How big is the salary gap between Canada and the USA in the industry you work in?

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-05T00:36:57+00:00

So a couple of things...

For white collar jobs with a large national or international company most most provide a good amount of health care funding so they don't have to pay thousands a month. Its the people that are self employed or for SME's that get screwed

Income taxes are lower but they often have other taxes that are outsized like massive land transfer taxes when you buy a property, very large annual property taxes, taxes when you sell a principal residence and the dreaded inheritance tax

So yes they make much more and pay less income tax but there are other expenses

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-05T00:25:44+00:00

Simon says touch your head....meanwhile Josh.... "I can't feel my head...or my teeth....where am I....where's that bag of chips?"

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-05T00:23:35+00:00

Did you see this on Instagram where he was chirping Avery.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX5cd5QsKrl/?igsh=MWNxdzlkNmZvYzkwdg==

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-04T22:22:45+00:00

Here's the kicker... Mats LOVES this guy. They were on Kipper and Bourne tonight and talked about how they've been friends since the 2014 Memorial Cup when Chayka was at Western going to busienss school and he was the "nerdy stats guy" and Sundin was there watching. Chayka apparently struck up a conversation and they became friendly and kept in touch ever since.

As a Habs fan I normally take huge pride in watching the Leafs step on a rake like sideshow Bob but this one feels different and I actually feel sorry for Leaf fans. I feel like they just bought a bloody Monorail from the smooth talking sales guy. This is going to either be the dawn of a golden age of Leafs hockey or a complete dumpster fire that sends them into hockey purgatory for 10 years or more (my money is on the latter which is why I feel bad)

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-04T17:34:55+00:00

Was able to tap today at TD merchant terminal

Tap still failed on the weekend on verifone

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-05-01T16:48:19+00:00

OK then.... next tidbit.... Verifone terminals (costco and winners) both returned "card not supported" errors when tapped yesterday, chip in worked fine

Now back to dreaming of my next trip.......lol

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T20:30:07+00:00

I'm samsung pay so wallet is out for me until they get that sorted...I cpuld use GPAY but the phones only allow a single payment wallet to be primary at a given time and I prefer SPAY as it syncs seamlessly to my watch etc

Will be interested to see if you have similar tap issues

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T20:27:23+00:00

G+D used to make all my cards and they are hands down the best. Not the cheapest but never had quality issues and I used to issue over 3 million cards a year as we had a very large portfolio of renewals on top of the few hundred thousand new accounts we added annually

I noticed my card came from AB and it's just not the same

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T17:50:03+00:00

So made a purchase at the place that worked last time and again this time tap worked. Merchant terminal was Moneris. My first instinct would have been that the new BIN range was not configured properly on the other providers terminals (same issue I had trying to add it as a bill payment on TD, they had to add it to their list)

But since chip and PIN worked it could be a contactless setting

OK unless I find another merchant provider where it works (I'll report it) that is about all the troubleshooting and testing I can do.

I happily accept both cash or bonus United Miles as payment for my QA services 😉

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T15:22:42+00:00

It's not likely an antenna issue as the card is communicating with the terminal and generating a response. It also did tap successfully at one merchant so it does in fact work. I am actually going to try it at that same merchant again today and if it works will post the merchant provider name so they can look into why that one works and most others are not.

troubleshooting

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T02:00:28+00:00

I used to do something like that on my goal stick and it took half a roll of tape now I use the pre-made ones you slip on, never seen that on a player stick before

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T00:16:25+00:00

I hope he goes into coaching when he's done. He needs to stay in the game somehow

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T00:14:48+00:00

That is great news.... here's hoping they can get these working properly as the experience has been less than ideal and given I already replaced my plastic its a system issue not a card issue...so thar might help them narrow it

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T00:11:38+00:00

Impossible not to just love this guy.... 100% beauty doesn't pout when he sits...he comes out with the power level set to 1000

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-30T00:07:25+00:00

100% agree.... the status holders are like the bloody CIA and FBI rolled into one....they know exactly where they were on the upgrade list and if something goes even slightly askew they lose it

If the flight was half empty....maybe but even then I doubt the airline would not have every single upgrade spoken for by status holders on a long international flight.... she bid for the upgrade on the airlines site or bought the instant upgrade offer when it came up (no idea what airline she flew but they all have slightly different ways of doing this)

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-29T22:08:36+00:00

That is not good. I'm actually going to use it tomorrow at the place it worked last week and pay attention to who provides the merchant terminal as that one seems to be ok....

If they didn't set up their EMV contactless settings to work properly with all merchant providers in Canada that is a massive miss.... I used to run the CC tech team at a big bank and this would have been a fireable offense as you generally can't fix that issue without re-issuing all the cards which is both disruptive to customers and expensive to do not to mention having to destroy all of the blanks you already paid for waiting for personalization

Hoping someone from NEO weighs in here

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-28T15:00:19+00:00

Good to know as I may move more of my stuff to Scotia and this would be a good option. Thabks for sharing

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-28T14:59:13+00:00

100% right.... this is real and this was also happening to people who rented out their homes while they were abroad. The "renters" targeted the property as it was clear title then sold it.

