Roseanne on Neo-Liberal Economics

We all remember Roseanne's (Barr or Arnold) TV sitcom on ABC. Well something has been becoming clearer as of late, which is accompanying my economic awakening: that very clear and sharp commentaries about economic inequality are pervasive in the show. It was just the other day that I was catching some quality-time with my boob-tube when I was floored by the overt criticism displayed in this vignette.

At Roseanne's Door: moments before, Dan was sucking up to his banker in order to convince him to allow late payment.

Door-bell rings. Roseanne answers.


"...Mike Summers: Hi, I'm Mike Summers, your state representative. How'ya doin'?

Roseanne: Great.

Mike Summers: Good, I'm going door-to-door, trying to get to know my constituents.

Roseanne: Oh, door-to-door, huh. That takes a lot of time. Why don'tcha just go down to the unemployment office, and see everybody all at once.

Mike Summers: ... We can't let this area's work-force lay idle. That's why bringing in new business is my number-one priority.

Roseanne: How?

Mike Summers: Through tax incentives. See, we're gonna make it cheaper for out-of-state businesses to set up shop right here in Lanford.

Roseanne: So they get a tax break?

Mike Summers: Yea, that's why they come here.

Roseanne: Well, who's gonna pay the taxes that they ain't paying?

Mike Summers: Well, you, you will, but you'll be working, good, steady employment.

Roseanne: Union wages?

Mike Summers: Well, now, part of the reason these companies are finding it so expensive to operate in other locations is...

Roseanne: [Roseanne cuts him off] Soooo, they're gonna dump the union, so they can come here and hire us at scab wages, and then for THAT privilege, we get to pay their taxes!

Mike Summers: Is your Husband home?..."

If only the average working family could come to such conclusions as easily.



The wage-earner aesthetic at its best in television situation comedy

Economics for Everyone

Jim Stanford, a Canadian Auto Workers economist, has recently written an incredibly useful guide to economics for the non-economist lay-person (=99.9% of the population).

Given that our lives are so shaped by economic relationships of a very fundamental nature, Stanford attempts to explain some very important topics without using the usual economic mumbo-jumbo and illegible graphs paired with exotic statistics. Concepts as simple as: 'what is an economy?' to 'what is wage labour?' develop into more macro topics such as international speculation and globalization. This is truly a book that everyone should read in grade 10.


One of Tony Biddle's amusing illustrations that are found in 'Economics For Everyone


As a parting gift for you reader, here is an amusing article Stanford wrote for -and I love this journal's title- the Post-Autistic Economics Review. Thanks JF

Anne Lagacé-Dowson Has Good Odds at Grabbing Westmount--Ville-Marie

Why? Well, let's get over the fact that the name is partially named after Westmount: the number of electors that actually live in Westmount compared with other parts of the riding is not that great; for despite its comparatively large land mass (approx 1/3 of riding) it has the lowest population density. Moreover, other parts of the riding are very favourable to the NDP: namely, Downtown Montréal, Chinatown and the Eastern half of NDG (all the way to Hingston ave.).

Ms. Lagacé-Dowson herself is widely known to Anglophone Montréalers, as she was one of the star journalists for CBC Montréal -and her listenership (evident from call-ins) largely came from areas like areas such as, yes you got it, NDG, Westmount and downtown. She is always very well-received.

I always really liked Anne Lagacé-Dowson as a journalist; I used to wake up around the time that her show was on and I always found her to have a graceful maternal air about her, as well as an omnipresent sense of reasonability. It was clear that as she listened to her interviewees, panelists and callers, she learned and she analyzed.

I was actually present at the photo above so I saw her deliver her speech; she showed her political prowess: she was pithy, bold and incensed about the poor governance to which we are privy today. She'll truly be outstanding in the debate.

Also, it has to be said, Garneau ain't that impressive -yes, he was an astronaut, but he's not terribly politically savvy (nor interesting to listen to); he's already lost an election (which makes him a quasi-star candidate); and is running for a party, who, although is on the upswing, is still lacking in credibility in Montréal.

Yes, it will be hard campaign, but that goes for the Liberals as well. Neck-and-neck this fight will be, but make no mistake about it, the tories are not in this one: it's NDP vs. Grits all the way.

