Ellen Russell

Are you voting for policies that hurt you? Neoliberal polices and your paycheque

rabble staff — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 19:46:06 +0000

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

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Another federal election is coming, and the promises are gearing up. But after the election is over and politicians start implementing those promises, do they really work out the way we had hoped?

Promises always sound good, especially in election season. It seems like a more productive economy should make us all better off. But a pro-business productivity agenda might not be helping workers.

Theatre of the Fiscally Absurd: Auditions now open to run government finances

rabble staff — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 21:27:50 +0000

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Have you ever considered a career on stage? Do you like to manipulate peoples' emotions to make them fear catastrophe and then worship you when you save the day? Perhaps you should consider a career running the country's finances.

As an aspiring actor, you no doubt admire the pomp and circumstance of the throne speech. But the political theatrics go far beyond that. These days the politics of the federal budget book are worthy of a Broadway spectacle.

Federal fiscal theatre has it all. There is anxiety-provoking drama, a valiant superhero and a (not so surprising) happy ending. This week's throne speech is just one more glamorous soliloquy to remind us who to credit when the hero triumphs just in time to enhance the Conservatives' fortunes in the next election.

This week's throne speech is just one more glamorous soliloquy to remind us who to credit when the hero triumphs just in time to enhance the Conservatives' fortunes in the next election.

Economists, conflicts of interest and a plea to journalists

rabble staff — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:48:34 +0000

Friday, February 15, 2013

When your doctor prescribes medication, you need to trust that you are getting the best, unbiased medical advice possible. If those pills just happened to be sold by the pharmaceutical company that gives your doc lucrative freebies, you might be skeptical about that choice of medication. You'd also want to know if the research recommending those pills was paid for by the pill's manufacturer.

This is not rocket science, folks. Medical professionals should 'fess up to any conflicts of interest so that the public can assess whether their advice or research is compromised. Transparency about conflicts of interest in medicine is far from perfect, but we all realize that this ethical principle is the cornerstone of the public's faith in medical advice and research.

When a small group of people are exercising disproportionate public influence, it's a good time to consider conflict of interest issues.

Canada's superiority complex: Are our banks really better?

rabble staff — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:15:31 +0000

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Concerned about the increasing frequency of banking crises? Don't worry. Bad things can't happen to banks in Canada.

Certainly we are not Spain. Or Iceland. Or Ireland. Well, let's just say Europe more generally over recent years. Or, come to think about it, the USA with its subprime crisis and its major banks on the rails in the 2008 financial crisis.

Canada is smarter than all those other countries. Canadian banks are just better behaved than banks elsewhere, and in any case the extraordinary vigilance of Canadian banking regulators will protect us.

The self-congratulatory myth of Canadian exceptionalism is an act of willful denial. All that bragging about our banking sector's resilience is no guarantee about the future.

How the Anglo punditocracy demonizes Quebec's student protests

rabble staff — Tue, 29 May 2012 05:02:52 +0000

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Anglo Canada is sticking its fingers in its ears and humming a happy song. Many in the English-speaking punditocracy and media (or perhaps mediocracy?) are doing their best to persuade us that student protests in Quebec are nothing of any consequence.

This is getting a little harder to do, now that so many other folks are joining the students. But it is not too late to jump on the bandwagon to ridicule or demonize the protesters. Just follow these simple steps.(These steps can be rearranged and amplified for dramatic effect.)

Step 1: Set the stage with a dismissive tone. Many like to scorn protesters as naïve over-entitled brats. If you really get huffing and puffing, brand students as anti-social radicals. This leads nicely into step 2.

Many in the English-speaking media are doing their best to persuade us that student protests in Quebec are nothing of any consequence. Here's a three-step guide to how they do it.

Just say no to corporate greed: The case of Iceland

mgregus — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:03:29 +0000

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Capitalism is looking pretty mean these days. No amount of profit is enough, and no level of collateral damage to get that profit is unreasonable. And when capitalism on steroids runs amok, any extremes of public pain are justified to save the butts of those who made the mess in the first place.

Corporations understand that they have a green light to punish people ruthlessly for even a modest improvement to their bottom line (ask Caterpillar workers if you want details). Whole nations may be bled dry to shield financial institutions from the consequences of their own bad behaviour. The Greek government is deliberately creating a national great depression to appease international financial interests.

Iceland is a great example of people who fought for civility in the face of capitalism run amok. They took a stand when all of the forces of international capital were allied against them.

EU austerity implosion will be a scary precedent

rabble staff — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:21:05 +0000

The EU economic plan will leave it in tatters.

