ARTICLE
sorry im too lazy so i copied and paste..
Here is the link to the actually website:
http://o.canada.com/2013/06/06/the-ipod-tax-is-a-manufactured-controversy/
What’s old is new again, but what the ruling Conservatives were once against may be the new flavour of the week.
Early in April, a professor at a business school discovered the federal budget contained a 5 per cent tariff increase on iPods and a handful of other consumer goods.
The critics suddenly came out of the woodwork. The NDP issued their own release, calling the government hypocrites and cowards. Then the industry groups followed, as the head of the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters spoke up by calling the tax a “quest for cash” that will hurt business and consumers
The whole debate might sound familiar.
Back in 2010, the Harper Government issued this little Photoshop job accusing the opposition of supporting the wasteful iPod Tax. That Dec. 15, 2010 release said: “Today, Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, and James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, announced the Harper Government’s opposition to the Ignatieff-led Coalition’s massive new iPod Tax.“
That release also said: “Canadian families and consumers pay too much tax. They do not need a massive new iPod tax. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government will protect families and consumers from higher taxes by fighting the Ignatieff-led Coalition’s iPod Tax.”
A year later, in 2011, they were at it again with a new ad which claimed the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois were ready to spring a tax on iPods upon the unsuspecting Canadian public.
But here’s the thing: That 2010-11 iPod Tax, and this new 2013 iPod Tax, are not iPod taxes. Nor are they taxing the same thing.
The earlier version of the tax was a proposed levy on all new blank media, including blank CDs, cassettes and portable hard drives. Since iPods (and, these days, all smartphones) include a significant amount of blank memory at purchase, they were included.
The earlier version of the levy was a push back from the music industry to try and gain some cash back from music piracy. It died. It was never revived.
The new so-called “iPod Tax” is a brilliant move by people attempting to embarrass the Conservative government by using the same terminology they once opposed to describe an entirely different idea.
Buried in the 2013 budget was a move to “graduate” more countries into the higher tariff zones when Canada imports their products. Included in the tariff increases was a classification of electronics which could, under some interpretations, include i Pods.
So, to say it simply: A tariff increase was applied to a broad range of imports, a sub-category of which could, possibly, under some interpretations, include i Pods. Or smartphones. Or generic MP3 players.
The CBC does a good job of explaining the confusion here, and they highlight that while the Canadian government doesn’t believe the tariff applies to i Pods, the Canadian Border Services Agency is more confused.
The government has said on the record, several times over the past three years, that there will be no iPod tax. Voices using that terminology to push the debate into headlines are doing so simply to get their names into headlines and fight import tariffs on a wider scale.
As Joy Nott, president of the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters, said in a recent interview:
“Quite frankly, the single line about the (General Preferential Tariff) changes actually has a much wider and much more negative impact on the ultimate consumer than duty giveaways on cricket bats and hockey sticks and whatever … I think at this point it hasn’t really hit home to the average consumer that this all means for them increased prices.”
My article’s name is “The Ipod tax is a manufactured controversy”. I found this on Vancouver Sun. ( http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html ). My article’s author’s name is
This article is about the Ipod tax is a manufactured controversy..
English: These are the current models of the iPods from Apple, Inc. The first one is a silver iPod shuffle, the second one is a black iPod nano, the third one is a silver iPod classic and the last one is a black iPod touch. Deutsch: Dies sind die aktuellen iPods der Firma Apple, Inc. Der erste ist ein iPod shuffle, der zweite ein iPod nano, der dritte ein iPod classic und der letzte ist ein iPod touch. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
How one company went completely paperless
I copied and pasted it from this link:
When Jamie Garratt started Idea Rebel, a Vancouver-based digital agency in 2008, there was one piece of technology he refused to have in his office: a printer. He came from a company where everyone printed everything and he didn’t want that much waste.
After thinking more about it, he realized he didn’t want any waste at all. Not only would there be no printers, but his new company wouldn’t provide notepads or pieces of paper for designers to draw out ideas. Even Starbucks cups were banned.
“There’s just so much waste,” the company’s president and chief executive officer says. “We don’t want to have a garbage filled with 100 cups a day.”
Idea Rebel is a truly paperless office. Pay stubs are e-mailed to employees, notes are taken on tablet devices and whiteboards get heavy use. Designers are allowed to bring in a pad of paper, but they have to take them home with them at the end of each day.
He wanted to go paperless, he says, because his business is all about creating digital products, such as applications, websites and social media tools. Using paper is the antithesis of his company’s core values.
Still, it’s not easy to be a no-paper business. His designer pushed back when he told her she couldn’t print out her layouts. “She liked to print out big [copies] and put them on the wall and get inspiration,” he says. It took a few months, but she got used to looking at everything on a screen.
Mr. Garratt says that going paperless would have been impossible a decade ago and it was even difficult five years ago, when he started the business. It’s thanks to technology, though, that he’s been able to be free of paper for this long.
Almost all of his 30 full-time staff members have two computer screens and an iPad at their desks. Designers get 27-inch monitors, while everyone else gets 21 inchers. The screens give everyone plenty of space to read and edit various documents, he says, while the iPad allows employees to take notes during meetings.
