#Canadian economist

[tempting-seduction]

Born on 16 March 1965, Mark Carney is a Canadian economist and banker who was the governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. He is chairman, and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management since 2020, and was named chairman of Bloomberg Inc., parent company of Bloomberg L.P., in 2023. He was the chair of the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. Prior to his governorships, Carney worked at Goldman Sachs as well as the Department of Finance Canada. He also serves as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.

[janieunknownwriter]

p In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff discusses the massive strike of Canadian public employees; economics of the unemployed; business owners,executives and lawyers dominate US state legislatures; and how rising interest rates push the most vulnerable to the margins of US capitalism. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Anand Giridharadas on his new book, The Persuaders./p

[allthecanadianpolitics]

It is nearly impossible to find affordable rental housing in British Columbia and the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment is nearly double the province’s minimum wage, according to a new report.

A new study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives sheds light on rental wages across Canada and highlights the challenges minimum wage workers are facing with housing affordability across the country.

The report compares minimum wage workers’ wages with the cost of rental housing and concludes that in every province in Canada, the rental wage for a one or two bedroom apartment is higher than the minimum wage.

In BC, things are particularly bleak.

“BC is extraordinarily expensive,” report co-author David Macdonald, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives told PressProgress. “In Vancouver, you need to work over two full-time minimum wage jobs to afford a one bedroom apartment.” [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[survivingcapitalism]

“In a way, rent strikes are very similar to labour strikes,” says Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the author of 2023’s The Tenant Class.

Basically, Tranjan says, individual tenants have very little power to negotiate with their landlords on issues like rent increases and maintenance — just as individual workers have little power to negotiate their wages. Landlords own the homes in which tenants reside, much like employers own a business, and have access to financial assets that tenants generally do not. 

“The difference is that tenants do not have collective bargaining rights,” he says. Tenants do have the right to form associations, but those associations aren’t recognized as formal representatives of the tenants in legal proceedings. A landlord doesn’t have to sit down with a tenant union or association and bargain collectively. Rent strikes are a way of trying to gain the landlord’s attention and force that outcome, Tranjan says. (They’re also nothing new.)

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Let's debunk another Harkle myth by u/Ask_DontTell

Let's debunk another Harkle myth The Harkles have been spreading the idea of the BRF and British culture as being racist.However, according to the Economist magazine, Britain is the best place in Europe for immigrants. The top political jobs are held by children of immigrants, Britain has a higher foreign born population than the US, immigrant children score as well as local kids on standard tests, and foreigners are employed at the same or better rate as locals. Until the Harkles arrived, to my knowledge, no one had ever publicly accused the late Queen or any of the current members of the BRF of being racists. The late Canadian PM, Brian Mulroney noted, Queen Elizabeth II encouraged him to help end apartheid in South Africa. Going further back, Britain outlawed slavery earlier than the US, used its navy to enforce the law and only recently paid off reparations. i'm not saying there are no racists or racists views held in the BRF or in British society but it is nowhere near what the Harkles or their Stupid Squad have been implying.https://web.archive.org/web/20240327104128/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/03/21/britain-is-the-best-place-in-europe-to-be-an-immigrant​ post link: https://ift.tt/vF7VUts author: Ask_DontTell submitted: March 28, 2024 at 09:39AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[mariacallous]

It’s very easy to laugh at those who earnestly demand to be taken seriously. This is especially true if they are deficient in the mitigating balms of humour and irony.

The Canadian professor Jordan Peterson evokes mirth for this very reason. The populist Right doesn’t like being laughed at and it likes even less to be sneered at by latte-swilling cultural ‘elites’. This was apparent in a piece I read this week about Peterson in The Critic which accused The Times of having a ‘strange fixation’ with the Canadian professor and of treating him with ‘condescension’. The article concluded that

‘Behind all of this lurks fear of the old media’s loss of status.’

I don’t think this observation is without merit. Traditional media gatekeepers (overwhelmingly privately educated) are gradually losing their ability to direct the public conversation as the cost of producing content goes down (as an example I don’t need to pitch this article to a legacy media gatekeeper in order for it to be published). It’s probably also true that some newspaper columnists do look down their noses with haughty contempt on the hoi polloi over at YouTube and here on Substack.

But the writer at The Critic confuses popularity with merit:

‘a freely available four-minute discussion online could barely muster a tenth of the views that Peterson’s three-hour paid lecture did.’

Moreover if Peterson is so popular, why worry what a failing legacy media is saying about him?

To state the obvious, just because something is popular it shouldn’t be beyond criticism. Much of Peterson’s output is silly, from his paranoid ramblings about ‘cultural Marxism’ to his ranting about the ‘tyranny’ of a paper towel dispenser to his claim that Britain is about to go communist under mild-mannered son of a tool maker Keir Starmer. Moreover, the man is utterly devoid of any sense of irony and regularly gets weepy during interviews (I dare somebody to watch this and conclude that he isn’t doing it at least some of the time for dramatic effect). Perhaps I’d find these tearful episodes more poignant if Peterson hadn’t sternly instructed readers of his bestselling book 12 Rules for Life to ‘Toughen Up, You Weasel’.

