Seems like every week we have either a 'snow day' , or an 'In Service' day.
Now, a snow day is not when it is snowing a blizzard, it is when the school buses are not running down dirt roads. This is because the rural dirt roads are not salted to melt the ice. This makes them dangerous to drive on when there is ice present, and particularly when it is above freezing.
What the heck this has to do with closing the school God only knows.
It is every parents responsibility to ensure that their child goes to school. If those same parents choose to live on a road that is likely to be dangerous at times, then I am sure that they have means of transport to deal with that, such as a 4 wheel drive vehicle, probably fitted with studded tires.
The school boards make a decision on whether to close the schools, when they should be making the decision as to whether the buses run on dirt roads.
These irresponsible School Board idiots have little sense of modern reality, they are on salary, and have no concept of the disruption it can cause when a child is forced to stay home unnecessarily. The cost, both to the family, the breadwinners of which are more than likely paid hourly, as well as the companies that employ them, is massive. Yet the school board people get their pay that has been supplied in the form of taxes that have presumably been levied upon the very same people that the School Boards are disrespecting.
And the whole thing is given the excuse that the School Board can be sued if an accident occurs. Well, I have news for them - I pay them to educate my child, now if they would just keep the darn school open, they could do just that.
Then, there are the In Service days.
Once again, the way to get something sounding legitimate is to give it a name. Corporations do this all the time. By giving these days a name, we are expected to accept them. And sadly, we seem to do just that.
I cannot imagine finding a single company that employs people, that would close down their operation for a full day, with pay, so that training or meetings could be undertaken.
It is a scam, and we, the taxpayers, are paying for it all. I say that IN Service should be a requirement of the job, and should take place at the weekends, in the form of mandatory overtime that is already paid for by the fact that the pay is a monthly salary.

Here is a challenge for anyone wanting to try it.
Go around the internet to pages that are representing companies who are selling items, or seem to be. Then send an email inquiry using the 'contact us' link that most pages have.
You will find that less than 50% respond.
So much for doing online business. The only way that it can be done is by buying like a maniac, without wanting to know what the exact details are of your intended purchase.

Originally, the term 'customer service' was given to an act that corrected a sales error. It was a matter of credit to the selling company that they backed up their products, allowing greater confidence in buying from them.
These days, the situation is far from that.
Most call centres are run by companies who are employed as contractors by the selling company. Their agendas are different from those of the actual selling company, as they are devoted to 'customer management'.
The selling company can now adopt whatever tactics they like to sell products, and they can do so knowing that the offended customers will be 'managed' by someone else.
The individuals answering the phones are dedicated to meeting statistics that are nothing to do with the phoning-in customer, as they are set by the contractor.

The final result of all this is that when you phone a 'customer service' department, you now have to be prepared to be 'managed'.

My Missus dropped her cellphone and broke it. She went back to using an old one we had. That was back a few weeks now, I think it was at the end of October.
So, she phoned up and ordered a new phone, and signed up for a 3 year contract to get the phone free.
The delivery was given as being 3 to 5 days.
We waited 2 weeks, nothing.
We phoned and they said that they had canceled the order due to a computer problem.
We were told that we could pick up the phone at a store, and get it credited to the account.
We went to the store and was told that this was not possible.
We phoned, now it was over 4 weeks without a phone, and were told that it was now in stock, and we could have it in 3 to 5 days.
We gave them 8 days, then when it didn't arrive, called again, and was told it was not on the way, it was pending, as the phones were not in stock.
We are now at the 6 week point, and we now have to wait 3 days for the order cancellation to go through, then we will, we are told, be able to pick up the phone from the store in the mall.

We are now looking back, and we have spent something like 2 hours on the phone all in order to be told a pack of lies, and this while we are attempting to give Rogers our business.

My advice would be that if you do business with this company, then phone back after speaking to them, and check that the promises made are under way, rather than screwed up.

