It was just days ago that the Governor of the Bank of Canada declared the recession over. He claimed that GDP would grow at an annualized rate of 1.3% in the 3rd quarter and 3% in the 4th. This is a rosy outlook indeed. But numbers coming out today reveal the precise opposite. May’s GDP numbers released this morning show that the economy contracted more than the predicted 0.3% in May. In fact, the GDP fell by 0.5% or at a 6% annualized rate. This shows that the recession is actually accelerating, not slowing. Canada’s GDP has been contracting for 10 consecutive months now.
A simple reminder is in order. The capitalists tend to view the world through rose coloured lenses. During the great depression, the talking heads predicted the end of the recession every couple of months and it of course dragged on for a decade. Here in Canada, a steady stream of stats have been released over the last year showing the situation is worse “than expected”. But how do they calculate these expectations? It turns out there is no science to it at all. They simply conduct a survey of “senior economists” and take the average of the numbers given.
Let’s not forget, that these are the same people who led us into this mess. They didn’t see the recession coming and they have been consistently wrong in their predictions about where it is heading. Prime Minister Stephen Harper (who has been known to brag about his economic credentials) famously said during the last election campaign that if there was going to be a recession it would have happened already. Of course, only weeks later he was forced to eat his own words.
I challenge people to compare the forecasting records of these “captains of industry”, to the articles published by the good people at www.marxist.com and www.marxist.ca. It seems the Marxists understand capitalism much better than the Capitalists! Contained in those websites you will find archives of shockingly accurate economic predictions. People like Michael Roberts and Mick Brooks not only predicted this recession in advance, but gave details about exactly how and why it would take place. There are many things that can be said about Karl Marx, but one thing is certain: he developed the best critique of the capitalist system ever written. Marx explained the basic processes at work in a capitalist economy. Those laws that he outlined in the 19th century are still at work today and if anyone wants to understand the recession taking place now, they best familiarize themselves with them.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Support the Paramedics – Time to step it up!
British Columbia’s Paramedics have been on strike for 121 days. They’re seriously restricted in their job action by essential service legislation. It seems the only noticeable sign of a paramedic strike is the large sticker reading “On Strike” that you will find plastered on every ambulance. Essential service legislation is commonly abused by the government (I can remember when Gordon Campbell considered the UBC Teaching Assistants essential), but in the case of our ambulance attendants lives actually hang in the balance. This poses a moral dilemma. Should paramedics defy essential service legislation knowing that lives will be lost? The argument isn’t so clear. The truth is, the paramedics have been standing against the deterioration of our ambulance service and if the government isn’t willing to pony up the cash to run the service properly, lives will be lost. But there are many other actions the paramedics can take without putting peoples’ lives in jeopardy.
The actual issues of the strike are shocking. Most people do not know that many paramedics get paid a lousy $2/hr while waiting for a call. This fact alone justifies all of the action they have taken so far. This is the information that needs to get into the public consciousness. The people of British Columbia would be outraged if they knew how these heroes were being treated – and that public outrage is what will win this strike.
If our ambulance attendants are going to win this fight for us, they need our support. It is time to take this campaign to a new level. CUPE should work with the BC Federation of Labour to organize public demonstrations and mobilize the broader labour movement. The paramedics should consider more militant actions to put this strike in the spotlight. A rolling parade of ambulances with their sirens blaring would get some attention. Perhaps a couple dozen paramedics, in uniform, could occupy Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. Sympathy strikes in the public and private sectors would go a long way too. It’s time to think outside of the box. Creative actions and civil disobedience are the way forward.
Don’t forget to visit their website - http://www.saveourparamedics.org/
The actual issues of the strike are shocking. Most people do not know that many paramedics get paid a lousy $2/hr while waiting for a call. This fact alone justifies all of the action they have taken so far. This is the information that needs to get into the public consciousness. The people of British Columbia would be outraged if they knew how these heroes were being treated – and that public outrage is what will win this strike.
If our ambulance attendants are going to win this fight for us, they need our support. It is time to take this campaign to a new level. CUPE should work with the BC Federation of Labour to organize public demonstrations and mobilize the broader labour movement. The paramedics should consider more militant actions to put this strike in the spotlight. A rolling parade of ambulances with their sirens blaring would get some attention. Perhaps a couple dozen paramedics, in uniform, could occupy Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. Sympathy strikes in the public and private sectors would go a long way too. It’s time to think outside of the box. Creative actions and civil disobedience are the way forward.
Don’t forget to visit their website - http://www.saveourparamedics.org/
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Support our Troops – Bring them Home!
Every time a police car drives by me in Vancouver I can’t help but notice the sticker on the back in the shape of a yellow ribbon. “Support Our Troops” it declares. When the Vancouver Police Department decided to put these stickers on all of their vehicles many eyebrows were raised. Why would our police department choose to publicly support a war that the majority of the populations in both Canada and Afghanistan have consistently opposed from the start? This raises some important questions about what supporting the troops really means. One thing is clear however, these stickers are not simply a declaration of support for the troops, they are a declaration of support for the war.
