By Jack Biddell, George Crowell invited me to Windsor to speak. It was a great opportunity. I met a wonderful group in that community and in Western Ontario where we have a lot of support largely due to the efforts of George. And I must add to that, the efforts of Vic Knight and his…
THE INABILITY of the Colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the Prime reason for the revolutionary war. – Benjamin Franklin, “Founding Father” (1706-1796) WHEN a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they, and not the leaders of the…
By Margaret Rao, Nothing less than a global health crisis could stop us in our carbon footprint tracks and expose the (f)ailing globalized, corporate economy. The pandemic brought home just how connected and vulnerable we are to life-threatening viruses, the latest of which originated in bat populations. As humans increasingly encroach on wildlife habitats for…
By William Henry Pope, March 1996 For the 1962 federal election the New Democrats of Calgary North wanted Bertrand Russell as their candidate in the hope of winning against the Minister of National Defence on the issue of the nuclear-armed Bomarc. While Lord Russell had better things to do, I didn’t. While I was thus…
By Judy Kennedy, We are at a point where a significant number of Canadians are now aware that our governments are beholden to the Kinder Morgans, the SNC-Lavalins, the Royal Banks, etc. Surprisingly, one group also under the global microscope is that of the central banks. At issue is their apparent autonomy from government oversight…
By George Crowell, The issue that I wish to stress is the need to communicate the insights of COMER to ordinary people. It’s essential that people at the grassroots level come to understand the potential power of monetary policy to turn our economy around. It’s not enough for politicians to know about it. It’s important…
By David Gracey, 2021 At the first COMER meeting that I attended, some forty years ago, I met one of the founders, Professor John Hotson. It was there that I heard his dictum that no sovereign government should borrow from private banks when it had the option of borrowing from its own bank. This was…
By Élan, YIN n. (in Chinese Philosophy)1 the passive female principle of the universe contrasted with yang – origin Chinese “feminine, moon.” YANG n. (in Chinese Philosophy) the active male principle of the universe contrasted with yin – origin Chinese, “male genitals, sun.” The widespread discussion of COVID-19 reflects the Chinese Philosophy of Yin and…
By Paul Hellyer, I consider it a great honour to be asked to write a piece for the final print edition of the illustrious and incredibly useful COMER magazine, the Journal of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform. I suspect the choice was awarded on the basis of age, since I have been around…
We would like to thank past, present and future contributors who worked tirelessly on getting the COMER journal to print and also those who have managed COMER’s several websites over time: John Riddell, Larry Farquharson and Tony Koch. A warm welcome to COMER’s new website team, Darko and Drazen Dodig. We’re confident that they can…
By Jordan Grant, Basically the same set of advisors who advised the Tories before and are now advising the Liberals in Ottawa. But there is a choice to be made. What I’ve found out, through my association with COMER and other people, is that there are other economists with other sets of ideas. It’s just…
By Joyce Nelson, for COMER, June 2019 (updated Feb 10, 2021) William Faulkner once wrote: “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” That observation seems especially true of the tumultuous early 1970s, when monetary policy across much of the world was completely upended by the so-called “Nixon shocks,” the policy prescriptions issued by…
By William Krehm, More than twenty years ago, I developed a model of the economy as a complex of subsystems: social, economic, and ecological, each with its own code and entropy build-up. However, their interactions determine whether the system as a whole might be sustainable or headed towards a break-down. The paper was published in…
By Ed Finn, rabble.ca, Economy, Politics in Canada, March 1, 2019 With all the political commentators pontificating on the SNC-Lavalin affair and former attorney general Wilson-Raybould’s explosive testimony to the House of Commons justice committee, I wouldn’t dare venture to offer my own modest opinion on the imbroglio if I didn’t think I had something…
The composition of the House of Commons justice committee hardly guaranteed impartiality. For their part, the opposition laid siege, while the government exercised its majority power. When, for example, the opposition put forth a motion to provide the committee with texts and documents that the Prime Minister’s friend and advisor, Gerry Butts, said he had…
By Michael Harris, thetyee.ca, February 15, 2019 Her government was intensely lobbied, but the law is clear. We may not yet know if Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by Justin Trudeau or the PMO to let SNC-Lavalin duck a criminal trial, but there is no doubt that is exactly what the company wanted. Under a so-called…
His generation is now gone. His passing marks the end of an era. Not just for us here gathered, but also for those who remember the struggles of the past. He was the last living North American who went to Spain
