A Cautionary Tale

Yet another example of why a government, of any level, should leave business to the business world. Granted they would like a world in which lots of people use "green" cars to travel to and from work, but these are only vague fantasies. The reality, as show by the complete failure of electric car companies, is that customers are not willing to pay the extra expense these "green" vehicles require. If customers were willing then these companies would be successes on there one, but instead they continually ask for money to be forcibly taken from the public and given to them for the "good" of all. I wonder how the citizens of Salinas, California feel now they are out the $500,000, plus no tax revenue, plus no nice "green" jobs. I am guessing just a little poor than before.

The True North strong and free?

A 92 year old guy builds a house, by all accounts better than you can get in the suburbs, and they want to throw him in prison and bulldoze the house. What are the repercussions to the bureaucrat that demand all of this? Mandatory negotiations with the home owner ordered by a judge that executed some common sense. Don't forget the demands of the building inspector were all legitimate and legal, and the judge could have ruled the other way. The only saving grace the old duffer had was his age, if he had been 38 I would lay money he would not have received the same ruling.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/all-i-wanted-to-do-is-build-a-house/article1797192/

One reason you don't want government bailouts

Because the government allows itself to do things a company would not normally ever be allowed to do. Like just forget about polluted properties it use to own and was required to clean up. GM has had it's environmental responsibilities on more than 100 properties annulled. The cost and responsibility for the clean up is not now with the federal government but with the state and local governments. This is not because of a choice by the state and local governments but because the federal government said "It ain't GM and it ain't us.". Nice deal eh?

And the really sad part is, the money for the clean up was there. The cost of the clean up's was estimated at 530 million and GM had 1,200 million in cash left. This money will now be swallowed up in administrative fees, lawyer fees, and other out standing liability claims.

The local governments are not to happy about this, and want the federal government to fund the clean up of the sites since they purchased GM and in any normal system this purchase would include assuming all the liabilities of the company. My guess is that since the federal government is both the metaphorical defendant and the judge in situation, they will rule for themselves and not take on this liability. They may try and dodge some of the bad press and fund some environmental studies which will be allowed to present their recommendations and then politely be ignored.

I found the article on Slashdot.

A new stadium for the Rider's

It was announced recently that the Canadian federal government and the Saskatchewan provincial government will split the million dollar cost of a feasibility study to determine if a new domed stadium should be built in Regina for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. A $70,000 study funded exclusively by the Saskatchewan government found that the construction cost alone would run $350 million. This did not include land costs or cost overruns.

Now lets acknowledge a few facts.
1. It is cold and windy in Regina at the end of November.
2. Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field is an aging facility.
3. $350,000,000 is a lot of moola.
4. The Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Canadian Football League are both private for profit entertainment organizations.

It does concern me that people are looking to all levels of government for funding and throwing around words like "need" and "deserve" when trying to justify pushing the expense away from those who will benefit to those who won't. This is especially troubling when the Riders last year sold out on every single game they played at home, and because of efficient and prudent management they are leading the league in revenue.

Lets start with the first question. Do they require a new stadium? If they are able to sell out every single game, then people are not staying away because of the weather. It is also in the culture of Rider fans to brave the elements while cheering on their team. Additionally, the release study has concluded that the existing facility is structurally sound. In an study on American sport complex construction found a significant driving force in new stadium construction was the expansion of luxury boxes to increase profits to the team. This benefits the average sports fan or the differing levels of government nothing. So to answer the question, do they require a new domed stadium? No. The current fans are quite happy to thumb their noses at the wusses in Toronto and Vancouver in their domes and attend in sell out numbers the games in the current facilities. Would it be nice to have a new domed stadium? Yes, but it would also be nice if I could go to the moon and own a small sub-tropical island paradise.

