Bill Good

I think she may just have come up with an answer to Bill's mantra "but how are we going to pay for health care? How are we going to pay for education?? How are we going to pay back the money to Ottawa???"

Ms McQuaig leaves out a new threat

"Since hunger and poverty are major contributors to death and disease around the world (WHO, 2002, 2009), Goklany (2011) argues that the artificially induced increase in biofuel demand would add to the global burden of death and disease. He then sets out to estimate order-of-magnitude increases in death and disease due to increased biofuel production."

Goklany, I.M. 2011. Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries? Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 16: 9-13.
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/jun/1jun2011a4.html

Diversion of 20% of the food supply to produce fuel is killing people.

Just Elected

We just elected Brimstone the Harp's fascist government to a 5 year tyranny the first in a western democracy since the thirties. There will be no audience there for Linda's work with a further $15B in corporate tax cuts to be stuffed in Swiss bank accounts.

With any luck, Linda may help us here with the HST and with any luck that early election call the Crusty/Global government is promising us. The HST is set up to transfer more cash to the fascist elite from the great unwashed.

The reasons are very simple,

The reasons are very simple, but, while people keep complaining about them, nobody seems to dare to hit the nail on the head.

1. The miseducation of economists and others in our universities, where monetary economics, or rather the deregulated "creation" of imaginary money to be used as weapons of colonization and enslavement, has become the same religion used by all former aristocracies and colonizers to rule and exploit, as "The Will of God".

2. Wealth can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and future generations.

The billionaires and the executives with their multimillion salaries, while their workers are lining up at the foodbanks, are the best and most obvious examples.

Whatever Linda says here and wrote in her books in the past, are the obvious proofs of these simple and obvious facts.

So, how long can the present crime wave be permitted to go on, before people realize the royal screw they've bee submitted to since the beginning of history?

How in hell can anybody "create" anything except convert resources into other forms and reap the benefits, while stealing others blind?

Wake up people, while you still have a chance to wake up to something.

Ed Deak.

Like most progressives,

Like most progressives, Linda has dropped the ball on pointing out the truth about money and banking. I don't see much point in endlessly focusing on the results and ignoring the cause. It's pretty simple; as long as money is loaned into existence by private banks, more of the same: inequality and debt slavery for the people.

While I enjoy Linda's writing, it does get a bit tedious when the analysis is persistently superficial. Too bad.

Ms. McQuaig a Shining Light

Linda McQuaig has consistently and tirelessly published outstanding accounts of a deeply unjust oligarchy. From "It's the Crude Dude" to "Holding the Bully's Coat" to "The Trouble with Billionaires", Canada has been privileged to have Ms. McQuaig watching our back.

Of course, the Mainstream Media will do everything in its power to pretend she doesn't exist. Sort of like they do for the majority of citizens.

But unlike corporate finance, we're here to stay and aren't going anywhere.

Great coverage!

Time to change

I guess when people will flood the streets the same way as they do now for the Stanley cup (nothing against hockey) and stand up against corporate and government corruptions and inequality then we have some hope to live in a society that values everyone's work and existence.

Until then we only have circus to entertain the dumb and the sheep and keep them in the dark, or rather they to keep themselves in the dark, head burried in the sand pretending that everything is good. There is food and hockey - what else do you need?

Nothing changes until the majority of us, working and middle class, that are currently being screwed by politicians and corporations will stand up and say NO.

unfortunately I don't see that happening in Canada anytime soon.
1. Canadians are too polite.
2. Canadians are too comfortable in their 'high standard' of living still.
3. There aren't enough people yet who starve and have nowhere to live so they would stand up and start complaining.
4. There are too many immigrants who come from worse situations so what we have here is heaven for them - why change it?
5. Canadians are too polite and never had to stand up for anything in their country to change it.

Time to learn.

Inequality is but one symptom

Excellent interview and post by Tyee. Thank you. IMO, her key statement is "the rich have gained control of the political agenda and rigged the rules." That is one of the multi-factor root causes - not just in Canada, but worldwide.

IMO, Dysfunction in our governance design has led to authoritarianism (the wrong use of power) not just in Canada but global authoritarianism, back by surveillance, police & military force or threats thereo, an entirely corrupt matrix with a corrupt set of "rules"/laws to benefit the few at the top of the authoritarian pyramind. Who knows how long it will persist, propped up by force and corruption. But life and a hopeful, sustainable, more equitable future cannot be achieved with the old rules. We need new law/rules and a new design of the political-legal landscape. As an aside, strong sustainability includes environment, economic, education and equity concerns - and for that we need to emply a new set of measuring indicators to assess genuine progress along the pathway to a much better world --not only possible - but needed today!

Well Peter, I have seen a

Well Peter, I have seen a lot of changes in my life, having lived under every known ideology, depression and war, and am absolutely certain that humanity will one day wake up this, the biggest fraud and crime wave, in human history, destroying and killing more that any ideology before.

