Mock Turtle

Next time you’re cursing the abysmal luggage handling at Pearson, this analysis of the opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 may help put things into perspective. It began with baggage handling staff turning up late for their shift because they were unable to find parking places, and got worse from there:

Once into the baggage sorting area, some staff were unable to log on to the computer system, which caused three flights to “cut and run” and fly off without bags – creating the first backlog of the day.

Simultaneously BA baggage teams struggled immediately with an automated system that, via handheld devices, told them which flight to unload and which flight to put bags onto. According to staff, the devices told handlers to sort bags for flights that were already cancelled. This meant they turned up to load flights that were not there while, in other parts of the sorting area, bags piled up unattended.

Human error also played a role. As did a lack of essential equipment:

Throughout early morning and afternoon, two overarching factors contributed to the delays. According to industry sources, some baggage teams were disorientated despite months of training and were late turning up at loading areas, which are spaced around the cavernous baggage area. Plus, there was a shortage of special storage bins that all bags must be put in before going onto planes – a new requirement for T5.

Eventually, it was all too much

At 4pm a wave of passengers came to Terminal 5′s departure hall and checked-in bags that were delivered by a lift system to the main conveyor belt area on the ground floor.

The conveyor belt system could not physically function within one hour and ground to a halt as bags jammed the entire handling network. Minutes later BA suspended all baggage check-in. It was, according to one observer, “literally a case of the baggage computers saying ‘No”‘.

And British Airways’ woes don’t end there — they may have to pay a fine of up to 5,000 pounds per passenger in fines for misleading stranded passengers about their compensation rights under European Commission rules. As well,

There were also concerns on the impact of the “open skies” policy which comes in tomorrow.

You think?

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Christian Lander, Torontonian co-creator of the eerily accurate site Stuff White People Like (check out the full list, including David Sedaris and standing still at concerts, here), reveals the source of his inspiration to the Globe and Mail:

I grew up in Riverdale in Toronto, and Riverdale pretty much captures the entire concept of what white people like.

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There’s no question Ontario needs to move on from the auto sector, and we certainly have the people — more CFAs than any city in the world except New York, i.e., far more than are actually required in the world’s 15th largest financial hub. But is a time of great turmoil in the markets and associated pending layoffs really the moment to invest heavily in job creation in financial services?

Finance Minister putting his money on banks

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The next possible trigger for a federal election, buried in Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill, is legislation to amend the Immigration Act. Anyone with half a brain sees the need for changes to our current points-based system, which with agonizingly slow speed selects the cream of the crop from immigration applicants, leading successful immigrants to believe their skills will be in demand. The lack of alignment of immigration with the labour market, coupled with the inane obsession of HR flacks with “Canadian experience”, leads to Canada’s role as an unhappy way station to the United States — or home — for many immigrants.

So the fact that the federal government has introduced legislation to deal with the backlog of 800,000 applications in an expedited fashion is a good thing. It’s too bad that, as with so many actions Tory, they couldn’t just leave well enough alone, but had to add some hard-to-swallow, unnecessary elements that are impossible for anyone who doesn’t, for whatever reason, trust them to accept.

The key problem? It doesn’t actually change the points system — it keeps it, but then allows the Minister to discard or retain applications using any criteria he or she likes. Don’t want any more Chinese immigrants? Check. Uneasy about the religious practices of a certain immigrant? No problem, just overturn the decision of the immigration officer who just approved the application. The legislation would also allow the Minister to make changes to policy without having to change regulation — a very significant new power.

Immigration lawyers and opposition parties are lining up against the amendments. Let’s just hope that in their zeal to scrap the unpalatable arbitrary powers of the bill they don’t overlook the urgent need for real reform of the immigration system.

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Another Canadian housing bubble blog, this one more active. Calgary Real Estate Blog is written by a petroleum engineer and promises “quantative” analysis. That typo aside, the blog is clearly written, and features some nifty charts — check out the topic “Predicting Canadian recessions using financial variables”, for example.

In other news, it seems I’m experiencing mind meld with Garth Turner. If this isn’t a sign of the apocalypse, I’m not sure what is.

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In the markets is capitulation. And it’s definitely underway now.

Huge investment bank Bear Stearns to be sold to JP Morgan for nothing close to its Friday closing price of $30-ish per share, but for $2 per share. If there’s any reason it’s not just $1 per share, it’s not obvious. The only reason seems to be to prevent even more panic than the $2 fire sale price already is.

In January 2007, Bear Stearns had a market cap of $20 billion. To give some context, that’s the same level as the current market cap of our BMO, whose stock price has lost 6.8% in the last week and 31% in the last three months because of its own credit issues. Now, BMO is for the most part a large, stable retail and commercial bank, backstopped by the too-big-to-fail promise of OSFI — no Bear Stearns. Still, I’d imagine anyone who shorted the stock last week is feeling pretty good this morning.