Hazel Henderson, in Building A WinWin World, identifies the common definition of sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The model dominating political econo-mies today – world wide – becomes less and less sustainable, as the needfor sustainability grows…
Canada’s SNC-Lavalin Affair: The Site C Dam Project and Bulk Water Export By Joyce Nelson, Global Research, March 13, 2019 In all the press coverage of the “the SNC-Lavalin affair,” not enough attention has been paid to the company’s involvement in Site C – the contentious $11 billion dam being constructed in BC’s Peace River…
Margaret Rao’s Testimony Sunday, January 27, 2019, First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto. Good morning everyone! I am grateful to be given the opportunity to share a testimony with you on my life as an activist. In keeping with the theme of change, an activist is, simply put, a change agent. A change agent has a…
Part I of this article ran in the November-December, 2018, issue of ER. By Henry A. Giroux, Social Project, The Bullet, August 20, 2018 What is crucial to understand is that neoliberalism is not only a more extreme element of capitalism, it has also enabled the emergence of a radical restructuring of power, the state…
By Judy Kennedy, Annapolis NDP, Orange Zest, March 2019 Mainstream media have obsessed over whether the PMO & Associates have unduly influenced Jody Wilson-Raybould to allow the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) process in the prosecution of the criminal case against SNC-Lavalin. By so doing they have succeeded in drawing attention away from the basic issue:…
By Larry Farquharson, COMER Information Officer April 21, 2019, Toronto, ON – It is with deep sadness we report that William Krehm passed away on April 19, peacefully, in his sleep, at his home. He was in his 106th year. Bill, as he was known, was a noted activist, journalist, businessman, thinker and philanthropist. Among…
By Rick Smith, The Broadbent Blog, December 6, 2018 Maybe it was the months of smoke-filled skies or the flash floods following hard on the heels of long droughts. Or maybe it was mountainsides covered in beetle-killed trees or glaciers melting to slivers of ice. Whatever the reason, British Columbia has got the message when…
llustration from pages 4-5 in Whose Crisis, Whose Future? by Susan George In Whose Crisis, Whose Future, Towards a Greener, Fairer, Richer World, Susan George uses “a series of concentric spheres set in a hierarchy of diminishing importance,” to vividly portray the “enormous task of people everywhere, an effort never before required in human history...to…
By Richard Rohr, The Social Artist, Winter 2018 Go Down to the Palace of the king and declare, “Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent…
AlAs, we have recently lost a long-time member of COMER, and an outstanding “change agent.” Derrell Dular, born January 13, 1944, died November 30, 2018. Derrell grew up in the Cleveland, Ohio area and immigrated to Montreal, in 1966. Luckily for us, he moved to Ontario, in 1967. Like Margaret Rao and Richard Rohr, he…
By Ellen Brown, www.truthdig.com, December 16, 2018 With what author and activist Naomi Klein calls “galloping momentum,” the “Green New Deal” promoted by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop. Her plan would give a House…
By Judy Kennedy, Orange Zest, Annapolis NDP, December 2018 Nova Scotia’s NDP election school, held this fall, was marked by a preponderance of young attendees who know how things must change for them and who are prepared to work for it. What young people want these days are changes to our social programs – free…
By Andy Rowell, www.commondreams.org, December 4, 2018 Children from Canada, Australia and Sweden are taking the lead on climate change. Earlier today, the naturalist Sir David Attenborough addressed the UN climate conference in Poland, saying: “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change.”…
By Ed Pilkington in New York, The Guardian, December 4, 2018 Weeks after the midterms, several states face continued wrangling as GOP accused of undermining voters’ will. A month after the midterm elections on 6 November, several states continue to be convulsed by bitter partisan fighting in which Republicans are being accused of flagrantly undemocratic…
By Mitchell Beer, theenergymix.com, November 28, 2018. Full Story: Environnement Jeunesse @ENJEUQuebec (https://enjeu.qc.ca/justice-eng) A group of five youth and young adults led by Montreal-based ENvironnement JEUnesse (ENJEU) has applied to the Superior Court of Québec for leave to launch a class action lawsuit against the Canadian government, challenging the country’s lim-ited response to climate change…
By Henry A. Giroux, Social Project, The Bullet, August 20, 2018 The nightmares that have shaped the past and await return slightly just below the surface of American society are poised to wreak havoc on us again. America has reached a distinctive crossroads in which the principles and practices of a fascist past and neoliberal…
By Leyland Cecco, The Guardian, November 20, 2018 Rough seas prevented crews from assessing damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by province’s largest-ever spill. Biologists are attempting to assess damage to vulnerable wildlife caused by Newfoundlands largest-ever oil spill, amid fears that the full scale of devastation may never be known. Intense storms battered offshore oil…