This is probably another case of a company stinking from the top. For the life of me, I cannot imagine what the higher-ups are doing allowing the underlings to be this incompetent.

It seems that Remax Realty might actually be as deadbeat as their performance would seem to indicate. As those of you who read my blogs know, I believe that any organisation that stinks does so from the top down.
The thinking here is that if those at the bottom stink, then, provided those at the top are functioning properly, the poor bottom end performance issues will be dealt with.

A sign of REAL stupidity though is to address issues that are revealed by commentators like myself, and make an appearance of addressing the concerns, but then repeat the same behaviour than is being criticised.

And so it is with Remax Real Estate, a company, it seems, that you might be better avoiding.
After blogging about how they do not have a system where the listing agent responds to enquiries, and sending the link of this to Remax, I received a very quick reply agreeing that such things do occur, and suggesting that I review their website and give feedback on any flaws.

I rsponded immediately upon receiving the email, to say I would indeed participate as soon as time allowed. A few days later, I went to the website, and attempted a search for the same property that I was originally wanting more information about, and the only way I could find it was by entering the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) number, which of course under normal circumstances I would not have.

So, let's summarise the performance of the Remax organisation:
They listed a property, a piece of land.
It appears as a listing in the MLS system, which is Canada wide, and presumably run by someone other than Remax.
This means I can get a number for that MLS listing.
There is also a linked form page on the MLS website to allow contact with the listing agent for more details.
The Remax listing agent fails to respond.
I send an email to MLS suggesting that they perhaps ought to not list contact info that is not supported by the listing agents.
I get no reply from MLS.
When you search for land at the website of the listing office, it fails to appear in the search results.
I attempt to contact the listing agent that way, and get no response.
I attempt to contact the listing office main contact, and get a response from someone who identifies themselves as an employee. This is sent from an email address that allows no replies.
The email sends with it what is described as a 'cut', which turns out to be the information already seen at the MLS website.
It also suggests that if I want more info, phone the listing agent at - then a number. This is despite the fact that I specifically mentioned that I want to do business by email, which was an option on the original form, and that I confirmed by mentioning it. My reason for this is that I prefer to have things written where I can later give them consideration, and discussion with the Missus.
I am now by this time 2 weeks into trying to get more information regarding the listing.
I then do a blog post, and criticise Remax. I send the link to Remax presumably the head office.
I get a quick response that was very positive, and suggested i review and comment upon the Remax website.
To be polite, I reply immediately to confirm receipt, and mention I will participate immediately that I have the time.
A few days later, I respond after finding that there is no way that I can detect, by using the Remax website, that they have the specific piece of land I was interested in. I also mention that perhaps a greater issue was the failure of the listing agent to respond in any way.
That was nearly a week ago, and Remax have failed to even acknowledge the receipt  of my email, despite the fact that it  was upon their own suggestion that I reviewed the site and obtained the results that I did.
I have just a few seconds ago tried again, and the website is so poor that the lowest price I can select is $300,000 this means that the $17,900 piece of land has no chance of being in the results. Not that it showed up even when the price selection tool was working.

Conclusion:
If you intend listing a property, choose a proper real estate agent, not one from Remax. I feel sad for the person that is trying to sell their piece of land. They are probably being told that it has had no enquiries on it.
Sad.

I sent the link to my blog entry below to Remax.
 I was actually delighted that they responded intelligently, and also they actually agreed that things could be better.
Maybe things are generally changing in the world, and the CEO's and the like are realizing that they are no longer looked upon as God-like.
In fact, those in Wall Street have become similar to drunk drivers, the behaviour used to be acceptable, but no longer is.

I wish Remax all the best in resolving any issues that they (and other companies who are probably not improving!) currently have, it will be interesting to see if positive changes occur.

