Groceries As Luxuries?

Apparently they are in Fox world.

In an open letter to Yelp CEO last week, a 25-year-old woman who identified herself as Talia Jane explained that she had not “bought groceries since I started this job” at Yelp’s Eat24 food delivery network.

After 29-year-old Stefanie Williams posted a rebuttal claiming Jane “believes she deserves these things that most of us would call luxuries,” she was invited on Fox & Friends to explain her rant:

What's Their Excuse This Time?

Some years ago, Rick Mercer had a special called Talking To Americans, its purpose being to satirize the profound ignorance many of our U.S. cousins have regarding Canada. Here is a brief clip:



Given their chronic conviction that the United States is the centre of the universe, Americans could perhaps be excused for not knowing anything about their northern neighbours. However, it does not explain the following, in which actors pretending to be Fox News reporters asked people about some outrageous things their politicians allegedly said or did:



At a time when people are beginning to take seriously the possibility of a Trump presidency, it seems that widespread ignorance and credulity could have some far-reaching consequences.

Highlighting Corporate Failure

There are two lead letters in today's Star that bear reproducing. Expect no admission of a flawed ideology on the part of the neoliberals among us, however:

Re: House of Harper quickly crumbling, Feb. 22

Suddenly a lot of people from banks and corporations are in favour of the Liberals running infrastructure-investment-driven deficits from $30 billion to as high as $50 billion. In other words, they want government to do the really heavy lifting in stimulating the economy along with assuming, on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer, all of the financial as well as political risk.

This is the same group that for years has said governments really don’t create jobs, but rather are responsible for creating the right “environment and supports for investment,” by which they usually mean taxes.

Over the last decade, Canada’s corporations were given some of the deepest tax discounts in the world, and yet they have utterly failed to do anything other than mostly pocket the rewards.

We need to remember that those same corporations also failed to reinvest their tax windfalls in new Canadian jobs (ex-Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney’s “dead money”). Recent data from Statistics Canada also suggests many of the corporations were in fact investing their tax windfalls outside of the country.

Canada’s books for 2013–14 show personal taxes accounted for 48 per cent of total federal revenues, while corporate taxes accounted for a mere 13.5 per cent of that total.

So yes, Canada should indeed invest heavily in infrastructure investment in the coming years, but the question remains: Why can’t those corporations assume a larger financial input and responsibility in the country’s job and economic future?

Edward Carson, Toronto

In response to the CBC Power & Politics Ballot Box question, “How big should the deficit be?” 77 per cent responded “whatever is needed.” These voters understand that the deficit should be judged by results and not by arbitrary targets such as budget balances or debt-to-GDP limits.

The practical limit on spending for a sovereign country with a floating currency is the availability of domestic resources unused by the private sector. A reasonable measure of these resources is unemployment. When infrastructure, program spending and direct job creation measures result in jobs for all Canadians who want one, then government must either limit expenditures or increase taxes so as to prevent inflation.

But the Canadian economy is far from experiencing inflation, and there are 1.3 million Canadians who could be doing productive work. The federal government must challenge the conventional wisdom and spend whatever is needed.

There is no question it can do so, because it owns the Bank of Canada, which allows the federal government to run deficits of any size for as long as required.

Larry Kazdan, Vancouver

How Will Dion Justify This?

Given the ongoing contention surrounding Canada's decision to sell $15 billion worth of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, one wonders what sort of dance moves Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion will engage in to explain his government's ongoing support for the Middle East kingdom in light of this:

Canadian-made armoured vehicles appear to be embroiled in Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemeni-based Houthi rebels – caught up in cross-border hostilities that critics say should force Ottawa to reconsider a $15-billion deal to sell Riyadh more of these weapons.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis – who are aligned with Iran – has already been accused by a United Nations panel of major human-rights violations for what its report called “widespread and systematic” air-strike attacks on civilian targets. Along the Saudi-Yemen border, constant skirmishes pit Houthi fighters against Saudi ground forces such as the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

The Saudi Arabian National Guard, a buyer of many Canadian-made light armoured vehicles (LAVs) in the past decade, has published photos on its official Twitter account showing how in late 2015 it moved columns of combat vehicles to Najran, a southwestern Saudi town near the border with Yemen that is in the thick of the conflict.

A significant number of vehicles in the photos have the triangular front corners, the eight wheels and the headlamps fixed above these triangles that are familiar features in earlier LAV models made in Canada.

It would appear that this government, like the last, places a high priority on corporate profits:

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion’s department refused comment Monday when pressed on whether it is concerned about the armoured vehicle shipments, saying it’s bound to secrecy on anything to do with arms sales to the Saudis.

“In regards to your request, please see our response: For reasons of commercial confidentiality, specific contractual details cannot be shared,” Tania Assaly, a spokeswoman for Global Affairs said in a prepared statement.