By J. D. Alt, ERA Review, v. 10, n. 6, November-December 2018 I have written about this before, but it bears repeating now – and perhaps it bears repeating every week until somebody with more leverage than me picks the message up and carries it a step further: The USA and the rest of the…
By teleSUR, readersupportednews.org, November 4, 2018 On Friday, the US Supreme Court gave permission for the continuation of the Juliana vs. the United States lawsuit that was filed by young American citizens, who expressed concern for the government’s failure to properly address the impacts of climate change. “The youth of our nation won an important…
By John Miller, rabble.ca blogs, October 1, 2018 Bruce Mackinnon and Duncan Macpher son share the distinction of being two of the best editorial cartoonists in Canadian history. MacKinnon, who still draws for the Halifax Chronicle Herald, has won seven National Newspaper Awards, and Macpherson, who died in 1993, won six for his excellent work…
Source: newint.org, November 1, 2018 A new resistance movement is forming. Husna Rizvi speaks to Extinction Rebellion about why direct action is our last chance to phase-out carbon. A new climate breakdown resistance movement is forming in Britain. On Wednesday 31 October in Westminster, Ex-tinction Rebellion – a nascent mass direct-action group, in the style…
By Oscar Reyes, Foreign Policy In Focus, October 31, 2018 Despite dire warnings, politically influential big banks continue to lend billions to the fossil fuel industry every year. A stark new United Nations climate report warns that humans have about 12 years to slash global emissions by nearly half. Unfortunately, that’s going to be extremely…
The REAL News Network, October 11, 2018 Series Content The IPCC’s new report says we could face irreversible consequences of climate change by as soon as 2030, but a coordinating lead author of the report says policymakers, businesses, and individuals can still make big changes to protect our future Story Transcript DHARNA NOOR: It’s The…
By Avi Lewis, published by The Leap: System Change on a Deadline, October 10, 2018 More and more people are coming to the conclusion that this escalating crisis, everharder to deny, can galvanize change on the scale that is really needed. Nothing less will do. The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is out,…
By John Ryan, Globalization, Canadian Dimension, October 9, 2018 There is something strange about this. Other than Maude Barlow and of Sujata Dey of the Council of Canadians, it appears that no other journalists or columnists from the mainstream media have mentioned two significant features in NAFTA 2.0 that are of considerable benefit to Canada.…
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Press Release, October 8, 2018 Incheon, Republic of Korea, October 8 – Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5°C…
By Julie Bates, Otherwords.org. October 8, 2018, https://inequality.org/research/your-postoffice/?source=newsletter Take it from a postal worker: If the US sells its public mail service, consumers will lose big time This summer, the White House proposed selling off the United States Postal Service to private corporations. As a 22-year postal worker, I’ll be joining my coworkers, our families,…
By Mark Milke, Maclean’s Magazine, October 4, 2018 Opinion: free trade agreements have long been fuelled by grand visions of a better tomorrow. But by keeping managed trade – which isn’t truly free – the USMCA fails. When faced with an erratic president who wakes up in the middle of the night to tweet his…
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis, The Washington Post, October 3, 2018 A much-awaited report from the UN’s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming. In Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of over 130 countries and…
By Johanna Bozuwa, Environment, Public Goods, socialistproject.ca, October 2, 2018 Opportunities for Public-run Energy Utilities to Revolutionize Generation and the Grit Energy democracy – a new idea from the ranks of community organizers, labour, and renewable energy advocates who see our current energy system as broken and destructive – seeks to take on the political…
By Sheila Block, Behind the Numbers, September 21, 2018 It is a ritual in Canadian politics: a new government comes into power, it reviews the books, and then expresses outrage at how badly the finances were managed and how the public was misled. Conservative governments then use these shocking “discoveries” to double down on privatizing…
By Crawford Kilian, TheTyee.ca, June 13, 2018 The ugly end days of fossil fuel will mean big trouble for Canadians. Huge job losses, slashed public services and a government in crisis. Without quick action, Canada faces the kind of disastrous economic and social collapse not seen since the Great Depression. Photo by Dorothea Lange, from…
With a heavy heart indeed, we report the loss of Dr. George Crowell, a long-time member of COMER. George graduated from Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary (NYC). Ordained a Presbyterian Minister, he moved soon to teaching social ethics at Lake Forest College and the College of Wooster before joining the Religious Studies Department at…
By Nomi Prins, truthout.org, August 2, 2018 Here we are in the middle of the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency and if there’s one thing we know by now, it’s that the leader of the free world can create an instant reality-TV show on geopolitical steroids at will. True, he’s not polished in his…