So, back to my real estate quest.
The online form has a button to state whether I prefer email or phone as a contact means, and I chose email, and I believe I mentioned also in the text that I prefer email as a means of contact.
The property is a piece of land:
http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?vd=&SearchURL=%3fMode%3d0%26vs%3dLand%26ret%3d303%26curPage%3dpropertySearch.aspx%26pro%3d-1%26lsu%3d7%26wftg%3d1%26mp%3d0-25000-0%26mrt%3d0-0-4%26trt%3d2%26of%3d1%26ps%3d10%26o%3dA&Mode=0&PropertyID=7436492
The address above is from mls.ca which is the Canadian multiple listing service that does not use email either!
The realtor is presumably the person stated as being Kevin Clarke - maybe he is out of the country on vacation, or has decided not to serve the listing he has taken from the property owner, who knows.

I did, however get a reply of sorts once I emailed the ReMax South Shore 12246 and explained once more that I had no reply.
Here it is:
"Here is the listing cut for the property that you are interested in. If you have any questions, you can contact the listing agent at 902-826-2083"

I clicked the link that was in the email and marked 'New Properties" and was taken to a page that had the same or even less information than the MLS listing!
Presumably that is what a 'cut' is! Or maybe I am expected to understand real estate in-crowd slang.
The sender of the email identified herself by name, and underneath gave her position as being 'employee'. Now, remember I have stated a preference for email as a means of contact - well, guess what! The email she sent was from a 'noreply' email address! So we have TOTAL communication failure regarding email as a preference.

The sad thing here is that an individual somewhere has listed their little piece of land with these fools, and is actually expecting a sale to result!

Interestingly, this property listing cannot be found at the Remax South Shore website. Perhaps the client is insignificant to the prima donnas at this Remax office.

My thinking is resounding - avoid Remax, and in particular, the South Shore branch in Nova Scotia. It is just too much hard work attempting to give them my business.
And meanwhile, no doubt, they will proudly continue to give their email address as a  means of contact, maybe just to show how tuned in they are to modern living.

I now would no longer be interested in the property anyway - if things are this hard to do, then maybe they are fated not to be.

Most companies are run by individuals who pay little attention to details. They go through life presumably considering themselves too important to give good service to customers, and the sad fact is that there have been, traditionally, more customers right there to take the place of those who are ticked off and vow never to give that company their business. Chrysler corporation sits high on this list - presumably their statistical advisers indicated to the higher-ups that they can make more profits by making defective products and not honoring commonsense in fixing the issues. Their transmissions are a great example of this.

I was surprised though, when, in the current economical climate, I made an online enquiry via the website http://www.mls.ca where I had seen a listing that was of interest, and, as I currently have my own property up for sale, am positioned to make an offer subject to my own sale.

Clicking on the link brought up a form, and I filled it in. That was 3 days ago. After not getting a response the following day, I then contacted the realtor agent by email. That was 2 days ago.

Now, can you imagine having a corner store, and as people walk in, refusing to serve, or even acknowledge their presence?

The big question is, assuming I follow this through and somehow buy the property, then if and when I come to sell it, do they imagine in their wildest dreams that I will list it with them? I even went directly to that selling agents website, and it isn't even listed there!

WHAT A LOAD OF LOSERS!

Wall Street gurus or whatever they might be called are currently seemingly continuing to use whatever excuse they can to keep the market value swinging up and down, even as the market lowers as an overall situation. Take the price of oil - when it goes up, the market will go down due to this being a bad thing that will increase the overheads in running many businesses. Then when it goes down, this is made to be a bad thing due to it showing that the economy is slowing down.

The fact is, Wall Street are sabotaging the world economy, commencing with the US economy, and they are doing so for personal greed.

All the hooha of the US presidential election is over. Back to the status quo.
And what, exactly, is the status quo?
Right now, the descent of share values continues, with the fluctuations that the bigboy investment community are manipulating so that they can rob funds to take advantage from the demise.
My forecast is that they might go as low as about 20% of their previous high value. The bigtime investors have hit a goldmine, they have found out that if they are even more stupid and irresponsible than they were when they were removing funds slower, then they can make millions of personal profits provided they can keep the variations in values occurring.
The truth is that they all need locking up.

