Haroon Siddiqui drops the gloves on Jason Kenney in his Toronto Star column today.
That's about as concise a summary of Minister Kenney's failings as one could hope for.
Unfortunately for all of us, these failings aren't seen as such by the Harper gang and their supporters.
In fact, the reason Kenney isn't fired is because he's done Canadian employers a great service by flooding the country with cheap foreign labour.
That's not failure.
That makes Jason Kenney a roaring success!
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Iran's shah-in-waiting on democracy promotion tour
Reza Pahlavi is in Toronto this weekend to denounce the upcoming Iranian elections and hobnob with Canadian politicians.
Denouncing elections apparently qualifies as "democracy promotion" at the Toronto Star.
Once you acquaint yourself with Pahlavi's agenda it's not hard to see what he's really promoting; himself as the next Supreme Leader of Iran. And why not? He does come from a long line of noteworthy democracy activists and is looked on with favour by dozens of wealthy Iranian expatriates.
And by certain Western politicians.
Pahlavi is speaking metaphorically when he says he'd be dead the moment he stepped off a plane in Tehran. He understands full well that he has zero support on the ground, and couldn't win a free and fair election against Ahmadinejad or anyone else.
Speaking of "anyone else," it is apparently an indictment of the Iranian theocracy that "only" eight candidates have been approved to run for president. That's six more than the citizens of the world's greatest democracy had to choose from last November.
Denouncing elections apparently qualifies as "democracy promotion" at the Toronto Star.
Once you acquaint yourself with Pahlavi's agenda it's not hard to see what he's really promoting; himself as the next Supreme Leader of Iran. And why not? He does come from a long line of noteworthy democracy activists and is looked on with favour by dozens of wealthy Iranian expatriates.
And by certain Western politicians.
Pahlavi is speaking metaphorically when he says he'd be dead the moment he stepped off a plane in Tehran. He understands full well that he has zero support on the ground, and couldn't win a free and fair election against Ahmadinejad or anyone else.
Speaking of "anyone else," it is apparently an indictment of the Iranian theocracy that "only" eight candidates have been approved to run for president. That's six more than the citizens of the world's greatest democracy had to choose from last November.
Baumol is so last-century
Yesterday's discussion about the "Baumol effect" says as much about the times William Baumol was working in as it says about economics.
In the 1960's it was taken for granted that as labour productivity improved, wages would increase. Economists had a hundred years of data proving that to be the case. Baumol concerned himself with what was essentially a side-show; why did wages increase in occupations that did not enjoy productivity improvements?
Developments in the North American and some other Western economies since the 1970's have vaporized the underlying assumptions that Baumol and every economist of his generation took for granted. The goods-producing sectors of the economy have seen wages go down even as productivity continues to go up.
Instead of some of the surplus accruing to the workers who produce the goods, it now goes more than ever to the owners of the means of production. This class of patriots owe their allegiance in the first place to every American millionaire's number one most cherished value; the right to accumulate capital.
To that end the rich and their lobbyists and their politicians and their press have prevailed in molding a tax regimen that reflects their interests and values.
That's why we have Tim Cook in the news lecturing the US senate about how Apple's offshore cash hoard will stay offshore unless and until American taxes are cut to the level the company enjoys in those offshore tax havens.
That such a spectacle is even possible speaks volumes about how dysfunctional the American democracy has become.
In the 1960's it was taken for granted that as labour productivity improved, wages would increase. Economists had a hundred years of data proving that to be the case. Baumol concerned himself with what was essentially a side-show; why did wages increase in occupations that did not enjoy productivity improvements?
Developments in the North American and some other Western economies since the 1970's have vaporized the underlying assumptions that Baumol and every economist of his generation took for granted. The goods-producing sectors of the economy have seen wages go down even as productivity continues to go up.
Instead of some of the surplus accruing to the workers who produce the goods, it now goes more than ever to the owners of the means of production. This class of patriots owe their allegiance in the first place to every American millionaire's number one most cherished value; the right to accumulate capital.
To that end the rich and their lobbyists and their politicians and their press have prevailed in molding a tax regimen that reflects their interests and values.
That's why we have Tim Cook in the news lecturing the US senate about how Apple's offshore cash hoard will stay offshore unless and until American taxes are cut to the level the company enjoys in those offshore tax havens.
That such a spectacle is even possible speaks volumes about how dysfunctional the American democracy has become.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Nigerian dictator slaughtering his own people
Sort of a democratically elected dictator like that fellow in Iran.
It's not really democracy if they elect some asshole we don't like.
Big Oil and the USA figured that Goodluck Jonathan stood for business as usual in Nigeria.
But now he is slaughtering his own people. Just like that ophthalmologist in the ME.
That makes for negative publicity.
But all the people he is slaughtering are terrorists...
It's not really democracy if they elect some asshole we don't like.
Big Oil and the USA figured that Goodluck Jonathan stood for business as usual in Nigeria.
But now he is slaughtering his own people. Just like that ophthalmologist in the ME.
That makes for negative publicity.
But all the people he is slaughtering are terrorists...
Globe and Mail reveals that private sector wages trump those in public sector!
Well, that turns conventional wisdom on its head, doesn't it?
Admittedly the scope of this upset is somewhat limited. In discussing the merits and demerits of a career as a physiotherapist, Virginia Galt mentions in passing that the public sector "cannot offer the same financial incentives as private clinics." (p.B14)
So there!
Thank you, Virginia!
Admittedly the scope of this upset is somewhat limited. In discussing the merits and demerits of a career as a physiotherapist, Virginia Galt mentions in passing that the public sector "cannot offer the same financial incentives as private clinics." (p.B14)
So there!