Good luck Anne!

Suavé in the Gazette again

I didn't want Labonté to continue getting free-ride in the Gazette, so I sent them this letter to the editor that was published in the Thursday, June 26th edition.

Bernier is Lying...or He's a Dunce.

I guess Paul 'I-had-no-idea-that-money-was-being-funneled-via-the-sponsorship-program -even-though-I-was-the-finance-minister' Martin found himself an unlikely protégé in the Conservative caucus: Maxime Bernier asserted Wednesday night that he was completely oblivious as to his ex-girlfriend, Julie Couillard's past.

'...Now, I don't particularly find this entire episode to be that important in the grand scheme of things, and I wouldn't think myself to ever be writing about it, but, COME ON, BRO! Don't try to pull the wool over our eyes. Québec is a small province...and Montréal is even smaller. Anybody who is anybody in Montréal and its environs knows who's who. I'm but a lowly, law-abiding bartender (except for my olympic-calibre jaywalking), who works in a very clean bar (that is to say, no mafia affiliation, no drugs permitted) and even I know way too much about the underworld. The players knew Julie and you, Maxime, as a budding, poster-boy, born-into-political-life, you were a player. So you're lying...'

Bernier was seeing Couillard for ten months. TEN MONTHS! And he couldn't figure out anything about her past?

I don't buy this, I've never dated a girl for even 5 months and not known her entire life story.

Let's take M. Bernier's word for true: all the same, as the MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, you'd think M. Bernier would have a better profiling technique, no?

Either way he can't hack it. I'm shocked he's still keeping his seat.

Pass Me My Sledgehammer, I'm a-Goin' to the Jukebox: the Most Overplayed Songs of All-Time

McLean's got a jukebox. I hate jukeboxes most of the time. There is a multitude of reasons for why I am opposed to them for pure business reasons, but why I hate them on the personal side, and this is going to sound un-socialist of me, is that the hoi polloi will gain access to the infernal machine and giddily force dozens of people to hear music that they don't wanna hear.

The positively most heinous of this type of crime is to choose an disastrously overused song. 'Hey guys...look they have 'Sweet Home Alabama!' Look half of the beauty of the internet is that one can download these songs, for free, and listen to them in the privacy of their own home. Leave me out of your cultural retardation.



My Personal list of the most pestilentially overplayed songs in the history of western civilization:

-'Hotel California' by the Eagles (it baffles me to no end, when somebody plays this tune. I must have heard this tune played at zellers like a hundred times as a kid before I knew it was actually a rock song.)

-'Brown-eyed Girl' by Van Morrison (I witnessed a customer once request this song form a live band -do you ever leave your house, sir?)

-'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen (possibily one of the greatest rock songs of all-time, but I don't require another listening to verify that fact. I hate it when a whole group of people do the Wayne's World headbang during this tune)

-'Stairway to Heaven' by Led Zeppelin (I never was in love with this song anyway)

-'American Pie' by Don McLean (I have always said that if I ever saw Don McLean in the street I would shoot the man dead. Why in the name of Lou Reed does this song need to be and eight-and-a-half-minute, verse-chorus root canal? Don McLean, you suck!)

Please do ring in with your most hated juke tunes in the lovely comments section.


This is Iggy Pop. He's going to come to your house and bludgeon you ferociously if you play 'Free Bird'

That's More My Style: the UK's Brand Spanking New Green Plan

The guardian, having obtained a leaked copy of Britain's renewable energy plan, reports that is UK is slated to reduce its emissions by 15% over the next 12 years.

The British government plans to accomplish this laudable feat by investing as much as £100 billion -a much more serious sum of money in comparison to the Dion Liberals' paltry $1 billion.

Among the action points outlined in the proposal is: a 30-fold increase in wind-energy production (i.e.: 3,500 wind turbines to be built); a major tree-planting operation and major loans and incentives for the greening of businesses and homes.

This is way Canada should be going. Like I said in my previous post: infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure!