The thing to understand about Peterson and the wider populist Right is that they aren’t anti-elitists. They simply have their own pretensions to elite status and resent the fact that they aren’t treated with the prestige and reverence they believe they are entitled to. In the familiar populist tradition, they are the humiliated little men and women left behind by history. They are angry at not being invited to dinner at the big table and they just won’t take it anymore.

The French economist Thomas Piketty has written in the past about the ‘Brahmin Left’ and the ‘Merchant Right’ as a way of understanding political competition in contemporary society. Piketty makes four main arguments: 1. There has been a decline in class voting. 2. A wealthy ‘merchant class’ votes for Right-wing parties. 3. Educational voting has inverted, with educated voters increasingly voting for the Left. 4. All of this is feeding into a new division of globalists versus nativists*.

This argument has became more salient since Piketty first made it, at least as it pertains to social media. Something I find interesting about the so-called Merchant class is the way in which some of its members, despite being materially wealthy, strive for recognition from the same Brahmin cultural elites they publicly disdain. When that recognition isn’t forthcoming they seethe with resentment. People on the Left are frequently accused nowadays of adopting ‘luxury beliefs’ and ‘high status opinions’. I think this definitely happens; but it also smacks of projection because I don’t think any political faction is more obsessed with status than the insurgent online Right.

Elon Musk is a fitting example of this: a thin-skinned businessman who, despite being the richest man in the world, chafes bitterly at the fact that educated people scoff at his puerile frat-boy humour and culturally conservative politics. Again, here is somebody who possesses otherworldly riches yet his chief gripe is that this success isn’t reflected back at him by cultural elites, who regard him as a gauche figure of fun.

Notably one of the first things Musk did upon acquiring Twitter (apart from changing the name to X) was to get rid of legacy blue ticks, a status symbol of the online cultural elite. He was cheered to the rafters for doing this by the online Right, who immediately went out and purchased their own blue tick for $8 once Musk had made it possible to do so. Because it was never about being anti-elitist. It was a bunch of people whose pretensions to elite status were being thwarted by the old system.

Of course a blue tick is now cringe precisely because anybody can purchase it for pocket change and thus there is nothing ‘exclusive’ about it. Instead it demonstrates that you are probably trying a little too hard to look important, like the people who post photos on their Instagram grids of themselves standing next to Lamborghinis they’ve rented. Trying to look high status is low status.

Sartre once said that antisemites like to view themselves as part of an alternative intellectual elite. Conspiracy theorists - antisemitism is the ultimate conspiracy theory - are much the same, and alt-Right spaces nowadays are awash with a supercilious sense of unacknowledged intellectual superiority. They have ‘red pill awareness’ and wear t-shirts which say ‘they lied and you complied’ and have ‘pure blood’ because they didn’t get vaccinated.

Again, it’s usually the Left that is accused of being motivated by a ‘politics of envy’ - of wanting to cut down the tree because the apples are too high for them to reach. Yet today it is the Right that seeks to smash things up because late capitalism hasn’t turned out as they imagined it would. Everywhere you look today the ‘little guy’ is furiously railing against the system he has repeatedly voted for.

The row over companies pulling their ads from X/Twitter is an illuminating example of this latter point. People who have spent their adult lives arguing that capitalism is good and benevolent and that corporations can do as they please are aghast because big companies don’t want their ads appearing next to tweets by neo-Nazis. Musk and co know very well that it wasn’t ‘Left-wing censorship’ that resulted in people like Alex Jones (who was this week reinstated) being banned from Twitter. It was corporations not wanting their brands to be associated with extremists because it’s bad for business.

Something similar happened with YouTube during the so-called ‘Adpocalypse’ of 2017 when 250 brands pulled their advertising from the platform because it was appearing next to videos of hate preachers and fascists. The Adpocalypse resulted in a slew of policy changes at YouTube which made it easier for advertisers to select categories of videos they didn’t want their ads to appear alongside. A bunch of far-Right and manosphere channels subsequently found themselves demonetised. Predictably, the Right blamed political correctness and the Left for the adpocalypse, when again it was an example of corporations trying to protect their bottom line.

As I’ve pointed out previously, the contemporary Right has no coherent critique of consumer capitalism so instead it has to pretend that big corporations are secretly controlled by a cabal of ‘woke’ Marxists.

*Jan Rovny gives a good account of these changes over at the LSE page here.

[beguines]

Due to the current long economic crisis, as aforementioned, we can admit the labour aristocracy is also in crisis.

