CANADA - If you live in Canada chances are likely you eat, buy something or some service from a corporation so big its essentially a monopoly.
Take Tim Hortons for example. No, I am not dissing Tim Hortons, but I am pointing out what a huge company they are in contrast to other Canadian coffee/donut franchises.
Another prime example is Rogers, the cable / internet / phone conglomerate, which is so big and corrupt it phoned my 15 times in the last week trying to sell me a cable TV package. I am very tempted to cancel my internet from them, but I won't because they have a monopoly.
Well, technically they don't, but lets just say their competition is limited to Bell Canada, Shaw and the measly scraps left to small start up companies that always fail because their service is grossly inferior. I really don't have much choice in the matter... its either Rogers, Bell or Shaw and I already know from experience all three are corrupt corporations.
Part of the problem is that Canada is such a small market its relatively easy to make a monopoly. You start locally, build up a monopoly in Ontario (or wherever), expand to nearby provinces and eventually go coast-to-coast. The savvy companies do this by offering better services/prices than their competitors while cutting out the stress and nonsense.
The corrupt companies use telemarketing, sleazy annoying advertising campaigns and by lying to the customers about the speed, size, efficiency, reliability of their product.
Rogers internet service is "the best" from my experience. It only goes down about once a month, sometimes not for two or three months. (That sounds bad, doesn't it?) Bell Canada and Shaw are equally as bad for reliability, but a tad slower.
Now I could lodge a complaint against Rogers for phoning me 15 times in a single week, but I know I would only get "the run-around" until I get frustrated and give up. There is no sense of satisfaction in leaving a complaint via email or online form because you KNOW nobody actually reads it and they're certainly not going to do anything about it.
Frankly its not just Rogers at fault, its the whole corrupt corporation mentality and the monopolies (or near monopolies) that exist in Canada.
Lets talk about the Big Five Canadian Banks for a moment. There is:
The Bank of Montreal (BMO)
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
Toronto-Dominion Bank/TD Canada Trust (TD)
Scotiabank
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)
There is also a few international banks that operate in Canada, ie. the Korean Exchange Bank (KEB), which don't really offer any competition.
Collectively the Big Five have a monopoly and they coordinate with each other to match prices and services. One may offer a better interest rate, but they hit you with more service charges. They're all the same.
However they've grown so big that these Canadian banks have expanded into the United States and over the past two decades have been buying up small American banks to the point that approx. 70 - 90% of the Canadian banking industry's profits is actually from the USA. (And they're making billions of profits each year.)
Due to international expansion Canadian banks are now the largest in the world. They buy up foreign banks, jack up the service charges over the long term, and cut costs by using a larger distribution network. In the USA its against American law to just buy a bank and change its name, so the individual smaller banks have kept their brand name but they've become subsidiaries of a Canadian banking conglomerate.
During the current American recession Canadian banks have redoubled their efforts in purchasing small banks in the USA, sensing they can get some sweet deals while they are ripe for the plucking.
Thus Americans may think they are banking with their local bank which has been in there town for over a hundred years, but in reality there is a very high chance their little bank was sold over a decade ago to a big Canadian bank. Or soon will be sold.
Eventually these corporations are going to forming global monopolies, wherein one or two companies control 90% of the market.
Ie. Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.
Coca-Cola currently offers nearly 400 brands in over 200 countries or territories and serves 1.5 billion servings each day. Pepsi follows closely behind. There is essentially no competition beyond those two and its simply a fight over market share and which one is the biggest polluter / abuser of human rights (ie. the toxic pesticides incident in India).
It all makes you realize the importance of supporting small local companies.
American, Canadian, Toronto & International News Commentary: Spreading Freedom in the Face of Tyranny
November 21, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Affordable Website Design & SEO
|
Featured Posts
The Sarcasm Symbol
Ever had some confusion online or with your cellphone when someone fails to catch the sarcasm? Well now with the SarcMark you can ge... |
|
Behold, the Scorpion Hydrogen Supercar
CARS - To the right is the future of supercars... it is a hydrogen supercar called the Scorpion. The Scorpion from Ronn Motors in Texas is t... |
|
Documents show Stephen Harper misusing public funds
CANADA - According to 950+ pages of documents obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act the Privy Coun... |
|
Pink's Rosie the Riveter
ENTERTAINMENT - What I like about this video is how it meshes different social movements like feminism, veganism, anti-capitalism... |
|
California's Dustbowl
ENVIRONMENT - The photo on the right is a farm in California that has been put up for sale. Its just one of thousands of farms that are n... |
|
Is Steampunk the New Goth???
GOTHIC - Watch out what you see on the subway late at night because while in 2001 you might have seen some pretty freakish goths, by 20... |
|
Do you have enough Ice Water in your diet?
HEALTH - A Calorie (large C) is a measurement of the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a litre of water (1 kg's worth) ... |
|
North Korean timeline towards Inevitable War
POLITICS - The following is timeline of events that have occurred on the Korean Peninsula. 1945 - Japan surrenders to the United States a... |
|
Judgment Day is Tomorrow, so sayeth Cult
RELIGION - According to a cult based in California, Judgement Day is tomorrow (May 21st 2011) and Jesus Christ will return to the Earth a... |
|
Sex in Space Forbidden
SEX/TECHNOLOGY - Sex in outer space is a big no-no according to NASA. Not for professional astronauts at least, but the growing numb... |
Popular Posts / Last 30 Days
-
Visit amazon.com/author/moffat to get free short stories and huge discounts on fantasy books by Charles Moffat. Sale ends on October 20th.
-
When was the last time you read a poetry book? If you enjoy poetry by Canadian poets do check out Gail M. Murray 's book: Reflections &a...
-
Note About Images: In this post are 7 examples of North Korean propaganda posters, as well as two images of women in the North Korean army. ...
-
CANADA - Seriously... who was going to vote for a bald guy named Rocco Rossi??? According to polls 4% of Torontonians were thinking of voti...
-
POLITICS - CIA interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning torture technique that top Obama administration officials have describe...
-
Peasant Magazine is seeking submissions for Issue #2. Specifically it is looking for fantasy, historical fantasy, historical fiction an...
-
Talk to anyone who is in the business of selling archery equipment and they will tell you that archery equipment sales are through the roof....
-
CANADA - An increasing number of Canadian soldiers may be using, dealing and becoming addicted to drugs, say reports from Canadian Forces of...
-
HEALTH - Some of you may have heard about the health benefits of being vegetarian or vegan. And there is a tonne of health benefits (and ...
-
By Ai Lung Nguyen - February 2011. TECHNOLOGY - It really boils down to a battle for market share... Facebook and Google have been conduct...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments containing links will be marked as spam and not approved. We moderate every comment. If you want to advertise on this blog it is $30 per link.