There was this clip on a show I saw that had to do with people that buy all of the fancy things in life such as an expensive car and top end clothing when in actuality they have an enormous amount of loans that need to be paid off. The basic message they were trying to get across was how people tend to buy things simply to impress others and in turn put themselves in continuous debt.

Just recently with this iPhone launch here too, I am reading comments on how people think it is so great that they have ways where they can purchase an iPhone using only a phone plan as oppose to having a data plan too which would make it cheaper to use. In a sense, it would be mostly a regular phone which made me think “What’s the point?” in having it at all really.

In many ways everyone to a certain extent buys particular things in order to project a certain image to others. For that though, I personally only do that for items that specifically affect one’s professional life. Example, while I would prefer to just wear something casual in a professional meeting of some sort, unfortunately first impressions do count with strangers and so it is only reasonable to spend a little more to get better clothing.

When it comes to things like a TV or what cell phone I carry around, how impressed people would be when they see it is irrelevant as the point of buying it in the first place was to perform a specific function in my view.

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As expected, there are so much news about the iPhone today since it has just launched here. It’s not a pretty one too as it seems like almost everything that can go wrong with a product launch is happening. What was interesting to me though was how Rogers, the cell phone provider you must use here for the iPhone, dropped the monthly fee by half due to pressure.

It used to be at minimum $60/month and that has apparently dropped to $30/month for a limited time period. I guess that shows you that if enough people put pressure on a certain business that you can semi control the prices that you pay.

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I received a phone call just recently from a person I just met awhile ago and he was interested in acquiring my services for Internet related work. Apparently he was having trouble in setting up his e-mail account for his site and phoned me to ask if he could just send me the information to set it up for him. Since he mentioned it was kind of urgent, that meant not being paid for it.

I was just kind of thinking in my mind whether or not I should as many times people tend to continually expect you to do things for free for them in these fashions. This situation is a little more awkward as well considering the intent was to establish a working business relationship.

In the end, I did mention that I would be willing to help him set it up since it should be fairly quick I thought. Too nice in a business situation? Maybe, but just glad to help I guess.

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I was just reading this article on how there are apparently hundreds of Starbucks stores that are closing down due to them being unprofitable. At the end of the article there was sure an interesting contrast to the situation where they state that investors are all happy yet for the economy it is gloomy as thousands of jobs will be lost.

Kind of interesting when you think about it as in one sense I guess it’s true about the lost jobs and all. At the same time, the economy also relies on investors too to create new business which means they need their money. All about balance I suppose.

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Here in Vancouver there is a very known street area located at Hastings and Main where a lot of homeless people and illegal drug transactions often take place. I was talking to a business owner recently who knew another person that ran a business around that area.

He told me stories such as how the owner has such a hard time attracting customers as homeless people would often come into the store or hang around the entrance area which would discourage people from going near it. He even joked a bit on how whenever he went down there it appeared that there were more transactions happening on the streets of that area than any of the businesses.

I know a little further west there are similar problems and there are plans to renovate a lot of the buildings in time for the 2010 Olympics. It’s kind of interesting though as there are sides against these types of changes as they feel it is pushing poor people away even more and at the same time others say it’s good to start revitalizing the area.

I guess a big reason why people would setup a business in these types of areas initially is the cheap real estate. I can’t say that I have ever honestly seen one business by itself completely change say a whole neighborhood from a poor image to a more neutral one. It usually takes a few others as well. Although, I will be amazed if that area changes as ever since I was a child it has always been like that.

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