Dion's Carbon Tax Strategy Flawed, But Well-Intentioned

Stéphane Dion's Carbon tax proposal was released today to the media, eager environmentalists and progressives. I just finished reading the Liberals' plan -the'Green Shift,' as it is called -and I find a lot of good, determined eco-rhetoric, but there are a few elements in the policy which make it inherently flawed.

The revenue-neutrality that is proudly presented and extolled as sensible is a major failure for any carbon tax. This Martinite, neo-liberal Liberal Party retains its fear of demanding payment from the major polluters of the private sector for their lack of responsibility. There are certain sectors (such as, oh I don't know....Energy) where profits have been steadily increasing at the cost of environmental degradation for decades now -I think they can chip in a little.

One of the NDP's critiques of the Dion carbon tax has been that there is no new money for green infrastructure -to me, this is half of what a good carbon tax strategy should include; serious amounts of new money for public transport, green industry, R&D and alternative energy. You take revenue from carbon tax and apply it toward building alternatives to dirty industry and infrastructure.

The plan touts the need to put '...a national price on pollution...' (pg. 21); but also avows that '...broad-based corporate income tax reduction...' is also required (pg. 8). The Liberal Party claims it will '...accelerate and deepen the currently planned corporate tax cuts, reducing the general corporate tax rate by an additional one per cent within four years...' (ibid). So the corporations get even more overall tax-cuts dues to this carbon reduction plan (note: no where in the document does it state how much carbon is to be reduced over these next four years).

Marc Lee of Relentlessly Progressive Economics in his analysis of Dion's Green Shift proposes another revenue-neutral tax shift: '...raise corporate income taxes and give generous investment tax credits for emissions reductions...'

I really just don't see how Carbon emissions are supposed to be significantly reduced because of this plan, if the corporate sector is already getting tax cuts, why should they reduce emissions -are the incentives enough?

And as Marc Lee further states, '...the Dion carbon tax will be more symbolic of change than anything else. After all, gas prices are up an equivalent of a $270 carbon tax relative to three years ago...'. Dion's tax will be 10$ per tonne ab ovo, and then increase to 40$ in four years -it pales in comparison to the already existing market forces.

We need infrastructure, Stéphane! Real public transit systems! Real investment in alternative energy!

Santa Claus and Mr. Finey-Pants: 2 Technocrat Candidates for Mayor of Montréal

I heard on CBC radio today that Ville-Marie mayor -and candidate for the mairie of Montréal, Benoît Labonté, is planning to legislate fines for late night noise offences. This will go along nicely with his very-well thought out other plans for improving city-life: increased fines for littering and fines to the homeless. Does this guy have any other ideas? Honestly, he thinks like the Tories and the Greens (except he's not sensitive to eco-issues) for whom a tax break is the answer to everything. Problem? fine 'em.

Meanwhile, under his guise, at least half of the garbage cans on Ste. catherine go missing, as well as ALL of the public recycling bins (remember those big black boxes with 3 separated containers?). More garbage cans and recycling boxes, less fines, dummy.


And there off, in yonder, coming from the old port.....is that sleigh bells I hear?

Mayor Tremblay, after having been indecisive and visionless for 7 of his 8 years in office, is now announcing project after project, from tramways to rent-a-bikes. I agree with may of the core ideas behind these projects, but I seriously doubt Tremblay's dedication to toward their intelligent implementation. Will Tremblay even ride the tram? Does he believe that bikes are transport, or does he still think they're for leisure?

It's time to consider another candidate for mayor.

Tories Confound Cost of Military Plan to Confuse Canadians: True Cost at $96 Billion

Although the tories proudly announce an extra $30 Billion dollars for the Canadian military over 20 years, Montreal's Le Devoir reports that the figure is actually at a whopping $96 billion.

This seeming error was delibrate, a source from the military sector admits to le devoir: "...Politiquement, 100 milliards en nouvelles dépenses militaires, même si c'est sur 20 ans, c'est dur à vendre à la population..." (Politically, 100 billion in new military spending, even though over 20 years, is tough to sell to the people)

100 BILLION DOLLARS!!!! Think about this insane amount of money: Where is the new health spending?; how about the environment?; education?!

We see where their priorities are...

...in the cold war.