Putting a price on life

I wanted to write this before Edmonton's municipal election, which happened this week, but night shifts and overtime made it difficult. Now that my schedule is more normal, I'm going to comment on one of the big issues in that election: the Edmonton City Centre Airport.

In case you're not all that familiar with Edmonton, we have two airports. The City Centre Airport (ECCA) is near downtown, and it only serves small planes including charters and air ambulances. The International Airport is outside of the city limits, about 26 km from downtown, and it serves the vast majority of people flying in and out of the Edmonton area. Last year, Edmonton's city council decided to close the ECCA, eventually. This became an issue in this year's election campaign.

Since most Edmontonians don't actually use that airport, one of the biggest arguments for keeping it open was for air ambulances. Edmonton has the closest major hospitals to many northern communities. Moving the air ambulance flights (which are typically in airplanes, not helicopters) to the International Airport would make it take longer to get to a major hospital, typically about 8 minutes longer (more in bad weather), a fairly short time compared to the hours it would take to stabilize the patient in the northern community, get them on a plane, and fly to Edmonton. Even so, 8 minutes could mean the difference between life and death for a very small number of patients.

The airport needs some upgrades to keep it open (I don't think airport revenue is enough to cover this), and if it's redeveloped into something else, the city stands to collect more taxes from that land. So is it worth the money to keep it open to save a few lives? I heard one candidate in this election say, "You can't put a price on life." I'd like to agree with that, but in practice, we put a price on life all the time. If we really don't put a price on life, why don't we build a major hospital in every northern community, so that people don't have to fly to Edmonton in emergencies? That would save far more lives than keeping the ECCA open.

Although there's not much chance of the government funding all those hospitals, maybe the money saved by shutting the ECCA down could be put toward other health care improvements, like reducing wait times in emergency rooms. Maybe that would save more lives. (Yes, I'm aware that closing the ECCA mainly affects the municipal government's revenue and expenses, and it's the provincial and federal governments that pay for health care. But their revenue all comes from the same place--us. Maybe the municipal government will be able to cut taxes a bit and the provincial government can raise taxes a bit to pay for the improvements.)

So in conclusion, instead of protesting against the government "putting a price on life," let's ask instead how the government can use our money to save the most lives and improve people's health the most.

Lukewarm Christians

In the Bible, Revelation 3:14-16 (NIV) says:

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

I read something that explains what a "lukewarm" Christian is in more detail. Here's what it says:

A “lukewarm Christian” is not somebody who claims to follow Jesus but also does worldly things. It’s somebody who says “I don’t do worldly things, so I’m living in God’s will.”

A “lukewarm Christian” is not somebody who claims to follow Jesus but only shows up on Sundays. It’s somebody who says, “God must be pleased with my devoted church attendance.”

A “lukewarm Christian” is not somebody who doesn’t have a quiver full of children. It’s somebody who says, “I have biblical family values, so I’m more sold out to the Lord than those feminists are.”

You can read the whole thing here. I think he makes some pretty good points. I believe in being totally committed to God (not that I always live up to that) and that it's important not to just believe everything we're told about what God wants, so I appreciate articles like this speaking out against some of the more controlling or legalistic Christians.

Life imitating art, Part 2

My last post was about life imitating art, specifically The Simpsons. Now there's another example.

Back in 2000, there was an episode that looked into the future, when Lisa Simpson is President of the United States. In it, they make reference to Donald Trump's disastrous term as President.

Now Donald Trump is considering running for President.

My theory that we live in a world secretly ruled by Matt Groening is gaining traction.

Life imitating art

So Fidel Castro is admitting that communism isn't working in Cuba. Didn't this happen on The Simpsons once? If a rich American and his doofus employee hand Castro a trillion-dollar bill, saving the communist system, then I'll know we're all living in The Matrix. Or a world that's secretly ruled by Matt Groening.