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Sunday morning, Museum station. Stairs are under repair. An elderly couple stand on the one escalator, and move sharply over to the right side to allow others to pass on the left. A young woman begins to pass on the left, then hesitates, as she realizes (to her apparent horror) that the fabric of the sleeve of her heavy winter coat might brush the fabric of the sleeve of the elderly woman’s heavy winter coat if she presses forward. Young woman throws an anguished look back to her overcoat-clad husband, who is standing on the right behind the elderly couple. The husband makes a face indicating she should not press forward. 8-10 people are now stuck behind the younger woman, while the elderly couple’s considerate gesture is completely undone.

Frustrated passengers ask young woman, “Why don’t you go past? This couple is standing to one side so people can walk on the left.”

Young woman’s husband answers for her, “Because it’s Sunday.”

Holding back other passengers and ignoring two older people’s considerate attempt to ensure others can move at their own pace around the station in favour of the concerns about the propriety of gentle fabric-to-fabric pressure? What’s polite about that?

It has nothing to do with manners, which exist to make navigating society easier for all. It is, rather, a perfect example of fake politeness, which is more concerned with oneself and one’s public image than in actually greasing the wheels of social interaction. In the scenario described, the only winner is the pompous Sunday-venerating young husband, who is able to bask in the self-generated glow of his righteous behaviour.

Another common example of fake politeness in action:

Someone is at the front of a line for a cashier when a cashier becomes free. But is this person the first in line, or could someone else be? Why not argue with the second person in line about who was there first, and should thus go to the free cashier? This is the fake polite thing to do, inconviencing, as it does, as many other people in line as possible, while allowing the fakely polite person with the impression he or she has demontrated to anyone within earshot his or her exquisite manners.

This week’s challenge to the practical readers of Mock Turtle: your own examples of fake politeness. Remember the rules: an act of fake politeness must benefit no one except the fakely polite person, and must inconvenience others. Bonus points for self-satisfied comments about propriety.

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And they like their meat well-aged –

Rate Of Escalator Injuries To Older Adults Has Doubled

“What really surprised us was the reckless behavior exhibited by some older adults on escalators,” said Dr. Steele, associate professor of epidemiology in the IU School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health. “One emergency department reported a fall by an escalator rider who attempted to squeeze past an individual in a wheelchair and the individual’s attendant who were also on the escalator. Obviously, the wheelchair should not have been on the moving stairs. And of course the injured individual should not have attempted to beat them down the stairs.”

But oh no! The study authors advocate standing still on escalators, a practice which all right-thinking people abhor:

“Older adults, especially those with mobility, balance or vision problems, should use caution while riding an escalator and especially when stepping on or off. They should not try to walk up or down a moving escalator, carry large objects, or wear loose shoes or clothing while riding since these appear to be associated with an increased risk of falling,” said Dr. O’Neil, associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine.

More sensibly, they also recommend the use of elevators if one is mobility- or vision-limited.

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Here’s an entertaining and very weird website, with a whole new take on the Iliad. I ran across it in a review, in New York Magazine, of a book called Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks From the Wild Web, by one Sarah Boxer (review also linked below).

http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/44480/

http://underodysseus.blogspot.com/2006_04_09_archive.html

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It sounds like an unpleasant exercise routine. But instead, it’s this move by some major British lenders, which sets new limits on mortgage borrowing in response to the crunch the banks themselves are facing:

Borrowers with little or no equity in their homes face big increases in repayments when their existing deals end after Lloyds TSB and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) pulled their mortgages for those with deposits of less than 10% last week.

Banks and building societies are raising their rates for new borrowers. Halifax, the largest mortgage lender, is increasing the interest rate on its mortgages on Tuesday, adding up to £600 a year to the cost of an average loan.

The article estimates that 150,000 people borrowed more than 90% of the purchase price of their property last year.

Prices are already declining in Britain, down by 0.5% in February, the fourth month of price drops in a row. Annual growth is still positive, but if the trend continues, there could be no or negative annual growth in prices within months. In some overheated markets, that scenario could already be unfolding.

If 150,000 fewer people are able to take out mortgages because purchase prices are out of line with the amount of deposit money people are able to save on their salaries, the decline in house prices should gather speed as the market adjusts to the new conditions.

- Back on this side of the Atlantic, today’s Star article on the Toronto real estate market is the gloomiest piece I’ve seen so far. A “real estate apocalypse”? Even I’m not that bearish. And what about those Iranians?

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