Alternate title: #Gruster#$%k. My most recent piece from Ricochet on Syriza’s proposed austerity package. There is acrimony and division in Athens, after the Syriza government submitted a revised list of proposals to its creditors. Despite a resounding victory in last Sunday’s referendum for Oxi — the “no” vote rejecting creditor
Continue readingAuthor: Michal Rozworski
Michal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Austerity insanity: on the Greek proposals
Alternate title: #Gruster#$%k. My most recent piece from Ricochet on Syriza’s proposed austerity package. There is acrimony and division in Athens, after the Syriza government submitted a revised list of proposals to its creditors. Despite a resounding victory in last Sunday’s referendum for Oxi — the “no” vote rejecting creditor
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: The New Europeans: Like the Old on Greece
Poland’s man in Brussels, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, has truly settled into his shoes as a new member of the European elite. On Tuesday, he issued the stern warning: “Our inability to find agreement may lead to the bankruptcy of Greece and the insolvency of its banking
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: The New Europeans: Like the Old on Greece
Poland’s man in Brussels, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, has truly settled into his shoes as a new member of the European elite. On Tuesday, he issued the stern warning: “Our inability to find agreement may lead to the bankruptcy of Greece and the insolvency of its banking
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Oxi: a political opening amid economic ruin
This week has been a taste of what the economy would look like with a real rupture with the Eurozone: uncertainty, elite blackmail, banks teetering on the brink and the start of rationing. That the mobilization of Syriza and the left outside it has overcome this and made Oxi a
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Oxi: a political opening amid economic suffocation
This week has been a taste of what the economy would look like with a real rupture with the Eurozone: uncertainty, elite blackmail, banks teetering on the brink and the start of rationing. That the mobilization of Syriza and the left outside it has overcome this and made Oxi a
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Quick thoughts on Vancouver’s transit referendum “No”
Here are a few quick, initial thoughts on Vancouver’s transit referendum, where new transit funding paid for by a regional sales tax was rejected roughly 60% to 40%. You might want to read on even if you’re not from Vancouver: after all, it isn’t the only property-value-driven urban “utopia” where public services, public spaces
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Quick thoughts on Vancouver’s transit referendum “No”
Here are a few quick, initial thoughts on Vancouver’s transit referendum, where new transit funding paid for by a regional sales tax was rejected roughly 60% to 40%. You might want to read on even if you’re not from Vancouver: after all, it isn’t the only property-value-driven urban “utopia” where public services, public spaces
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Podcast: Laudato Si and carbon trading
http://rozworski.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/podcast150629-laudato-and-carbon.mp3 Last week, Pope Francis released his encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si. The document speaks out strongly against environmental degradation in all forms and even calls for climate justice between the global North and South. My first guest is Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig, staff writer at The New Republic who writes
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Podcast: Laudato Si and carbon trading
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/podcast150629-laudato-and-carbon.mp3 Last week, Pope Francis released his encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si. The document speaks out strongly against environmental degradation in all forms and even calls for climate justice between the global North and South. My first guest is Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig, staff writer at The New Republic who writes
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Europe ready to kill Greece to keep TINA alive
My latest piece on Greece was published yesterday at Ricochet. In short, Europe and the IMF’s message that ‘there still is no alternative’ proves that objective of punitive austerity is political, not economic. Here it is in full: The project’s aim is to make an example of Greece and solidify austerity
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Europe ready to kill Greece to keep TINA alive
My latest piece on Greece was published yesterday at Ricochet. In short, Europe and the IMF’s message that ‘there still is no alternative’ proves that objective of punitive austerity is political, not economic. Here it is in full: The project’s aim is to make an example of Greece and solidify austerity
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Repeat after me: Alberta isn’t Greece
Last week it was Andrew Coyne; this week it’s Jack Mintz. Seems all the National Post’s favourite conservative commentators have suddenly decided to offer their Very Serious Advice™ to Alberta’s new government. While Coyne made a spurious comparison between raising the minimum wage and instituting a minimum income, Mintz outdoes
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Podcast: Truth, reconciliation and restitution
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/podcast150612-reconciliation-restitution.mp3 The summary report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was released last week. The work of the Commission took seven years, gathering public and private testimony from survivors and families of survivors of Canada’s state- and Church-sanctioned residential school system—a system that forcibly removed from families,
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Nope, Alberta still needs to raise the minimum wage
Last night, Andrew Coyne published a column in which he champions introducing a minimum income over raising the minimum wage as a radical policy suggestion for Alberta’s new NDP government. Coyne couches the column in his typical pseudo-contrarianism. Here he is supposedly advocating socialism…gasp! In reality, however, Coyne gets it backwards: a minimum income in
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Austerity and economy in Quebec (transcript)
On last week’s podcast, I interviewed two researchers from Montreal’s IRIS, or the Insitut de recherché et d’informations socio-economiques, which has now been producing important progressive research for 15 years. This conversation with Julia Posca and Eve-Lyne Couturier is a great introduction to Quebec’s experience with austerity, the resource extraction agenda and
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Podcast: Austerity and economy in Quebec
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/podcast150525-iris.mp3 Many in English Canada recognize the CCPA, but relatively few know of IRIS. Tucked away in an old Montreal school that has been repurposed as a home for a wide array of social enterprises and NGOs, IRIS, or the Insitut de recherché et d’informations socio-economiques, has now been producing important progressive research in
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Bay St. isn’t back, it never left
The New York Times reports that Wall St. is back in a big way since the 2007 crisis: profits, salaries and confidence have returned in the US financial industry. As often happens when I see something intriguing like this about the US, I wanted to quickly see whether a similar dynamic is
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Podcast: What’s next for Alberta?
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/podcast150515-alberta-election.mp3 This episode focuses on what else but the recent Alberta provincial election that saw the social democratic NDP sweep into power after 44 consecutive years of Conservative rule. To gain some perspective on this rather remarkable result in Canada’s oil and gas heartland and see what lies ahead for
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Calling capital’s bluff in Alberta
The votes had barely been counted in Alberta when stories purporting to herald capital flight, particularly from the oil sands, were already appearing in venues like the Financial Post. As if on cue, the TSX fell 2%,the day after the Alberta election. What are we to make of this? Is Notley’s Alberta in the
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