Now that more and more workers in the capitalist nations are beginning to experience the reality of their counterparts in other parts of the world—and the social securities established because of expansionist profit recuperation are under assault—the contradictions of capitalism are becoming less muted in the imperialist nations than they were before. But as I pointed out, the strong economistic consciousness valorized by the labour aristocracy is still in place. Once again, we need to isolate economism from the labour aristocracy; the latter might be the reason for the current variant of the former, but the former might survive well after the latter has vanished—we know from historical experience, after all, that particular forms of bourgeois consciousness linger well into the period of socialism and contribute to the reinstitution of capitalism.

Moreover, the crisis experienced at the centres of capitalism is not isolated from the rest of the world. The standard of living in the periphery is also dropping: globally speaking, the crisis has not resulted in a situation where every worker is being exploited equally. There are the unending wars and massacres launched by the imperialist nations and cheered on by reactionary workers who wish to recover from their crisis: the labour aristocracy wants to remain the labour aristocracy. These imperialist ventures mean jobs and the maintenance of a certain standard of living for various sectors of the global working class, as well as wholesale environmental devastation that large sections of imperialist workers are willing to accept as long as they have stable jobs and a certain standard of living. Internally, within settler-capitalist nation-states (such as the US and Canada) large sectors of the working class are told that their right to have stable jobs is being adversely affected by Indigenous resistance—such as the blockades in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en's resistance to the TransCanada pipeline that severely hampered Canadian capital in 2020—and large sections of settler workers blame the colonized for their disenfranchisement.

This is the labour aristocracy.

Nor is the theory disproved by the fact that there are indeed groups of workers living in the centres of capitalism who experience a similar standard of living to their peripheral counterparts. Reality is complex but the existence of complexity does not mean we should never establish scientific categories. And, in any case, it is these workers whose day-today experience flies in the face of the labour aristocracy's preponderance who are more likely to see beyond an economistic consciousness. The long-standing organizational maxim to go further and deeper into the masses, to reach the "hard core" of the proletariat remains a truism. The labour aristocracy exists, it copper-fastens economism, but beneath those who are still inured to its persistence are other strata of workers—the most marginalized and disenfranchised—who still understand there is nothing left to lose but their chains.

J. Moufawad-Paul, Politics in Command: A Taxonomy of Economism

[darkmaga-retard]

Kamala Harris's big night.

John Ellis

Aug 22, 2024

1. There’s a saying that economic expansions don’t die of old age: They’re murdered by the Federal Reserve. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has spent the past two years determined to beat inflation even if it resulted in recession. Now he’s on the brink of winning the battle without bringing down the economy, but the next few months will be crucial. If he succeeds and maneuvers the economy to a soft landing that brings inflation down without a big rise in unemployment, it’ll be a historic achievement worthy of the central banking Hall of Fame. If he fails, the economy will slide into recession anyway under the weight of higher interest rates—and he’ll have proved the old maxim about the Fed. Powell and his colleagues have signaled in recent weeks that they’re ready to start cutting rates when they next meet in September, with price pressures now easing but the jobs market cooling. That’s put attention on how fast officials should bring down rates from a two-decade high. For Powell, the last phase of the Fed’s inflation fight marks a make-or-break moment. How he plans his approach will loom over the central bank’s annual conference in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park this week, including during a widely anticipated speech tomorrow. (Source: wsj.com)

2. The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than previously reported, a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed. On Wednesday, the Labor Department said monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. That suggests employers added about 174,000 jobs per month during that period, down from the previously reported pace of about 242,000 jobs — a downward revision of about 28 percent. The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which monthly estimates, based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely records from state unemployment offices. The updated numbers are the latest sign of vulnerability in the job market, which until recently had appeared rock solid despite months of high interest rates and economists’ warnings of an impending recession.  (Source: nytimes.com)

3. Canada’s two main railroads earlier today locked out over 9,000 employees after they were unable to reach new labor deals with a Teamsters union, the start of a work stoppage that threatens to stanch hundreds of millions of dollars in daily cross-border trade and upend North American supply chains. The simultaneous moves by Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City sent the country’s businesses and policymakers scrambling to limit the fallout, as they warned of serious harm to the world’s 10th-largest economy unless the railroads and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference clinched new agreements. The companies had set a deadline of 12:01 a.m. Eastern time today. (Source: wsj.com)

[sataniccapitalist]

EU S14 E35] Yanis Varoufakis on the Changing World Economy

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff draws attention to the 10,000 hotel workers who recently conducted a strike impacting major hotels across 19 US cities. We highlight the contested merger of the two largest grocery chains in America. Albertsons and Kroger threaten to become the third largest retail giant after Amazon, and Walmart plus the Canadian government forces 9000 Canadian railway striking workers back to work, with murmurs of a general strike looming. We also give a shout-out to a small Brooklyn pizzeria unionizing with Starbucks workers.

Finally, an exclusive interview with world-renowned economist, politician, author, and the former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis discusses global economic change and the working class, topics discussed in his latest work "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism".

