This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Frank Graves comments on the fundamental political choices we’re facing in determining whether to continue operating based on corporatist orthodoxy – and the reality that the vast majority of Canadians don’t agree with the side chosen by the Harper Cons: (T)he devil’s
Continue readingTag: austerity
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Chris Lehmann discusses the destructive impetus behind the ever-present austerity scolds: In their new book The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, Stuckler and Basu show distressingly consistent increases in such key public-health indicators as suicides, heart disease, alcoholism and HIV infection in societies
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On revolting logic
Shorter Terence Corcoran: A Spanish-style tax revolt to defund government is the only way for Ontario and Quebec residents to avoid the fiscal disaster caused by the Spanish tax revolt.
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Fall Of The House Of Ford
Taking a moment to pray for peace You gotta admit that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Rob Ford is a bully and a hypocrite – quick to condemn the perceived weakness of others, to pounce on the supposed privileges of unionized workers or the effete absurdity of riding
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Fall Of The House Of Ford
Taking a moment to pray for peace
You gotta admit that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Rob Ford is a bully and a hypocrite – quick to condemn the perceived weakness of others, to pounce on the supposed privileges of unionized workers or the effet…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Fall Of The House Of Ford
Taking a moment to pray for peace You gotta admit that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Rob Ford is a bully and a hypocrite – quick to condemn the perceived weakness of others, to pounce on the supposed privileges of unionized workers or the effete absurdity of riding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – David Miller makes the case to take aim at inequality in Canada: With globalization being the holy grail of efficiency, it became a race to the bottom as international capital sought the lowest cost and the lowest wages. The result in Canada and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mark Gongloff reaches the unsurprising conclusion that a tax system warped to favour the interests of the wealthy leads to greater inequality (but not the promised growth): Slashing top tax rates has had none of the positive effects on economic growth that the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Thomas McDonagh discusses how the combination of concentrated corporate wealth and ill-advised trade agreements has allowed business interests to override the will of even strong citizens’ movements: In 2009, when the government of El Salvador refused to issue an environmental permit to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: IMF Calls on Cameron Tories to Change Course
Britain’s Conservative Cameron government are the High Priests of bone-crushing austerity. David Cameron and his gaggle of privileged Saville Row suiters are not interested in sparing the lash when it comes to Britain’s weak and vulnerable. Meanwhile, Steve Harper looks on with fawning admiration at everything he wishes he could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Krugman draws a much-needed connection between austerity politics and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: What Smith didn’t note, somewhat surprisingly, is that his argument is very close to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, with its argument that elites systematically exploit disasters to push through
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Assorted content to end your week. – Yes, it’s for the best that some of Canada’s pre-eminent scientists are offering to walk Joe Oliver through the realities of climate change. But Nik Beeson’s offer of political detoxification looks like the more important step for those of us who aren’t in
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: I just saw that today, May 5, is the birthday of Karl Heinrich…
I just saw that today, May 5, is the birthday of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), the German economist, historian, journalist and philosopher. I post this video in honour of the occasion. It’s a bit silly, and I’m not sure of the intentions of the creators, but I’ve been waiting for
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Here’s my final photo from the International Workers Day…
Here’s my final photo from the International Workers Day rally in downtown Toronto on May 1, 2013. I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of this “Bourgeois” tour bus parked near the starting point of the Mayday march. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who saw the dry humour in this,
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Toronto Mayday 2013 – Photo set 3 These are various photos of…
Toronto Mayday 2013 – Photo set 3 These are various photos of the International Workers Day march in downtown Toronto during the evening of May 1, 2013. A wide range of groups, individuals, causes and ideologies were represented — under the common banner of working class power.
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Toronto Mayday 2013 – Photo set 1 These pictures are from the…
Toronto Mayday 2013 – Photo set 1 These pictures are from the starting point of the International Workers Day rally in downtown Toronto in the early evening of May 1, 2013. The trees and sunlight in these five photos highlight the other, much older, aspect of Mayday: nature, rebirth and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ed Broadbent takes a look at how our tax system can combat inequality in more ways than one: The Broadbent Institute is presenting proposals Tuesday to the Finance Committee of the House of Commons. Our primary recommendation is that Canada establish as
Continue readingProtectionism: Krugman half right, halved wrong*
I can’t refute Krugman. Institutions matter. But just what is an institution anyway. A stop sign, Burger King, constitutional conventions the EMU? All of the above? Sadly yes including gold standard like thinking. But the EMU and the WTO come with rules ratified in international treaties and enshrined in national
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Olive writes that the dangerous effects of long-term unemployment (caused in no small part by gratuitous austerity) are just as much a problem in Canada as in the U.S.: With our persistent high levels of long-term unemployment, Canada is at risk of
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