Thank you, Virginia!
After thirty years of contract-stripping there are still folks who want you to believe unions are too powerful
Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson is one of them.
Simpson telegraphs his prejudices by putting the word "powerful" in front of his mention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE.
CUPE is so powerful that they were unable to prevent Toronto mayor Rob Ford's privatization of garbage collection in the city.
The powerful CUPE was able to extort a $25 hourly wage from the hardworking tax-payers of Toronto for the folks who pick up their trash. And that's just the start of it. Those molly-coddled trash collectors had PAID SICK DAYS!!!
I know! Who can even imagine such an outrage?
Trash collectors making twenty-five bucks an hour and living large on paid sick leave.
No wonder the country is going down the shitter.
No wonder Rob Ford won the election.
Then again, maybe twenty-five bucks an hour in a city where the average house price is north of half a million isn't really all that great an achievement for the "powerful" CUPE.
Then Simpson really muddies the waters with a gratuitous misrepresentation of the "Baumol effect."
William Baumol was an economist who noted that productivity gains across an economy raised all wages, even in sectors that didn't have productivity gains.
Sectors like health care and education.
If you want to double the productivity of your local kindergarten teacher, just stuff forty kids in that classroom instead of twenty.
It's simple!
And there are simple reasons why we don't do it, and we don't need to resort to obtuse references to "Baumol cost disease," nor do we have to slag imaginary "powerful" unions.
We don't put forty kids in that kindergarten because our kids or grandchildren might be going there.
Simpson doesn't mention that Baumol himself found the cure for "Baumol cost disease."
Higher taxes.
Simpson telegraphs his prejudices by putting the word "powerful" in front of his mention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE.
CUPE is so powerful that they were unable to prevent Toronto mayor Rob Ford's privatization of garbage collection in the city.
The powerful CUPE was able to extort a $25 hourly wage from the hardworking tax-payers of Toronto for the folks who pick up their trash. And that's just the start of it. Those molly-coddled trash collectors had PAID SICK DAYS!!!
I know! Who can even imagine such an outrage?
Trash collectors making twenty-five bucks an hour and living large on paid sick leave.
No wonder the country is going down the shitter.
No wonder Rob Ford won the election.
Then again, maybe twenty-five bucks an hour in a city where the average house price is north of half a million isn't really all that great an achievement for the "powerful" CUPE.
Then Simpson really muddies the waters with a gratuitous misrepresentation of the "Baumol effect."
William Baumol was an economist who noted that productivity gains across an economy raised all wages, even in sectors that didn't have productivity gains.
Sectors like health care and education.
If you want to double the productivity of your local kindergarten teacher, just stuff forty kids in that classroom instead of twenty.
It's simple!
And there are simple reasons why we don't do it, and we don't need to resort to obtuse references to "Baumol cost disease," nor do we have to slag imaginary "powerful" unions.
We don't put forty kids in that kindergarten because our kids or grandchildren might be going there.
Simpson doesn't mention that Baumol himself found the cure for "Baumol cost disease."
Higher taxes.
So much stupidity, so little time...
Even though Francis Fukuyama authoritatively declared the final triumph of imbecility twenty-five years ago, it's impossible to open a newspaper without realizing that politicians the world over conduct themselves as though it's still "game-on."
There are at least a dozen stories that demand a good skewering today, and I fear I don't even know where to start.
Over in NATO's weakest link the wily but not-too-bright Erdogan is up a stump of his own making. Anti-Erdogan rioting has spread to multiple cities, and the media want us to believe that these "protests" are about resistance to a shopping mall! The flames are burning so bright that no less a moral arbiter than Noam Chomsky has been provoked to comment.
The protests in Turkey are the result of Erdogan's slow but steady progress down the Sharia highway to Shariaville. Today we ban booze, next week we ban Bon Jovi... it's a slippery slope, mark my words.
Had the glorious victory over the Alawite infidels next door played out the way his NATO betters convinced him it would, much could be forgiven. Alas, the wily-as-Erdogan but substantially brighter Assad refused to follow the script, and we know the rest. Odds are Assad will still be in power long after Erdogan takes a teaching post at Princeton.
Still in the "hoist by his own petard" department, the hapless Hollande has given an interview at France 24 which confirms our worst fears; the man has utterly no clue what he's doing. He wants to eliminate Islamic terrorists from Africa but arm them in Syria.
Makes perfect sense to me...
He'll be on the faculty of an Ivy League university not long after Erdogan.
There are at least a dozen stories that demand a good skewering today, and I fear I don't even know where to start.
Over in NATO's weakest link the wily but not-too-bright Erdogan is up a stump of his own making. Anti-Erdogan rioting has spread to multiple cities, and the media want us to believe that these "protests" are about resistance to a shopping mall! The flames are burning so bright that no less a moral arbiter than Noam Chomsky has been provoked to comment.
The protests in Turkey are the result of Erdogan's slow but steady progress down the Sharia highway to Shariaville. Today we ban booze, next week we ban Bon Jovi... it's a slippery slope, mark my words.
Had the glorious victory over the Alawite infidels next door played out the way his NATO betters convinced him it would, much could be forgiven. Alas, the wily-as-Erdogan but substantially brighter Assad refused to follow the script, and we know the rest. Odds are Assad will still be in power long after Erdogan takes a teaching post at Princeton.
Still in the "hoist by his own petard" department, the hapless Hollande has given an interview at France 24 which confirms our worst fears; the man has utterly no clue what he's doing. He wants to eliminate Islamic terrorists from Africa but arm them in Syria.
Makes perfect sense to me...
He'll be on the faculty of an Ivy League university not long after Erdogan.
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