If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel, follow us on social media and of course be sure to sign up on our website:

www.democracyatwork.info

As always, we thank you for your attention, support, and solidarity.

The d@w Team

[spockvarietyhour]

Looking at how long it took to get The Bourne Identity filmed and released is so funny because while it definitely has that post 9/11 feel, really it was meant for September 2001 release (rather than June 2002). And every reshoot (test audiences didn't like the ending, so we added explosions, then 9/11 we couldn't have as many explosions), director clash with the studio (film it in Montreal! no I'm doing on location in Paris byee) , exit (Sarah Polley was gonna be cast initially as a Canadian Economist but was replaced with Franka Potente) all ended up making for a better movie. But it has that post 9/11 air that isn't the Iraq invasion part yet.

[mandsleanan]

Archive Link Here, text under cut.

Between 1980 and 2019, the world’s most developed countries roughly tripled their real-terms per capita spending on child benefits, subsidised childcare, parental leave and other family-friendly policies. They also saw their birth rates decline from 1.85 to 1.53 per woman.

https://archive.ph/3lxyQ/2d30e003cbf63de1d234f1a7686139357e0e1abc.avif

Analysed across all rich countries, birth rates are no higher among those where childcare is fully subsidised than those where parents pay eye-watering fees — the link between births and total spending on family-friendly policies is negligible. This often prompts head-scratching, but it should not. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the decision on whether to have children, and how many if so, turns out to be about far more than money.

To be clear, family-friendly policies can have other positive impacts on individuals and on society. They make it easier for those who have already chosen to have children to juggle family and work. They alleviate child poverty. But when it comes to the heavy lifting on birth rates, culture is far more powerful than policy, often exerting its influence several steps before the point at which childcare costs might become a serious consideration.

There are a number of distinct but related factors at play. First is the rapid rise of so-called helicopter parenting. In their 2019 book, Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids, Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti theorise that the realisation a comfortable life has become impossible to attain without a top-quality education has sparked intense status competition between parents. They feel compelled to invest huge amounts of time and effort into optimising their kids’ upbringing. This may have become a deterrent.

https://archive.ph/3lxyQ/fba33991824e68e9b1ecfbde5c773bcbe923de7d.avif

The second big factor is shifting priorities for young adults. In 1993, 61 per cent of Americans said having children was important for a fulfilling life, but Pew Research now puts the figure at 26 per cent. A study last year by Lyman Stone, a demographic economist and senior fellow at the Canadian think-tank Cardus, shows that the competing priorities that most erode birth rates among young women are the desires to grow as a person and to focus on their career. Worries over the demands of helicopter parenting also rank high — childcare costs come in at a lowly 14th place.

https://archive.ph/3lxyQ/74e5d202b1ed16fd95311a5ade3200c3b5811896.avif

Finally, and arguably most importantly, the share of young adults in the west living as a couple is in decline. As social scientist Alice Evans writes, with women increasingly able to support themselves financially, one traditional reason for partnering up has been eroded. This helps explain why the most recent part of the downward trend in births has been driven not by people deciding to have two children instead of three, but by a rise in the share deciding not to have any at all.

Birth rates in liberal, developed countries look exceptionally unlikely to return to replacement level any time soon. If they miraculously do so, it will most likely be due to broad social and cultural shifts, not policy. There’s nothing wrong with governments pursuing family-friendly packages for other reasons but if they’re fretting about ageing and shrinking populations, then they need to find other solutions.

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 8.23

Beer Birthdays

George W.C. Oland (1855)

Mario Celotto (1956)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Gene Kelly; actor, dancer (1912)

Edgar Lee Masters; writer (1868)

Keith Moon; rock drummer (1946)

Robert Mulligan; film director (1925)

Arnold Toynbee; economist (1852)

Famous Birthdays

August Ames; Canadian adult actress (1994)

Kenneth Arrow; economist (1921)

Kobe Bryant; Los Angeles Lakers G (1978)

Ernie Bushmiller; cartoonist (1905)

Scott Caan; actor (1976)

Alexander Calder; Scottish-American sculptor (1849)

Bob Crosby; swing singer and bandleader (1913)

Will Cuppy; humorist (1884)

Robert Curl; chemist (1933)

Jean Darling; actress and singer (1922)

Barbara Eden; actor (1934)

Bobby G.; singer (1953)

Jo Gwang-Jo; Korean philosopher (1482)

William Ernest Henley; English writer (1849)

Roger Greenaway; English singer-songwriter (1938)

William Ernest Henley; English poet (1849)

Jimi Jamison; rock singer (1951)

Sonny Jurgensen; Washington Redskins QB (1934)

Shelley Long; actor (1950)

Stanisław Lubieniecki; Polish astronomer (1623)

Edgar Lee Masters; writer (1868)

Vera Miles; actor (1929)

Robert Mulligan; film director (1925)