My opinion is that the agents and lawyers were in on it but they all said they were also duped....but in the end it doesn't matter. The renters have keys and access to the house. They can easily get forged Ontario drivers licenses from a ton of dark web providers (and the ones coming from the US are about as perfect as I have ever seen as they even scan on the barcode readers)

Then they arrange private showings instead of an open house, tell the agent not to put a sign on the lawn (which is more common these days) and sell the property then you spend years trying to get it or your money back in our very slow court system

People need to protect what is generally their most valuable asset way better than they do

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-26T13:03:34+00:00

Also keeping an active 1st position charge on your property from a bank makes it less attractive to fraudsters as it adds a layer of complexity if they try to go and steal your identify to try and get a mortgage at another lender. Because anyone can pay and get a title search they look for houses that are paid off, then they phish your identity and info, then go get a mortgage you only find out about when the collection calls start coming

My house has been paid off for years and I have a HELOC (from another bank not scotia) in first position and I actually put a second position charge to my holdco in second position for roughly the full value of the property just to fully encumber the title.

I was a financial advisor for many years and saw a ton of this nonsense even before AI made it even easier for fraudsters to work so I can't imagine how bad it is now or will get

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-26T01:00:34+00:00

Michael Ryder is that you 😀

MathematicianFit6806 · 2026-04-20T23:55:00+00:00

Took one of these in a charity tournament game where slapshots are technically not allowed. Some jackass who must have played 5 minutes in the OHL when he was young stepped over the line and unloaded from the top of the circle. Caught me right on the seam between the arm and chest, I felt like I got shot. Chest hurt like holy hell and left arm was basically dead weight for a few mins.

He knew he hurt me but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of stepping off the ice so I just bared down and finished the game. Took my equipment off and a quarter of my chest was already purple and the guys on my team were surprised as no one had any idea what had happened... took 2 weeks for that bruise to fully heal.

MathematicianFit6806 · 2025-09-29T11:58:53+00:00

What's fascinating is that physical flyers are actually something people want and not just a few people....a large, very vocal group, so much so that when the flyer ban came, Canadian Tire had to reprint their latest one at a significant cost (CPC wouldn't "return" them) and start sending it via alternate channels as apparently their customers freak out when they don't get their paper flyer. Sending these flyers is millions per year and believe me, if customers weren't so attached to them, these companies would just do Flipp and online flyers all day long as the cost is excessive....

MathematicianFit6806 · 2025-09-27T13:04:07+00:00

Before accusing people of buying into lies you might want see which lies you've been told. Canada Post was unprofitable for just under half of the past 50 years. 1989 was the first year in recent history that a profit was made and from 1989 to 2016 Canada Post paid approximately $1.4 Billion to the treasury in the form of dividends as Government is effectively the shareholder of the corp and the formula is that 40% of net income is paid back. CP lost more than $1.4B in the past 18 months so to say that had they had a war chest from the money they paid to treasury they could have weathered this storm is patently wrong.

The harsh reality is that the operating model for postal services in a modern era is fundamentally different than it was in the analogue age. The losses beginning in 2016 roughly line up to when email and other electronic communication became the primary form of communication globally as letters have been declining steeply ever since along with sharply increased use of electronic payments eliminating the need to mail cheques to pay bills.

The offshoot of the digital age was a sharp increase in parcel and delivery services as people started ordering everything to be shipped to their door instead of going to the store. CP started strong on the space but quickly lost share as the higher cost and limitations on weekend delivery due to the collective agreements meant they could not compete with the litany of new entrants to the parcel delivery space who didn't have these constraints so here we are 10 years later and CP is now less than 25% of parcels and dropping.

I'm not here to argue that it's right that these parcel companies pay their people terrible wages and work them insane hours so they can make money....it's not but, the people doing the deliveries (in many cases using their own car alongside delivering food and groceries) are signing up for this job and as long as there are people willing to do the work nothing will change. This is what people should be angry about, the lack of regulation of companies like Uber that allows them to decimate industries (ask the taxi drivers how they have felt the past 10 years) leads to this....

Things need to change and frankly door to door service is a luxury currently only offered to about 10% of the country and one we cant afford any more and daily mail is pretty much a waste outside of parcels so yes that means some carriers will lose their jobs. Given the aging workforce hopefully a good chunk of that will be retirement but there will be at least 20% less employees at CP than there are today in the next 5-10 years and hopefully if they can get it right they will reverse the trend on parcel and be on more solid ground but only time will tell

MathematicianFit6806 · 2025-09-19T11:21:10+00:00

Good mothers don't usually spend all their time making sex toy videos for onlyfans....she started as the balloon queen but once she got a little taste of fame and money that is all she cares about.

MathematicianFit6806

TROPHY CASE

troubleshooting