Economics ← Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes

A Puff of Absurdity: Inconceivable! His Dinner with Chomsky

Aug

16

2017

Wallace Shawn sat down for a chat with Noam Chomsky, and here’s what they talked about – slightly abridged and loosely quoted (for clarification purposes) with links. It’s a great recharge for activists! Shawn – Many people are shocked to see the president is now a cruel, brutal, greedy type of a man, and this ...

A Puff of Absurdity: The Plight of the Millennials

Aug

10

2017

Further explanation here. First, a bit about statistical norms and the normal distribution. In social sciences, for something to be considered a statistically significant characteristic of a group, it just needs to be present in about 68% of the population, or one standard deviation from the norm. There’s tons of variation in the other 32%, ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Wind Will Be Cheaper Than Natural Gas

Jul

25

2017

Will be? Naw, it has been for years. Still, SaskPower is building another 350MW of natural gas to go online in 2019, while building far less than 300MW of wind power by then. They’ve a target of 50% renewable generation by 2030, and still wind is far less than 5% of the grid total. Clearly ...

The Common Sense Canadian: NDP must name & shame or catch the blame – Don’t let Libs off hook for disastrous record

Jul

24

2017

Former BC Liberal Premiers Christy Clark (Kris Krug/Flickr) and Gordon Campbell (Province of BC/Flickr) One of the biggest mistakes Barack Obama made was not doing more to expose George W. Bush’s disastrous financial record as president. As a result, he was quickly blamed for America’s “Great Recession” though everything that set it in motion occurred ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: More Small Town Banks Closing in Saskatchewan

Jul

10

2017

"Those people that sit with their pointed heads and their pointed pencils and tell us and take … the bank away from us — https://t.co/TYFDdJosUx — Saskboy (@saskboy) July 9, 2017 “they don’t think about what goes on in these small villages. All they can see is $ & cents & that’s it,” she said.” ...

Things Are Good: Booming Business Boast Sustainability

Jun

28

2017

Business that adapt to climate change are more likely to be successful in the coming years, and business that basically cut their carbon footprint to zero will thrive. This is the thinking behind a growing field that helps companies reduce their consumption and waste while increasing their profits. With the likelihood of global warming reaching ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Will Mandryk Eat His Privatization Crow?

Jun

27

2017

Has anyone watched Mandryk eat crow about this doozy of a column defending Wall’s last campaign yet? “NDP must get off privatization merry-go-round“ “On Tuesday, Wall emphatically said “no” to selling SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SaskTel, SGI and even STC. He reminded voters he signed the old NDP Crown Corporation Protection Act and noted his only proposed ...

Things Are Good: It’s Not the 99%, Class is About the Top 80%

Jun

13

2017

Since the Occupy movement in 2011 there has been conversations about the 99% versus the 1% of wealth holders. The idea then was to show the massive inequality between those in the top 1% of society and everybody else – sadly that inequality has only grown. The rich get richer and everybody else gets left ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: The Core Of the Problem Is Austerity

Jun

7

2017

Then you proclaimed "Transportation Week" because “Saskatchewan’s transportation industry … is vital to the success of our economy." — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) June 7, 2017 "you have to ask the question; is [a bus] the core function of government?" -YouIs it transportation perhaps?Yes!#TransportationWeak — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) June 7, 2017 In the Saskatchewan Legislature Thursday, Premier ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Weak Transportation Week

Jun

5

2017

Sent to a Saskatchewan Government employee who announced Saskatchewan Transportation Week immediately after STC bus and parcel services were closed to be sold off much later: Dear Brandy Leippi: Reading your press release citing the proclamation of this week as Saskatchewan Transportation Week, I was struck by how contradictory the Government’s messaging is in juxtaposition ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Let’s At Least Do What The Premier Wants/Wanted

May

18

2017

.@cathmckenna announces system to bring @PremierBradWall into line carbon pricing, pic.twitter.com/ybzoqjULjP — David Akin (@davidakin) May 18, 2017 “Saskatchewan will choose what we call a tech fund approach, where we have levies for those who emit, but the levies stay in our province, and again companies can apply to that fund that’s created, to that ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Disruption of Used Car Market And Transportation Norms

May

16

2017

All fossil-fuel vehicles will vanish in 8 years in twin ‘death spiral’ for big oil & big autos, says Stanford study https://t.co/uFcSdLAbFq — Tzeporah Berman (@Tzeporah) May 16, 2017 By 2025 we’ll see: “Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, ...

