This and that for your Tuesday reading. – John Donne Potter discusses how an increase in reinfections is exacerbating the risk of long COVID. And Mark Kekatos reports that numerous U.S. cities are looking at reimplementing mask mandates as their case loads spiral out of control in the course of
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Katharine Hayhoe offers some suggestions as to how to reach people in talking about climate change. Karine Peloffy writes about the growing mobilization of support for real action to avert climate disaster, while Roy Culpeper comments on the importance of Canada participating
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Linda McQuaig writes that Canada’s federal government should look at buying the soon-to-be-vacated GM plant in Oshawa to begin production of electric vehicles. But Nav Persaud notes that even when the Trudeau Libs make promises about using government power and resources for the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – In the wake of GM’s abandonment of Oshawa, David Olive suggests that it’s time for Canada to work on developing its own signature automaker. Sara Mohtehedzadeh writes that the Oshawa closure should serve as a warning for anybody who believes that big business
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Global Alliance for Tax Justice examines the most common tax evasion practices used to allow the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. And Desmond Cohen points out how our current estimates of inequality underestimate exactly how much is being hidden. –
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Neoliberalism restructures work and pensions
On today’s show, two sociologists talk about aspects of neoliberal restructuring. First, Nicole Aschoff, sociologist, author of The New Prophets of Capital and until very recently managing editor of Jacobin magazine speaks with me about the auto industry, Trump and why globalization shouldn’t be solely blamed for the destruction of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: NAFTA: Suddenly, Everything’s on the Table
For years, we’ve been told the dictates of globalization, and the intrusive and prescriptive terms of free trade agreements in particular, are immutable, natural, and unquestionable. (Read more…)When workers were displaced by the migration of multinational capital toward more profitable jurisdictions, we were told there’s nothing we can do about
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – James Wilt writes that the PR campaign pushing pipelines is based largely on the false claim that the only other choice is to allow even more dangerous means of facilitating the burning of fossil fuels. And David Suzuki argues that the cost
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- David Blanchflower notes that there’s virtually no dispute that the UK is headed into an economic downturn – meaning that there’s also no excuse to hold off on fiscal relief for the public. And Brad DeLong po…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Trevor Hancock writes that if we’re going to designate anything as a public health emergency, poverty should top the list:I was pleased to see the B.C. Ministry of Health use the powers of the provincial health offic…
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Mainstream media sucked in, report whatever politicians, GM say.
Note: In journalism school students are taught to report not what people say but what they do!All the big newspapers and TV networks breathlessly reported word-for-word what they were told at a recent joint political-General Motors newser:The Globe and…
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Mainstream media sucked in, report whatever politicians, GM say.
not what people say but what they do!
All the big newspapers and TV networks breathlessly reported word-for-word what they were told at a recent joint political-General Motors newser:
The Globe and Mail:
“For decades, the splashy, job-creating announcements in the auto sector in Canada have been about manufacturing jobs.
“General Motors of Canada Ltd. went in a different direction Friday, announcing the hiring of 700 to 750 new engineers who will work on the automobile of the future – vehicles that are battery-powered, connected to the wired world much more closely than they are now and will eventually drive themselves.”
CTV News reported what Prime Minister Trudeau said, just as though the comment came from an official news release: “We know that to create good jobs … we have to be on the cutting edge,” Trudeau said. “This investment by GM in jobs that will support their operations all around the world shows we’re succeeding in that regard.”
How exciting! How futuristic!
But wait a minute. Here’s a bit of interesting background:
GM does not have to hire Canadian engineers for the 700 jobs. In fact, they are going to go to Silicon Valley to recruit them.
And there’s more:
If the reporters had bothered to scan through their archives, they would have discovered that the auto industry in Canada is doing very little compared to what it was like a few years ago, when many thousands of people were employed with excellent wages.
Since the Canada-US Autopact was ruled to be illegal several years ago and the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented, manufacturing jobs – which is what Canada really needs – have disappeared by the tens-of-thousands.
Five Canadian assembly plants have closed since the turn of the century. Only one has opened.
Meanwhile, Unifor, the union that represents the workers, is afraid that at least three of the eight unionized auto plants in Ontario could close in coming years unless they are able during contract negotiations this summer to persuade the Detroit Three to commit to more products at those factories.
They are worried about the future of General Motors’ assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario; Ford’s engine plants in Windsor and Fiat Chrysler’s Automobiles plant in Brampton, Ontario. Together, those plants employ 7,200 workers or about one-third of union members employed by the Detroit Three in Canada.
The failure of The Globe, CTV and others to provide background for the earlier story is typical of what is so wrong with Big Media these days. This story wasn’t incomplete because of media cutbacks. It’s just lazy, puffery journalism.
