… in Portugal. Portugal’s Prime Minister announced on Friday that the government would raise workers’ social security contribution rates from 11% to 18% (about one month’s salary)… and decrease companies’ contribution rates from 23.5% to 18% in the same breath. The usual need for job creation is invoked as justificaion
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The Progressive Economics Forum: The ECB and the Euro Crisis
Here is an excellent commentary by Andrew Watt on the new ECB commitment to buy bonds without limit to reduce interest rates on the government debt of troubled members of the Euro zone. While an important and necessary step, this still means that deflationary austerity will continue, and that there
Continue readingArt Threat: Blu mural tackles Italy’s Chernobyl
Italian street artist Blu has created a towering critique of the militarization of Sardinia. His latest mural depicts the devastating impact that industrialization and military bases have had on the Mediterranean island. In the south-east near Salto di Quirra, a rocket launching site run by the Italian Air Force, electromagnetic
Continue readingArt Threat: Rock stars demand Pussy Riot release – Feminist punk rockers jailed in Russia for performing "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin
As Russian president Vladimir Putin visits London to engage in both Olympic and diplomatic shenanigans, several major British musicians, including Pete Townshend, Jarvis Cocker and Corinne Bailey Rae are calling for the release of members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, who have been locked away in a Moscow
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Europe’s Export of Political Integration
From democracy to banking, Europe has launched institutions that have shaped the world; with its recent financial crisis, Europe might be about to do it again. The European financial crisis is only giving further legitimacy and urgency to greater European political integration. It is argued that with many economies dependent
Continue readingImpolitical: Mulcair on the euro crisis
This is audio from an interview Mulcair did with Michael Enright on CBC radio this weekend where the eurozone financial crisis came up: That is a brief excerpt but I think it might indicate that the Conservative p.r. effort on Europe against the NDP may have worked. Mulcair mocks the
Continue readingImpolitical: You go, Paul Martin
Yeah they did: “Tories made a ‘major mistake’ in their approach to the euro crisis, Paul Martin says.” “The major mistake that the government has made is the way that it’s characterized this,” Mr. Martin said. “The role of the G20 is to strengthen the financial institutions and the other
Continue readingImpolitical: More Europe bashing from the Harper crew
From the “Today’s Must Reads” on the Globe’s Politics page, an op-ed from Conservative Senator and former Harper campaign chair Doug Finley with a familiar refrain: “Europe needs to take responsibility for its own mistakes.” This is what we’ve been hearing from the PM, from Jim Flaherty and various other
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons’ attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era “welfare queen” line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free
Continue readingImpolitical: The world ponies up to the IMF
The IMF released this table at the end of the G20 yesterday showing pledges received over the past few months by countries around the world to increase IMF resources: That’s quite a list. 37 countries including 15 of the G20 have now contributed to the IMF fund seeking to build
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada, the IMF and the G20
The Harper government decided to attack Thomas Mulcair on the issue of Canadian support for additional IMF resources to deal with the euro area crisis, implying that Canadian taxpayers should not be asked to “bail out” a rich area of the world. As recounted in Macleans here, on June 8,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your Saturday. – Susan Delacourt’s mention of “likeonomics” as a branding strategy offers an interesting reference point for Canadian politics (particularly since our political scene has been radically reshaped by one obvious example of it in the 2011 election). But I’m not sure there’s much new
Continue readingImpolitical: Statesman at work
Well this seems to have gone well, what with the takeaway platitudes of agreement between Hollande and Harper about the need for growth and for there to be stability in order to have growth. But wait! “After Harper meets socialist president, Tories take ‘sumptuous’ Europe to task.” Well, I’m sure
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, expanding on this post as to the importance of a functioning federal system as a means of counterbalancing regional declines – and the forces working to limit anything of the sort in Canada. For further reading…– Frances Russell also laments the Harper firewall model based on the need for
Continue readingImpolitical: The Harper interview
A few thoughts on the big interview last night between Harper and Peter Mansbridge on the National… This interview seemed to have two parts to it. The primary focus was Europe, as it rightly should be. This took up more than half the interview. The European situation is a reflection
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On federal cases
Paul Krugman compares the effects of burst housing bubbles in Florida and Spain to point out how the EU’s lack of genuine fiscal federalism has exacerbated its crisis. But there’s an important lesson to be learned for Canada as well. After all, the Harper Cons and their big-business allies are
Continue readingTrashy's World: Be it resolved…
…that the European Union is dead… Or at best, on life-support. Discuss. Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingTrashy's World: Didn’t the French…
… get the memo that socialism is dead? I guess not. And combined with the Greek election results, this might prove to be very interesting as Germany pushes the austerity agenda… Wow. Europe is a train wreck, eh? Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingImpolitical: Flaherty’s international diplomacy
Remember the G20 finance ministers meeting recently where Flaherty made a splash? Canada was one of the few hold-outs in the G20 meetings last month that dissented against the International Monetary Fund’s drive to create a $400-billion fund to backstop eurozone debt, and refused to pay its portion when the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Coyne is rightly alarmed at the Cons’ move to short-circuit any debate about major policy changes through an omnibus budget bill. And Bea Vongdoaungchanh reports that the biggest of those changes is to set our environmental laws back by half a
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