BMEshop, as you know, is a Canadian business. It'll come as no surprise as well that Americans are the site's biggest market; at least when I was last involved in that aspect of it, a majority of the customers shopped from the US. Because of that and the general internationality of the currency, it also sells in US dollars. So to be clear, Ryan buys or produces in Canadian dollars and sells in US dollars.
Over the last five years, the Canadian dollar has climbed against the US dollar by a large margin (I think in the realm of 25%). Thus, Ryan's cost on many products has risen 25% in relation to his gross profit. So he has three choices. He can eat the loss, hugely reducing his profit margins (so customers spend the same, he makes less). Or he can fluidly pass on the costs to the customer, and raise the prices to match his loss (so customers spend more, he makes the same). Finally, he can choose to make a lot of noise about the loss so everyone knows, and then not only pass the costs on to the customer, but raise the prices even more (so customers spend much more, and he makes more).
Now, Ryan isn't an asshole, so on the whole he's kept prices where they were, so he's taking a loss to keep the prices the same, or at most matched the price to the currency fluctuation. Anyway, check out this much more successful corporate CEO:
Exxon Mobile posted a
$9.9 billion profit last quarter, which is not only a record for them — up 75% from last quarter — but the largest profit in US history. So anyway, Exxon didn't choose the same option as Ryan did — they went with option three. (And then Bush handed them billions in tax breaks, but that's another story).
Along also profitable lines, billions of dollars in US taxpayer cash have literally disappeared and are unaccounted for in Iraq, buying false democracy with useless bribes and being stolen by profiteering contractors as a small town worth of underpaid amputees (more) come back from a failed business plan. And as they come back, they come back without their equipment — $1.2 billion in trucks and radios and gear have been “lost” while outside the country, leaving the National Guard with only “one-third the equipment they need”.
Ah, profit.
Of course, in part it's people's own fault. It's not as if you have to buy a Hummer that gets 9 mpg. Hell, most people don't even cook pasta efficiently.
I suppose it could be worse. I could be in Iran (who Russia is quietly pushing into nuclear capability), who just banned all things from the West, er, I mean, the Great Satan. I may agree with the feminism issues on the recent Suicide Girls flap, but I think Sean is getting a bit of a bum rap being called a racist… I'm not sure that saying that running a culture by Muslim law is “deeply sick” is a wrong — are we that politically correct that we have to say it's “OK” for another culture to abuse its women, simply because they're a different race? That's only a small step away from saying it's acceptable to have slaves because they're a different race… Human rights transcend borders. I'd definitely rather see SG sexploitation than women's magazine publishers in prison under Islamic law.
Anyway… Speaking of equal rights, did you know that it's only a hundred years ago that the West started accepting, at least academically, the female orgasm? Hell, these days you can get sued if you can't get your partner off, and if you come visit me here in Mexico, you'd better be careful where you stay because the hotel might not warn you that they're a swinger resort.
Oh, and of course as you know they're indicting Libby today. And Libby's source was Cheney. There's buzz that Fitzgerald is going to be looking at the lies that brought America into the war, and finally asking questions like who forged the documents — with all fingers pointing at Mr. Top Secret, Dick Cheney, right now. Others are suggesting that Rove is looking to flip on Bush, taking the whole empire down to avoid prison himself (which I doubt personally)…
Finally, you know how I mentioned that Exxon made record profits at the start of this entry? Well, the number two slot is held by the international bank corporation Citigroup at $7.2 billion… as we slide deeper into being debtors, banking profits will continue to climb until that day on which they collapse destructively. Speaking of debt, the US is now $8 trillion in debt (good to know that $3 billion is being spent to buy digital television sets for poor people).
Have I mentioned the option of moving to an Island of Vegans?
