Assorted content to end your week.
- Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg examines why seemingly healthy macroeconomic indicators - and even positive personal expectations - haven't translated into public satisfaction with political economic leaders. But Dougald Lamont is setting out how our economic system has been torqued at the behest of corporate robber barons to exploit and extract wealth from everybody else for the benefit of the uber-rich.
- As a particularly appalling example of the prioritization of corporate assumptions over human needs, Kumar Sambhav, Tapasya and Divij Joshi report on India's use of AI which simply presumes people to be dead in order to cut off their pension benefits. And Cory Doctorow discusses how tech giants are seeking to lock people into mandatory compliance with preferred business models to serve their own profitability at the expense of value to users.
- Benjamin Shingler reports on new research showing that the dirty oil sector is polluting Alberta up to 60 times more than it reports. Sam Markert examines how plastics manufacturers have exploited massive loopholes in "extended producer responsibility" policies to dump waste where it's least regulated. And Judith Weis points out how textiles are an increasing source of microplastic pollution.
- Jeff Berardelli offers a reminder that 2023 was by far the hottest year on record. Marshall Brain writes about the dangers of unfounded climate optimism when our current trajectory has us headed for disaster (and some of the most powerful forces on the planet are determined to make matters worse). And Eve Thomas discusses the IEA's recognition of the need for structural changes to try to limit the harm of a climate breakdown.
- Luke LeBrun reports that the latest attack on the rule of law in Canada by the Cons' convoy buddies involves an attempt to coerce police into arresting political leaders.
- Finally, David Climenhaga reports on Danielle Smith's choice to roll out the red carpet for Tucker Carlson rather than having any interest in responding to a shooting and firebombing in Edmonton. And Scott Dippel reports on the UCP's admonition that municipalities list any agreements in place with the federal government - signaling that the UCP isn't merely unwilling to bother providing housing or other vital services to Alberta's residents, but is determined to ferret out and block any attempt by other levels of government to do so.
The Lamont piece mentions the narrative that poor people are poor because they are bad and so must be punished for their poverty. One thing I like to ask is, so, what if everyone was smart and hardworking. Say every single person in Canada all had an MBA with at least a B average, or whatever is supposedly respectable. Would that mean they all got to be executives? Would there be no need for apple pickers or baristas or janitors? Would unemployment magically become zero? No. Lots and lots of those respectable hardworking MBAs would be poor. Obviously.
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