YOUR MONEY

Is the Globe and Mail finally reading my blog?

The day after allocating most of its July 31, 2013 Report on Business section to the breakup of the potash cartel of 2 companies and bemoaning the event because one was a Canadian “robber baron” whose stock would be plummeting soon, the Globe and Mail, August 1,2013 allotted an equally large, front B1 report on the flip side of the cartel’s demise – as stressed in my last blog.

The expected drop in potash fertilizer prices,  it states, will especially benefit farmers in  “China, India and Brazil” (B1) and their populations and markets – or, in other words, at least the            2.84 billion people who current live in those three lands and who alone account for a whopping 40% of the world’s entire population (see  http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) .

The 8” x 5” massive picture used (B1) counterbalances the same size image of  Canpotex’s potash storage pile from the day before, and  shows two men collecting cut grain stalks by hand and about to place them in a wicket basket;  clearly, the message is these people are the poor, those at the bottom of agricultural technology.

So did the Globe and Mail read my scathing blog of yesterday?  Probably not in time for the August 1 newspaper run at 3 to 4 a.m., so others must have responded more quickly when they read their morning paper – delivered about 6:00 a.m..  And there must have been enough outrage and flak from individuals and groups for the Globe and Mail to rush and create this second, flip-side, major report.

Too bad it did not think the issue through from the start and give balanced coverage on day one!

Oh, and the G&M’s mea culpa and social conscience was clearly half-hearted, because the August 1 issue, on page 10, has a major advice piece – are you ready for this – advocating buying potash shares for those willing to take a high risk gamble.

Yes, the media game of encouraging stocks and buy, buy, buy never gives up!!!