The Grand Finale

It seems so fitting that since today is our very last day and our doors will be closed at the end of our run today..... to be immediately followed by the consumption of copious amounts of wine and whisky..... that this weekends Winnipeg Free Press colour comics included this comic strip of The Wizard of ID by Parker and Hart. We worked hard and did everything right and today we close the doors on 14 years of self-employment.


It's bittersweet. We are enjoying the whole experience of moving on to new things - aside from the whole 'how the heck do we pay the bills this month' thing. That's a wee bit scarey.

Some of the stress has been lifted by the news that Al's new minimum wage job, where initially he was told he would be guaranteed 'part-time' status which we figure would be about 20hours a week, is looking more and more promising with talk that he will be full-time with 40hours in the very near future. He trained in record time and they are all very happy with him. Life is good! Al's already looking and feeling so much better. He enjoys going to work. Life is good!

I figured out recently that with 40hours a week, even at minimum wage, the amount of money he will bring home at the end of 4 weeks is only slightly less than we he was bringing home in a month from our own business......and with a whole lot less stress. Life is good! It will be better once I find a job but we aren't in imminent danger of having to choose between satelite service or internet service.....or dinner service for that matter.

Hasn't this post been all cheery and positive. Life is good and all. Believe me, it's not all roses and champaign because there is still the pending doom of business debt and the desperate need to sell off equipment as quick as possible. Closing our doors is an emotional thing for us from a customer service perspective too. Sure our contract customers still have service through someone else but our private customers from all the free-lance work we did are left hanging. There is no one else providing this service to them and each time someone calls about a job and we have to turn them down it's a reminder of just what's been lost - for us and them. We'd been planning to expand the free-lance stuff more this year because the demand for it is there but without the contracts to support us, it just isn't possible. That's a hard thing to swallow, knowing a viable business has shut down at the hands of politicians for some unknown reason - be it political agenda or budget cuts. The only part of this that makes it a little easier to swallow is knowing that the local politicians are now taking the flack for putting us out of business....and yes....I do blame them and so do A LOT of other people. Political Suicide? I hope so!

Tomorrow's a new day.



~K

The Circle of Consumer Life

Okay so we are going to take a left turn here and I'm going to pretend I know a damn thing about politics, economics and consumerism. My experience with these 3 things is strictly from a personal perspective.

I admit, the announcement by the Federal Government on the tax credit for home renovations sparked my interest. I was briefly excited about the program for 'damn this house needs a whole lot of work' reasons and this program is totally user-friendly unlike the the Natural Resources ecoENERGY program and Manitoba Hydro's PowerSmart program. No pre-retrofit assessments (that cost money). No post-retrofit assessments (that cost more money). No taking your chances on just how much of a refund you would get based on how well those assessment show you improved your energy efficiency. With this tax credit program you just keep your receipts. Easy-Peasy! Ya except just like the other two programs I've been foiled again. Squatters don't count. Homeownership is key. There isn't even the option of having the homeowner (my father-in-law) apply on our behalf like with the other two programs - Not that THAT plan panned out anyway. Heck, we still can't even convince him to get us a freakin $50 building permit do you really think if I gave him the paperwork for an incentive program he'd help us out. *sigh* Of course, with our limited income (limited.....bordering on none) we don't have the money to do much in the way of renos right now anyway but that's besides the point.

That being said, I want to talk about some comments I've read recently about this tax credit. Boy people are critical just for the sake of being critical. Maybe I'm just not politically savy but I don't see how this tax credit program is anything but good. Sure it's definately going to benifit the middle/high income earners that can afford to renovate more than it will the low income earners who are just trying to make ends meet nevermind renovate. You can't please (or give tax credits) to everyone. It's a diverse world. Not everyone fits into the same catagory. Sucks but it's true. And face it, many many tax breaks do target lower income people over those with a higher income. So this one doesn't. Oh well.

Some critics are complaining that this is just a make-work, band-aid solution. I'm not seeing a problem with this. Is giving people an incentive to start projects that they were on the fence about doing because of the state of the economy and thereby making work (manufacturing of products, retail sales of said products, labour to install said products) a bad thing? Seems to me a band-aid placed over a cut, temporarily protects the cut while the body has a chance to heal itself. Again, not seeing a problem with providing temporary help while the economy heals.

Consumerism is a circle of life and if it takes some incentive to help those with the financial means to spend some money at a time when the economy is weak then how can that be a bad thing. When people spend money, that inturn helps businesses thrive which keeps more people employed. Employed people are more likely to turn around and spend money than unemployed people (funny how that works) which inturn helps other businesses thrive . This increases the demand for more product keeping even more people employed and able to contribute to the circle of consumerism. Profound thoughts huh.

Lets explore this in a story shall we.

Mary Middle Income earner is on the fence about renovating her
bathroom. She's been wanting to but geesh....the economy sucks so maybe
she shouldn't. But wait. The government is willing to give her
a tax break if she does it now. So she hires Craig the
Contractor to come and pretty-up her bathroom.

Craig the Contractor is stoked. He doesn't have to lay off Andy his
Assistant and together the two of them get to work on Mary's "make-work"
reno project.

Craig goes to Harry's Hardware store and orders his supplies.
Harry's thrilled to see him (and all the other contractors and do-it-yourselfers
who've been in shopping lately too). Harry's employees are still employees
(guess what they do with their paycheques....they BUY STUFF is what they
do) and his suppliers will be happy to hear from him when he
needs to restock his shelves (because guess what...they have employees
too).

Craig the Contractor finishes up Mary's bathroom
reno. Mary gladly pays him for his time and supplies and
receives her receipts.

Craig cashes Mary's cheque and pays Andy the Assistant for all his
hard work. Craig the Contractor is still in
business. Andy's wife is thrilled Andy still has a job.
They both have money to put back into the circle of consumerism
thereby keeping other people employed in the process.

When Mary does her taxes next year she'll get a sweet little tax credit and
maybe just maybe she'll get a bit of a tax refund and go shopping (maybe she'll
buy some scrapbooking supplies from me as a treat....it could happen....it's my
story dammit and I can make Mary buy whatever I want!)

What a great story!

The only sad part of this story is that Craig the Contrator made
one heck of a mess while doing the reno and he had to haul the debris to the
dump himself because he couldn't find anywhere to rent a garbage bin.

Why?

Because - Al the Garbage Man was put out of business by his own local
politicians. Their inability to see the big picture of the circle of
consumerism ended up screwing him....(and hopefully themselves in the process -
they are going to have to try and be re-elected eventually...good luck with
that!) Al the Garbage Man is struggling. Guess who can't
afford to renovate his house? Guess who isn't contributing much
to the circle of consumerism? Sometimes the circle of life...and
consumerism.....sucks!

The purpose of this post was originally as a whine about how I was not going to be able to benifit from this program because of not owning the house. Then it became a commentary about all the critisim I'd read about the program while I was looking for clarification on whether we had to be the homeowner or not. Some where along the way I realized that I'm a little bummed that I won't be benifiting from this program in a totally different way. After receiving a phonecall from a customer yesterday, looking to rent a bin for their contruction debris, it dawned on me. We potentially could have seen some spin off from this program by providing debris removal services for those people who so decide to renovate this year. This program could have been a big 'make-work band-aid' for us. Too bad somebody grabbed the edge of that band-aid and gave it a good pull. It stings a little.....but we'll survive.