More Stories For You To Enjoy

Perhaps this was the Christmas present for this area. Before this month's rate was published recently, I saw that the Jobless rate for our area decreased from 6.9 to 6.0. More people got jobs. In looking at the list provided by Statistics Canada, the jobless rate drop was the largest in this area compared with the rest of the country. I have to admit that I do not know why it happened but it is something for us to be pleased about.

Everything seems be going up and down these days. Do you remember how a short time ago everything seemed so wonderful for the automobile industry in our area. And then recently, the automobile industry appears to be in serious trouble and who knows what the impact will be here over the next few years. What is one to think!

I have pretty much given up now trying to predict what may happen. How can one do it anymore? One may believe that everything is just perfect right now in a particular area. Then, suddenly, something unusual happens and all that one sees is difficulty arising.

All that I think that I can do on here, dear reader, is comment on matters that I see at a particular time and then suggest what alternatives I may see happen in the future.  What I will do is tell you what seems to make sense to me at the time based on what I have discovered up until then.

Now, let me tell you about some stories that I have seen recently.

FOOD PRICES

You might want to go back and take a look at my story about pricing in the food industry in Canada involving leaders of the food companies in a story that was written on August 15: “WILL GROCERY PRICES INCREASE”

I sent out this quote:

“Canadian grocery giant Metro Inc. is already facing pressure from suppliers to accept higher prices in light of a recent tariff war with the United States and consumers should expect slightly higher food bills in the future, its CEO said Wednesday...

Metro will continue to ensure its retail prices are competitive, he said, but expects the company, as well as the market as a whole, will have to accept some cost increases.”

Surprise, surprise…NOT. It looks like there might be some relatively large cost increases next year as predicted:

“Your grocery bill could rise 3.5% in 2019, study predicts” (Susan Noakes, MSN.com, December 4, 2018)

Here is where the changes could take place:

“Canada's Food Price Report 2019, an independent analysis produced by university researchers, predicts the price of meat will drop by up to three per cent and seafood by two per cent.

But those drops are more than offset by rising prices in other areas, led by a 4-6 per cent hike in the price of vegetables.”

I’m sure that you will find this article very interesting about grocery food price increases if you go and take a look at it. There are lots of explanations about why the pricing will change. However, what seems strange to me is that there is little discussion about what could be a significant cause of some of these price increases as I shall discuss next.

Now I have not gone out and researched a lot about grocery store pricing. I just don’t have the resources to do so. However, I can tell you that I do a lot about considering pricing in the grocery business. After all, I go at least twice a week to grocery stores to buy food! I have noticed that pricing seems to be higher this year than last year. In fact, I’m noticing in their advertising that the grocery stores don’t have a lot of sales every week as they seemed to have had in the past. Sure, some items are reduced in price but not that many now.

Why could this be you might think? Here’s an interesting alternative for you. How about several grocery companies offering a settlement to the Competition Branch if there’s a threat of an anti-competitive lawsuit against them. Obviously, they will have to acquire some dollars, a lot of them probably, as the settlement fee they would have to pay.

What if they have been considering that and looking for a way to find that money. Perhaps they can get that money out of the business that they have been running for quite some time to pay for it in which prices have been increased already. They may need more money this year if they have a feeling about how much they will actually have to pay. In order to do so, perhaps they need to increase even more the pricing the people have to pay or, alternatively, not reduce them.

Do you see where I’m going? Now you may understand one of my reasons why prices may be going up.

OUR AIR QUALITY

Wow, I knew it was not the best but I truly did not believe that our air quality was this bad in this region:

“As we look at Canada as a whole, we are doing extremely well when it comes to our air quality. On average our particulate pollution reading is at 5.6 points.

However, there is one region that has tipped the scale when it comes to pollution. Essex county (near Windsor, Ontario) comes in at 11 which is officially over the WHO’s standard.

People in the region are currently seeing 0.1 years, or one month, lost in life expectancy due to air quality.” (Rachel Schoutsen, Weather Network, December 7, 2018) 

Oh sure, the change is not that significant but being placed at the bottom of the scale is not something that we ought to be too thrilled about. Here are some more statistics that ought to concern you especially because it happened so many years ago:

“In 2005 The Ontario Medical Association estimated that in Essex County (including Windsor), there were 260 premature deaths, 900 hospital admissions and 2,750 emergency visits associated with poor air quality.”

I expect that it is even worse today.

I am sure, dear reader, you understand that we need to take action to minimize the pollution in this area. What has to be done needs to be talked about ASAP and then accomplished. If we do not act right away, we might find now that people from out of town may not be all that interested in moving here based on this information