Category Archives: Uncategorized

Priceless Merchant Fees

Processing cost to accept debit card: 19 cents Cost to handle cash per transaction: 25 cents Fees to Visa and MasterCard per transaction: PRICELESS It seems that MasterCard and Visa believe their brand and services are so valuable to merchants … Continue reading

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UPS: United Profiteering Service

This blog entry doesn’t describe some revelation but it further corroborates and exposes a not-so-well-known and annoying money-making scheme employed by UPS to extort money from Canadians receiving goods originating out of the US.  Before getting into the details I have … Continue reading

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Jurisdictional Inefficiency

Here are some provocative questions for one or both the constitutional and business efficiency experts in the audience. Why is employment insurance a federal program but workers compensation insurance provincial? What is the basis for having a separate crown corporation or … Continue reading

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Google Street View in Bedford, Nova Scotia

This morning around 11:00AM my office went abuzz when Mike Cairns (chief geek) at ServicePoint said “hey Bill, look at that”, pointing out the window on the back of our building in Bedford, which is suburb of Halifax, Nova Scotia. … Continue reading

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Passport Canada – Now With Less Online!

(updated May 8 with new facts, events, and comments) Back in December I wrote about Passport Canada and how most of its $300 million annual budget goes to pay (a lot of) humans to do poorly what less expensive systems can … Continue reading

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Canadian banks: Overpriced data warehouses?

I must admit up front that I’m more envious than critical of the success of Canadian banks because of how they have kept this little secret under wraps for so long.   The reality is that banks have essentially become … Continue reading

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Clichés Gone Wild

Unless you just arrived from another planet, you’ve probably heard a lot of clichés describing the ongoing collapse of the stock market. It seems the TV pundits and writers, mostly from CNBC of course, will stop at nothing in an effort … Continue reading

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Waste in waste

Have you noticed how inconvenient and complicated it is to be friendly to the environment in the disposal of your household ‘trash’? The myriad of rules, requirements, regulations and directions regarding proper recycling are simply too much for the average individual … Continue reading

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Typing toward higher productivity

According to Nielsen/NetRatings there are some 1.5 billion Internet users in the world. With that many people behind computers, there is a whole lot of typing going on, but is it enough? Our computers and networks keep getting faster but … Continue reading

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Prelist: a more efficient approach to selling your home

My article “Meet Agent MLS: The most successful realtor in Canada” described some of the inefficiencies and waste in Canada’s real estate services marketplace. On one end of the spectrum the online MLS system at www.realtor.ca is exceptionally efficient at marketing homes while on … Continue reading

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