This image is a fantastic representation of the rapid array of mergers and financial manipulation that took place in the 20+ years preceding the whole ‘too big to fail’ ‘financial crisis’ that occurred in 2008.
People: be wary of Conservative talk about how ‘they’ prevented a financial meltdown because they probably would have let it happen here if they were in charge (I know … the PCs were in charge in the early 90s, but they were progressive).
This Alternet article explores the concept of ‘zero growth’.
What is zero growth?
I would argue that zero growth is a reflection of true, basic capitalist economics where money isn’t being printed and competition exists between suppliers, ensuring that average increase for prices, wages and other inputs grow at exactly zero percent.
It’s certainly better than collapse!
Read and please feel free to discuss.
The ‘shady science’ of ‘excited delirium’ continues around the world. Here are just a few updates:
| Editorial: Delirious Fatality report Calgary Herald Provincial Court Judge Heather Lamoureux’s recommendations are curious, in that they are almost entirely built around the theory that excited delirium is a … |
| Cause of death determinations: July to December 2011 Los Angeles Times According to coroner’s officials, Davis died from “excited delirium” that led to him going into cardiac arrest. Additionally, he was under methamphetamine … |
| Death In The Devil’s Chair: Florida Man’s Pepper Spray Death … Huffington Post The problem, some experts say, is that inmates with mental illness are particularly prone to “excited delirium,” an escalating set of respiratory and … |
| EMMC developed bath salts protocol by trial and error Bangor Daily News Bath salts users who are in severe crisis — those in a state of excited delirium who are a danger to themselves or others — are put into a medically induced … |
| Bangor bath salts user first confirmed death in Maine from the … Bangor Daily News … the person who was transferred from the jail and died at the hospital was in a state of excited delirium caused by the man-made stimulants he consumed. … |
For most of the world, this is all old news, but I have to vent about this issue.
Electro-Motive, the locomotive manufacturing company that’s owned by Caterpillar Inc., gave a shocking update to 500+ employees at the beginning of 2012 by telling them they had to accept less than half their original pay or the plant will be closed.
Caterpillar’s move devalues us all.
When these guys were making $30 an hour, I could charge a similar rate for my time. Now that they’re being forced to accept about half that, that has a negative impact on my billing rate.
Should I charge clients $25 per hour? $20? $15?
How low are we supposed to go?
This is a kick in the junk for all Canadians.
Admittedly, one of the greatest challenges this country (and others) faces is the resistance of unions to change. How many accept stock option plans or direct local ownership? How many engage in co-op-type models instead of worker / employer models that are cast in the beginning of the 20th century as opposed to the 21st?
What are unions doing to respond to these kind of actions locally and globally?
And what actions are our governments taking when they forked out millions to Caterpillar Inc. to set up shop in London, Ontario? What did they do to encourage ownership at the local level? Why didn’t they anticipate companies coming in, stealing our money and locking out local citizens?
What’s their plan for stability or are our politicians only good at throwing our money around for foreign corporations?
Last question: when so much went into this plant in terms of public investment, why are not considering Electro-Motive to be public property? If we spent the money to get the plant here, then part of that plant is ours and belongs to the people of Canada. It probably wouldn’t be easy, but we should re-tool the facility and convert it to making all kinds of train-related vehicles (trains, subway cars, trams, light rail, high-speed transit, etc).
To be honest, I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I know this: more people should be asking them.
I’ll be there. Join me.
Plutocracy = rule by the elite.
From ‘the Rothschild Model’ to the ‘Rise of Corporations’ as methods by which we are all fueling perpetual war.
This is 26 minutes well spent.
Of course, not all of it should be taken as gospel, but we need to understand his last comments as they relate to the ‘market’. There is a supra-national group of organizations that are not subject to any democratic input.
I also like the solution: don’t fight the beast. Stop feeding it.
The essence of the article addresses America’s expansion around the world and extension of hegemonic corporate powers universally.
It explores the deceit that’s being used to fool us into believing that a revolution is happening worldwide, while it also exposes the abyssmal coverage of the #occupy movement that occurred in North America and elsewhere.
Go ahead. Click through, print off and grab a coffee and enjoy some truth for the holidays!
Yes, it was an important story as a record number of Canadians declined to exercise their most important right – the right to vote – and allowed the Harper cons to take over Canadian politics in an absolute way.
However, what was more important to Canadian Press – a ‘news’ agency that is privately owned by three of Canada’s largest media companies (Bell, TorStar and Square Victoria Corporation (SVC)) – is that the Harper regime spent hundreds of millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars on propoghanda campaigns including the ‘Action Plan’, Department of Defense recruiting and other federal advertising.
Of course, 2011 got even better for them because Harper cajoled the opposition parties into an election and turned around and blamed them for being power hungry. Really? No irony in that statement?
The resulting election was another pile of cash thrown at all of the major media companies by ALL of the major political parties (including the NDP).
Net impact for Bell, TorStar and SVC: mega profits at the expense of Canadians.
No wonder they were quick to trip over themselves to declare that 2011 was the Year of Harper. In fact, I’d suggest it’s all part of the plan.
When is our fricking independent media going to get organized and call BS on this kind of crap?
Independent living. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
My kid has just recently entered public school and this is my (initial) way of getting involved. Offering ideas.
‘Independent living’ would basically teach all of our kids everything they need to know in order to survive in today’s world.
Yes, we’re supposed to impart that with basic classes like math, reading and even music, but the vision on this is a little more complicated.
Independent living would encapsulate all of those little things that you do every day and teach you how to approach them and control them.
When the format existed, I’d throw in stuff like the following:
I’d add some other basic course elements like the following:
All too often, we make this assumption that it’s OK to leave our kids with a ‘sink or swim’ attitude as they go through and exit public school, but we need to ask ourselves why.
I know a lot of teachers actually cover a lot of this stuff if they’re ambitious and haven’t given in to the demands to generate robots year after year that are good at one thing: doing monotonous tasks over and over again. But why aren’t we doing our best to make sure that there’s a formal structure to learning about the world around us?
Maybe I’m just being naive, but I’d love to see this kind of evolution in our public school system so that we can break the cycle of graduating kids who know less than they should about the world around them.
East Grand Rapids offers $100001 to settle lawsuit with Tasered …
MLive.com
He died of a rare case of excited delirium syndrome, or acute exhaustive mania, the pathologist ruled. In a federal lawsuit filed in October, relatives of …
Former deputy arrested
Charleston Post Courier
Black died at a hospital from “excited delirium syndrome” that the Charleston County Coroner’s Office attributed to cocaine use. …