Business

Visa is Paying Businesses to Stop Taking Cash

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The businesses with the most incentive to produce a cashless economy are accelerating the process, and they’re not being coy about it. Visa has launched a new initiative that will pay small businesses $10,000 each for upgrading their payment technology and marketing expenses … if the businesses agree to stop accepting cash from their customers. […]

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Why I Bank Local for My Business

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I don’t normally write about my business here, so you may not know that my day job is running Digital Ink, a creative and digital team that focuses on website development, graphic design and WordPress consulting. I’ve been doing it full-time for more than 4 years now, and I love it. Owning a business is […]

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Salary Sharing Taboos and the Memory of Gordie Howe

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The title of the article reads “Salary-sharing taboo a big hurdle for pay equity.” No single bit of American pretension, vanity and egotism does more to harm the common cause of labor than pay secrecy. It harms more than pay equity; it lowers wages for all. The article cites a LinkedIn survey of a thousand […]

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This is How Banking Should Be

This is a great video from the folks at TD Canada. Watch it, and then let’s discuss. It was good, right? Now, obviously not every bank is in a position to do this. Nor could TD do this for more than a subset of their customers. But we live in an age where banks have […]

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When Outsourcing Makes Sense

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For a number of companies, outsourcing can be wasteful. It can be so when the services being bought can be easily allocated in-house, or when lacking visibility over the chosen agency. You also might not want to disclose some of your trade secrets to an agency which might sooner or later work for one of […]

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Where’s the Real Financial Reform?

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The new credit card rules will make it difficult for banks and credit card processors to be tricksters, which is my word for their erratic and arbitrary fees and penalties. But despite the hostile opinions reported in the popular media, banks continue to have their way in financial matters. Take the student loan program, where […]

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Why the Knowledge Economy Can’t Replace Manufacturing

Can the middle class continue to rely on manufacturing jobs? No, says William McGurn, writing in the Wall Street Journal (“Michigan and the Knowledge Economy,” June 16). The automobile industry and manufacturing jobs leaving Michigan will not be back, but must be replaced with new jobs in the “knowledge economy.” McGurn defines the knowledge economy […]

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Freelance Finances: The Holy Trinity

Cartoonist Don Martin once wrote that the root source of the term “Freelance” was both “Lance,” a medieval knight’s weapon, and the French word “Froid” for cold. As in, if you didn’t succeed selling your services and making some money, you’re going to freeze to death outside in the cold. Those of us who’ve struck […]

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