Sue's Blog

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Eliminate Low-Margin Products

I'm left to wonder - how I should take a message from an FPI News Release this week. If I'm a shareholder - and I'm not - I would be delighted. But if I'm involved in the fishery - the words would spell gloom and doom. I would be angry.

Beverly Evans - Chief Financial Officer - of FPI said this of the company's over 6 MILLION DOLLAR QUARTERLY PROFIT:

"Profitability has improved through the execution of our strategy to eliminate low-margin products from our portfolio"


FPI's profits are up 3 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS from the same quarter last year.

Understand - that this news - while great for shareholders - is a reflection of human suffering in Newfoundland and Labrador. Communities in peril - fighting for their existence - people packing up and moving away before they lose everything.

When Beverly talks about eliminating low margin products - to you and me those products - in reality are people and communities. And all that to ensure that when Ches Penney - Nova Scotia and Iceland Corporates take over the company - they will not be the villains.

How do they all sleep at night? It's takes a special breed to fill your own arse pockets while you watch families and communities suffer. That is the mark of a "successful" business person - not necessarily a "good" one.

This is where the government of Newfoundland and Labrador had some control - had the ability to operate with a 2 million dollar profit instead of a 6 million dollar one. The shareholders should have been and should be the people of the Province - until some corporate entity would have accepted a couple of million a quarter - and communities and people (society) could have carried on.

You see this is not a swipe at the corporate elite - it is their swipe at us. The government neither has the vision nor the guts to do what's right. This will be another Williams' legacy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, it is not John Risley but John Crosbie who is the epitome of those most happily engaged in the screwing of Newfoundland. His role in the infamous dismantling of our Railway , the final collapse of the fisheries and in the vicious attack upon and take over of FPI, is unforgivable. Renowned, especially in the media, as a revered senior statesman and friend of Newfoundland. If that be so, may God protect us from our enemies. He may not have taken the "god-damned" fish out of the water, but he conveniently kept his mouth shut while Mulroney and his band of opportunists drove the last nail in the coffin. Is that a voice to be taken seriously in the debate over the development, management and future course of our higher institutions of learning!!

Forget the feds. If we are going to create a situation where our own scattered people are given the choice to return home , we have to start taking better management of our affairs, even if that means taking Danny by the scruff of the neck and giving him a good shake before he does something so foolish as to give away the "Lower Churchill" : our last remaining kick at the can in terms of future economic autonomy.

A recent article in the Telegram should be required reading. http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=52721&sc=79

Lloyd C. Rees

Anonymous said...

If a Newfoundland Republican Army,or a NRA ever came to be ,I'm sure Mr Crosbie would be a very nervous person lloyd.Thats for sure.
Mr Crosbie has made his mark in our history book.And,they are not very bright pages are they .