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The poor are doing better than you think
Sunday, December 11th, 2011
Dec. 10,2011
The real problem… lies with the elites of the financial class who’ve grabbed a gargantuan share of the spoils by means of fancy financial engineering that creates no value, and sometimes destroys it on a massive scale. Nobody knows how to keep them from wrecking the system every so often. The financial lobby is the biggest and most powerful interest group on Earth. Their ability to rig the system so as to enrich themselves has overwhelmed the ability of the politicians and the regulators to keep them in check.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Pension ponzi is a raw deal for students
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
Dec. 06, 2011
Across the country, universities are cutting back on programs to pay for soaring operating costs. The fastest-growing cost is frequently the pension fund. Cumulatively, university pension funds are billions in the hole. And in order to bail them out, or at least get them back above water, universities are being forced to divert substantial chunks of money from their operating funds. In effect, the students and taxpayers are on the hook for the generous pension promises made to faculty, staff and retirees. And they have pension deals the younger generation can only dream of.
Tags: budget, pensions, standard of living, youth
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
Young men without work
Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Nov. 11, 2011
Despite what the Occupy movement says, the biggest economic challenge we face today is not income inequality, greedy corporations, Wall Street corruption or the concentration of wealth among the top 1 per cent. It’s the increasing failure of young men with high-school degrees or less to latch on to the world of work. Young men without work aren’t just an economic problem. They’re a huge social problem… Young men without work are trapped in a twilight world of failure to achieve adulthood… The longer they go without work, the dimmer their prospects become.
Tags: economy, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
Occupiers are blaming the wrong people
Monday, November 7th, 2011
Nov. 06, 2011
It’s not the greedy Wall Street bankers who destroyed these people’s hopes. It’s the virtueocracy itself. It’s the people who constructed a benefit-heavy entitlement system whose costs can no longer be sustained. It’s the politicians and union leaders who made reckless pension promises that are now bankrupting cities and states… In Canada, it’s the social progressives who assure us we can keep on consuming all the health care we want, even as the costs squeeze out other public goods.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax, youth
Posted in Inclusion Debates | No Comments »
Jack Layton’s legacy and our yearning for political civility
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Aug. 30, 2011
Canadians of every political stripe yearn deeply for a political culture that’s more civil and constructive, and that can engage ordinary citizens in building a better country. Young Canadians yearn most of all. Over at City Hall, one of the chalk scrawls said: “Thank you Jack, for taking out the cynicism.” …Outside in the public square, it wasn’t the NDP manifesto that moved the crowds. Above all, it was the word “civility.”
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Teaching the Khan way
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug. 27, 2011
Salman Khan is a nerdy 34-year-old American with a genius for explaining things… he started to make a series of short instructional videos that explained the basic concepts. Then he put some of them on YouTube, and they took off… To date, he has turned out 2,400 low-tech mini-lectures on everything from basic addition to vector calculus and organic chemistry… The Khan approach shows how technology can be used to truly customize education and allow students to proceed at their own pace.
Tags: ideology, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Unskilled, unmarried, unwanted …
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
Aug. 16, 2011
The problems of Britain’s inner cities look amazingly like the problems of America’s inner cities. In both places, the disintegration of the family is intimately linked with social decay… The decline of marriage has gone hand in hand with the decline in male employment… Any way you look at this, it’s a time bomb… Both Britain and America have developed a large, permanent underclass whose numbers are growing. Rootless, unmoored young men with no stake in society are a major threat to social order.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
For troubled teens, a visit to a place called hope
Monday, June 27th, 2011
Jun. 25, 201
Governments and established institutions are almost incapable of starting innovative programs such as this. They’re too risk-averse. They don’t have the drive or vision, and the cost of failure is far too high. A Pine River can only come from social entrepreneurs such as Ms. Minden – people with passion, imagination and perseverance. … The kids come from every social class… Pine River’s program is designed to help them reconnect with people and thrive in a new ecosystem – one that’s positive, instead of toxic.
Tags: Health, mental Health, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
In a world without ‘socialism’
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
Jun. 21, 2011
The central challenge for governments today is how to manage and reform the institutions we’ve created, not to create new ones. Sure, the New Democrats can promise to “preserve” medicare. But that promise is worthless unless they have some realistic notion of how to keep health-care costs from crowding out every other social expenditure. The Liberals are in the same fix. Their basic problem isn’t leadership or infighting. Their basic problem is that they have no vision for how to fix the modern liberal nation-state… The party that gets this will own the future. Everything else is hot air.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Are your politics hard-wired?
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
Apr. 16, 2011
…there’s mounting evidence that they are to some extent biologically rooted deep in the subconscious part of our brains… The best evidence of this comes from twin studies, which show that identical twins are highly likely to share political beliefs, and to have similar engagement levels in politics… Modern political strategy is crafted to trigger a chain of emotional reactions among voters and exaggerate the differences among the parties. Political campaigns are not about debating policy, but about affirming emotions… Voters are both rational and intuitive. But to some extent, they are also born.
Tags: ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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