Oliver Hazard Perry; naval officer (1785)

River Phoenix; actor (1970)

Malvina Reynolds; folk singer (1900)

Galen Rowell; mountaineer and photographer (1940)

Mark Russell; satirist (1932)

Robert Merton Solow; economist (1924)

Vera Miles; actress (1929)

Jay Mohr; comedian, actor (1970)

Konstantin Novoselov; Russian-English physicist (1974)

Richard Sanders; actor and screenwriter (1940)

Marian Seldes; actress (1929)

Hamilton O. Smith; microbiologist (1931)

Robert Solow; economist (1924)

Rick Springfield; pop singer, actor (1949)

Linda Thompson; English folk-rock singer-songwriter (1947)

Keith Tyson; English painter and illustrator (1969)

Sarah Frances Whiting; physicist, astronomer (1847)

Tex Williams; singer (1917)

Pete Wilson; politician, 36th Gov. of Cal. (1933)

[kneedeepincynade]

The truth is more stubborn than Washington lies, and reality can not be distorted forever

The post is machine translated

Translation is at the bottom

The collective is on telegram

🇺🇸 Gli USA e i loro lacchè, tra cui l'Italia, hanno sempre promosso - negli anni - la disgustosa idea «Musulmano = terrorista», ma - per lo Xinjiang, si sono riscoperti "alfieri" dei diritti dei Musulmani, in funzione anti-Cinese 🤡

🇨🇳 Col desiderio di interferire negli affari interni e di voler balcanizzare la Cina, gli USA hanno artificialmente costruito il "Caso dello Xinjiang" - articoli con notizie non dimostrate, notizie scorrette o addirittura inventate di sana pianta, spacciandole per verità 🤮

🌸 Il Collettivo Shaoshan ha trattato questo argomento nel dettaglio, smentendo ogni menzogna anti-Cinese:

🌺 Master-Post sullo Xinjiang 🇨🇳

🤔 Cosa intende l'Occidente quando parla di "disgregazione" della Russia e di Separatismo anti-Cinese mascherato da Democrazia? 🇺🇸

😱 Queste notizie, inoltre, vengono «lanciate» agli utenti Occidentali da persone che non conosco niente della Cina, si spacciano per "esperti di Cina" ma non conoscono neanche una parola di Cinese, sono Asset dell'Impero USA. E le persone, in Occidente, dovrebbero fidarsi di loro? È ridicolo! 😡

⭐️ Il Compagno Liu scrive:

💬 «Chi inquadra la Cina dovrebbe almeno imparare un po' di Cinese, non solo affidarsi all'immaginazione. [...] Il canadese nel video si chiama Lyman Stone, ricercatore presso l'AEI e l'Institute for Family Studies, ed Ex-Economista presso il Dipartimento dell'Agricoltura degli USA, ed è abbastanza sicuro di poter cercare e acquistare su Taobao degli "schiavi uiguri"» 🤦‍♀️

🤔 Fermiamoci un attimo: ma come si fa a dire che si può comprare uno "schiavo uiguro" su un e-commerce?! Qui siamo al livello ridicolo della propaganda sulla DPRK, chi ci crede è un 没有救赎可能的白痴! 😂

💬 Tuttavia, «quando Carl Zha gli ha immediatamente chiesto di cercare e acquistare su Taobao uno schiavo uiguro, ha rifiutato (❗️), dicendo che non sapeva il Cinese e non poteva usare quindi la tastiera Cinese», per poi dire che forse non era Taobao, ma su «altri siti», in pratica è stato smascherato 🤡

🌸 Iscriviti 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

🇺🇸 The USA and their lackeys, including Italy, have always promoted - over the years - the disgusting idea «Muslim = terrorist», but - for Xinjiang, they have rediscovered the "standard bearers" of Muslim rights, in an anti - Chinese 🤡

🇨🇳 With the desire to interfere in internal affairs and want to balkanize China, the US has artificially constructed the "Xinjiang Case" - articles with unproven news, incorrect news or even fabricated news, passing it off as the truth 🤮

🌸 The Shaoshan Collective covered this topic in detail, denying any anti-Chinese lie:

🌺 Xinjiang Master-Post 🇨🇳

🤔 What does the West mean when it talks about the "breakup" of Russia and anti-Chinese separatism masquerading as Democracy? 🇺🇸

😱 These news are also ′′ launched ′′ to Western users by people who don't know anything about China, posing as ′′ China experts ′′ but don't know a single word of Chinese, they are Assets of the US Empire. And should people in the West trust them? It's ridiculous! 😡

⭐️ Comrade Liu writes:

💬 «Those who frame China should at least learn a little Chinese, not just rely on the imagination. [...] The Canadian in the video is called Lyman Stone, a researcher at the AEI and the Institute for Family Studies, and Ex-Economist at the US Department of Agriculture, and he's pretty sure he can search and buy at Taobao of "Uyghur slaves"» 🤦‍♀️