One challenge early on was finding software that enabled on-screen signatures. Just because he’s paperless doesn’t mean the old ways of doing business – such as putting your John Hancock on contracts – has changed. At first, the staff would have to place signatures on documents with Photoshop. It was cumbersome, taking about five minutes a document to complete.
They eventually started using SignEasy, a document-signing app for Apple and Android devices that allowed them to sign contracts from an iPad or iPhone. Now, the process is even faster. The Mac Preview program allows people to import digital signatures. The process, he says, is nearly as fast as actually signing a piece of paper.
Answering requests for proposals from clients has also caused some problems. Most potential clients want physical copies of a proposal along with a digital version. Under no circumstances will they provide a print out, he says. Files are sent via e-mail or put on the cloud-based file storage and sharing site Dropbox. If the company must have paper copies, Idea Rebel will take a pass on the business.
“Nine times out 10 it’s no problem,” he says. “But for that one person that says no, we will turn down the business. It’s often a government RFP [request for proposal] where they won’t do only digital.”
While it might seem like only a small company with just a few employees can go paperless, even multinationals are using technology to reduce paper waste. Accenture, a global consulting firm with thousands of employees around the world, strongly recommends that its staff use as little paper as possible.
The company does have printers, and it still does use a lot of paper, but it’s keeping track of how much waste is created. “We know who prints and we provide reports back to them saying, ‘You printed X number of paper copies this month and this represents a carbon footprint of Y,” says Nicholas Bayley, managing director of information technology strategy at Accenture Canada.
It has been able to cut down on a lot of paper by making use of a variety of collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Lync, a video conferencing and instant messaging tool. The program allows people to not only see each other face-to-face via webcam, but it also lets staff share and edit documents in real-time.
In the past, documents would need to be printed and possibly sent by courier to other locations, then edits to each paper would have to be retyped on the file that’s saved on the computer. Now changes can be made in an instant. “This program really advances the discussion.
A lot of Accenture’s staff takes notes on an iPad. When it’s time to present those scribbles, e-mails or presentations, all someone has to do is plug the tablet into a computer, which is attached a large screen.
Part of the reason why both Accenture and Idea Rebel do this is because they want to be more friendly to the environment. But a paperless office also saves some money and, more importantly they say, it helps them work more efficiently.
“It’s unbelievable how fast things move,” says Mr. Garratt, who points out that he uses Basecamp to collaborate with co-workers and clients. “When a document is finished it gets posted and the client can see it within seconds and make revisions just as quickly. It would take weeks if we had to print and show them everything.”
While his paperless office is running smoothly now, Mr. Garratt will continue adopting new technology to make the process even easier. “We’re always looking at ways to improve,” he says. “It’s the era of easy technology and we’re taking advantage.”
This Article is about how this one company tried for many years to go without paper other words, paperless.
And this company actually did. This tells all about how this story went. I found this article on ” THE GLOBE AND MAIL” ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ )
It was written on June 14 2013 on a Friday. My article was written by BRYAN BORZYKOWSKI.
BRYAN BORZYKOWSKI
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jun. 14 2013, 5:00 AM EDT
Last updated Friday, Jun. 14 2013, 5:11 PM EDT ( COPIED AND PASTE) For INFORMATION!!
This article about how a company who tried really hard to go without paper and now is completely paperless.
This article is about a person named Jamie Garratt, who started Idea Rebel, a Vancouver-based digital agency in
2008, there was one piece of technology he refused to have in his office: a printer. He came from a company where
everyone printed everything and he didn’t want that much waste.
This article is also about some people, who weren’t agreeing or in other words, was hard for them to do.
( WELL IT IS HARD TO DOO, WHAT A BIG THING TO DO TOO.)
Well actually there wasn’t a fix date on when did this event occur, but this has been going ever since 2008 when Jamie Garratt started Idea Rebel, and i think it went paperless around this month.. ( NoT EXact)
This event happened in Vancouver, B.C, Canada!!
But here is something we should all focus on:
WHY DID THEY WANT TO GO PAPERLESS? WHY DID THEY TAKE THIS RISK?
–> Well Jamie , wanted a company, without a printer, because he didn’t want to waste paper, more and more
people use paper and now, its becoming a waste and people are starting to use it for no reason.. They took this
risk for the future generations, Jamie had a very good thinking of not using too much paper so maybe the poor
or even generations ahead can use paper, there are less and less trees now because of this..
I think this article is very interesting, because this is something we all do, and its very hard to change what we are doing. We humans waste lot of stuff now. We should try saving and not wasting. I wonder what will happen what will happen if papers and trees started to get extinct. Our living will get hard. So we should all think about everything we do, before we waste anything or use anything, for the sake of all humans and the future generations. This article relates to Info Tech. 8 because in IT 8 we use computers, and don't waste paper or print anything, but our teacher checks it over the internet, this is one thing, teachers should all do, like our teacher does. IT 8 is about artificial intelligence, and this is also using artificial intelligence to save paper, and trees.
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