Who Is To Blame?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a staunch advocate of critical thinking, to me a foundation for any kind of meaningful life, and essential to a healthy democracy. And, as I often note with genuine humility, it is an ideal to which I constantly strive, realizing fully that I often miss the mark.

Recently there was an article in the Toronto Star calling for testing of basic skill levels of students when they enter and when they leave post-secondary education, this is response to complaints from the corporate community:

Executives in 20 recent employer surveys said they look to hire people with so-called “soft” or “essential skills” — communicating, problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork — “yet this is where they see students being deficient,” said Harvey Weingarten, president of Ontario’s higher education think-tank.

There has been a very healthy and vigorous reaction to that article by Star readers. I reproduce the lead letter here for your consideration. I especially like his paragraph on talk radio:

I’ve taught at a Toronto community college for the past 10 years, and have come to the alarming conclusion that recent cohorts of students represent the first certifiably post-literate generation. At least, the first in several centuries.

A broad disinclination to pick up a book without being compelled to do so, alongside a stubborn disinterest in any concept of a shared general knowledge, might be blamed on any number of factors. But when a teacher has to pause to explain a passing reference to World War II, for example, since there will inevitability be people in the class who’ve never heard of it, despite their having spent almost 20 years in school already, an uneasiness begins to set in.

Perhaps these kids’ early schooling let them down, in which case we have a conveniently blameworthy excuse for the present epidemic of unconcerned know-nothingness that begins already to define our culture. Or perhaps their parents let them down, by never expressing an interest in literate pursuits themselves and consequently establishing the model of obliviousness that their children can’t help but emulate, since it’s the only example they know.

I believe, on the other hand, that it’s simply indicative of a process of atomization. How can we maintain a collective adherence to a hard-fought ideal like universal literacy when collective enterprises of any sort are routinely smeared by a ruling corporate media that’s hopelessly reliant on the dumbest common denominator for its profits and its successes?

Just listen to local talk radio for five minutes, or for at least as long as you can stand it. You’ll be treated predictably and in rapid order to a breathless rundown of the current hit parade of a carefully-tended backlash, all centred on a visceral dislike of unionism, pedestrians, bicyclists, teachers, general dissent, income redistribution, and any other concept redolent to any degree of collective social progress, even as it applies to the former generational achievements of our parents and grandparents, the fruits of whose efforts to establish an ethic of universal citizen potential and prosperity we can only thank for our own present, if now fading, economic privilege.

The motto for this cultivated fake outrage could very well be: I lash back; therefore I am.

If we want kids to start picking up books again, the only thing that might yet forestall our slide into what Jane Jacobs called the Dark Age Ahead, then we better do what grownups are supposed to do and lead by example.

Assuming we’re not all screwed already, that is.

George Higton, Toronto

Clearly, there is plenty of blame to go around.

UPDATED: The Political Whoredom Of Mr. Christie

Not that he had any semblance of previous virtue, but yesterday former Republican presidential nomination contender Chris Christie confirmed his capacious political whoredom by endorsing Donald Trump, a man he had previously ridiculed:

“We are not electing an entertainer in chief. Showmanship is fun, but it is not the kind of leadership that will truly change America.”

His opinion changed yesterday.

He’s a good friend. He’s a strong and resolute leader and he is someone who is going to lead the Republican Party to victory in November.”

Although beaten to the altar of Baal by the never-virtuous but always befuddled Sarah Palin last month, Chrisitie tried to impart a greater dignity to his shame. Compare the following two performances:





Nonetheless, one cannot help but ascribe Christie's Damascene conversion to less than pure motives, especially given the fact that Trump has lately been publicly musing about his running mate, should he secure the Republican nomination.

Since Christie is but the tender age of 52, one must modify Brian Mulroney's 1984 assessment of Bryce Mackasey:

"There's no whore like a middle-aged whore."

Sorry for the rough language, but sometimes there is no way to euphemize ugly realities.

UPDATE: Thanks to The Mound of Sound for this, Some of the Meanest Things Chris Christie Has Said About Donald Trump.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

Put The Money Where It Will Do the Most Good

That's the advice of Dylan Marando, who, like many others, has come to the conclusion that tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations just means greater wealth accrual and dividend payouts, not job growth. The fact that corporations are currently sitting on over $500 billion is something no one should be proud of.

Mounting evidence demonstrates that measures like an increased minimum wage can be an effective means of boosting aggregate commercial activity, even when we take into account the potential negative effects on business investment.

A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research demonstrates the stimulative benefit of concentrating tax breaks on lower-income groups versus those in top income categories. The Reserve Bank of Australia and the Congressional Budget Office offer similarly encouraging analyses of low-income households’ marginal propensity to consume as the result of income shocks like tax cuts, rebates, or lump-sum transfers.

Despite the popular stereotype of the poor spending their money on alcohol and cigarettes, a study conducted last years suggests something quite different. Examining the Canadian Child Tax Benefit and the National Child Benefit, a group of Canadian economists found

that receipt of these programs coincides with increased expenditure on things like food, child care and education for low-income families, as well as large declines in alcohol and tobacco use in the all families sampled.

While hardly discounting big-spending items like infrastructure improvements to boost the economy, Marando suggests that perhaps the biggest stimulatory 'bang for the buck' may indeed lie in quieter, progressive improvements where they are needed most: the poor among us.

It may not be the message the business agenda wants us to hear, but perhaps it is time that we all thought outside the increasingly narrow and confining corporate box.

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.