Somehow I doubt that there is sufficient money in the world to clean the blood off of the Trudeau administration's hands in this matter.

Star Readers On The Guaranteed Annual Income

I write periodically in this blog on the concept of the guaranteed annual income; it seems it would be an effective way of helping to address many of the socio-economic problems we face. As you will see in the first of four letters on the subject from Star readers, not everyone sees it as a desirable measure.

Responding to a recent editorial exploring the notion of a GAI, Steen Petersen of Nanaimo, B.C. writes:

A guaranteed annual income (GAI) sounds like a good idea but when Denmark tried providing it many people were quite happy not having to work. To stop the hemorrhaging of government funds, they had to implement a rule that if you refused three job offers, all benefits were cut off.

Sadly, when you have a GAI, a lot of people feel the fruits of their labour is the difference between the GAI and their working paycheque and often that difference isn’t worth the effort. Also, if the government uses the GAI to subsidize low-paying jobs, the result will be more low-paying jobs.

Due to human nature, of both employers and workers, a GAI for everybody for life is simply unsustainable, as Denmark discovered. To make matters worse, since any earnings are deducted from the GAI people receive, the underground economy becomes even more attractive, which further drains government coffers.

While I cannot speak to the Danish experience Petersen describes, despite being an advocate of the GAI I must admit that I have worried that its implementation might simply amount to another subsidy for business, in that there would hardly be the same pressures on governments to raise minimum wages if everyone enjoyed a minimum guaranteed income.

Regarding his other point about it being a disincentive to work, that would surely depend on the form the GAI took. For example, a recent article in The Globe by Noralou Roos, director of EvidenceNetwork.ca and professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, posits one version that would perhaps mitigate that likelihood:

One version works like a refundable tax credit. If an individual has no income from any source at all, they receive a basic entitlement. As earned income increases, the benefit declines, but less than proportionately. As a result, low-income earners receive partial benefits so that they aren’t worse off than they would have been if they had quit their jobs and relied solely on income assistance.

This means that there is always an incentive to work, and people who work are always better off than they would be if they didn’t work.

Here are the other three Star letters for your consideration:

The idea of a guaranteed annual income in Canada — where the necessities of life are a citizen’s right and where it is no longer necessary to step over the homeless on the way to work — has been around for decades. However, it has rested in the realms of dreams, of aspirations and wishful thinking — as an idea too complex to be realized.

Now there is plenty of evidence that a guaranteed annual income can give legs to the possibility of a Canada where there are no poor people.

Ottawa has a responsibility to prioritize the implementation of a GAI. Canada without poverty, just think of it. It would be like a rising sun to thaw a frozen land.

Bill Endress, Toronto

Of course a basic income will backfire on the dwindling percentage who still create wealth and pay fresh taxes. Why would anyone with low skills or low job prospects seek work if the basics are covered adequately? Recirculating taxes in the social net does not create any new public income.

We need to tread with caution as it is so hard to undo errors due by the pride, ambition and egos of the politicians.

Nick Bird, Richmond Hill

No matter how governments act or whether they are conservative or socialist, there will always be people who are unable to work due to lack of jobs, lack of physical or mental ability, lack of training, etc. Jobs that were common two generations ago do not exist in today’s world — jobs that allowed people to make a minimum wage and some that allowed workers to own a home and raise a family.

These jobs are gone and will never be again in the industrialized world unless the captains of industry and the shareholders are willing to take a little less, and do away with much of the automation that has made thousands of jobs redundant.

A national minimum wage for every citizen of the age of majority will not be in the platform of any party in the near future. I and many others have benefited from the days of dishwashers, service station attendants, car washers and many other service jobs that have disappeared and are continuing to disappear.

When the mass of the unemployed grows to an unmanageable problem, what then?

Allan McPherson, Newmarket

UPDATED: The Police - Reluctant Learners In Our Midst

In many ways it is regrettable that the police apparently are not Spiderman fans. If they were, perhaps they would understand an early and painful lesson learned by Peter Parker, his alter ego: With great power comes great responsibility.

Unfortunately, some police seem to love the power, but want nothing to do with its responsible discharge, as my many posts on their abuse of authority attest to. In fact, when it is pointed out to them, they get downright outraged. Consider, for example, how they have gotten their kevlars in a twist over Beyonce's Superbowl half-time performance. (Start at about the 1:40 mark on the video.):



Whereas you and I might see an energetic celebration honouring and extolling black culture, police unions see a threat to their authority and respect, so much so that they are urging their members to boycott her upcoming concerts by refusing to provide security. To their credit, Toronto police are refusing to take part in such a boycott.

Looking deeply into the mirror to see one's shortcomings is never a pleasant experience, and having those shortcomings pointed out by others seems intolerable to some members of the American constabulary. To be reminded that Black Lives Matter by an impertinent songstress and her troupe, adorned in costumes recalling the black power movement, is more than these sensitive souls seem able to bear.

