The serious return of 'serious season'
Country music. Empires. Strikes. Aliens. Labour. Hurricanes. Chickens.
Hi there!
‘Silly season’ is finally over - which I suppose means ‘serious season’ has begun in earnest? Anyway, we’re back from our hot summer hiatus for the second part of season 2023, and we’re pretty glad we took a few weeks off for R&R. Other than billionaires undermining their own investments, not much happened this summer. Actually, that’s not entirely true. ‘Silly season’ did deliver some gems this year.
🤡 What we learned in ‘silly season’
Primarily we learned that people think about the Roman Empire a lot more than anyone previously expected. Personally I only think about the Emperor Hadrian wall-building period, circa 130AD, on a bi-monthly schedule at best - but I’m keen to hear your own ancient Rome thoughts. Please reach out and lets chat.
There was finally time to really dig into the world of Apple marketing images and work out the prime time melodrama clearly happening in plain sight (the ongoing SAG-AFTRA / WGA strike is clearly forcing us all into the deepest of niches for our daily entertainment). Apple, of course, then went on to rebrand itself this quarter as the low-key saviour of all humanity (iWatch purchase required for salvation, conditions apply).
Businesses and advertisers continued to flee the rolling Twitter / X garbage fire, leaving one lone comedian standing - who unfortunately happens to be the CEO. Did somebody say sports?! Rumours of enforced pay-to-play at Twitter / X (bizarrely revealed in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…what is going on??…) looks like the true death of the platform for Small Business promotion and banter. Abandon all hopes, leave now. But don’t then run off and rely on Google to solve your outreach problem. Changes are happening to search at an alarming rate which are going to re-divert a lot of expected web traffic.
If you spent your summer musing as to why social media generally sucks now for promoting your business (it does!), here’s a good take.
Oh, and how could we forget the groundbreaking discovery of Mexican aliens?
🥸 What’s on the agenda for ‘serious season’
Zero rate rises, growing employment numbers and a hyper-bullish stock market surge. It’s like Covid never happened!
Oh. Yeah, we kinda forgot about those CEBA Covid loan deadlines after a summer of Caesar drinking and general Caesar thinking, but the hangover is all too real for many Small Business owners right now. Nevertheless, whatever the solution is, a federal 3 week ‘forgiveness period’ probably isn’t going to solve…much. And while labour numbers are looking good at the federal % level, labour activity is seemingly in a major phase shift.
Long time readers of this newsletter will know of our often ‘aggressive’ support for pro-flexible work / remote working futures, and we definitely see the rising trend of capital ‘U’ Union organization as being partially related to that demand (and that happy workers are a net positive for humanity, generally speaking). But, ethos aside, it has been a strike-heavy summer, and we don’t see that letting up as we slowly saunter into Fall. If your Small Business owner spider-senses are tingling, it’s worth noting that, yes, something has definitely shifted in labour trends - and figuring it all out will definitely make your brain hurt. Thankfully Hamilton Nolan over at ‘How Things Work’ is smarter than all of us and figured it all out on our behalf. It’s a good read - and it’s worth noting than Hamilton Nolan is way smarter than this guy. Don’t be that guy. If you make your start of ‘serious season’ all about one thing, I’d highly recommend some thought about labour trends and where it’s all headed - I can’t help feeling like this is one major factor that is going to influence a lot of things by year end - from business bottom lines to election wins.
Things for Small Business have been complex in the States too, of course - ERC payments, which have some parity to CEBA in Canada - are facing a federal stalemate in the IRS ecosystem. Add in wildfires, floods, hurricanes and accelerated climate change supercharging government disaster grants, insurance and loan sharking - it’s been a tough summer for Small Business owners on both sides of the 49th parallel. Capital costs are still stubbornly high, and inflation is refusing to die given how trauma-bonded it is to gas prices. That’s not including the disappointingly small $20 chicken in the room. Thankfully that chicken is now a federal-level problem - and maybe it’ll soon become a nostalgic story that our grandchildren will roll their eyes at over a shared Costco rotisserie platter. We can only hope.
We’ll be back next week with more news and chicken analysis! Until then, if you’re looking for help with your Small Business in the coming season - be that bookkeeping, support, tax services or payroll - come have a chat with our seasoned team at huumans. We promise to save you at least the cost of that $20 chicken - or your money back!
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Brody’s a joke
This week Jay Dort delves into country music and it’s complete disregard for facts - and it’s bizarre lack of empathy for it’s own foundations.
I listen to a lot of country music, so I’m no stranger to hearing some pretty far off-base lines. A month or so ago there was a lot of attention about Jason Aldean’s Try That In A Small Town where he plays a 3 minute dog whistle solo, and local radio stations recently went from having a literal ban on Morgan Wallen to playing him every third song. Just like every other genre, there’s a lot of dumb takes, and the natural fallout of those dumb takes. But for whatever reason, Country is having its moment.
Dean Brody’s Broke was probably written an hour down the road from me. He’s been in Nova Scotia for awhile and you rarely hear of him (that’s a compliment). He’s been consistent with what he does, he’s got a charitable foundation, and Whiskey In A Teacup was kinda fun. Broke just isn’t it, though, it’s one of those annoying cases where someone imagines a scenario that’s completely out of touch with reality just so they can get upset about it, and hopefully try to get others upset too. The gist of it goes something like: Dean Brody doesn’t survive off another man’s dollar, but some people do and half the time it's that fool that ends up with half of his cheque. So let’s call the half of a half 25%, and try to figure out if that’s the case.
If you’re in Nova Scotia, you’re paying some of the highest taxes in Canada, but in order for the Federal and Provincial tax to end up with half of your cheque, you’d need to earn $700,000+ per year. In Brody’s defense, finding the breakdown of tax dollars wasn’t as easy as I expected, the document that the Government of Canada provides is all the way from 2010, and provincial information is shrouded in its own way.
At the Federal level support for the elderly takes up a large chunk (13%) and benefits to children takes up (4%), EI (8%) is something that all working people pay into and it’s not akin to welfare. That leaves us with the Canada Social Transfer of (4%) because I’m assuming that Brody doesn’t have a problem with taking care of old people or children.
At the Provincial level it’s more convoluted, my best guess is that welfare is wrapped up into Health and Wellness which takes up about 1 ⁄ 3 of the budget, but also includes things like hospitals, doctors, and nurses. So let’s act in good faith and say that Social Transfers cover 4% of the budget for the Province as well. So if we’re in the right ballpark, we can say that out of Brody’s $700,000+ fortune, only a cumulative 4% ($14,000) is going towards welfare, this is just enough to cover one single person with a disability for a year.
There’s a word for people who stir up lies to sell their music: Brody is a joke.