Tuesday, January 29 2008
Whither the automatic stabilizer?
Posted by Simon at 02:58:00 PM CST
Interesting note by Marc Lee of the Progressive Economics Forum. As the
economy enters a potential recession (stagnant or negative growth over
the period of two quarters or more), tax reciepts fall, expenditures on
income support rise (as more people are laid off) and the government
likely runs a budget defecit (assuming it make no cuts in
expenditures). The automatic stablizer refers to the dynamic that just
as the economy runs into recession, government expenditure on income
supports increase and thereby prop up aggregate demand and in theory,
ease out the recession. Yet as Lee notes, the automatic stabilizer
dynamic, which all Keynesians cherish, loses its impact as the
government dismantles the welfare state. For example, around 35% of the
unemployed now qualify for EI compared to the 80% that did before the
Liberal government's reforms. In an effort to make our labour market
more 'flexible' and 'competitive', these reforms have the perverse
imact of drawing out the recession over a longer period of time.
Sunday, October 14 2007
A pro-poor, pro-working class campaign platform
Posted by Simon at 12:52:00 AM CDT
What a timid showing by the NDP this last provincial election. I don't know who is in charge of putting their campaign platform together but it was not worthy of a social democratic party. Here's an alternative set of policies; a social democratic agenda for Ontario.
-raise the minimum wage to $10 and index it to inflation (a living wage)
-regulate pay day loan services out of existence
-cap credit card interest rates
-establish urban development banks to provide low interest loans to small business, entrepeneurs, and community co-operatives
-reform labour law to make it easier for workers to unionize
-establish public auto insurance
-green retrofit homes and businesses, providing tax incentives, while training the unemployed to undertake green/energy conservation work
-build affordable housing to eliminate waiting lists over a four year period
-cap, then reduce university tuition
Sunday, August 12 2007
Karl Marx said...
Posted by Simon at 05:52:18 PM CDT
"to be radical is to go to the root and to make a ruthless critique of all that exists"
Tuesday, August 7 2007
Spiritual father of capitalism? My arse.
Posted by Simon at 04:36:12 PM CDT
The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
–Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, pt. xi, p.10 (at the conclusion of the chapter)(1776)
Thursday, March 15 2007
is class struggle dead?
Posted by Simon at 02:53:00 AM CDT
visit www.smithfieldjustice.com for your answer.
Monday, March 12 2007
words of wisdom from Simon Critchley
Posted by Simon at 02:25:00 PM CDT
"Philosophy isn’t programmed into us, and a lot of the forces of our culture steadfastly work against it. Philosophy, for me, is a way of resisting the nihilism of the present by making, creating, affirming. By going on. In many ways, the philosophical motto here could be taken from someone like Samuel Beckett: “I can’t go on; I’ll go on.” Or, as Pascal says (and this is a phrase that lives with me all the time), “Man is a reed, the weakest in nature; a virus, a vapor is enough to kill him. But man can think. And it is in this that our dignity consists. Let us strive to think well.” Philosophy is this striving to think well. To give that up would be to give up the most sizable portion of our humanity."
Monday, March 5 2007
Words of Wisdom from martin amis
Posted by Simon at 02:26:00 PM CST
"In adolescence, everybody feels the impulse to write - poems, plays, stories. Writers are simply the people who stick with it. Of course, as you continue you are bolstered by craft and technique - and routine. But what we loosely call "inspiration" remains as mysterious as that first adolescent impulse."
Wednesday, February 28 2007
The Ghost of Karl Marx haunts Toronto Star
Posted by Simon at 06:13:00 PM CST
I'm a little bewildered by the Star's WAR ON POVERTY. The attention given to issues of economic inequality is much welcomed, but why now? The Star's editorial board has always been bound to the liberal reformism of the Atkinson Principles but never so open in its critique of the economic status quo as it has been of late. Is it an attempt to push the Liberals to the Left in time for a provinical/federal election? Who knows?
Check out this little piece from The Star (without the accompanying graphs) :
How the Rich get richer and the poor poorer
-Workers are more productive but wages haven't kept pace
-A larger income share is going to profits...
-...and a smaller income share is going to wages.
-The result is the richest 10% own more wealth...and poor and middle-income families are falling behind.
Shit, substitute workers for "poor and middle-income families" and capitalists for "the richest 10%" and you've got Karl fuckin' Marx!
Monday, February 26 2007
words of wisdom from irvine welsh
Posted by Simon at 06:35:17 PM CST
“Writing loads is really important,' he says, 'When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every paragraph has to be perfect, every chapter has to be perfect, but what you're doing is not any kind of public show, until you're ready for it. There is a kind of mysticism to writing. Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have. I enjoy the freedom of the blank page. You have to respect the mysticism of writing; you're always going to learn things that will work subconsciously and stuff that wont. You can't tear yourself apart with it either. If you become too self-conscious about it, it shows up in the work, so you've got to enjoy it as well.'"