Updates

Some updates to recent posts:

Autumn Beers drew a comment from Peter in Peachland about Pumpkineater, a strong, spiced beer from B.C. Check out his full comment at the bottom of the post.

And by one of those strange coincidences, Pumpkineater is just one of dozens of amazing beers on tap at this Sunday's Cask Days 7^th Annual Cask Beer Festival at Hart House on the U. of T. campus. For those of you in the Toronto area, all the details are here.

A visit to Guelph last weekend enabled me to visit the Wellington Brewery where I purchased Wellington Imperial Russian Stout. Imperial Russian Stout is an extra strong (in this case 8% abv.) beer style originally brewed for export to the Russian market to keep the czars warm on long winter nights. Wellington Imperial Russian Stout is black, with a brown head and tastes of coffee and dark chocolate. It has a nice balance between sweetness and roasted grain bitterness. A wonderful sipping beer for the cold evenings ahead.

And if you're interested in following up on some further aspects of the radical redistribution of income by the 1% that has blighted the lives of the 99%, check out a piece by U. of T. prof J. David Hulchanski that appeared in yesterday's Toronto Star. In it, he points out that in the 1970's, two-thirds (66%) of Toronto neighbourhoods were middle class. By 2005, even before the Great Recession that began in 2008, that number had fallen to less than a third (29%), while the proportion of poor and very poor neighbourhoods had skyrocketed from 19% to 53%. It's the realization by the middle class that many of them really aren't middle class anymore that is behind the growing movement for fundamental economic reform.

Yet another piece, appearing in today's Star, highlights the economic damage done to older workers, who now have to spend 3.5 more years working in order to afford retirement than they did 10 years ago. This, in turn, impacts young workers, who can't find employment or move up in their jobs because older workers are hanging in there into their late 60's.

The mess we're in is the result of decades of misguided economic policies that favoured the elites. We're beginning to understand the nature of the problem, and appreciate the dangers of economic inequality. We need to keep up the pressure on leaders to act quickly in order to head off social upheaval and political violence.

You can follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane