Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper are all over the media attacking European Union politicians for failing to take decisive action to deal with the “debt overhang”, particularly in places like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. This failu…
Continue readingTag: capitalism
RedBedHead: Capitalism Is Killing The Advance Of Healthcare
The scientific advances of the last century – and even of that last ten years – have been dizzying. The ability to turn ordinary skin cells into stem cells that can become any type of cell in the body; organ, limb and face transplants; gene therapy – a…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Newsflash: Math Analysis Proves Global Capitalism Controlled By Tiny Minority
Ladies & gentlemen, meet the “power ball” – a graphical
representation of the concentration & centralization of capital
This research is interesting. Some math theorists at ETH, a science & technology university, in Switzerland took a lo…
The Progressive Economics Forum: Money Runners for Marx
On Bloomberg today is a piece by George Magnus, senior economic advisor at UBS, on the relevance of Marxian ideas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-29/give-marx-a-chance-to-save-the-world-economy-commentary-by-george-magnus.html Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy: George Magnus By George Magnus – Aug 28, 2011 Policy makers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests and other ills afflicting […]
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Why isn’t Wall St. in jail? And come to think of it, why isn’t Obama?
I don’t usually repost other people’s writings, but this article is too hard-hitting and important to pass up. If we want to understand better what is wrong with the economy and politics, this sheds more than a little light, and confirms th…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Jack Layton & Steve Jobs
I’m a tech nerd and a Mac Head, for sure. I have a Macbook Pro and an iPhone and we have an Apple TV. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I’m a little bit excited to see the new iPhone 5/4S and only pushing the limits of my common sense has prevented me…
Continue readingredjenny: On Innovation and Capitalism
So in theory the profit motive drives innovation. Too many taxes, it is said, diminishes innovation. (Never mind that entrepreneurship – particularly among women – benefits from a strong safety net.) The government is supposedly inefficient and, having no incentive, incapable of innovation; this is a common justification for the
Continue readingredjenny: On Innovation and Capitalism
So in theory the profit motive drives innovation. Too many taxes, it is said, diminishes innovation. (Never mind that entrepreneurship – particularly among women – benefits from a strong safety net.) The government is supposedly inefficient and, having no incentive, incapable of innovation; this is a common justification for the
Continue readingredjenny: On Innovation and Capitalism
So in theory the profit motive drives innovation. Too many taxes, it is said, diminishes innovation. (Never mind that entrepreneurship – particularly among women – benefits from a strong safety net.) The government is supposedly inefficient and, having no incentive, incapable of innovation; this is a common justification for the drive to privatization.
Because of private enterprise and the profit motive, society benefits from such innovations as deep-fried cola and the donut burger. And 20 bazillion varieties of toothpaste. Such innovation brings us choice, more of which is always good, right? Right?
Never mind that it might be causing decision fatigue:
No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain. You start to resist any change, any potentially risky move — like releasing a prisoner who might commit a crime. So the fatigued judge on a parole board takes the easy way out, and the prisoner keeps doing time.
The ability to make meaningful choices, to exercise agency and control over one’s work and life, does correlate with an increase in wellbeing. As do civil liberties and the ability to participate in the political process. Of course, if we are all too exhausted from deciding which of 100 television channels to watch, perhaps we are not able to be fully engaged with personal and civic choices.
Some of the best innovations have come from motives other than profit — those inventions with necessity as their mother. Education, the arts, social innovation, nonprofits, open source are incredible producers of innovation (what if trendsetters went on strike?). Social innovation has given us libraries, microcredit, socialized health care, new ways of managing archival information. The profit motive gives us deep-fried butter-on-a-stick.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Porky Tales: Rick Perry and the Bankers
Welcome to another edition of Porky Tales, where greed meets despair, and the Sopranos meet the bankers.And where tonight we juxtapose how the Bank of America treated an elderly couple in Florida. Seventy-year-old Sharon Bullington may lose her home be…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Britain: When the Old Eat the Young
It has been a horrifying spectacle, watching the pinky faced David Cameron morph from a socially liberal Con into a red faced authoritarian.Nearly 2,800 people have been arrested so far. In London alone, about 1,000 people have been…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The British Riots and the Broken Society
First came the feral phase. The young are animals.They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes…
Continue readingbastard.logic: “The Frankenstein monster you created/Has turned against you, now you’re hated.”
by matttbastard Mary Riddell: London’s riots are not the Tupperware troubles of Greece or Spain, where the middle classes lash out against their day of reckoning. They are the proof that a section of young Britain – the stabbers, shooters, … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is Capitalism Self-Destructing? Was Karl Marx Right?
Even the Wall Street Journal is starting to toss around the idea that Marx might have been right – capitalism will destroy itself. Economist Nouriel Roubini warns the self-destructive transfer of income from labour to capital could lead to an eco…
Continue readingActs of Citizenship: “_Capitalism is the Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity_”
One of the most despicable aspects of the McGuinty Liberal government, among many others, was its handling of security at the G20 Summit last summer in Toronto. Dalton McGuinty oversaw one of the greatest civil rights abuses in Canadian history. When you start to crack down on dissension you begin to destroy the very thing […]
Continue readingThe Skwib: Ask General Kang: Is it a correction? Please tell me it’s a correction! Should I sell?
Yep, there’s nothing trickier to manipulate than a system based on fear and greed. You humans should consider changing your approach to markets. Back on my home planet, I changed our stock market system to take most of the greed out of it, and increased the amount of fear. How, you ask? Simple. On a […]
Continue readingMontreal Simon: All You Need to Know About the Economic Crisis
As the casinos meltdown, and the bankers run around like firefighters in tuxedos, and I’m forced to contemplate the possibility that the future of the global economy depends on whether the Europeans buy Berlusconi bonds.Which isn’t too r…
Continue readingMarginal Notes: SlutWalk is so June 2011
While some heralded SlutWalk as the future of feminism, the lack of hype around Calgary’s second attempt at SlutWalk reveals that it was little more than a trend that has already begun to fizzle out. So, I’ll keep my remarks brief and leave you with a radio interview that I
Continue readingMarginal Notes: SlutWalk is so June 2011
While some heralded SlutWalk as the future of feminism, the lack of hype around Calgary’s second attempt at SlutWalk reveals that it was little more than a trend that has already begun to fizzle out. So, I’ll keep my remarks brief and leave you with a radio interview that I
Continue readingRedBedHead: Insurance Corporations Believe In Climate Change
Never let it be said that all of the banks and corporations on the planet have their head in the sand when it comes to climate change. Why, just recently, I received a letter from my home insurance provider telling me about some important changes to my…
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