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« Next EntryDo you know your rights regarding price accuracy?
Sunday, 27 June, 2010The following applies in the province of Quebec (Canada). In principle, the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) requires merchants to label the price on each article, but allows for exceptions. For example, because of the increasingly popular use of optical scanners, retailers are no longer required to label each article; several avail themselves of this exemption, […]
Read the rest of this postSuccesses and pitfalls of technology
Tuesday, 8 June, 2010Technology has invaded workplaces, homes, vehicles, portable devices of all kinds, etc. Many will say it has freed man. This is true, from one point of view; appliances greatly facilitate household chores. It has also allowed man to express his creativity far more easily; inexpensive software now allows people with limited aptitude for drawing to […]
Read the rest of this postQuebec’s Budget and consumption: Minister Bachand’s miscalculation
Saturday, 3 April, 2010Further to my radio column of Thursday, April 1 on the same subject, here are a few thoughts. Minister Bachand deludes himself thinking that an increase of QST and the gas tax will bring more money into the coffers of the state; it’s a mistake governments often make. In reality, many consumers already have a […]
Read the rest of this postTowards responsible capitalism
Monday, 15 March, 2010Confronted to the speculation we observe in financial markets, I began a series of columns on the ravages of financial capitalism. In the first, I demonstrated the harms of speculation, especially the relationship between it and the economic and financial crisis raging on the planet since summer 2007. In the second, I talked about the […]
Read the rest of this postLink between stock market speculation and corporate bankruptcies
Monday, 15 February, 2010Confronted to the speculation we observe in financial markets, I began a series of columns on the ravages of financial capitalism. In the first, I demonstrated the harms of speculation, especially the relationship between it and the economic and financial crisis raging on the planet since summer 2007. In the second, I talked about the […]
Read the rest of this postThe ravages of financial capitalism
Saturday, 30 January, 2010Consumption, technology and finance are intimately related; exceeded by the abuses that I witness daily in the world of finance, I begin today a series of columns on the ravages of financial capitalism. Technological development, the driving force of consumption, is linked to available funding, especially since the 19th century’s industrial revolution; however, it was […]
Read the rest of this postPoken, the latest way to network
Sunday, 10 January, 2010Have you been pokened recently? Yes, not poked, pokened! It is far less painful and far more amusing. Pokening will shortly have to be added to our vocabulary. One may describe the practice as the mating of two palm-held digital devices the size of a USB key «to share your contact details and online social […]
Read the rest of this postConsumption, a form of compensation
Sunday, 1 November, 2009The following are extracts of « Consommation et image de soi, Dis-moi ce que tu achètes… » (Consumption and compensation, Tell me what you buy…), a book I published in 2005 (pages 108 to 110); it’s in French only… for now. In it, I demonstrate that consumption is a form of compensation for some people. […]
Read the rest of this postFrom the Consumer Society to a Society of Hyperconsumption
Sunday, 11 October, 2009Technology improves everyday life, producing useful, many would say indispensable, consumer items. Think of how easy it is to wash dishes or clothing. Machines, at the heart of which are microprocessors programmable at the touch of a few buttons, carry out tasks our grandmothers took hours to perform. Like it or not, material comfort is […]
Read the rest of this postOrigins of the digital computer
Saturday, 19 September, 2009I’m finished writing Consommation et technologie (Consumption and technology); the book will be published this fall before Montreal’s book fair. I now have a little more time for my blog’s column which I hope to resume presenting more regularly. In my last regular column, Sunday July 19, I’ve begun exploring the origins of the computer, […]
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