The only thing not certain is the timing and the cause that ultimately brings on major changes. It has never been and never will be, but it is coming.

The Tyee and the comments are the best example that something is brewing and one day will break to the surface.

Ed Deak.

Oh Canada has it right.

Hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites are whipped up to a frenzy over a hockey game, but only 27% of the eligible electorate voted in the last municipal election in Nanaimo.

When folks get equally excited about things that are really important, we can hope for a better future. As long as we are complacent, apathetic and idle, we can't.

(GO CANUCKS! ZIGGER-ZAGGER, ZIGGER-ZAGGER GO CANUCKS, GO!)

P.S.
We don't have any mail in Nanaimo today. The posties are picketing on Terminal Avenue. It is hard to get excited for them. I wonder what the reaction would be if someone shut down the Internet for a day?

Righties and Lefties

From my lifetime of selective picking out of info here is one way to look at it:

Capitalism (aka free enterprise) is a system the main aim of which is accumulation of wealth into private pockets.

The wealth comes from our common wealth, and the idea is for capitalism to convert the common wealth into private wealth.

Righties believe that the capitalist system is a part of the divine plan. ( They speak in awe of a deity styled Unseen hand.) So when Righties are in power, they do what they can to accelerate the accumulation of wealth - usually, as McQuaig suggests, into fewer and fewer pockets.Righties figure that wealth is properly distributed by capitalism, and that any changes to the flow of wealth from the commons into private pockets is an artificial redistribution of that wealth.

Lefties who are social democrats see capitalism itself as the artificial redistribution of wealth. When social democrats are in power, they tend to try to keep more of the wealth with the commons (to the dismay of corporate boardrooms and their media).
Social democrats think that economic and social justice is possible within the capitalist system.

McQuaig says that those in power jiggered the rules; we have had (in North America, especially) a lot of Righties controlling municipal, provincial/state, and federal governments the past several decades. They have worked to accelerate the conversion of the common wealth into private wealth, and have enabled its accumulation by fewer and fewer people.
The corporate media constantly puts out the message that the Rightie way is the natural way, and that anything else is artificial redistribution of wealth.
There is very little public challenge to the message that capitalism is the natural way.

The biggest and most brutal

The biggest and most brutal inequalities happened under communism, enforced by the secret police.

Capitalism and communism are brothers under the skin, witness their beautiful ass kissing relationship in China.

The difference is that while the communists enforced their enslaving schemes with bayonets, the capitalists are doing the same with the perceived power of imaginary capital that exist only as computer figures.

By a curious coincidence, both communists and capitalists have labeled social democracy as the greatest enemy of their sacred causes, with literally millions of social democrats jailed and killed in communist death camps, while the capitalists are only dreaming of it.

The main purpose of "free enterprise" as opposed to "private enterprise", combined with "competitiveness" is the communist style collectivization of economic power into the hands of a politically pure ruling class.

Otherwise known as " Rule by BS" for people to lap up.

Ed Deak.

Ed Deak - creation.

Are you serious Ed?

How about the wheel? Or the myriad of medicines that have saved millions of lives? Or the internet/web? Or the printing press?

What has made you lose faith in the constantly proven abillty of humans to invent their future?

Where in hell have I said

Where in hell have I said that inventions are not necessary? I've spent my life in inventing and making things, in many practical fields and trades, with dozens of my articles in do it yourself and farming magazines.

The wheel wasn't invented by "investors". The people who invent things are being misused by the parasitic profit demands of "investors", who sit by their computers buying and selling people and things every few seconds, calling it "productivity"

Get a set of Lee Valley's Wood Cuts magazines, published in 1993, and you'll see some my articles and my illustrations for all the Shop Tips, sent in by practical people and not "investors", also in many recent Country Delivery magazines.

One of Canada's biggest problems is overcapitalization, demanded more by corrupt governments and braindead economists, draining the country dry, destroying people with the idiocy of "resource based" and "service" economics.

Ed Deak. .

Capitalism aka Communism

I share your opinion Ed Deak. Capitalism isn't really that different from Communism. I grew in the Communist system and I also spent enough time in the capitalist system to form an educated opinion.

Politically both want the same thing - power. Both is driven by greed. And both think that social democrats are the enemy. Well, they are. Social democracy is a much more balanced system and perhaps more humane. Therefore it is the enemy.

Life however strives for balance. It is just a matter of time. The question is not if people wake up. I think most know already. The question is when.

We haven't changed much from medieval times. We experience the same things today we did throughout centuries. The only difference is that now we are in the 21st century and not in the 15th.

Revolutions happened and happen today because of serious inequalities and exploitation.

And revolutions will happen again and again until humanity wakes up and learns humility and respect towards each other and towards all living things.