A Puff of Absurdity: More Doctors and Nurses, Less Waiting

May

13

2017

I went to the CCAC yesterday after my surgery on Tuesday – the Community Care Access Centre – an agency I only heard about when they had a local whistleblowing scandal a couple years ago questioning the decision to reduce case managers instead of front line therapists, and then more recently, when they spent money to send ...

The Common Sense Canadian: Why the BC Liberal economic record is actually worse than the NDP’s in 90’s

May

5

2017

Many people are ready for a change in Victoria. Christy Clark is one of the least popular candidates for premier in BC history and, after 16 years of scandal-filled rule, her Liberal Party has tried British Columbians’ patience to the extreme. Yet everyday on social media, I run across a familiar refrain: “Better than going back to the ...

Things Are Good: The Future of Economics is a Doughnut

Apr

27

2017

Economists have focussed on just one thing for the last hundred years or so: making money. That might sound fine, but classically these economists have ignored the societal and environmental costs of their proposed money making schemes. Their willful ignorance has unleashed climate change on us all, and that’s precisely where Kate Raworth comes in. ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Do As We Say, Not As We Litigate

Apr

20

2017

The SaskParty’s Premier Brad Wall is a spectacular, passionate hypocrite. Listen to the emotion in his voice in the video clip at SARM below. @TheStarPhoenix "“Is it reasonable for the provincial government and a municipal government to spend money to fight each other in the courts?” Harpauer said — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) April 20, 2017 ...

The Common Sense Canadian: Economist: Thanks to Liberals, BC is Canada’s most indebted province

Apr

10

2017

The Liberal Government has already made BC Canada’s most indebted province. Projects like Site C, which Premier Christy Clark is shown announcing here, will only make matters worse (Province of BC/Flickr) Almost four years ago I prepared an article on the financial affairs of BC, musing about the way BC voters returned the BC Liberals to ...

The Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Christy Clark must go!

Apr

6

2017

British Columbians have had enough of Christy Clark, say Rafe Mair (Province of BC/Flickr) The Christy Clark government and Clark herself must go! I am not a socialist but neither are the NDP. Of course, we must have a thriving economy that supports our necessities and has room for earned luxuries. What we can no ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: How Safe Will the Model 3 Be?

Mar

27

2017

The Tesla Model 3 could be the safest car on the road — and that’s bad news for every other automaker Matthew DeBord Mar. 23, 2017, 10:42 AM MORGAN STANLEY: Tesla’s Model 3 may be 10x safer than any car on the road today Frank Chaparro Mar. 23, 2017, 11:08 AM It’s expected to ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Letter to MLA regarding STC Closure/Privatization

Mar

23

2017

Dear Mrs. Beaudry-Mellor: I’m dismayed by your government’s cut of all rural SK bus service. This is a horrible decision that isolates people in small towns and cities, and harms people who cannot drive including people who are blind, or unable or unwilling to operate a private motor vehicle. It will increase the cost of healthcare ...

The Common Sense Canadian: BC Hydro’s real debt has grown 1337% under Liberals…Shouldn’t someone call the cops?

Mar

20

2017

The Keystone Kops (1914) I start this exercise with a couple of general comments. The detailed information available on the “progress” of BC Hydro since the Liberals took over in 2001 would be very difficult to pull together if we were left to government confessions of error or sleuthing by the NDP opposition. In fact, ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Sustainable Fossil Fuel Myths

Mar

19

2017

I think the Fossil Fuel industry isn’t going to manage to sustain their myths. They say things that a kid with a 5th grade education should figure out are not true. Burning natural gas is not sustainable. It’s a fossil fuel. It will run out, and it produces waste gas that contributes to climate change. ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Trudeau’s Second Face Speaks Up For Big Oil

Mar

12

2017

The Prime Minister caught a lot of heat for speaking the truth the other month about shutting down the Tar Sands. Then, predictably after furious backpedaling, he let the other side of his face speak about what the Liberals will really allow to permit our climate’s destruction. “No country would find 173 billion barrels of ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Up Is Down, Left Is Right, Idiots in Government

Mar

9

2017

These are examples of why the US and Canada cannot have nice things. We’ve idiots in government. Who put them there? Was it voters, or people with even more direct influence like Donald Trump and Stephen Harper? Like having a Surgeon-General who says smoking is not a primary cause of lung cancer. Shocking! https://t.co/eJTQMZl0aM — ...

The Political Road Map: When Trudeau Met Trump

Feb

13

2017

The saying goes…men and woman cannot be friends, they are bound to become lovers or fall apart. While it may seem like this has nothing directly to do with today’s meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and President Donald Trump, the relationship between the countries they represent does relate to it greatly. Both Canada and the ...