Housing – a wealth extraction tool
With commodification of housing in Canada, homes are treated as investment assets, not just shelter. Investor-led speculation has led to soaring prices, rental increases, and rising homelessness. Housing has been…
Norman Farrell
Lessons from Vienna: Rethinking Vancouver’s Housing Affordability
Professor Patrick Condon compares Vancouver's adverse housing policies to the highly successful public housing projects in Vienna.
Housing affordability
Patrick Condon is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. With UBC law student Thomas Kroeker, he authored The 50 Year Vancouver Experience on Housing Affordability with Adding Housing…
Confronting Wealth Inequality: The Billionaire Class Explained
Billionaires control a massive and growing share of global wealth. The most affluent 1% of adults control roughly half the world’s assets, while the richest 0.001% have three times more…
Affordable housing
Four months ago, BC Premier David Eby and Housing Minister Christine Boyle received a letter signed by 27 housing and urbanist experts. Text of the letter follows:
F-35 Lightning – guest post by former RCAF fighter pilot Erik Andersen
Former RCAF F-86 jet fighter pilot and air transport economist Erik Andersen has firm opinions on Canada's acquistion of Lockheed Martin F-35 single engine jet fighters. Here, he shares his…
Eavor is producing clean electricity
Western Canada’s foremost energy journalist has provided information about Eavor’s geothermal project in Bavaria. If the subject interests you, be sure to follow Markham Hislop at Energi Media. It is…
AI exploitation
This video illustrates how AI is used to spread disinformation. YouTube (Google), Facebook, TikTok, and other social media sites facilitate the publication of falsehoods. It’s all about generating money from…
Cost reductions = quality of healthcare reductions
"Over the past 40 years, many health-care systems that were once publicly owned or financed have moved towards privatising their services, primarily through outsourcing to the private sector. But what…
Returning soon
I have not been active at IN-SIGHTS for a while, but I intend to resume. Wife Gwen and I have done a little travelling recently, including days in Amsterdam and…
Democracy is fragile
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov wrote this and more in The Atlantic. Donald Trump likes to say he doesn’t actually lose elections–only the “rigged” ones. Such comments are not…
Exciting times?
American comedian Tom Papa says individual billionaires should be allowed to keep their enormous wealth, by only for a few hours.
Outrage
Fareed Khan describes himself as a "human rights and anti-hate activist, fighting for justice for the oppressed and persecuted." He has written and commented extensively about these issues. Khan's Substack…
Thank you editorial cartoonists
How long before editorial cartoonists are banned in the USA?
Do voters have the same interest as billionaires and corporations?
British comedian Frankie Boyle says the main purpose of conservative parties today is "to convince voters struggling through austerity that they have the same interests as billionaires and corporations."
Words come back to bite
Cole Bennett correctly wrote that Kirk's murder will not advance any of the causes he opposed. Violence against leaders is most often a consequence of damaged trust in political and…
Jackassery in Alberta
Alberta Conservatives recently demanded that inappropriate books be removed from schools. The order specified that students should not be exposed to sexual content. Among other things, there was to be…
Homelessness and extreme poverty
MPs, MLAs and council members seem to prioritize salaries, expense accounts, and pensions. If only they would have the same concern for action on homelessness. If they did, this would…