications from which they can develop anything and everything under the sun, even death. There are thousands of those stereotype commercials intended to single out women and to humiliate women. He, look at the commercials for exercise machines. Good looking male bodies. Look at the embarrassing ones (ailments from which both women and men suffer), you will only see women exposed and needing this or that obscure and questionable witchcraft medication. [And of course these are all ‘clinically proven’ whatever that means.]
COMMENTARIES - OPINIONS 