economic crisis
Europe trashed: The coming austerity implosion is a scary precedent
World leaders are doing their best to provoke a global economic downturn of epic proportions. Of course, it is politically hazardous for leaders to admit this. Democratic accountability can be inconvenient when leaders are obsessed with imposing economic austerity policies.
The new Euro area agreement provides political cover for these unpopular measures. To appease financial markets, European leaders have submitted to the "new fiscal rule," a pledge to keep government budgets balanced or in surplus.
This new fiscal rule will have the force of law. Countries are required to enshrine this new fiscal rule in their national level constitutions.
"Capitalism is the Crisis" film screening
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All are welcome to a free screening of "Capitalism is he Crisis", a new Canadian documentary that is especially relevant considering the rise of the Occupy movement globally.
The 2008 "financial crisis" in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history. Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their "crisis" through punitive "austerity" programs that gutted public services and repealed workers' rights.
This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future.
Day School: Understanding and Fighting Austerity
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What are some of the forces that are driving the current crisis? How is it pushing forward the agenda of business and governments to get working people and our organizations to tighten our belts and accept their calls for austerity? What forms is resistance taking around the world? What are the strengths and limitations of that resistance and what can we learn from it? With the Ford administration's plans to cut social services, dramatically increase privatization and attack the rights of municipal workers, what do we have to do to resist? How must we change the way we have been doing things in our communities and unions in order to prevent our isolation and loss of our livelihoods and key services?
Canada's billionaires
Just in time for the "Occupy Bay Street" protest this weekend, Canadian Business magazine has come out with its annual listing of the richest 100 people in Canada. So in honour of the protesters and their noble cause (demanding more attention to the 99 per cent, instead of the 1 per cent), let's peruse together the sordid details of Canada's ultra-rich.
Indeed, if there wasn't already a grass-roots surge of outrage against the excesses and privilege of the wealthy, this magazine alone could spark one. It is so unself-conscious and uncritical in its slavish reporting of the wonders of wealth, that one wonders if Canadian Business's editors have any awareness whatsoever of how most human beings actually live.