I recently met with a veteran named Chris. We were staying in the same hostel and had a very interesting conversation over a few beers. He was proud of his military service. He served two tours in Bosnia, one in Kosovo, one in Somalia, one in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. But his last tour in Afghanistan soured him. He was so upset, that when he got back from that tour, he walked away from the military and said he would never look back. He did not elaborate on the legal terms of his departure, but left me with the impression that he was AWOL.
I gained a whole new respect for “our troops” that day. His words confirmed my suspicions, that the vast majority of the troops in Afghanistan honestly believe they are there to fight the good fight. They see how desperate the situation has become for ordinary Afghan people and they want more than anything to help. He told me that half way through his tour, he realized he was fighting in a war in which there was no right side. He told me, with tears welling up in his eyes, that he had lost no fewer than 31 friends over the course of his military career - many of them in Afghanistan – and for what? That question seemed to haunt him more than anything. It was easy to rationalize the death of a friend who was fighting for freedom… But his recent realization about what was right and what was wrong in this conflict smashed those illusions.
He began to tell me a story about some of the work the troops tried to do to help the people in the Kandahar region. He explained that they realized that Afghanistan will always be a desperately poor country, run by drug cartels and warlords unless they could build some kind of economy. They talked about it regularly. It was in one of these conversations that someone came up with the idea of asking a drug company to set up a factory for medicinal opiates in the region. There is a huge international market for medicinal opiates; this could serve as the basis of an economy. The more they talked about it, the more excited they got. After all, a factory like this would be a real step forward for the development of the country. It would simultaneously provide jobs for people in the cities and a legal market for farmers that grow poppies. Those poppies are currently used to produce the vast majority of the world’s heroin.
They immediately set to work. Someone estimated that the cost to set up this factory would be a couple hundred million dollars – pocket change to a big pharmaceutical company. They started writing letters to CEOs of drug companies pitching the plan. They talked about it in the villages through their interpreters. He smiled when he talked about the excitement on the faces of these people. It gave them hope – something they haven’t had for a long time.
But soon these efforts were frustrated. They never heard back from a single drug company. More importantly, one of the local war lords heard about the plot. He was furious. Setting up a legal market for poppies would remove the economic basis for his power – the drug trade. To make matters worse, this particular war lord was one of the ones on “our side”. He supported the occupation of Afghanistan, and the military relied on him as a counter-weight to the Taliban.
“We got in a lot of trouble”, Chris told me. He didn’t elaborate on what exactly that trouble was, but they were told by their superiors in no uncertain terms that they were to immediately stop these efforts. “That’s when we started to realize there was something wrong here”, he said. That episode started a process of realization among the troops. Chris told me that they were starting to see through the façade. He continued to talk about how rotten the whole mission had become and the growing disillusionment within the ranks. “The day I learned that Hamid Karzai’s brother is the biggest drug lord in Afghanistan is the day I knew I was getting out.”
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation. And every time I see one of those yellow stickers on the back of a vehicle I’m reminded of it. Our politicians are happy to declare that they support the troops, but Chris’ story stands in stark contradiction to that. I can tell you what is NOT supportive of our troops: sending them into an unwinnable war that the majority of the population opposes, asking them to go out on patrol and get picked off one-by-one by IEDs without doing anything to stabilize the situation, using them to prop up a government of drug lords and telling them it is all in the name of freedom and democracy. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is only one real way to support our troops: end this farce of a mission and bring them back home to their families where they belong.
I recently met with a veteran named Chris. We were staying in the same hostel and had a very interesting conversation over a few beers. He was proud of his military service. He served two tours in Bosnia, one in Kosovo, one in Somalia, one in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. But his last tour in Afghanistan soured him. He was so upset, that when he got back from that tour, he walked away from the military and said he would never look back. He did not elaborate on the legal terms of his departure, but left me with the impression that he was AWOL.
I gained a whole new respect for “our troops” that day. His words confirmed my suspicions, that the vast majority of the troops in Afghanistan honestly believe they are there to fight the good fight. They see how desperate the situation has become for ordinary Afghan people and they want more than anything to help. He told me that half way through his tour, he realized he was fighting in a war in which there was no right side. He told me, with tears welling up in his eyes, that he had lost no fewer than 31 friends over the course of his military career - many of them in Afghanistan – and for what? That question seemed to haunt him more than anything. It was easy to rationalize the death of a friend who was fighting for freedom… But his recent realization about what was right and what was wrong in this conflict smashed those illusions.
He began to tell me a story about some of the work the troops tried to do to help the people in the Kandahar region. He explained that they realized that Afghanistan will always be a desperately poor country, run by drug cartels and warlords unless they could build some kind of economy. They talked about it regularly. It was in one of these conversations that someone came up with the idea of asking a drug company to set up a factory for medicinal opiates in the region. There is a huge international market for medicinal opiates; this could serve as the basis of an economy. The more they talked about it, the more excited they got. After all, a factory like this would be a real step forward for the development of the country. It would simultaneously provide jobs for people in the cities and a legal market for farmers that grow poppies. Those poppies are currently used to produce the vast majority of the world’s heroin.