All of which inspired a spirited piece by Rosie DiManno in today's Star. She begins with these sobering facts:

People killed by the six law enforcement agencies that operate within Miami-Dade County: 14.

Seven were black. Five were Hispanic.

One of the victims was 15 years old.

The first Miami-Dade Police fatality — Feb. 15 — was a bipolar schizophrenic who swung a broom handle at officers. In a July fatal shooting by a Homestead officer (also within Miami-Dade), the same cop had shot and killed two other suspects since 2005 in separate incidents.

In each instance, officers claimed they feared for their lives.

Being a police officer seems to mean never having to say you're sorry. Indeed, it appears that their best defence is a strong offence.

... union president Javier Ortiz has called for a boycott of Beyoncé when the hitmaker kicks off her upcoming world tour in Miami on April 27, already sold out.

Ortiz slammed Beyoncé for her purported anti-police messaging — in a country where, according to comprehensive yearlong tracking by The Guardian into use of deadly force by police, 1,134 black individuals died at the hands of law enforcement in 2015. Despite making up only two per cent of the total U.S. population, African-American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15 per cent of all police-involved death logged by the newspaper’s investigation. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age bracket.

Move along. Nothing to see here seems to be the uniform response to such statistics.

...a lot of cops — or at least their union leaders — are jumping on the trash- Beyoncé bandwagon, claiming, on zero evidence, that such populist messaging threatens police lives. Of course, that’s the shut-up admonition they’ve always employed when confronted by perceived enemies of the thin blue line, notably against hip-hop and rap artists they’ve vilified, but more generally against any individual or group that challenges their authority.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that policing is not even listed in the top 10 of dangerous professions as determined by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,

the National Sheriffs’ Association [blames] Beyoncé for four officer deaths last week. And a Tennessee sheriff who held a press conference after shots were fired near his home claimed Beyoncé’s video may have been partly responsible.

All of which may strike many as self-serving rhetoric from an institution that seems to lack any capacity for introspection and self-criticism.

Contrary to what some may think, I am not anti-police. What I am vehemently opposed to, however, is unbridled power that feels it should be answerable to no one.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Anon for providing this link to a Guardian database tracking people killed in the U.S. by the police. Accompanying pictures of the victims are quite revealing.

The Price We Pay

*

WARNING: This is one of those blog posts that is more philosophical than it is political. However, in another sense, it pertains to a worldview that, if more people were open to it, could perhaps help change how we relate to each other and our planet. If that cryptic introduction has hooked you, please read on.

I came across a fascinating article recently in the New York Times about a German forest ranger, Peter Wohlleben, who asserts something quite remarkable: trees have social networks.

The author of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries From a Secret World, has made an impression:

[T]he matter-of-fact Mr. Wohlleben has delighted readers and talk-show audiences alike with the news — long known to biologists — that trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.

Why is this so important? For me, it reflects my belief that there is something in existence, which I like to refer to as "the transcendent," that animates and links all living things. This is hardly an insight original to me, but it is one I am convinced if we really took seriously would force us to treat the world around us, and all of its members, with greater respect and consideration. Unfortunately, however, today so much emphasis is placed upon the fulfillment of the individual that the collective experience is given short shrift.

The German forester

found that, in nature, trees operate less like individuals and more as communal beings. Working together in networks and sharing resources, they increase their resistance.

A perfect metaphor for what is so frequently lacking in today's world, isn't it?

And what is one to make of the latest discoveries that shed some light on the heretofore secret world of animals?

While we pride ourselves on our uniqueness, a number of recent studies reveal that our animal friends are more like us—or at least more attuned to our ways—than might be expected. Here are some of the most fascinating finds.

The list includes birds purposely starting fires to flush out their prey, wolves engaging in complex vocalizations, and birds demonstrating Theory of Mind, i.e., the ability to attribute mental states, including vision, to others. In other words, as an example, if they think they are being watched by other birds they will take measures to hide their food and not visit it too often. Self-awareness, anyone?

For conventional, conservative Christianity, such evidence is contrary to their beliefs that God created humanity and invested that humanity with uniqueness. I certainly do not believe that, but I do believe that we live in a world of potential which, for me, ultimately has a transcendent source.

Even without necessarily sharing my spiritual beliefs, people cannot, if truly examining the world around them, escape the remarkable resilience, mystery and vitality of nature and its mechanisms. While our sense of wonder may today be blunted through the isolation that our digital connectedness ironically makes possible, it doesn't in any way negate the truth to be found in the natural world. Indeed, perhaps we need a new mythology or metaphor to conceptualize that truth.

Our contemporary condition of disconnectedness seems to be the price we pay for choosing the temporal over the mysterious eternal. It is choosing this sentiment while ignoring this one. Our world is thus a poorer place.

* Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world.

— Chasidic saying, eighteenth century