gas prices

[cowman]

In Red Deer gas prices are $1.085/L and looks like it is only going one way...up!
Don't know what it would take to get people to drive less or slow down but you sure wouldn't guess anything is wrong if you have to venture onto highway II! I think if anybody did the speed limit they would get run over!
A local guy at a parts store told me he has it from "someone in the know" that gas will be $1.30 by the May long weekend! Now I usually take these things with a grain of salt, but with oil at $74/barrel I guess it makes sense?
I guess we''l just need to up our daily income from $1200 to $1400, right Horse? LOL(that is supposed to be sarcasm...not reality)!

[coppertop]

The gasoline prices will be reflected in any service or product we purchase or use, if the supplier can raise their prices.

I know that some consultants have an agreement with oil companies for a rate increase effective in May.

[Horse]

No they dont need to up thier wages they just steal some time or merchandice and walla more money.Must be hell eh.

[cowman]

Now Horse, you know that isn't right! Oil field workers are no better or worse than anyone else. They're just trying to put the grub on the table and get the kids raised, just like everyone else!
Come on. I think you said when you were young you worked in the oil field? Did you steal merchandise and time? You also said you never made very much and that would be partly true. Wages and benifits are better today for sure, but generally that is so in every job? My mother told me her first year teaching she got $600 for the whole year(and that was considered generous)! I still have one sister teaching and she gets $68,000...plus a real good pension down the road!

[cakadu]

Cowman, I wouldn't necessarily agree that wages are better for everyone. There are a great many jobs out there that do not pay very well, yet we need those jobs filled. Alberta just recently raised the minimum wage to $7/hr and that is by no means the top of the heap in the nation.

When the wages went up, many businesses were left wondering how they were going to pay the "high" wages. Some of the processing and service industry are now forced to pay higher wages to compete with those being paid in the "patch". Is this a good or a bad thing - I don't know but think of the wait times you have in restaurants, stores etc.

Some of our most vulnerable citizens - i.e. children and those not able to care for themselves - are being looked after by people who are being paid a relatively low wage. Every taken a long hard look at the wages people working in day cares, seniors homes etc. actually make? Some of them have 4 years of University or at the very least some form of post secondary training. A single mother, for instance, cannot go and take a job in the oil patch. What happens to the children?

We tend to relate everything to what we are able or choose to do. Until we've walked a mile in someone else's shoes, how can we glibly say that they should go get a job in the patch? or pull up their bootstraps? Maybe they are already there and just can't go any higher.

Housing prices are getting so out of whack that some very tough choices are having to be made. We are not building much in the way of affordable or low-cost housing, it is all big fancy homes and condo complexes. When you're making $7/hour you won't ever be looking at those sorts of things.

The wages are also creating a very serious problem with young people. Alberta has the highest high school dropout rate in the country. Why go to school when you can make big money in the patch? Well, guess what, many of us learned that what goes up must inevitably come down. What kind of job are you going to get without at least a high school education? We do know that it is much harder to go back to school once you've been out of it for a time. What then?

[coppertop]

when the oil patch slows down, and jobs aren't plentiful there will many young adults that will decide to get a post secondary education, and if they aren't saving the big bucks they are making in the oil patch they will be out of luck.

I agree that the wages sometimes don't align with the responsibility. All you need to do is read the career section in the Journal or Herald and see what Childrens Services counsellors are paid, they are at the lower end of government salaries and yet they work with and are supposed to advocate for kids in crisis.

Our County pays $9.00 an hour for summer students, and they are wondering why its so difficult to find any. Across the street MacDonald's is paying $10.00 an hour to start plus benefits such as meals free !!!

[cakadu]

Well coppertop, I wouldn't consider meals at McD's a benefit per se but it does help the folks when they don't have to worry about buying extras for lunches etc.

All kidding aside though, you do bring up a very good point about benefits. Many of these lower paying jobs have no benefits attached to them at all and that is a huge headache for many who hold down these jobs. Pensions are out of the question as is saving anything for that rainy day called retirement.

They are looking at upping the retirement age so that many aren't leaving the workforce by age 65. If you listen to the word out there, 75 will become the new retirement age. That's great if your health holds and your mind stays sharp. As others have alluded to in other posts, retirement often consists of making your way to the local coffee shop and don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it, just wouldn't be my cup of tea is all.

I'll tell you a short story about a cleaning lady I know who just retired from her job cleaning a building. She had worked for the same company for 21 years and was making $11/hr at the end of that 21 years. She had no pension plan because every time the company had to renegotiate their contract, she got knocked back to zero. Nice way to treat someone who was extremely dedicated, took pride in her work and did an outstanding job.

Employers do have to wake up and smell the coffee so to speak and get into the new reality of the working game.

[cowman]

You know for every sad story, there is a happy one? And yes in a free capitalistic society we will always have the poor. No real viable option?
I have a hard time feeling sorry for most people who think they are educated because they took some fruity arts degree, and then complain because they can't make any money!Get a job with the government seems to be their one goal in life!
And then you see these little Phillipinos and Vietnamese come here and work like hell and get ahead and make something of their life? Come with the shirt on their backs and can't even speak the language...and five years down the road are worth a million!
Is it tough being a senior? Well yea it is if you never got out and hustled your butt when you still could! How many poor kids did you know when you were young that made the big time? Lots and lots.
You want the big house and the fancy car...you get out and work for it! No one starves in Alberta...but this is a market economy and it does reward those who can deliver! Sorry if that doesn't wash with some of you...maybe you should vote for the NDP? Good luck.

