Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot discusses the fallout from decades of corporate-controlled governments abdicating their responsibility to consider the public interest: In other ages, states sought to seize as much power as they could. Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. Governments anathematise governance. They declare
Continue readingTag: economy
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Broadbent Institute’s “Union Communities, Healthy Communities” report discusses the significance of the labour movement in achieving positive social outcomes. And Rick Smith concurrently writes that the right’s attacks on unions represent a solution in search of a problem: (W)hen unions are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – I wouldn’t go as far as Haroon Siddiqui in suggesting that all temporary foreign worker programs be shut down entirely (at least absent some concurrent change to encourage a flow of new workers who are able to set down roots in Canada). But
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Julian Beltrame writes about the reality that Canada has multiple workers available to fill every job – with an assist from Erin Weir: The case for job shortages in Canada became thinner Tuesday with the most recent data showing vacancies actually fell to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Nicholas Shaxson annihilate the claim that perpetually lowering corporate and upper-income tax rates offers any competitive advantage: Tax “competition”, it turns out, is always harmful. First, while people rarely move in response to tax changes – flighty financial
Continue readingTrashy's World: The socialists at the International Monetary Fund…
DARE to say that the Harperland economy is WEAK! They DARE! Canada’s economic growth will be the slowest among Group of 20 countries outside Europe as it grapples with a cooling housing market and as policy makers rein in deficits, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Washington-based
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that banks are far from the only corporations who are conspicuously moving jobs offshore to the detriment of Canadian workers and citizens: Unions are being ground down; wages are being ground down. Jobs are being ground out of existence.
Continue readingLeftist Jab: The CBC Interview Makes Justin Trudeau Comes Off As The Progressive Version Of George W. Bush
“And always twirling, twirling towards freedom!” Peter Mansbridge interview with Justin Trudeau revealed that the Liberal leader has economic chops of a teenager with ADD. To begin, he should know that you don’t run a government like a household. You don’t run a government like a business. An experienced politician
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot comments on the outsized influence of advertisers on children: How many people believe this makes the world a better place? A company called TenNine has hung hoardings in the corridors and common rooms of 750 British schools. Among its clients
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Capitalism efficient? We can do so much better
By Richard Wolff A Madrid woman holds a banner reading ‘Your benefits, Our crisis. Another world is possible’ at the Spanish headquarters of the European Commission. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters What’s efficiency got to do with capitalism? The short answer is little or nothing. Economic and social collapses in Detroit, Cleveland
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Why are governments addicted to neoliberal #austerity?
Politics and Entertainment: Why are governments addicted to neoliberal #austerity?
The key to deficit reduction is not austerity – reducing government spending by cutting programs and personnel – but good old-fashioned employment. Stanford’s argument is in the Krugman reformist, Keynesian tradition. He doesn’t seek a transformation, merely a technical economic readjustment, but, given our failure to transform capitalism so far – which can be brought about,
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Why are governments addicted to neoliberal #austerity?
The key to deficit reduction is not austerity – reducing government spending by cutting programs and personnel – but good old-fashioned employment. Stanford’s argument is in the Krugman reformist, Keynesian tradition. He doesn’t seek a transformation, merely a technical economic readjustment, but, given our failure to transform capitalism so far – which can be brought about,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom offers an insider’s look at outsourcing: Arlene says any outsourcing scheme begins with the institution’s senior management. Usually, she says, the aim is to transfer about 60 per cent of the affected jobs — often in back-shop areas like information technology
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #mtlqc13 – Day 1 Review
Based on my posts leading up to the NDP’s federal convention, it shouldn’t come as much surprise that my main focus is on the substantive policy debates. And the first day saw some positive developments on that front. Rather than sticking to the party’s chosen list of topics for discussion,
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Temporary Foreign Worker Scandal: RBC Issues “Open Letter To Canadians”
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: According to a list recently obtained by the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Royal Bank of Canada, (RBC) is one the thousands of Canadian employers fingered in the unraveling Temporary Foreign Worker scandal. The document shows that scandals at RBC and other high-profile employers are “just the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Carol Goar discusses how the Cons’ latest attacks on Employment Insurance add just one burden to the backs of workers who have already borne the brunt of decades of corporatist policy: (L)ast Sunday, employment insurance benefits in two-thirds of the country were quietly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom adds another piece to the picture showing the Cons’ efforts to shift both jobs and wealth offshore, pointing out that lax visa rules have only encouraged RBC-style outsourcing schemes. Craig McInnes recognizes that a cheap, low-rights worker strategy is a
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Maybe its time to begin thinking about withdrawing our patronage from all retailers and services that offshore labour
“Yes, the Conservatives are focused on what they call the economy. But their economy is a ruthless, inhuman task-master. It demands that the very profitable Royal Bank be even more profitable. It demands that 45 highly trained people lose their jobs. It demands that Canada’s visa system allow all of
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Maybe its time to begin thinking about withdrawing our patronage from all retailers and services that offshore labour
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*English is indeed the language of business and global commerce thanks to U.S. imperial control of global finance, but the cultural differences, the nuances, the subtexts, the connotations, the rhythms among English language speakers are significant when it comes to communication efficiency – which is what a call centre should be all about. An English-speaking German really doesn’t speak the same language as an Indian or Texan. This is why offshoring call centres in the interest of profit and wage cost cutting is a failed business practice. It frequently if not always alienates clients. The neoliberal habit of displacing domestic workers is also of course in and of itself morally reprehensible.