During the current electioneering for the position of President, there appears to have been a series of attacks, particularly coming from the McCain side.

Obama has almost been accused of being a terrorist, a Muslim (if that is a threat), and now the latest is a socialist.

This is insane! McCain sees this as a negative! He is truly out to lunch!

The plain fact is that the self-regulating of the capitalist system has failed to work just as communism failed to work in the USSR.

Why on earth the people of the USA would want a system where the wealth is given to a few, instead of spread around, I have no idea.

The fact is that the main body of Americans are not part of the elitist few who gain by having a capitalist system.

The fact also remains that the money gets stolen out of the system if the system continues running the way it has.

Time to wake up, McCain!

There are some things we accept in life that are less than perfect, and often there is a good reason for having to tolerate the lower level product or service.

Then, there are other things that we know are wrong, but just accept because they have always been that way.

I forget now how the toilet doors on public washrooms are set up in the UK, so this refers to Canada, and maybe the US.

We walk into the public washroom, do our thing, then wash our hands (unless we are an executive or manager - I notice that statistically, based on my own observations, the cleaner the clothes and higher the rank, the less likely the hands get washed) then we walk out, right? No. We actually have to pull the door handle to exit.

Design stupidity at it's best (or should that be worst?). It would be really commonsense to have the door hinged so that it pushes to exit, and has to be pulled to enter, but the design morons, possibly with salaries exceeding 100 grand a year, have forced us to do the following:

1 - Wait until another person enters, and grab the door once it is open.
2 - Wash hands, keep paper towel (if there are paper towels), and use it to open the door, then trap the door open with a foot, and throw the damp paper towel into or towards the bin.
3 - After washing our hands, pull a handle that has been undoubtedly contaminated with the fecal or urinary products of others.

As each day of the economic crisis goes by, I mention to my wife what will be happening the next day, and am generally correct. Yet watching TV, it seems that the reporters are always surprised by whatever is happening. So, just for them, here is a brief rundown on what is happening.

The stock market individuals who have enough clout to control things have no stake in America, or even the global picture, they just don't care as  long as they personally are making money.

They can only make that money when the stock market either rises, or if falling, fluctuates as it gets lower. Right now it is going down generally, so they have to keep it fluctuating.

As I forecast months ago, the countries least affected by this behaviour are the ones who never joined in the global system of the rich getting richer, and poor getting poorer.

So, all you reporters out there, get with it. You now have no excuse, you now know how it works, so stop feigning surprise when the stocks move up and/or down.

Oh, and my forecast? It will continue to fluctuate until the percentage to be made doesn't have a high value in dollars due to the devaluation of the shares. Remember, those individuals, being driven by greed, are not interested in making small amounts of money, only large amounts.

On Sunday night, the TV program '60 Minutes' had an interview with a guy called Jim Grant who to say the least was less than impressed with Wall Street and the cronies that make it.

Now we have the whole story.
The poorly setup mortgages that involved the selling of housing to high risk individuals, were packaged together and sold as a kind of bulk deal to insider banks. The paperwork that was generated as the main documentation for these bulk deals was written by mathematicians and computer geeks, and was telephone book in size, and not clearly understandable.

So, the stupid thieving morons at the top who were dealing with this documentation, presumably did want to reveal that:
A They do little or nothing to earn their income.
B They did not understand the documentation
C As long as it made money in the short term all was well with it as far as they were concerned.

So, the bulk loans were sold, then, GET THIS! guaranteed by the same banks that were selling them, by means of insurances that were given another name, 'Credit Default Swaps',  to make them seem legitimate, yet allow them to avoid meeting legal standards for insurance products, namely, that the insurance company must have assets sufficient to pay claims when they occur.