🤔 Let's stop for a moment: how can you say that you can buy an "Uyghur slave" on an e-commerce?! Here we are at the ridiculous level of DPRK propaganda, whoever believes it is a 没有救赎可能的白痴! 😂

💬 However, "when Carl Zha immediately asked him to search for and buy a Uyghur slave on Taobao, he refused (❗️), saying he didn't know Chinese and therefore couldn't use the Chinese keyboard", to then say that maybe it wasn't Taobao, but on «other sites», it was basically exposed 🤡

🌸 Subscribe 👉 @collettivoshaoshan

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Housing costs pushed up Metro Vancouver’s living wage past $25 an hour this year, widening the gap between what many workers earn and what they need to make rent. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ 2023 living wage report found two parents working full time in a family of four would need to earn $25.68 each to afford food, housing and other essentials. That’s up 6.7 per cent from $24.08 the previous year, and nearly $9 an hour more than the minimum wage of $16.75. The minimum wage was increased 6.9 per cent on June 1. That’s the widest gulf CCPA economist Iglika Ivanova has seen since she began producing those reports in 2010.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[dprajapati]

Navigating Economic Storms: Understanding and Responding to Recession in Canada

Introduction:

In the complicated world of economics, recessions are like storms on the horizon, affecting the financial well-being of people and the stability of organizations. In this blog post, we can delve into the intricacies of recession in the context of Canada, analyzing its reasons, effects, and techniques for weathering the monetary downturn.

Defining Recession in Canada:

A recession is a considerable decline in monetary pastime that lasts for an extended period. In Canada, that is measured by the valuable resource of consecutive quarters of a bad GDP boom. This economic contraction can cause mission losses, decreased client spending, and a stylish experience of financial lack of confidence.

The Causes of Recession:

An aggregate of domestic and international elements frequently brings about recessions. In Canada, shifts in global alternate patterns, fluctuations in commodity costs, and modifications in monetary policies all play a role. For instance, the 2008 financial catastrophe was driven by an international credit rating crunch reverberating through the Canadian economy. In 2023, researchers at Deloitte are among a developing chorus of economists, which consists of those at the most significant Canadian banks, watching for the monetary gadget to be successful. This is due to a mixture of things, which include the continued COVID-19 pandemic, delivery chain disruptions, and hard work shortages.

Impacts on Various Sectors:

Different sectors revel in recessions through several strategies. While industries like manufacturing and production can also face declines in production and layoffs, company-oriented sectors like healthcare and schooling will be inclined to be more resilient. For example, at some point in the 2008 recession, the housing market in Canada experienced a significant downturn, impacting the development of the organization and associated offerings. In 2023, the tight labor market and high costs can result in a profit-inflation spiral.

Government Responses and Interventions:

In reaction to recessions, governments implement several rules to stimulate financial growth and stability. These measures can encompass modifications to hobby expenses, financial stimulus applications, and targeted investments in key industries. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian authorities delivered sizeable economic resource packages to guide humans and groups. In 2023, the government may want to position comparable measures to guide the financial system.

Challenges and Opportunities for Individuals and Businesses:

For human beings, recessions can supply pastime uncertainty and monetary stress. Building a diverse capacity set and preserving a solid financial plan can help mitigate economic storms. As an alternative, businesses may additionally need to pivot their strategies, innovate, and find new markets to continue existing and thriving. In 2023, companies will also need to focus on supply chain resilience and complex paintings for improvement to stay competitive.

Canadian business sentiment has hit its lowest point since the 2020 Covid recession, as in line with Bank of Canada surveys. The statistics exhibits that while economic interest has slowed throughout numerous indicators, both firms and clients maintain to assume excessive inflation. Despite the slowdown, businesses are making plans greater frequent and considerable charge will increase, although hiring expectations have dipped. On the customer front, the exertions market remains considered definitely, with document-excessive expectations for salary increase. However, there's a excellent discrepancy between their perception of inflation and real figures. This standard decline in sentiment points closer to a deteriorating economic outlook, doubtlessly influencing the relevant bank's choice to maintain interest prices. The business outlook indicator fell for the 7th consecutive zone, signaling worries about slower sales increase and destiny projections. Firms also are reevaluating hiring and capital expenditure plans. The venture for policymakers lies in adjusting inflation expectations amid a cooling economy. Although corporations fear about income call for and credit, issues approximately price pressures and deliver chains are waning. Many believe that better quotes will hinder income and investments within the subsequent 12 months, and anticipate accomplishing the 2% inflation target will take longer than three years. For customers, perceptions of contemporary inflation continue to be excessive, with expectations for destiny inflation also improved. Higher fees are impacting foremost purchases, leading to a preference for discretionary spending. The Bank of Canada has maintained a consistent interest charge of five% however leaves the door open for capacity tightening inside the destiny. The next fee statement is scheduled for October twenty fifth, with September inflation information due on Tuesday.

