Canadian forest fires are the latest costly climate disaster that public accounts fail to capture
You don’t have to tell the people of Calgary and other Canadian communities breathing orange air that forest fires have a cost.
And while repeated studies draw a direct line between an increase in costly forest fires and climate change, economists and accountants right up to Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer say the benefits of stopping climate change and thus reducing the many harms it creates is simply impossible to measure for public accounting purposes.
It is an interesting conundrum and the thousands of people displaced from their homes or breathing smoke from the current spate of forest fires are caught…
Visa and MasterCard agreed to lower the average credit card interchange fee below 1%
The government has announced new details of an agreement with Visa and MasterCard that will see them lower the amount that they charge retailers when a customer pays for a purchase with a credit card.
Known as so-called interchange fees, they have long irritated merchants by allowing the credit card company to keep a percentage of each sale, instead of a flat fee for each transaction.
On Thursday, the government announced a deal with the two card companies that will reduce interchange fees for in-store transactions to 0.95 per cent, on average.
That means on a $100 purchase, if a…
Angelo’s is closing, Crazy Wisdom is reopening and other Washtenaw County business news
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI — Big news has been happening recently for businesses in and around Ann Arbor.
Some longtime businesses are calling it quits after spending decades serving customers, while others are making their debut. There is even one beloved Ann Arbor book store that’s planning to return after closing in 2022.
Here are some recent business news you might have missed.
Angelo’s Restaurant to close as University of Michigan plans $4.5M purchase
By December, people will no longer be able to enjoy the deep-fried French raisin toast or sandwiches at Angelo’s Restaurant in Ann Arbor.
Related: ‘I will think…
The Bank of Canada is more worried than usual about debt loads
The Bank of Canada is more worried than it was last year about household debt loads, and is concerned about the abilities for households to stay on top of them in the coming years once mortgages renew at higher rates.
That’s one of the main takeaways of the bank’s Financial System Review, an annual assessment of various risks the bank desires to be of concern to the stability of Canada’s financial system.
While the bank highlighted the risks of cybersecurity attacks, the ongoing global banking crisis and climate change, the risk presented by growing mortgage debt was a recurring theme…
Chile’s plan for state control in lithium dismays business
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The Chilean government’s newly announced plan to have the state take a majority stake in the lithium industry disconcerted business leaders, though analysts cautioned that the proposal appears to try to strike a middle ground between competing interests.
President Gabriel Boric announced in a national broadcast Thursday night that private companies will have to partner with the government in exploiting Chile’s lithium, a metal used to make rechargeable batteries.
Boric said the state would take a controlling interest in each partnership, leading some to call it a nationalization of the industry, while others disagreed.
“Phrising it…
Angry Fox News chief said fact-checks of Trump’s election lies ‘bad for business’ | FoxNews
The top executive at Fox News was furious one of the network’s reporters was fact-checking Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, writing in a December 2020 email that it was “bad for business”.
Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News, was responding in early December 2020 to an on-air fact-check by Eric Shawn, one of the network’s anchors. “This has to stop now,” she wrote to Meade Cooper, another Fox executive. “This is bad business and there is clearly a lack of understanding [sic] what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are…
Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News days after Dominion lawsuit settlement
April 24 (Reuters) – Fox News Media and its top-rated host Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, less than a week after parent company Fox Corp (FOXA.O) settled for $787.5 million a defamation lawsuit in which Carlson played a starring role roles.
The outspoken Carlson embraced conservative issues and delivered his views with a style that made his prime-time show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, the highest-rated cable news program in the key 25-to-54 age demographic on the most-watched US cable news network. Shares of Fox closed 2.9% lower on the news, which the company announced on Monday.
Dominion Voting Systems…
Does Canada really need a digital loonie?
The Bank of Canada is wading into the fraught and controversial world of digital currencies, launching public consultations this week into how Canadians might use a digital dollar.
“We’ve been researching a digital dollar for quite a while now,” said Carolyn Rogers, the senior deputy governor of the central bank. “And we’re at a point where we need help from Canadians, we need to understand what Canadians want.”
And yet the bank maintains there is neither a need nor a plan to launch a digital loonie.
So, why bother with the public consultations at all?
Rogers says more transactions are…
