economics – Scripturient

Poilievre’s Wacky, Quacky Economics

Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — loves cryptocurrency and wants to make Canada the world’s crypto capital. Crypto is a computing process, not a product, it’s well outside the capabilities of individual computer systems to “mine” so it is controlled by large crypto-mining farms owned by corporate interests, using vast amounts of energy to produce numbers (one estimate suggests crypto miners spend more than $1 billion monthly on energy costs). In other words, crypto is a corporate service that produces no products or benefits, but … click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 4: Economic Vitality

What, you may ask, is meant by the term “Economic Vitality” – the third objective in our town’s strategic-plan-in-the-works? Apparently it’s one of those motherhood statements people make on soapboxes and campaign platforms that have little grist in them to mill into actuality. Sure, we all want a town that has a lively, thriving economy. but how do we achieve it? No one has an answer – not one-size-fits-all answer. certainly it isn’t found in the woo-hoo strategic plan. The economy’s health depends on creating a … click below for more ↓

How Marx Presaged Today’s Canada

“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country,” wrote Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, in 1848, in the Communist Manifesto. I came across this paragraph in Prof. David Harvey‘s book, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, recently and the quote from the Communist Manifesto struck me as very modern; one that presaged our current internationalism and the changes affecting Canada today. No one on this continent has been unaffected by the rampant, unchecked, … click below for more ↓

Was Marx right after all?

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0″] While Marx didn’t say exactly that the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” he did state that under capitalism, poverty would inevitably increase while more and more wealth would concentrate in fewer hands. Increasing profits and increasing wages, he claimed, were contradictory. Adam Smith – the “father” of capitalism – said much of the same thing, by the way. They were right. Marx’s economic and world views were fermented in the mid-19th century’s industrial age, an age without any of the mass … click below for more ↓