Business

Friday November 27, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 27, 2020

Black Friday takes on ‘existential moral dimension’ amid pandemic

One of the biggest shopping days of the year is here, just as public health officials impose tighter restrictions in an effort to slow the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The confluence of Black Friday and rising COVID-19 cases has added what experts are calling an “existential moral dimension” to a retail event that has gradually become partof the holiday shopping season in Canada and a crucial sales vehicle for businesses.

November 25, 2011

Black Friday, famous for its pre-dawn lineups and hordes of bargain hunters, has increasingly eclipsed Boxing Day as the country’s biggest Christmas shopping event. Yet those wall-to-wall crowds are exactly what makes the shopping spree a potential health hazard in the time of a global pandemic.

“We’re seeing Black Friday fall at a particularly inopportune time in the pattern of infections,” says Tandy Thomas, an associate professor in the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

“There’s a lot more moral complexity to Black Friday this year than we’ve ever seen before.”

Critics have long denounced the rampant consumerism of Black Friday, an event that traces its origins to post-Thanksgiving sales in the United States.

However, retailers rely on holiday sales in general — and Black Friday in particular — to survive the slower winter months. 

May 9, 2020

“It’s the No. 1 day for a lot of retailers in Canada,” says retail analyst Bruce Winder. “It’s literally make-it-or-break-it time for many.”

This year, the Black Friday debate has devolved into “virtuous versus sinful,” says Markus Giesler, associate professor of marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business.

“Black Friday has been reimagined through the lens of the pandemic along moralistic lines,” he says. “There’s an existential moral dimension to Black Friday this year that has amplified the usual debate.” 

Whereas previous concerns over Black Friday sales hinged on the ethics of an event in which consumers are pitted against one another in a scramble to get a discounted big-ticket item, sometimes resulting in chaos and violence, the issue now is whether in-store shopping will become a potential super-spreader retail event.

Retailers have acknowledged the risk and encouraged customers to shop early this year. Big box stores, which often attract throngs of people on Black Friday, started promotions as early as October.

Life in a Pandemic

Yet despite the online deals, analysts expect some people will still show up in-person on Friday in the hopes of snagging a doorbuster deal.

It’s the thrill of a good find in-store, versus the more transactional and utilitarian nature of online shopping, he says.

“There’s probably still going to be an awkward pandemonium in some stores with lineups and crowds,” Giesler adds. 

“Overall, it should be a little more subdued, but there will still be some deal-prone consumption. I expect we’ll still see some door crashing.” (Times-Colonist) https://www.timescolonist.com/black-friday-takes-on-existential-moral-dimension-amid-pandemic-1.24245971

 

Saturday April 25, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 25, 2020

Georgia Hairdessers Weigh the Order to Reopen During a Pandemic

On Monday, within hours of Governor Brian Kemp’s announcement that many Georgia businesses could reopen on Friday, Maureen, a sixty-nine-year-old retired schoolteacher, texted her hairdresser, who owns a salon in Atlanta, about an hour from Maureen’s home, in Athens. “The Gov says you can open! 🙂 My appointment is on Friday of this week. What’s your plan?” Maureen, who voted for Kemp, made the appointment eight weeks earlier, before the coronavirus pandemichad shut down much of the country, and she was hoping to keep it. Her hairdresser, a man in his early sixties who asked that I not use his name, did not vote for Kemp. He told her that he would not be reopening until the following Monday—and only in a limited way. Maureen could try one of his other hairdressers, he said, but he wouldn’t be seeing clients himself until May 12th at the earliest. And, the hairdresser told me a few days later, if “Kemp’s science project goes as expected”—by which he meant badly—“then I have no idea when.”

July 23, 2009

Nearly a thousand people in Georgia have died, so far, of complications from the coronavirus, according to the numbers that have been reported. (The actual number may be higher.) Like the Central Georgia health board and many others in the state and around the country, the hairdresser did not think it was time to shift pandemic protocols in order to reopen businesses, even with precautions like masks, gloves, and disinfectant. “I thought it was the most asinine decision any governor could have ever made,” he said, “given the science we’re presented with, what Fauci and the other guys are saying.” The hairdresser checks the daily case counts regularly, he said. “Atlanta has been spiking up and down,” he noted. “I think yesterday we had maybe twelve hundred new cases. Today, maybe seven hundred or so—but it’s not midnight yet, I don’t know.” There are more than twenty thousand confirmed cases in the state. He went on, “It’s pretty damn silly, insisting on a haircut right now. But, you have to understand, my clientele is very privileged. To them, this is a very big sacrifice, to go without a haircut. I’ve had people offer me money to come to their houses—what’s the difference that’s gonna make? I don’t know. It’s a very entitled world.”