[cowman]

One more little rant!
The "employer" doesn't owe anybody anything? If you don't like the wage or think he is treating you unfairly, then quit, get another job, or start your own company and show him how its done!
When the day comes when the "employer" is making less than the employees, is working harder and putting in more time...maybe it is time he quit and stopped providing jobs? Maybe then he can go get a job and sit on his ass and complain about the working conditions?
No one hold a gun to somebodys head and says "Hey, you have to work for me"! There are no involuntary slaves?
Labor costs are high right now. If it doesn't make sense to pay the high wages then the "employer" should question if he should stay in business? Because if the customer won't pay enough for his service/goods so he can make a profit then are they really needed?...Hey wait a minute...that applies to just about every farming venture! LOL

[coppertop]

Unfortunately there are still many people in our society, that don't have the education or the pull to get a 'government job'.
Many people from the countries you mentioned cowman have lived in substandard housing, in poverty etc. prior to coming to this country, and when they arrive here they live three or four famlies to one house just to save money and get ahead.


I think employers are entitled to make profits but it should not be by exploiting workers buy not treating them fairly, and unfortunately if workers aren't sophisticated enough to understand what their rights are, or don't have the courage to change jobs to get benefits etc. they might work their entire career and as Linda indicated, not have any benefits at the end of the day.

[cakadu]

Cowman, for many years there wasn't an employment situation the likes of which we have now. These days you can look at the help wanted ads and there are pages and pages of them in the Red Deer Advocate alone. It wasn't all that long ago when the help wanted ads took up 2 columns of the paper.

I would like to know how many immigrants are millionaires after being in this country for only a few years.

The sad reality is cowman, we do have a number of people going hungry in this province every day, many of them children.

Many of the seniors you speak of didn't have much for an education and worked at what jobs they could, again, for lower wages -- so would there have been any opportunity to save money for retirement?

There are many, many hardworking dedicated people out there who don't make over $10/hr. Try walking a few miles in their shoes, or better yet, go and work in their jobs for a month, but without your bank accounts or any of the other things that you have now.

Sometimes you really make me scratch my head cowman. By virtue of what you're saying here, the neighbor lady that you help out from time to time should just be left to her own devices because after all, life isn't fair sometimes. You've said she doesn't want to take things because she has a lot of pride - how do you think others in similar situations might feel?

[grassfarmer]

Millionaire immigrants - In the UK there are the famous Patel families, of East Indian origin expelled from Uganda under Idi Amin's regime. A bunch of them arrived in a boat with the clothes they stood up in - inside thirty years there were close to 20 of them in the "richest 100 people" category.

[cowman]

Actually Linda the neighborhood lady is basically being left to her own devices? She has a tough old row to hoe and shes doing the best she can.
I have no problem helping anyone out if they put in the effort to try to help themselves. But I don't believe government is, ever has been or ever will be the solution? Rob Peter to pay Paul is just plain wrong and evil in my opinion?
Consider this: The lowliest drunk in the gutter owns a share in the gas and oil resources in this province? In fact he owns a share in the roads, government buildings,airports, bridges,parks...is he getting a return on his assetts? How many countless billions of assetts does he own...and gets zero dollars for?
I believe that every person on this earth is the captain of his ship. If he/she chooses to be poor and not make an effort then that is their right. Sometimes the best efforts just don't work out...such is life? They need to get up off the floor and try try again...or accept their lot in life and not cry to the government to keep them? Just my opinion.

[coppertop]

cowman, if I follow your train of thought, then someone whose health detiorates and they cannot work they should either force themself to or just die in the gutter because the government should not help them !!

What about those folks who are elderly now and didn't have jobs that paid a fancy company pension, are they to exist on their own, pay rent etc., with what they receive in pensions or should there be no pensions, no seniors subsidized housing for low income seniors etc ????? Sometimes I wonder about you cowman, you seem to be compassionate one day and a hard nose the next !!

[cakadu]

Cowman, I've said before that we tend to judge others by how we would behave or by what we consider to be the "right" way. What if someone is doing the absolute best that they can, yet by your definition of "best" you consider that they are still missing the mark?

Explain to me how one "chooses to be poor?" I'm not sure that is on anyone's list of things to accomplish. When anyone gets marginalized long enough, you begin to believe it and breaking out of the cycle is very hard.

It is fairly easy to sit in judgment of others when we don't have to walk in their shoes. We also sometimes don't think of the consequences of our actions and how they may affect someone we don't even know. I'll give you an example. Many people have "greased" the palms of the oil patch through giving whiskey to get the job done or seal the deal. What about the wife and kids at home who are praying that someone doesn't give their husband/father that bottle of whiskey today because he may get started on a drinking binge or God forbid, hit somebody after drinking that whiskey.

Of course you can say that she should leave him or that he shouldn't drink it, but many an alcoholic cannot say "no" to the drink and many a wife feels that she has no options but to stay.

Seems fairly innocent though, because all you've done is give that bottle of whiskey, right?

Compassion goes a long, long way.