Investing: the importance of dividends

Today I'm going to get into a subject that so many have written so much about, and that I have relatively little experience with: investing.

Some time ago, I was listening to an episode of The Ongoing History of New Music about collectibles. The host, Alan talked about various rare, limited-edition CDs and LPs, played some music from them, and said how much they're worth now. One or two of them are worth a lot of money. Most of them are worth somewhere between 5 and 20 bucks. (It's been a while since I listened to it, so I might be a bit off on the price range.) That's not a bad price for a used CD, if you're on the selling end, but still, it's not a lot of money. The host made an important point: if you're going to buy a collectible, buy it because you want it; don't buy it as a financial investment.

That got me thinking, his advice could apply to any investment. Lots of investments go up in value a lot more reliably than collectible CDs and LPs, but something has to drive that increase. Some investments, like houses, provide something of physical value (such as shelter) while you own it. Others (like a savings account or GIC, or a house that you're renting out) pay money while you have money invested.

Which brings me to another very popular form of investment: the stock market. Some stocks pay dividends, so they're not just something you buy now to sell for more money later. Other stocks don't pay dividends. These companies want to put all of their profits into growth, for now. Some companies, like Google, have no plans to pay dividends in the foreseeable future. I wonder when (or if) they'll pay dividends. I'd like it if they'd give some indication of when they want to start paying dividends. Even though it seems like the most stock market money can be made by buying low and selling high, not by waiting for a slow trickle of dividends, I think every company should eventually pay dividends.

It would make sense to me that every company should plan to pay dividends eventually, but apparently some people are "critics of dividends," so I'll say a bit more to defend my view.

Ultimately, I believe that the hope of future dividends should be the only thing driving stock prices. A typical dividend-paying company pays the same amount per share every quarter, occasionally changing the amount. It seems hard to believe that this could drive the fluctuations in a company's value that can happen in minutes, but I suppose things that happen during the day can affect the company's prospects years down the road. If a company's price isn't affected by the hope of future dividends, then it's only driven by the hope that someone else will pay more later. And they will only be willing to pay more because they believe someone will pay even more later. This infinite chain seems like a flimsy foundation for a company's value. Sure, shareholders own an asset while they own the shares, but it's an asset they can't use. What good is that?

Let's imagine a stock market where no companies pay dividends. Then any money you make from the stock market has to come from outside of the stock market--employment income, small business income, interest from other types of investments, and debt. The amount of money coming out of the stock market as people sell has to be less than or equal to the amount coming in from buyers. This sounds kind of like a casino. The house (in this case, the stock brokers) always wins. Some others win and some others lose, but on average, they lose.

But in real life the stock market goes up on average. People do make money from it, and not just from dividend-paying stocks. Maybe that's because more and more people are investing more of their money. If the number of investors and their wealth stops growing, the value of stocks would stop growing (again, assuming no dividends). If you can't make money off your investment without a growing number of people coming in after you, investing even more money, you're in a Ponzi scheme.

I can only see two differences between investing in a Ponzi scheme and investing in a company that will never pay dividends:

1. Ponzi schemes makes more consistent profits (for a while).

2. In a Ponzi scheme, you don't really own anything. In the stock market, you own something you can never use; you can only sell it to someone who also can never use it. Is this really a difference?

Am I missing something here? Or do all successful companies eventually pay dividends, or sell out to a company that pays dividends?

Abolition

In 1865, the USA abolished slavery.

In 1971, Canada officially abolished nuclear weapons.

In 1973, Iceland abolished the letter z.

Videos of Iceland

No, I'm not in Iceland yet. I'm just going to share a couple of music videos I've seen that were filmed in Iceland.

The first: "Heaven" by Live. They aren't from Iceland but they filmed a video there.

The second: "Glósóli" by Sigur Ros. Saw it mentioned in a blog. This is an Icelandic song.

It just occurred to me as I was writing this that these videos have something else in common: ambiguous endings.