Efficiency is formidable. It rears its head most everywhere. Witness the tyranny of the target at more and more workplaces: from more greets per hour to more exam points per teacher. At the same time, efficiency also nurtures increasing tyrannies at home: get fit in 12 minutes per day instead
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The Right-Wing Observer: Now what is Harper hiding?
Why so much secrecy today in Ottawa? Joe Oliver’s name was all over Twitter last night. Everybody knew who was being sworn in as the new Minister of Finance. It was purely symbolic. Harper should have seen this an easy opportunity to spite his haters and demonstrate his ‘transparency’. It
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Public owners need public aims: BDC and the unrealized potential of socialized finance
I stumbled upon a presentation released by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) yesterday. The presentation outlined strategies for companies to integrate ethical and environmental concerns raised by consumers. In many ways, this is nothing new. The distance between this rather tepid advice and the actual needs of facing
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: In and out of crisis with Sam Gindin
Today’s podcast is a feature interview with fellow political economist Sam Gindin. I interrogate Sam about the political economy of the present: the exit from the 2007 crisis, the role of states, austerity, the place of finance and the possibilities of resistance. Download: podcast-140314-sam-gindin.mp3 Sam Gindin is a left political
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: Postal banking
Introducing the Political Eh-conomy Radio podcast, a new podcast on economic issues in Canada and beyond. The inaugural episode tackles postal banking: why cut valuable services and jobs at Canada Post when it is instead possible to create financial services run by the post office, at the same ensuring the
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Myths of central banking
The Bank of Canada has been in the news lately – or, more precisely, the news has been full of other well-placed people telling our central bankers what to do. In an interview on CTV this past weekend, Jim Flaherty made comments (later retracted) that Canada’s central bank will be
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Transformations in profit and possibilities of resistance: A reply to Sam Gindin
Several weeks ago, I published a series of blog posts on profitability and investment in Canada since the financial crisis of 2007-8. These were republished as a single long article on Socialist Project and given the title, “Canada’s Profitability and Stagnation Puzzle”. Since them, Sam Gindin has published a reply
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Finance’s hold on our everyday life must be broken | Costas Lapavitsas
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/01/finance-hold-everyday-life-broken-capitalism Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Austerity, Capitalism, crisis, finance
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The rise of Bitcoin: and the challenge to the global domination of big money
The following article was written on October 25. I wanted to read it over once more before publishing it, then got busy with other things and forgot about it. In the roughly six weeks that have passed since the writing of this article, the Bitcoin prices have gone from roughly
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Why Bitcoins aren’t going anywhere: Drugs and Coffee
Bitcoin is going nowhere. I promise you that it won’t and I’m positive that I won’t be eating my words at a later date. I’m going to tell you why: 1) Drugs and 2) Coffee:….
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as
Continue readingArt Threat: The Art & Money Project
It’s no secret that money rules our lives. I think what we’re now seeing is really the final and most ruthless stage of the integration of art and creativity into the capitalist market or, in other words, the final stages of art’s subordination to money. But I think that almost
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Avoid Austerity: Keep Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy strong, says report
By: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Press Release: St. John’s, NL – At a time when global austerity measures are causing profound hardship among populations and are proving harmful to their economies, a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says public spending cuts could deeply damage Newfoundland and Labrador’s
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: How A Bad Economy Is Not Harper’s Fault
Canada’s economy is set to grow less than the government thought, but it’s not our Prime Minister’s fault. True under Stephen Harper the World Bank has downgraded Canada from being the 4th most Business Friendly country in 2006 to 17th in 2013, but, as most Conservatives know, businesses have nothing
Continue readingHow absurd has multinational corporate practice gotten? According to the OECD ridiculous
It is really hard being an honest analyst. You spend most of your time being ridiculed by your on-the-take (in one form or another) adversaries. But sometimes the data speaks so loud, and the right political climate evolves, that the stars align and the glaringly obvious dare speak its name.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Credit card size sheets of gold for uncertain times
A Swiss-based company has introduced credit card size sheets of gold that can be broken like a chocolate bar into 1 gram pieces, and they are rapidly growing in popularity across Europe – especially in Germany, where the people still remember the massive devaluation of the currency and the pain
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer to take Harper Gvt to court
Make no mistake about it: Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is on a mission to save the soul of Canadian democracy. Kevin Page is proceeding with his earlier threat to sue the Harper Government for its refusal to comply with his repeated requests for financial information relating to the 2012
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: What To Expect When You’re Electing: Representative Paul Ryan
Ryan Romney.jpg With the selection of Wisconsin Republican Representative Paul Ryan has his running mate, Mitt Romney has effectively pushed his campaign into the climate change denying fringe. While Romney hasn’t been considered a friend of the environment since he began running for national office, his tendency towards flip-flopping made
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Republican Ohio Governor Kasich’s Trillion Dollar Shale Gas Lie
kasichshrug2.jpg About the only positive thing you can say about industry-funded astroturf groups is that they at least base their misinformation campaigns on phony “studies” and “reports.” Their lies are based on SOMETHING. The same cannot be said of Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich, who has come up with a
Continue readingbastard.logic: Breaking it Down: Industrial Capitalism vs. Financial Capitalism (or, Why We’re F*cked)
Michael Hudson asks: “In light of the enormous productivity gains since the end of World War II – and especially since 1980 – why isn’t everyone rich and enjoying the leisure economy that was promised?” The answer (per Hudson) is painfully obvious, but bears repeating (ad infinitum): What was applauded
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