By Craig Scott, Opinion, The Toronto Star, August 2, 2018 Ontario’s Bill 5 will radically change Toronto City Council wards in the middle of an election already being run under an entirely different statutory framework. However described – affront to democracy, arbitrariness, illegal executive interference that undermines current city election law – some assert there…
Written by Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog, Published May 30, 2018 California has over $700 billion parked in private banks earning minimal interest, private equity funds that contributed to the affordable housing crisis, or shadow banks of the sort that caused the banking collapse of 2008. These funds, or some of them, could…
By Bill McKibben, Grist, June 24, 2018 From Wall Street to the pope, many increas-ingly see fossil fuels as anything but a sure bet. That gives us reason to hope. If you’re looking for good news on the climate front, don’t look to the Antarctic. Last week’s spate of studies documenting that its melt rates…
By Royson James, Toronto Star Columnist, September 21, 2018 Free Toronto! It’s time for a tenacious, unwavering movement that demands the province of Ontario take its jackboots off Toronto’s neck. Wrap it in concepts like “city charter” or “independence,” if you wish. Or draft a manifesto for the province of Toronto. Embrace the frightening word…
By David Orchard, Global Research, June 19, 2018 For months Canadians have been inundated with claims from the government, various and sundry industries, and the national punditry, that NAFTA is good for our country, even necessary, and that “renegotiated” it will be even better. In the aftermath of US president Trump’s recent visit to Canada,…
By Patrick DeRochie, environmentalde-fence.ca, September 17, 2018 What’s the dumbest policy in the world? Public cash for oil and gas! Canada’s federal government handed out hundreds of millions of dollars per year in public money to oil and gas companies between 2016 and 2018, despite its longstanding commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Take…
By Shawn Micallef, Toronto I don’t blame you if you’ve tuned out city politics and given up on trying to understand the political roller-coaster we’ve been on in Toronto. Since the dog days of summer, when the provincial government announced plans to cut the number of Toronto’s city councillors in half, I’ve bumped into people…
By Tony McKenna, www.counterpunch.org, July 4, 2018 The latest Trump scandal hitting the news – the interment of children in cages, the forcible separation of screaming toddlers from their parents. It seemed to have touched a level of inhumanity which is breathtaking, even by the standards of the current US administration; an administration which already…
By David Orchard and Marjaleena Repo, Global Research, September 2, 2018 Canadians are being inundated, virtually around the clock, by calls from political and corporate quarters, faithfully reported and embellished by the media, to “save NAFTA.” If NAFTA is “killed,” we are told, Canadians will lose thousands of jobs, our standard of living will drop…
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, June 29, 2018, www. project-syndicate.org In just the past few days, the US Supreme Court has handed down a series of rulings favoring corporations over workers, and rightwing extremists over the majority of Americans. With the Court following Donald Trump down the path of racism, misogyny, nativism, and deepening inequality, it…
We are pleased to introduce our new information officer, Larry Farquharson. Larry first became involved with COMER through the National Party of Canada in 1993, when he was a candidate in the federal election. The COMER position – monetary and economic reform – resonated with Larry, and in 1997, when he ran as an independent…
By Équiterre, equiterre.org, June 15, 2018 Incidents on interprovincial and international oil and gas pipelines in Canada increased 42% between 2016 and 2017, from 122 to 173, and more than half of the incidents in Quebec since 2008 took place in 2017, Montreal-based Équiterre reveals in a report released yesterday. The pipeline industry’s “widely-touted spill…
By David Bollier, The Social Artist, Summer 2018 David: The idea of “the commons” refers to more than just land. It can mean digital spaces; it can mean urban spaces; it can mean social spaces. It refers to a regime of self-government and management of shared resources. A commons is not the resource alone, as…
By Gar Alperovitz, inthesetimes.com, January 8, 2018 With both houses of Congress and most state governments captured by the Republican Party, those opposed to Trump and Trumpism are looking to cities. This strategic choice is increasingly being made not only by the Left, but by the careful center as well, a fact shown nowhere more…
By Ed Finn, rabble.ca, June 5, 2018 The people in Canada who are intelligent, open-minded, and not ideologically conservative would probably number at least a million. But if only one in 20 of them — 50,000 — were to read Joyce Nelson's latest book, Bypassing Dystopia: Hope-filled challenges to corporate rule — the outcome could…
By Bob Farkas, Socialist Project, The Bullet, Labour, Public Goods, May 30, 2018 In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many political casualties of the Liberal government’s crisis surrounding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. The first of these, however, was the carefully-crafted illusion that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB)…