September 11, 2007

The hairdresser’s employees are contractors, who rent booths from him at the salon. Shortly after the announcement, he sent them the Georgia State Board of Cosmetologists and Barbers’ guidelines on reopening, which he called “the craziest thing—social distancing while giving a haircut is hard.” The board recommends that barbers wear a face shield and gloves, as a start. “You need to be in a smock, too,” the salon owner went on, “and change your smock after every haircut, into another clean, sanitized smock. The client is in sanitized cape and smock and neck wrap. Then you have to sanitize your whole station and chair.” Taking each client’s temperature and having them answer a health questionnaire is also recommended. “If I were getting paid the salary of a surgeon,” the hairdresser said, “it might be worth all the scrubbing.”

Some of the contractors are willing to take risks to pay their bills. “We could wait,” the owner said, referring to reopening. “But I feel like these hairdressers chomping at the bit—if they’re willing to do it and really take it seriously, and I’m there to monitor it—I can’t say no to them. But,” he added, “I’m kind of a wimp.”

Life in a Pandemic

One of these contractors, Brittany, who’s thirty-five, has been at the salon for four years. “If Home Depot can be open and people can shop because they’re bored and want to buy houseplants, and Target can be open for people to buy yoga pants,” she told me, “I don’t see the harm in me—carefully and safely—doing a client.” Brittany said that she is a Republican but did not vote for Kemp. She charges around two hundred dollars per session. “Twelve hundred doesn’t even pay half my booth rent,” she said, referring to the stimulus check she received from the federal government. (The salon owner did not charge booth rent while the store was closed.) “So you don’t want to be unsafe, but you also don’t want to lose clients or income. It’s a rock and a hard place, you know?” (The New Yorker) 



 

Wednesday December 20, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 20, 2017

Payday lenders squeezed by new regulations

After more than two decades in the payday-loan industry, Anthony Piet faces his most difficult year in the business.

February 16, 2017

Mr. Piet operates eight Money Mart franchises sprinkled across Canada, located in small towns such as Banff, Alta., and Timmins, Ont. Legislative changes in numerous provinces – including Ontario, to take effect on Jan. 1 – have squeezed payday lenders, in particular smaller players such as Hamilton-based Mr. Piet. New rules reduce how much they can charge and put restrictions on lending.

“Tough,” says Mr. Piet of his 2018 outlook. “Really tough.”

December 11, 2015

The much-maligned payday-loan industry sells short-term loans at a high cost, mostly to lower-income Canadians. If a person doesn’t have access to credit, but is short on money in between paycheques and needs to cover something essential, such as the hydro bill, a lender such as Money Mart is an easy and fast place to get cash. The loans are generally repaid quickly, but the fees, which long stood at more than $20 for every $100 borrowed, added up to an annual interest rate of 500 per cent and more.

December 6, 2014

Provinces across Canada have tightened the rules that govern the industry. Payday lenders insist they provide an essential service, but they have been widely criticized for exploiting vulnerable customers and charging too much. Now they say their margins are being squeezed so badly that they’re fighting for survival.

September 11, 2015

The number of payday lenders operating in Canada has been on a downward trend for several years, in part because of the new legislation. In 2017, there are an estimated 1,360, down 5 per cent from 1,434 in 2015.

For Mr. Piet, with one Money Mart in Alberta, he has taken pragmatic measures. He has reduced hours of operation, cut advertising and pulled back on community contributions. He called his Banff store’s future “tenuous.”

In Ontario, where his Money Marts are in Timmins and Simcoe, Mr. Piet doesn’t feel the new rules in the province foretell looming closures but feels like he is in a vise as he draws up budgets for the coming year. “Everything is under the microscope,” he said. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday October 27, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 27, 2017

Sears Canada pensioners demand shortfall be paid off first

The law firm representing Sears Canada pensioners has issued a letter to the agency overseeing the liquidation and all other creditors, asking that the pension deficit be paid first and as soon as possible, as money from liquidation sales becomes available.

October 12, 2017
Canada, retail, employment, taxes, rvenue, CRA, Sears, layoff, bankruptcy, tax fairness

“Our clients . . . are entitled to first priority recover for those amounts,” according to the letter, from Koskie Minsky’s Andrew Hatnay, citing a prior Supreme Court of Canada decision.

The letter is addressed to the monitor assigned to the case, FTI Consulting, and to the service list, which includes lawyers representing every party to the insolvency.

If Hatnay’s position is accepted by the creditors lining up to be paid, the pension’s $270-million deficit would be paid first, although pensioners would not receive other benefits – dental benefits and life insurance benefits, which were discontinued at the end of September.

If the other creditors refuse to allow the pensioners to be paid first, the matter could end up before the court, according to Hatnay.

The legal letter was sent Thursday, a day after Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said the federal government will consider legislation to protect employees’ pensions when a company goes bankrupt.

While there’s no plan for the government to introduce legislation at the moment, he said it will carefully examine two different private member’s bills on the subject, put forward by a New Democrat MP and a Bloc Quebecois MP. (Source: Toronto Star)

The Telegram, St. John’s Newfoundland

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