Europe trashed: The coming austerity implosion is a scary precedent

rabble staff — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:41:20 +0000

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

World leaders are doing their best to provoke a global economic downturn of epic proportions. Of course, it is politically hazardous for leaders to admit this. Democratic accountability can be inconvenient when leaders are obsessed with imposing economic austerity policies.

The new Euro area agreement provides political cover for these unpopular measures. To appease financial markets, European leaders have submitted to the "new fiscal rule," a pledge to keep government budgets balanced or in surplus.

This new fiscal rule will have the force of law. Countries are required to enshrine this new fiscal rule in their national level constitutions.

European Union governments can now be bled dry in order to channel every possible euro towards meeting whatever deficit or debt targets financial markets demand. It's bad for them and for the world.

Occupy bailout. Canadian banks got billions in help

rabble staff — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:37:45 +0000

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Critics spend a lot of time telling Canadians that they should disregard the Occupy movement. They claim that the sins of Wall Street didn't happen here, so Canadians have no business making such a fuss.

The financial sector's PR machine has had great success convincing folks that Canadian banks are pure as the driven snow. Their message incessantly repeats their claim that there were no bailouts of Canadian banks during the 2008 financial crisis. You Occupiers have nothing to complain about, they say. Maybe in the U.S. people can be mad. But not here.

Since bank bailouts are presented as some kind of litmus test for the legitimacy of Canadian finance, we need to deal with this red herring.

A bank bailout that by any other name would still stink. Canadian banks were not nationalized, nor did they receive direct equity injections from the government. But that is far from the whole story.

Occupy Wall Street asks the big economic questions

rabble staff — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:12:16 +0000

Thursday, October 6, 2011

"We Are The 99 per cent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 per cent," say the Occupy Wall Street protesters. This grassroots protest started on Wall Street, but is now spreading far and wide among folks who just can't take it anymore.

The realization that something is deeply wrong in the economy is palpable: inequality, constant crisis management, poverty. It's a very long list of everything we never wanted in an economic system.

In an interview, U.S. economist Rick Wolff says he has given up on tinkering with the American economy because the underlying problems are so deep. His observations will ring true to Canadians.

The European financial meltdown -- next in a continuing series

rabble staff — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:31:29 +0000

Monday, September 19, 2011

As I write, the Europe's sovereign debt crisis is a ticking bomb. Unprecedented events are happening at a mind-spinning pace. In the middle of last week the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) offered to help bail out the struggling European countries. By the end of the week, the European central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks announced that European banks would be showered with "unlimited" loans to help them.

The reason for all of these sudden extraordinary measures is the fear that an impending European financial crisis could make the events of 2008 look like minor leagues. It is a justified fear. If financial panic spreads and speculators go for blood, it will be almost impossible to stop the chaos.

Banking does not have to bring the world to the brink of crisis. There are progressive alternatives to regulate banks better, but none will happen while repeated bank crises hold all of us hostage.

Neoliberal economics is not an immovable object

rabble staff — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:29:22 +0000

Market forces rule only if we let them.

What financial crises teach us about economic democracy

rabble staff — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:56:53 +0000

Monday, August 15, 2011

The left can learn an important lesson from the financial upheavals that are becoming routine these days. As elites scramble to confront each successive crisis, they prove by example that which they consistently deny: there is an alternative to the dictates of the free market.

One of the most politically disempowering aspects of neoliberal capitalism is the mantra that we were powerless to resist economic forces. We are constantly told that there is no help for our economic complaints. The free market created the situation, and market forces reign supreme.

One politically disempowering aspect of neoliberal capitalism is the mantra that we cannot resist economic forces. Wrong -- collective decision making can trump market forces in a crisis.

Financial crisis as a way of life

rabble staff — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:08:52 +0000

Thursday, July 14, 2011

From Wall Street to Iceland to Greece to Ireland, the world is lurching from one financial crisis to the next. The financial panic of 2008 has morphed into the era of financial crises. If you think you live in an oasis away from financial meltdown, think again. Financial markets are so twitchy (and so interdependent) that a problem anywhere could become a problem everywhere.

How did we become hostage to financial markets? A generation of neoliberal finance set the stage for chronic worldwide financial instability:

Inequality has skyrocketed

Neoliberalism's genius is its ability to blame the victim. Ultimately, the world financial crisis is a political problem that will take political will to counter the hegemony of financial interests.

Debt by 1,000 tax cuts: An election special

rabble staff — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:09:38 +0000

Friday, April 15, 2011

Stephen Harper knows he can't come right out and reveal his radical agenda to downsize government. But if he gets his majority, expect Harper to slash and burn on the pretext that the federal debt and deficit requires massive evisceration of government.

Since Stephen Harper welcomes a future fiscal squeeze to justify his small-government agenda, he is busily bribing us with our own money to enhance his electoral prospects.