What got me off on this rant were two excellent letters to the editor published in The Toronto Star. When we have to go to the letters page to get the interesting facts about the news, it’s no wonder people do not trust mainstream media.
Reader’s Letters | The Toronto Star
Re: GM to create 750 high-tech jobs, June 11
READER LETTER #1:
Has General Motors of Canada forgotten that only seven years ago the governments of Canada, Ontario and the U.S. saved it from oblivion when decades of prodigiously arrogant mismanagement inevitably resulted in their bankruptcy?
Are folks aware that even as the fate of Oshawa Assembly is in the balance, GM is investing billions of dollars in ramping up Mexican production?
Do people know that post-bankruptcy GM has already displayed astonishing hubris by becoming the first of the Detroit three automakers to import cars made in China for Canadian and U.S. consumption in the form of the new Buick Envision?
While I am displeased that companies like Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai/Kia and VW account for a massive chunk of Canadian auto sales without making a single car here they nonetheless never came begging for our tax dollars.
From the other side, one can understand the natural temptation of paying manufacturing wages in pesos rather than loonies, which has been the predictable and predicted consequence of the rise of NAFTA and the demise of the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact, but GM really is a special case.
Finally, if GM’s Oshawa plant is to continue pumping out cars and providing middle class jobs you can brace yourself for a big dollop of corporate welfare factoring into the equation.
Without meaningful trade borders and true national sovereignty transnational bastions of “free enterprise” like GM really have our political leaders over a barrel as competing jurisdictions outbid one another with massive taxpayer subsidies designed to lure investment or simply retain the remnants of our industrial core.
~ Mike Vorobej, Ottawa
READER LETTER #2:
Before Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne get too excited about the 700 jobs coming to Oshawa and area, let’s review what has happened over the last decade at GM.
First of all, we lent GM just over $12 billion after the 2008 crash and Stephen Harper sold it for a $3.5 billion loss to Canadian taxpayers.
Secondly, we have lost 20,000 manufacturing jobs at GM in Oshawa since 2003. Why were no job guarantees written into the deal when we gave GM billions of dollars?
Third, and most insulting, GM announced at the press conference it would go to Silicon Valley to recruit the workers for the Oshawa GM jobs.
So, in conclusion, we have lost $3.5 billion to GM, lost about 20,000 good high-paying manufacturing jobs at GM in Oshawa and now they have announced they will go to another country to recruit workers for those jobs.
Why exactly are Mr. Trudeau and Ms Wynne celebrating?
~ Gary Brigden, Toronto
A Different Point of View....: Mainstream media sucked in, report whatever politicians, GM say.
Note: In journalism school students are taught to report not what people say but what they do! All the big newspapers and TV networks breathlessly reported word-for-word what they were told at a recent joint political-General Motors newser: The Globe and Mail: “For decades, the splashy, job-creating announcements in the auto
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Paul Krugman writes that we’re far closer to a major energy transformation than many people realize – but that public policy decisions in the next few years may make all the difference in determining whether …
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Stanford Responds to Moffatt: Why I Still Worry About Auto Job Losses Under a TPP
My friend and fellow #cdnecon tweeter Mike Moffatt has published a thought-provoking commentary regarding the impact of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Canada’s auto industry. Specifically, Mike engages critically with previous arguments I have made (on this site and elsewhere) that the TPP, as currently negotiated, could result in the ultimate loss of […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Roderick Benns interviews Michael Clague about his work on a basic income dating back nearly fifty years. And Glen Pearson’s series of posts about a basic income is well worth a read. – Meanwhile, Julia Belluz interviews Sir Michael Marmot about the connection
Continue readingLeft Over: Composure Under Pressure…..
I am trying with great difficulty to ignore the current campaign for a new Parliament and, if there is any justice, a new PM. I have been also trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to stop comparing and contrasting (thanks so much to all my Uni profs. who beat that concept into my
Continue readingLeft Over: Composure Under Pressure…..
I am trying with great difficulty to ignore the current campaign for a new Parliament and, if there is any justice, a new PM. I have been also trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to stop comparing and contrasting (thanks so much to all my Uni profs. who beat that concept into my
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On uncosted liabilities
So even from the sketchy details made public so far, and even leaving aside the more general harm done by limiting government action and entrenching corporate monopolies, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will cost Canada: $4.3 billion in compensation to dairy, chicken and egg farmers Up to 20,000 lost jobs in the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jim Stanford discusses how the Trans-Pacific Partnership is renegotiating NAFTA – and taking away what little Canada salvaged in that deal. And Jared Bernstein highlights the TPP’s impact on prescription drug costs. – Rick Smith rightly challenges the effort some people have
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