On to the second question. Can they afford a new stadium? I ran a few numbers, so here are my assumptions:
1. The construction will be financed with a bond at 8%
2. The repayment period will be over 15 years. At the end of this time the stadium will be requiring some sprucing up, so this bond needs to be cleared from the balance sheet.
3. The new stadium capacity will be 38,000
4. The average attendance at games will be 60%. They cannot realistically sell out every game for the next 15 years. This also provides a little buffer in the budget.
5. There are 10 home games a year. I got this from the Riders website.

With these numbers and a simple interest calculation, it works out to a interest and principle payment of $40,890,340.73 annually, or $4,089,34.07 per game. If the Rider fans are charge directly for this, it works out to a ticket surcharge of $179.34 just to fund the construction bond. Now many will point out that the dome would be used by other events, so the football team is not required to bear the entire financial cost. Moving the portion the Riders would have to bear down to 25% it will still cost $44.84 per ticket sold just to pay for the bond. I am not privy to the inner financial workings of stadium management, but I don't think the fans will appreciate a doubling of their ticket prices just so they can have a dome. At that is at only a 25% burden.

Let us also look at the population base this stadium will be servicing. The population of Regina is, according to Wikipedia, 179,246 and the population of the entire province is 1,023,810. This is the population that will be required to attend concerts, trade shows, monster truck shows, etc to support the portion of the debt that the football team cannot. Another potential source of private funds is the naming rights. Currently the naming rights to Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field is $3.75 million over 10 years. This is only $357,000 per year, but you are trying to make bond payments of $40.89 million per year. To compare to other naming rights in Canada:
1. Calgary Pengrowth Saddledome is $20 million for 20 years, or $1 million per year
2. Ottawa Scotiabank Place is $20 million for 15 years, or $1.33 million per year
3. Vancouver General Motors Place is $18.5 million for 20 years, or $0.925 per year
4. Montreal Bell Centre is $64 million for 20 years, or $3.2 million per year
5. Edmonton Rexall Place is not disclosed
But these are hockey arena's, and in Canada hockey is king and a football stadium cannot expect to demand these prices. The naming rights for football arena's in Canada are:
1. Toronto Rogers Centre is $25 million. I couldn't find the time period, so lets assume 20 years, or $1.25 million per year.
2. Winnipeg Canad Inns Stadium is $1,750,000 for 10 years, or $175,000 per year
3. Vancouver BC Place current is in the process of selling naming rights. Speculation puts the price at between $750,000 and $2 million per year.
4. Edmonton,Hamilton, and Calgary have no naming rights contracts.
Toronto and Vancouver are marque area's with large populations, so their value will be higher. Lets assume the naming rights would double with a dome, that would put it to $7.5 million or $750,000 per year. This only provides 1.83% of the require bond payment. To conclude on the question "Can they afford a new stadium?" I believe the answer is No.

The third question to answer is: Should the various levels of government help fund the project? This becomes a more difficult and varied question to answer, but not impossible. The question can be subdivided into, What value does the stadium provide the government bodies? and What would they do with the money instead of building the stadium?

Statistics are HOT

In case you have been wondering if the Swine Flu reporting is appropriate or maybe a little bit over heated, Hans sets us straight.



So, are you more scared of Swine Flu, tuberculosis, or driving to work? According to Transport Canada in 2006 there were 2889 people killed in motor vehicle collision. So a 13 day period as discussed in the video, in Canada 102.90 people would be kill on the roads compared with the 31 people world wide that were killed by Swine Flu.

Bad acting

Do you ever feel like the quality of acting has really fallen off over the years. I am not talking the content, that is your own personal view. I am talking about the ability of the actor to convince you that what you are seeing is believable. Here is a fine example:



These two should spring for some more acting lessons.

Did you know a Balsam Fir can bury itself, sort of

I was actually looking for information on growing a Hemlock in the Edmonton area when I cam across this article on the strategies of shade tolerant tree species. It is really odd to think of a small Balsam Fir you pass in the forest that is only 10 cm - 20 cm in diameter, could be more than 100 years old. And this is a common strategy among the shade tolerant tree species. Very cool