Tag Archives: Rotman School of Business

According to Sue-Ann Levy

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I wonder how often administrators over at the Rotman School of Business think of revoking Sue-Ann Levy’s alumna status whenever she writes out those words? “According to my calculations…” Beware conservative hack math. Numbers are meaningless. Conclusions suspect.

She was at it again yesterday, yapping about free passes to various Toronto cultural venues by the Toronto Public Library. Never mind that the Sun Life Financial Museum and Arts Pass program $200,000 is a “donation Sun Life gives… [that] covers the printing and promotion of the passes and the money to hire an administrator [bolding ours].” Just remember that it’s a program initiated under former mayor David Miller, ‘Mr. Culture and Creativity Himself’. Don’t you just hate it when our mayor is all culture-y and creativity-y? Himself.

Despite the fact that Sun Life covers the cost of printing and promoting the passes as well as hiring the administrator to oversee such things, TPL staff puts in all that time to organize and supervise the weekly draws. Toronto taxpayers have to foot that bill which must amount to… well, Sue-Ann doesn’t take the time to calculate those numbers. But they must be huge because Ms. Levy sniffs at the $200,000 Sun Life donates. “That’s it”, she concludes, implying that the real money is paid out come draw time, what with all those slips of paper, pencils and cardboard boxes necessary to pull off such complicated manoeuvres.

No, Sue-Ann has bigger numbers to cook, taking her Jethro Bodine guzinta skills to calculate the money lost by all those money losing organizations these library using freeloaders are trying to crash.  “According to my calculations,” Levy scribbles, “the Toronto Zoo’s involvement in the program will add up to nearly $600,000 in foregone revenue this year while Casa Loma will not collect $530,000 due to these passes.” Gasp! Such big numbers!

But wait, it gets even juicer.” Toronto’s eight historical museums will give up $3.2-million in potential revenues.” Gravy! Sue-Ann Levy sees gravy!

When asked to comment about such outrageous non-spending, the city’s Chief Librarian, $205,720/year (no one in the public sector is worth a 6 digit figure salary) Jane Pyper was not available for comment.  She was just back from vacation – what? 200K a year and she goes on vacation?! – and, according to Sue-Ann, was “overwhelmed”.  Also, “TPL Board member Paul Ainslie couldn’t be reached for comment either,” whined Levy. I imagine he was simply too embarrassed to go on record commenting on such drivel.

Not so Budget Chief Mike Del Grande. This is just the kind of profligacy that “… makes his ‘hair stand on end’”.  “It’s very interesting when you consider that some of the venues (donating passes) are losing money … yet we’re giving out freebies to everyone and their uncle,” Del Grande said.

Now, no one should be surprised by such fiscal fatuousness coming from Sue-Ann Levy despite her Rotman MBA. But from someone overseeing a nearly $10 billion annual operating budget? A loud and proud chartered accountant no less? Head shaking in its myopic simple-mindedness.

Does the budget chief actually believe that people who wait in line to enter a draw to win passes to places like the zoo or Casa Loma – some as long as 4 hours according to Sue-Ann’s calculations, so take that as you will – are somehow gaming the system? Deadbeats with the time on their hands to stick it to all the hardworking taxpayers of Toronto and score themselves some freebies? Perhaps the more logical conclusion is those who would put in that kind of time in the hopes of winning an entry into some of our cultural institutions do so out of economic necessity. Without the passes, they would be unable to go. So they’re not freebies at all. The millions of dollars Sue-Ann Levy cites as giveaways are, actually, never-would-bes, nothing even close to lost revenue.

And don’t many service oriented businesses offer up these kind of ‘giveaways’ in order to bring customers to them? A certain percentage of those who come with their free passes might fall in love with the zoo or Casa Loma and decide it’s worth budgeting for a return visit. They might bring some other family members or friends with them next time. Failing that, with the money they’ve saved on admission, they might spend it on souvenirs or concessions. That would be found money. Simple good business sense. Something this administration is all about, right?

“[Del Grande] says this is not part of the Library’s core responsibilities, nor should it be.” Just how much of a backward philistine is the budget chief anyway? Introducing people who might not otherwise be exposed to a wider array of cultural institutions is not a library’s core responsibility? That’s exactly a library’s core responsibility. Saying it isn’t simply shows a monumental ignorance of the purpose of having a public library system in the first place. It helps enhance the public sphere by building a better informed, enlightened citizenry.

Instead of railing about phantom gravy and making grand pronouncements on topics you know little about, Sue-Ann Levy and Mike Del Grande should really do the city a favour and spend more time at their local libraries. We’d all benefit having more knowledgeable newspaper columnists and broad-minded budget chiefs.

