News of the Weird

Being a semi-regular compendium of human folly, frailty, and fractiousness

Well, duh

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced this week that, contrary to cross my heart and hope to die promises made during last May's election, he won't be able to eliminate the budget deficit by 2014. Seems Jimbo was the last person on Earth to find out about this here "Great Recession" thingee we got goin' on. That means all the pie in sky tax cut promises, contingent on balanced budgets, are out the window too. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me three times…

Pre-Occupied

It's time most of the Occupation forces moved on. Around the world, civic reactionaries are moving in to evict them, and their resistance is threatening to transform the movement into merely a battle over their right to squat in public spaces. I'm not saying the fight is over. On the contrary, we need to recognize that Occupation was a tactic, not a goal. It's time to find new ways to keep up the pressure on the 1%.

Well, Duh, Part II

Speaking of the 1%, Toronto retail consultant Wendy Evans, quoted in the Toronto Star, reports they're doing just fine, thank you. "Luxury is just moving so fast," Evans says. "There's (sic) line-ups at the luxury counters. It's quite remarkable. There's a subset of our population that is just not aware there are some economic hiccups out there."

What Does Penguin Gravy Taste Like?

Buddy and Pedro, the male African penguins at the Toronto Zoo who have formed a same-sex bond, have become international media stars. Despite the global attention for the city's beleaguered zoo, Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, has reportedly refused to visit, saying he always spends Remembrance Day weekend with his family at the cottage. Your correspondent has been unable to confirm reports that Toronto councillor Giorgio Mammoliti has been seen at the Zoo attempting to film Buddy and Pedro with his video camera.

And You Want to be My Latex Salesman

Seinfeld fans might remember the episode wherein the hapless George Costanza crashes to the floor, pants around ankles as he rushes from the bathroom. If you've forgotten, Texas governor Rick Perry, who wants to be president of the United States, will remind you with his debate performance from earlier this week.

Follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane

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

Occupy This!

The "Occupy" movement that began on Wall Street and that has spread around the world (I witnessed "Occupy Guelph" on the weekend) has already achieved at least one major victory. It has created a robust new meme – the 99% and the 1% – that distills the essence of what has gone wrong with our economic system over the last 35 years.

Since the late 1970's, through good times and bad, globalization and tax cutting, the incomes of the poor and middle classes have actually declined. The majority of the gains from several decades of economic growth have gone to the top 1%. The next 4% have done pretty well. And the next 5%? They managed to keep their heads above water. But the rest of us, the 90%? We've been slowly drowning.

That explains why our children graduate from university (if they can afford to go) with massive debt, can't find good jobs, and can't buy homes. It's why our pensions have vapourized and why seniors can't afford to retire. It's why we could build schools, hospitals, transit, roads, and bridges in the 60's, but despite 40 years of economic growth, "can't afford" to do so now. It's why all politicians seem to offer the same platform: tax cuts.

How did we get here? Some background:

Back in 1980, when Ronald Reagan proclaimed it was morning again in America, the con was called "trickle-down" economics. Governments would enact policies that would favour those who were already economically privileged. The rest of us, like the poor man in the parable, would be content with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.

In the 90's it was free trade, deregulation, and resulting globalization. Removing the taxes from imported goods might cost you your job, but you'd be able (temporarily) to buy cheaper foreign products with your unemployment benefits. Eventually, you'd find another job in one of the new, lean and mean industries that would rise from the ashes of the old economy. And you could always get rich trading tech stocks, right? A rising tide would lift all boats.

It may have lifted the yachts, but it left most of us clinging to the wreckage. Free trade and deregulation really meant freedom for capital to range anywhere in the world looking for a fast buck. People, however, couldn't and so began a race to the bottom for wages.

But wait, there was a solution: tax cuts. Your wages might not be rising, but we'll lower your taxes so you'll have more money in your pocket. Only most of the tax cuts ended up going to the rich, while the middle class got hit with user fees and tuition increases, and cuts to social services hammered society's most vulnerable.

For the past several decades the rich and powerful and their right-wing talking heads in the media have been masters of the meme, and they have defined the terms of the economic, social, and political discussion. Just think of a meme like "Tax Freedom Day" and all it represents.

But a meme like "the 99% and the 1%" changes the channel. It has the power to alter the way we view the world. If we're lucky, it's merely crystallizing what we're already thinking but haven't been able to express 'til now. That's why the push back from the mainstream media and their masters in the economic and political elites has been so hysterical: the Occupiers may be only a ragtag band of a few hundred, but they're saying the emperor has no clothes. And people are listening.

You can now follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane