These days, business headlines tend to be dominated by big picture stories: crisis in Europe, the US debt, volatile stock markets. But lost in this ocean of alarm are the very positive stories from the businesses on the very street on which you live or work. Small businesses remain the lifeblood of many towns and communities around the province of Alberta—and their stories are too often lost or ignored.

It took a while for the media to catch up with it, but the Occupy Wall Street protest seems to have gained traction—at least for now. Thousands of angry, disenfranchised, mostly young people have amassed themselves in a park near Wall Street for weeks now to rage against the capitalist machine. 

The protest itself is, almost by design, not very well focused. It has become a channel for all kinds of grievances: Wall Street fat cats, corporate greed, and consumer excess in general. But other niche issues are represented as well. Some student protesters are mad about the cost of education. Others are furious about inaction on climate change. There are probably a few fuming about Dutch Elm Disease, or the near-cancellation of The Simpsons. The OWS is a clearinghouse of anger. If you’re mad about something, grab a drum and c’mon down!

Is the OWS movement a positive thing? What should we make of it?

Crisis in Greece. Skyrocketing US debt. Stock market gyrations. It seems that while the rest of the world braces for an economic slowdown and turmoil, Alberta keeps chugging right along. And the most obvious measure of that lately has been in the jobs market.