It would be like me brokering the buying of a house for $100 grand, and getting my bank to give a mortgage to a jobless person for the purchase, because I guarantee the mortgage, even though I have only about $100 bucks to my name. Commonsense dictates that the jobless guy has a large risk of defaulting, and the guarantee I gave is obviously worthless.

Like the famous house of straw, those little Piggies on Wall Street built it so weak that it could be huffed, and puffed, and blown down. What a bunch of Di**heads.

I have for months now forecast the demise of the capitalist system. Energy limitations will prevent the expansion needed to sustain the business and political model that capitalism needs to survive.

It is maybe a good thing that the Bush bailout plan has failed to pass the Congress. What is needed is radical change, and although the bailout did give some hope, in that it indicated that the problem was seen to be there, in the long term it would probably have failed due to no real change being made in the way things are done. In short, the removal of massive funds by those who have the power to do so would remain the way business is done.

Quite simply, there is too much self-serving greed in the capitalist system at the top levels. This makes it look similar in some ways to the Soviet Communist system that failed.

It may be that the US will end up with a similar political and business model to that of China, where the government is forceful in its dictation of the way things will be done in a communistic manner, while encompassing capitalism at the lower levels.

For now, we have a good situation, in that those who have been sucking the life blood from the system will soon be no longer able to do so, as there will be no blood to suck. The risk is that this will make the US similar in some ways to the Germany of the 1930's, and we all know what happened there.

I believe that the US capitalist system that has worked for over a hundred years is dead and gone in any practical sense, and that the morons who run it and control it will continue to try to save it, even though there is no point in saving what is unsustainable in the long term anyway. They are too stupid and self-serving to figure that out.
Having said that the George Bush plan to save things is good, it might actually be better in the long term for the US economy to melt down so bad that it ruins the global order of things.
Such an event will surely remove the power from those who manage things by covering up their own failure by throwing money at the problems. Actually, that was an interesting thought - maybe George is doing that!
The main difference between the first world economic system, and that of a 'banana republic' is that the corruption in the banana republic is at a lower level, and is more transparent, and also more obvious as it involves cash money changing hands.

So, the advantage of the meltdown, if it occurs totally, is that it will get rid of those who are the cause of the woes. The stock market thieves. Those who suck the financial life blood from corporations in order to achieve personal gain. Those who create no added value to corporations. Those who award themselves millions of dollars in bonuses to reward their short-term performance in ransacking the assets of a company in order to create share dividends.
It will possibly reduce the financing to organisations such as the CIA, who seem to interfere in the natural politics of every country, so presumably it will reduce that same interference. There is a risk, however, that other powers will replace the US, and behave in the same manner, yet with less responsibility, such as Russia maybe.
All in all, it might be good to lower the power at the Wall Street level, but might be a higher risk situation for the world in general if the meltdown goes higher up than that.
Or, the situation could be fixed by making it mandatory for any shareholder over a certain amount to have their shares locked in for ten years. Then these fly-by-night executives will be deterred from behaving in a manner that is detrimental in the long term.

The latest move by George Bush to fund the past profiteering and incompetence of the large US based financial institutions is interesting to say the least.

For months now, I have been giving the opinion that it needs a complete change of the political structure as capitalism as we have known it can never continue to succeed in the longer term due to the inability to expand due to energy shortages.

The taking over of financial institutions represents a move towards partial socialism. It would appear that neither full socialism, nor of course, communism, can succeed due to it causing low level corruption. But a blend of these different systems might work.

The key to anything working is to stop the drain of funds to those who have control and are literally stealing large amounts of the funds that the corporations require to maintain their existence.

Interesting......... I didn't expect that to happen.

It is a firm belief of mine that most people I have worked within a blue collar environment do a good job, or at least a fair one for the income received. Likewise those at the lower end in the white-collar positions.
They also do a good job at being accurate in meeting the requirements of what they are doing, this being driven by the fact that the product or service is dependent for success upon this. There is generally little room for substandard performance.