— davidly submitted by Cityslikr

The Weather Up There

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I spent the last few days trying to pull numbers from my ass. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks but it wasn’t entirely a waste of time either. I did find a couple mismatched socks that I’d long ago written off as hostages taken by my cantankerous dryer.

What really baffles me however is just how easily and often conservative politicians, pundits and thinkers pull off this feat. They are perpetually pulling numbers from their ass and using them as ‘proof positive’ of their various arguments and pet peeves. Why, just last week the mayor went deep and came up with a threatened 35% property tax increase if we don’t get down to some serious slashing and burning of city services and assets. Where’d he get that number? He didn’t pass along any footnotes or references, so we can only assume it came from where the sun don’t shine. Just like the 80% labour costs he tells us that that make up our annual operating budget. Or the 6% attrition rate of city staff that occurs every year. (Actual numbers point to less than 3%.)

Mystical, magical numbers that suit whatever situation the mayor’s railing against, thrown up against the wall to see how long they stick. That one’s done. That’s done. Oh. That one may need a little more cooking.

To be fair to the mayor, the 35% property tax increase number probably didn’t originate from up his ass. It seems to be a figure pulled out from the keister of one Matthew McGuire of the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition. 34% + 1 for good measure. Always round up when looking to scare people. Round down if you need to mitigate the increase to the police salaries you just agreed to.

Where did Mr. McGuire come up with his numbers? Well, I don’t have an MBA from the Rotman School of Business but it looks to me as if he just took the already arbitrary figure of $774 million Team Ford has been using to bludgeon us into submission and calculated what hike in property taxes would be needed to cover that cost. If we did nothing else. As happened every year David Miller was in power. Spend more money. Raise property taxes. Repeat. Years 2003-2010.

(Hey. I just pulled that from my ass. Maybe I am getting the hang of it.)

McGuire floated that number a week or so ago and it was immediately picked up by CityTV news and the receptacle of all things pulled from right wingers asses, talk radio. Stop the presses! Somebody just said something really loopy. Get that man a microphone! City council is a haven for communists? Print it!

Of course, it’s mostly a one-way street on that account. If I were to float something equally as questionable, chances are the press wouldn’t be knocking down my door unless maybe the mayor flipped me off or if I issued death threats. But in terms of policy like, say, Matt Elliott did about budget alternatives. I’m not sure our local mainstream media would be as a quick to set up an interview. Have you been interviewed yet, Matt, on your budget thoughts?

Right wingers float whatever ideas that emanate from their gut and the press is all ears. Nothing is ever too crazy or cracked to pass by unnoticed. It’s just put out there as a starting point for future discussion. Of course a 34 or 35% property tax increase would never happen under any administration but especially our current one. It’s just where the goal posts are planted. Negotiations begin from there. Don’t want a 35% property tax increase? Fine.

Where do we start cutting? Libraries? Grants? Sidewalk snow removal? No wait. That one’s off the table.

In our Matlovian manner, we then desperately search for the middle ground, playing on the field where the lines have just been redrawn. No, no, no. Nobody wants a 35% property tax increase. So let’s settle on the rate of inflation and begin cutting from there. Maybe we can sell off some of our assets instead? The mayor’s heavy lifting has been done for him and all he needed to do was negotiate in bad faith, using dubious numbers he pulled from his ass.

Why don’t we call his bluff? No, no, no. A 35% property tax increase is out of the question. We’re happy with 30%. Of course, the response will inevitably be, are you nuts? To which we respond, are you? You suggested a 35% increase. What? You mean you weren’t serious?

All of which takes me to the clip I’ve been watching over and over again since I first saw it on the season ender of Real Time with Bill Maher. New Rules. The Donner Party. In short, we who don’t adhere to radical right wing ideology need to start bringing the crazy. By playing nice and trying to be reasonable and always searching to find the ‘truth’ somewhere in the mushy middle, we’ve already given up the game. If you try fighting crazy fire with the coolness of logic, you succeed only in moving closer to the crazy not coming to a logical compromise.

HiMY SYeD had it right in his deputation to the Executive Committee last month. Rather than settle for cuts to some libraries, he demanded that we double the number of branches in the city. Why? Mr. SYeD claims libraries increase property values and increased property values increases revenue to the city. Libraries are a creative city’s DNA and engine driving innovation. (A sidenote: The book Mr. SYeD holds up for Councillor Kelly is The Warhol Economy.) Of course, if he were really playing by the crazy rules, Mr. SYeD wouldn’t have offered up any plausible explanations for his reasoning other than, just because or I pulled the number from my ass.