Global Context and Interconnectedness:

Canada's monetary system is intricately related to the worldwide marketplace. Events like change tensions, geopolitical conflicts, and forex fluctuations have a proper effect on the Canadian economic machine. Recognizing those connections is essential for understanding the entire scope of a recession in Canada. In 2023, the continuing worldwide pandemic and delivery chain disruptions may also significantly impact the Canadian economy.

Conclusion:

As we navigate the complexities of a recession in Canada, staying knowledgeable and proactive is critical. By understanding the reasons, influences, and functionality techniques, individuals and groups can better prepare for financially demanding situations. Remember, even as recessions may supply turbulence, they also present model, boom, and resilience possibilities. In 2023, it's critical to stay vigilant and take proactive steps to weather the economic crisis.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2023

What to Expect When You’re Expecting the U.N. General Assembly (Foreign Policy) As world leaders descend on the United Nations headquarters in New York City, the international body is fighting to maintain its relevance in a world it wasn’t built for when it was established nearly 80 years ago. Global powers are increasingly circumventing the unwieldy U.N. system to conduct multilateral diplomacy, such as through the G-7, G-20, and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) blocs. Eight years ago, the U.N. outlined an ambitious batch of goals to tackle global poverty, gender equality, climate change, and other pressing global issues by 2030. But so far, the world is way off target in meeting those goals. The war in Ukraine has frontally challenged one of the U.N.’s most fundamental purposes, enshrined in its foundational charter, of averting major wars. The Western world’s laser focus on the conflict in Ukraine, meanwhile, has frustrated other countries in the global south as other dire humanitarian catastrophes—conflict in Sudan, coups across Africa, the migration crisis in Central America, and a lot of climate-related disasters—struggle for resources and high-level attention.

Canada’s surging food prices (Reuters) Canada’s plan to bring down food prices by tightening regulation could backfire and fail, raising the cost of doing business in the country without providing relief to consumers, lawyers and economists said. Canada’s weak competition law has been long blamed for allowing a few players to dominate industries ranging from banks to telecoms and groceries. Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to amend the Competition Act to help bring down prices. Trudeau’s move comes as many Canadians reel under an affordability crisis with food prices jumping 25% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At the same time, the central bank’s efforts to bring down inflation by raising interest rates to a 22-year-high have pushed up mortgage costs for homeowners and made buying a home unaffordable for others.

U.S. National Debt Tops $33 Trillion for First Time (NYT) America’s gross national debt exceeded $33 trillion for the first time on Monday, providing a stark reminder of the country’s shaky fiscal trajectory at a moment when Washington faces the prospect of a government shutdown this month amid another fight over federal spending. It came as Congress appeared to be faltering in its efforts to fund the government ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline. Unless Congress can pass a dozen appropriations bills or agree to a short-term extension of federal funding at existing levels, the United States will face its first government shutdown since 2019. The debt is on track to top $50 trillion by the end of the decade, as interest on the debt mounts and the cost of the nation’s social safety net programs keeps growing.

Brazil’s Lula pitches his nation—and himself—as fresh leader for Global South (AP) “Brazil is back.” That has been Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s refrain for the better part of the last year, with the president deploying the snappy slogan to cast Brazil—and himself—as a leader of the Global South no longer content to abide the world’s outdated workings. During Lula’s travels, he has pushed for global governance that gives greater heft to the Global South and advocating diminishing the dollar’s dominance in trade. He has made clear that Brazil has no intention of siding with the United States or China, the world’s two largest economies and Brazil’s two biggest trading partners. And he has refused to join Washington and Western Europe in backing Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, instead calling for a club of nations to mediate peace talks. After the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest, Lula said he would review Brazil’s membership in the court.

Germany’s economy struggles (AP) For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports. Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany. No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year. It follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Moscow’s cheap natural gas—an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe. Germany risks “deindustrialization” as high energy costs and government inaction on other chronic problems threaten to send new factories and high-paying jobs elsewhere, said Christian Kullmann, CEO of major German chemical company Evonik Industries AG.

Evidence Suggests Ukrainian Missile Caused Market Tragedy (NYT) The Sept. 6 missile strike on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine was one of the deadliest in the country in months, killing at least 15 civilians and injuring more than 30 others. The weapon’s payload of metal fragments struck a market, piercing windows and walls and wounding some victims beyond recognition. Less than two hours later, President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian “terrorists” for the attack, and many media outlets followed suit. Throughout its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly and systematically attacked civilians and struck schools, markets and residences as a deliberate tactic to instill fear in the populace. But evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system. Air defense experts say missiles like the one that hit the market can go off course for a variety of reasons.