At the corporate level things are different. It is not only possible, but probable that there are high levels of complete stupidity at the higher levels. This is because there is a capability for this to occur with little impact upon sales, as the product will still generally get made DESPITE the stupidity, so the only real impact is upon profits, and the culture is that it can seldom be those at the top who are responsible.

Take a decision-maker at a large bank, for instance. When they screw up, they do so by putting something in place that will work well in some if not most respects, but it will fail massively when certain market conditions occur. Hopefully for the individual, these conditions will, by sheer luck,  not occur while they hold their position. On a personal level they can afford to gamble, as the money is not theirs, the profits will increase in the short term when they implement their decision, and so they will gain kudos for it. And if the whole deck of cards comes tumbling down, they will be seen as a poor victim of the corporate crash.

The public is getting savvy these days to the fact that the so-called 'experts' are not experts at all, but quite often business -degree holding idiots. They are becoming aware that the impression of competence is driven by dress-code only rather than performance in conducting business using common-sense. Also that the use of insider vocabulary tends to give the impression of knowledge that might not be there, or at least might not have any relevant significance.

The only thing that has prevented previous major economic failures is the fact that there are such excessive profits within the system that they can be misused to cover up stupid errors. And there is no accountability to prevent that money being spent for that purpose. Unlike the lower level workers who make the value added situation for the company, those at the top have the power to cover up their own shortcomings until such time as the impacts of those shortcomings get outside the internal corporate structure. They control the money, and they can decide to use it in a cover-up of their collective or singular dumb-ass errors.

Conclusion - Many of the respected higher level corporate career people are actually introverted, visionless incompetents who are incapable of seeing the forest because of the trees getting in the way.

I have in the past predicted that despite the descent of the US  economy, it will be made to fluctuate as it fails.
So, it seems that oil has dropped in price. You remember what oil is, right? Yup, you got it, it is the stuff that there is less of as each day passes, but we need to have it to run our SUV's. And because we need that, the US government, bless their little hearts, have always adopted a nice short term strategy of pleasing the people for a few years at a a time.

So, the oil drops in price so that the big shot investors can buy the shares at a low price, ready for the next increase. After all, it was probably the same investors who started to sell their shares while high in order to put the oil price down, allowing more buying at the low price, and more profit taking when it goes right back up there.
Down 10% , and then up , say, 30%. then down again 10% once we are used to paying the higher price, so it can be jacked up again.
I would say that the next profit taking will take place within the next 2 months, after the next increase that will, of course, far exceed this current decrease..

Global Economy Still Failing
As I have predicted in this and other blogs, the economy is failing globally, not just in the USA.

The US Dollar Failing As A Benchmark Currency
One reason for this might be the fact that the USA in the recent past converted the world standard for wealth over from being based on gold, which was basically mined in South Africa, to the United States Dollar, which is of course a US controlled item. And now because of a public confidence failure in the USA, the USA declines, and the world goes down with them.

It Will Not End Yet
The share values will continue their fluctuating slide for quite a while yet, allowing the investors, by buying and selling, and causing the fluctuations, to do 'profit taking'.
This is an interesting concept.

Taking Out 'Profits' From Corporations That Are Losing Money
You notice how investors can do 'profit taking', even when the value of the companies invested in is decreasing annually, and record losses will be recorded for many years to come.

This Is When It Will End
The slide will end when the leading nations that drive the world economy change what they are doing, which currently seems to be attempting to change the situation around by throwing money at to to stimulate spending, which has always worked in the past.
Corporate leaders just don't have enough vision, probably due to being interested only in short term gains, to realise that the old way is broken. There is no way that the markets can continue to expand, as there is declining energy at prices that will allow this to occur.

Sacrificing The Future
The leaders who control things, whether corporate or governmental, or whatever, by continuing using the old models of economics, are actually consuming the resources that will be needed to change the model itself. Just like shooting themselves in the foot.  Or, more accurately, shooting their children in the foot.