They immediately set to work. Someone estimated that the cost to set up this factory would be a couple hundred million dollars – pocket change to a big pharmaceutical company. They started writing letters to CEOs of drug companies pitching the plan. They talked about it in the villages through their interpreters. He smiled when he talked about the excitement on the faces of these people. It gave them hope – something they haven’t had for a long time.
But soon these efforts were frustrated. They never heard back from a single drug company. More importantly, one of the local war lords heard about the plot. He was furious. Setting up a legal market for poppies would remove the economic basis for his power – the drug trade. To make matters worse, this particular war lord was one of the ones on “our side”. He supported the occupation of Afghanistan, and the military relied on him as a counter-weight to the Taliban.
“We got in a lot of trouble”, Chris told me. He didn’t elaborate on what exactly that trouble was, but they were told by their superiors in no uncertain terms that they were to immediately stop these efforts. “That’s when we started to realize there was something wrong here”, he said. That episode started a process of realization among the troops. Chris told me that they were starting to see through the façade. He continued to talk about how rotten the whole mission had become and the growing disillusionment within the ranks. “The day I learned that Hamid Karzai’s brother is the biggest drug lord in Afghanistan is the day I knew I was getting out.”
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation. And every time I see one of those yellow stickers on the back of a vehicle I’m reminded of it. Our politicians are happy to declare that they support the troops, but Chris’ story stands in stark contradiction to that. I can tell you what is NOT supportive of our troops: sending them into an unwinnable war that the majority of the population opposes, asking them to go out on patrol and get picked off one-by-one by IEDs without doing anything to stabilize the situation, using them to prop up a government of drug lords and telling them it is all in the name of freedom and democracy. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is only one real way to support our troops: end this farce of a mission and bring them back home to their families where they belong.
Campbell’s plan to “harmonize” PST with GST another attack on BC’s working class
Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberal government has just announced that they will be breaking another election promise. They’ve announced plans to “harmonize” the GST and PST. After specifically saying during the election campaign that such a move would be a major concern and that they had no plans to do it, the Liberals have gone back on their word. They have decided to increase taxes by seven percent on a whole range of things, from Hydro bills to most food items. This tax will again, disproportionately hurt poor and working people and will actually be a drag on the economy.
Many basic goods and services are exempt from provincial sales tax. This was designed to prevent unfair burden being placed on working class people whose budgets are tight already. But Campbell’s latest move will see the sales tax applied to restaurant meals, home phone bills, BC Hydro bills, heating bills, most food items, school supplies and a host of other basic items. It is said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes; this expression takes on new meaning as Campbell’s new tax will even be applied to funerals!
The tax will also be applied to new homes that cost over $400,000. The Campbell government’s short sightedness is staggering. The average price of a home in British Columbia is expected to fall to $416,000 in 2009. This new tax will effectively add about $30,000 to the cost of the average house. It will also put downward pressure on the value of homes as new buyers will bid down prices in an attempt to get them under the $400,000 mark. In the short term, it may lead to a scramble to sell properties before the tax is implemented, but in the long term it will only put negative pressure on the market. In the middle of a real estate crash, and the collapse of the construction industry, Campbell’s ill-conceived plan could wreak havoc.
This is clearly an attempt to squeeze even more money from the working class of British Columbia. With the government running a massive deficit, the Liberals are attempting to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and working class. We predicted a new wave of attacks from the BC Liberal government after the election. This is the first indication of it. Over the coming months and years, the economy will force the hand of business and their government. Campbell’s third term will look a lot more like his first. Once the 2010 Winter Olympics have come and gone, there will be a relentless attack on the living standards of the people of British Columbia.
Many basic goods and services are exempt from provincial sales tax. This was designed to prevent unfair burden being placed on working class people whose budgets are tight already. But Campbell’s latest move will see the sales tax applied to restaurant meals, home phone bills, BC Hydro bills, heating bills, most food items, school supplies and a host of other basic items. It is said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes; this expression takes on new meaning as Campbell’s new tax will even be applied to funerals!
The tax will also be applied to new homes that cost over $400,000. The Campbell government’s short sightedness is staggering. The average price of a home in British Columbia is expected to fall to $416,000 in 2009. This new tax will effectively add about $30,000 to the cost of the average house. It will also put downward pressure on the value of homes as new buyers will bid down prices in an attempt to get them under the $400,000 mark. In the short term, it may lead to a scramble to sell properties before the tax is implemented, but in the long term it will only put negative pressure on the market. In the middle of a real estate crash, and the collapse of the construction industry, Campbell’s ill-conceived plan could wreak havoc.
This is clearly an attempt to squeeze even more money from the working class of British Columbia. With the government running a massive deficit, the Liberals are attempting to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and working class. We predicted a new wave of attacks from the BC Liberal government after the election. This is the first indication of it. Over the coming months and years, the economy will force the hand of business and their government. Campbell’s third term will look a lot more like his first. Once the 2010 Winter Olympics have come and gone, there will be a relentless attack on the living standards of the people of British Columbia.
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