In Moscow, the War Is Background Noise, but Ever-Present (NYT) Metro trains are running smoothly in Moscow, as usual, but getting around the city center by car has become more complicated, and annoying, because anti-drone radar interferes with navigation apps. Almost 19 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Muscovites are experiencing dual realities: The war has faded into background noise, causing few major disruptions, and yet it remains ever-present in their daily lives. There is little anxiety among residents over the drone strikes that have hit Moscow this summer. No alarm sirens to warn of a possible attack. The city continues to grow. Cranes dot the skyline, and there are high-rise buildings going up all over town. But for some, the effects of war are landing harder. Nina, 79, a pensioner who was shopping at an Auchan supermarket in northwestern Moscow, said that she had stopped buying red meat entirely, and that she could almost never afford to buy a whole fish. Nina said that sanctions and ubiquitous construction projects were some reasons for higher prices, but the main reason, she said, was “because a lot is spent on war.”

India, Canada expel diplomats over accusations Delhi killed Sikh separatist (Washington Post) India expelled a Canadian diplomat on Tuesday in a tit-for-tat move after Canadian officials accused Indian government operatives of gunning down a Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia and threw out an Indian diplomat they identified as an intelligence officer. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation of assassination, made during an explosive speech before Parliament on Monday, sent relations between the two nations tumbling toward their lowest point but also held broader ramifications for ties between the U.S.-led alliance and India, which the Biden administration has assiduously courted as a strategic counterweight to China. The Indian government issued a statement Tuesday rejecting Trudeau’s accusation as “absurd and motivated.” India’s Foreign Ministry went on to say that the allegations “seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The inaction of the Canadian Government on this matter has been a long-standing and continuing concern.” (BBC) India has been increasing the pressure on countries with significant Sikh communities, like Canada, Australia and the UK, saying they are failing to tackle what it calls "Sikh extremism." Mr. Nijjar is the third prominent Sikh figure to have died unexpectedly in recent months.

Libya’s flood turmoil (Worldcrunch) Hundreds of protesters rallied in Libya’s Derna on Monday, setting fire to the house of the man who was the city’s mayor at the time of the flood, to demand accountability one week after a flood that killed thousands of residents. Meanwhile, the UN has warned that a disease outbreak could create “a second devastating crisis” as people are falling ill from contaminated water.

Crisis and Bailout: The Tortuous Cycle Stalking Nations in Debt (NYT) Emmanuel Cherry, the chief executive of an association of Ghanaian construction companies, sat in a cafe at the edge of Accra Children’s Park, near the derelict Ferris wheel and kiddie train, as he tallied up how much money government entities owe thousands of contractors. Before interest, he said, the back payments add up to 15 billion cedis, roughly $1.3 billion. “Most of the contractors are home,” Mr. Cherry said. Their workers have been laid off. Like many others in this West African country, the contractors have to wait in line for their money. Teacher trainees complain they are owed two months of back pay. Independent power producers that have warned of major blackouts are owed $1.58 billion. The government is essentially bankrupt. After defaulting on billions of dollars owed to foreign lenders in December, the administration of President Nana Akufo-Addo had no choice but to agree to a $3 billion loan from the lender of last resort, the International Monetary Fund. It was the 17th time Ghana has been compelled to turn to the fund since it gained independence in 1957. The tortuous cycle of crisis and bailout has plagued dozens of poor and middle-income countries throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia for decades.

Many of today’s unhealthy foods were brought to you by Big Tobacco (Washington Post) For decades, tobacco companies hooked people on cigarettes by making their products more addictive. Now, a new study suggests that tobacco companies may have used a similar strategy to hook people on processed foods. In the 1980s, tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds acquired the major food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco, allowing tobacco firms to dominate America’s food supply and reap billions in sales from popular brands such as Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Lunchables. By the 2000s, the tobacco giants spun off their food companies and largely exited the food industry—but not before leaving a lasting legacy on the foods that we eat. The new research, published in the journal Addiction, focuses on the rise of “hyper-palatable” foods, which contain potent combinations of fat, sodium, sugar and other additives that can drive people to crave and overeat them. The Addiction study found that in the decades when the tobacco giants owned the world’s leading food companies, the foods that they sold were far more likely to be hyper-palatable than similar foods not owned by tobacco companies. In the past 30 years, hyper-palatable foods have spread rapidly into the food supply, coinciding with a surge in obesity and diet-related diseases. In America, the steepest increase in the prevalence of hyper-palatable foods occurred between 1988 and 2001—the era when Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds owned the world’s leading food companies.

Danish artist told to repay museum €67,000 after turning in blank canvasses (BBC) A Danish artist has been ordered to return nearly 500,000 kroner ($72,000; £58,000) to a museum after giving it two blank canvasses for a project he named Take the Money and Run. The Kunsten Museum in Aalborg had intended for Jens Haaning to embed the banknotes in two pieces of art in 2021. Instead, he gave it blank canvasses and then told Danish media: "The work is that I have taken their money." A court has now ordered him to return the cash, minus 8% for expenses.