Canada’s Oligopoly: How Canadians are Getting Ripped Off by Big Telecom

Originally written in the fall of 2014

Telecommunications is essential to the economy. Big networks and cell towers let Canadians and business connect to each other and the globe. Increasingly more Canadians are getting cellular devices, in fact 81 percent of Canadians subscribe to wireless services. Land lines are getting ditched in droves and people are switching to cellular only.   Cellular companies provide an essential service, but are the prices too expensive?

Why is my bill so expensive?

There are large numbers of reports and studies that illustrate that Canadians pay more than they should for wireless services. The following is a brief summary of some of the major findings.

Multi-Level Marketing, Life Leadership: Getting Someone Else Rich

“Our model is the trapezoid that guarantees each investor an 800% return within hours of your initial– – Uh-oh! The cops! “- 8F10 – I Married Marge (The Simpsons)

Multi-level marketing(MLM) has been known to me for a while, but lately it’s been front row and centre of my attention. Purported to be the new revolution in sales and marketing and superseding the 1980’s stigma of the pyramid scheme, MLM has allegedly empowered a legion of everyday ‘folk’ to turn into predacious sales personal. These folk turned MLM recruiters flow around like a virus flowing through veins and looking for prospective people to infect and sell products to, however, MLM are just pyramids that sell products (more on this below).   My first initial exposure to MLM was ACN a MLM that sold various utilities. By exposure I mean, someone tried to get me to join but I declined, but my recent exposure to MLM was from a business called LIFE Leadership (stylized as LIFE). How I met the young enterprising man was through a bizarre random encounter at a public park. My first encounter was seemingly very authentic and warm, for a few minutes we were just two guys talking about financial independence, superfluous credit and the general state of the economy. But that façade faded with the full assault of what he was really about: trying to ‘reserve’ a spot for me in the down line.

Book Review: The Financial Matrix by Orrin Woodward

This book review is part of a mini-series on multi-level marketing businesses.

The Financial Matrix is marketed as a financial book, one that seemingly elucidates the issues of modern financial systems. Here is my review, as it appears on Amazon:

I came across this book as I met an enterprising young man hawking Life Leadership, seemingly a new multi-level marketing business. when I first laid eyes upon this book I was confronted with mixed emotions, ostensibly it sounded like a conspiracy book, after all most conspiracy theories or literature couch their arguments in language belonging to the Matrix franchise, concepts like the red pill, the matrix (i.e., systemic deception), adherents of these conspiracy theories often feel they are liberated or otherwise free from what everyone else is trapped in. It was no surprise that a book that has its front cover decorated with floating currency signs draped in sci-fi green coat would heavily use and abuse the Matrix narrative. My initial thought that it would be a conspiracy book was mostly untrue, but the book does definitely stray into conspiracy territory, especially with the dubious explanation regarding fractional reserve banking (explained more below).