From that starting point, I can envision the conversation going something like: We can’t afford more libraries. Yes but, we can’t afford fewer libraries. That would be the start of some meaningful negotiations.

So let’s all start putting on our crazy dresses and Mr. Peanut tophats and make our demands heard loud and clear. Let’s stop reaching out to find a compromise with half-baked notions and patently false assertions. Let’s be ‘… a dog that can bark at a pine cone for 9 days and not get tired.’

— insanely submitted by Cityslikr

Personality Mapping By Numbers

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So apparently, if going by where I live is indicative of the type of personality I possess, the good folks at the Martin Prosperity Institute at U. of T.’s Rotman School of Business would conclude that I am a fairly disagreeable introvert who is mildly conscientious but very open to experience with nary a hint of neurosis. Or, I am none of those things but live amidst a high concentration of that type which, at first blush, sounds nothing like my neighbourhood at all. Or maybe the disconnect is due to complexity being shoe-horned into ill-fitting boxes. Like the evil stepsisters trying to cram their big, flat feet into the tiny glass slipper Cinderella left behind.

All of which has to do with an interview I came across recently with Dr. Kevin Stolarick, a Research Director at the MPI. He and his team amassed a database of some 1300 participants from an online personality test in order to discover a link between types of people and where they live. According to Stolarick, personality traits fall into five and only five categories. “No matter what you ask people in behavioral questions,” Stolarick told Meghan Lawson of The Strand magazine last fall, “their answers always fall into the Big Five traits.” The Big Five? Conscientiousness, agreeability, openness to experience, extroversion, and neurosis.

Really? Do our lives break down that cleanly into a mere five categories? Can a 7 million year march through human evolution only have brought us to a point where we can be psychologically fitted into so few, easily defined slots? Sounds more like a marketer’s dream rather than anything even closely resembling reality.

There is also the very real possibility I just don’t have the necessary academic underpinnings to fully comprehend what Stolarick and his colleagues are attempting to do with this study. Into which one of the big 5 personality trait categories is ignorance placed?

It also could be my misgivings about putting much credence into self-reporting tests that serve as the basis for the research of Stolarick et al. As honest as people think they might be, there’s always going to be a hesitancy to ascribe to oneself less than flattering attributes. Do you like to acknowledge the fact that you’re the type that does ‘get nervous easily’ and ‘can be tense’ and ‘who worries a lot’? Wouldn’t you much rather be that person ‘who remains calm in tense situations’ and ‘is a deep, ingenious thinker’? Even just a little? Agree? Strongly disagree?

I gather that there’s a growing science behind putting together a more reliable sort of questionnaire in order to weed out the biggest, fattest liars and that there’s always increased accuracy in larger numbers, still… I find it difficult to fully embrace the veracity of the responses to such intensely personal questions. No, I am not comfortable admitting, even to someone at the end of a fairly anonymous online survey that ‘I see myself as someone with few artistic interests’ and ‘who starts quarrels with others’?

How much information should be deduced from such exercises? Can useful specifics be gathered from such broad strokes? Even Stolarick thinks that “personality is one of those things that doesn’t change very much. These are underlying personality types. Ideally, you should be seeing that these types don’t correlate with anything else.” So, what exactly is he looking for in crunching these types of numbers?

On the plus side, some pretty pictures have emerged from the MPI personality study, using heat diagramming that tells a tale of self-described types and where they reside here in Toronto. It seems that anyone lacking in curiosity lives up in the north end of the city. While all us suspicious and bad-tempered folk inhabit the central region top to bottom (making North Yorkers both close-minded and unfriendly) and stretching out along the lakeshore through the Beaches and into Scarborough. And if you’re neurotic, you better find yourself a place east of Yonge Street unless you want to go around feeling all conspicuous over here on the laid back west side, yo.

It all seems so narrow and confining, if you ask me, especially coming from a think-tank operating under the direction of urban guru Richard Florida. Isn’t he always on about the strength of diversity? Just how diverse are we if we can be so clinically boiled down to 5 kinds of personalities who huddle around other like-minded people? That, to my very open mind with all its introverted disagreeability and ever-so-slight traces of conscientiousness and neurosis, is the exact opposite of diverse; evoking more societal patterns in the Appalachians or medieval Europe. Surely, the complex web of life in a 21st-century, multicultural city like ours goes about its business on a much more complicated level than that.

— very unneurotically but quite disagreeably submitted by Urban Sophisticat