Ed Deak

"How in hell can anybody "create" anything except convert resources into other forms and reap the benefits, while stealing others blind?"

communism or pseudo-communism?

I think communism was never the true communism embraced by K. Marx. It looked like it was until you reached the top 5% of the population who took advantage. The USSR looked a lot like capitalism. In other words, there are always a few people (encouraged by others who are leaches: usually wife/wives, other go-between of both sexes) who will justify in many ways that they deserve to live in opulence (due to hardwork --even though poorer people than them work harder-- or superior intelligence --even though we know that there are many people who are smarter at the bottom of the pyramid-- or, more often than not, due to luck --along with a modicum of the other elements mentioned earlier). Of course, being tall, dark, and handsome or big-busted, slim, and beautiful helps a great deal too nowadays! :) (Outliers number 2)

Tall and handsome or short and ugly

Right on ... and sadly true.

But this also just tells you how superficial today's society is. We are inundated by ads that tells you the how to ... (fill in the blank).

I guess Marx did not calculate one thing into his work about communism - arrogance, greed and the psyche's false desire to be somebody - because you are nobody if you have no money, power or if you are not beautiful. Right?

Same goes probably for Jesus - he never wanted the church to be controlling and what happened?

I guess I would just go back to the same thing I said earlier - when we learn humility and respect towards each other and towards all living things then we can expect better for ourselves and for the next generation.

Until then game as usual - same thing different century.

The rich have always rigged the rules

What is sad today is that globalisation has stripped the west of manufacturing jobs and sent them all to China. The Chinese are paying for their 10% growth with lung cancer, emphysema and bronchitis from coal-fired industries that were eliminated by clean air laws everywhere else. Welcome to the race to the bottom, the race with no winners.

Fish-counter

... you should get excited for the posties. If nothing else just for the fact that they want equal pay for equal work.

People tend to forget what unions are for. I know many Canadians don't like unions. Is it jealousy or just bad representation of the union. I don't know. Probably both.

It is a fact that unions need to change as time changes but I think they are essential.

Would we have those jobs, that are now outsourced to another country, still in Canada if those jobs would have been union jobs? Perhaps we should ask those who lost their jobs due to outsourcing.

I would be pissed to work in the same job at the same company and make 30% less just because I'm 10 years younger. Or whatever is the reason they want to pay me less.

This is exactly why we have inequalities in this country and it grows by the day. Those who stand up are being booed and called lazy. And those who work their a$$ off and say nothing when they get next to nothing for pay are the brave ones ... huh? I have to shake my head for that.

A CEO gets a pension and I who work for the same company for 30 years get a kick in the a$$. Or...I should be a politician and get myself elected into parliament. Then all I have to do is survive 6 years and I get pension for life. And what did I do in that 6 years? Did I help society? Did I do something useful and honest?

There is something seriously wrong with our system if a politician gets a pension after 6 years on being in parliament. And those who work for a minimum wage and live pay cheque to pay cheque get nothing. I guess that is called capitalism. No one cares about me and if I can't make it I'm lazy.

I guess I should stop my rant now ...

True enough nothing new under the sun

As a multimedia artist I find it true enough that each of us borrows from one another to recreate, redevelop and reproduce in some fashion in order to make something not entirely new yet of help or benefit to humanity in some way.

The sellers will always find a way to market. At the beginning communism felt like a better idea or way than capitalism, it seemed to better distribute wealth and the sharing of it with emphasis on community not the individual.

In practice they are motivated by the same intention, to gain more, or be more productive in order to have increase of a commodity or currency at the end of the day, in order to be ahead or be better.

What about this....

"Remember him [G-d]—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at he well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit of G-d who gave it."

From Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 .... wherein the author [King Solomon] 'puts his powers of wisdom to work to examine the human experience and assess the human situation'

Mostly great comments

Van Isle, " Linda, while you're in Vancouver can you please stop-off and have a chat with the Vancouver Sun and the Province newspaper and give them some pointers on how to do investigative journalism? "
This comment reminded me of an Editorial in Saturday's Vancouver Sun titled "HST confusion needs quick attention." Did they give an explanation of the issues involved in the HST debate? NO! If it were a publication worthy of being called a newspaper, it would have researched the HST issue and published an unbiased article or articles about the issues involving the HST. They never did and that is why it is not worthy of the paper on which it is written. They do not follow their own advice.

Investor asks, "How about the wheel? Or the myriad of medicines that have saved millions of lives?"
Yes. When Banting and Best discovered how to make insulin, they gave the patent to the govt of Canada. It was too valuable and important to be in private hands. When Mulroney came to power, he gave or sold quite cheaply the patent to an American company. They promptly started to make artificial insulin that many diabetics were allergic to. It took years for the company to produce organic based insulin and many diabetics suffered incredible pain and some may have died. That is what blind capitalism (greed) will do.