By Chris Hedges, Information Clearing House, May 21, 2018 May 21, 2018 “Information Clearing House” – The Trump administration did not rise, prima facie, like Venus on a half shell from the sea. Donald Trump is the result of a long process of political, cultural and social decay. He is a product of our failed…
By Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca, April 20, 2018 Due diligence required before we sink money into a corporation with poor stock performance and repeated legal violations. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instructed Finance Minister Bill Morneau to begin a series of discussions about a bailout for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project that will take place in…
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News, July 10, 2018 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. – William Butler Yeats, The Second…
Three members of the COMER Executive, Ann Emmett, Ronnie Pereira and Patrick Cryan, were lucky enough to get tickets to this sold-out event at the Toronto Reference Library. Greece’s former Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, author of many books including The Global Minotaur, and Talking to my Daughter about the Economy, or, How Capitalism Works –…
The Social Artist, www.douglassocialcredit.com, Summer 2018 Enclosure forces us to confront the issue of power, of who controls resources and decision-making, of how power is exercised, by whom and for whose benefit. If the beneficiaries of enclosure have been able to maintain their power, it is not because those who have been disadvantaged by the…
Opinion, The Peterborough Examiner, July 3, 2018 There is much wrong with Ron Graham’s rant about alleged biased coverage in the Examiner, not the least of which is his claim to economics expertise like that of Stephen Harper. He ignores his own biases and actually misses the Examiner’s biases. While I do not like using…
By Linda McQuaig, Toronto Star, January 18, 2018 No doubt the offspring of the Tim Hortons business empire regret their clumsy attempt to make themselves just a little bit richer. After years of the coffee chain being feted as some sort of national icon, its heirs managed to erase much of that goodwill faster than…
By Erica Alini, National Online Journalist, Money/Consumer Global News, November 10, 2017 When it comes to making ends meet, having an income that keeps up with living costs is key. So what are the best jobs to be had in Canada, when it comes to wages and inflation? Global News did some digging through the…
By Deonna Anderson, nextcity.org, December 28, 2017 In Portland, Oregon, a movement is slowly building to establish a public bank. After debating divestment from companies whose practices might be harmful to people or the environment, the City Council voted in April to stop investing city money in all corporations. Portland is also one of numerous…
By Erica Alini, National Online Journalist, Money/Consumer Global News, November 22, 2017 The typical Canadian CEO makes $8 million a year, 140 times the average private- sector salary, according to new research by the Montreal-based Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP). In the banking sector, that ratio is even higher, with the…
PressProgress, January 18, 2018 Ottawa-area school board circulates Fraser Institute contest offering cash prizes for antiminimum wage essays. A right-wing think tank bankrolled by wealthy interests is offering high school students thousands in cash incentives to write essays bashing minimum wage hikes. According to internal e-mails reviewed by PressProgress, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board recently…
therealnews.com, January 16, 2018 Devika Dutt of PERI explains the gap between common economic thinking, which favors private ownership of banks, and the data. GREGORY WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Gregory Wilpert, coming to you from Quito, Ecuador. Should financial institutions, mainly banks, be privately owned or publicly owned? A new study…
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times, January 15, 2018 On Tuesday, the chief executives of the world’s largest public companies will be receiving a letter from one of the most influential investors in the world. And what it says is likely to cause a firestorm in the corner offices of companies everywhere and…
By Cindy Ann Cole and John M. Repp, The Retiree Advocate, January 2018 When the Seattle City Council passed the 2018 budget, it contained a $100,000 appropriation for a feasibility study for a Seattle Public Bank. The Council has a long, many-step process for deciding what gets put in the final budget. Public comment and…
By Barry Eichengreen, Project Syndicate, January 10, 2018 Policymakers normally respond to recessions by cutting interest rates, reducing taxes, and boosting transfers to the unemployed and other casualties of the downturn. But, for a combination of economic and political reasons, the US, in particular, is singularly ill-prepared to respond normally. Copenhagen – A sunny day…
By Adele Peters, www.fastcompany.com, January 8, 2018 As activists pressure governments to remove their deposits from banks that back bad policies, cities are considering a new option: become their own financial institution that serves the needs of the citizens, not investors. When the movement to push the city of Los Angeles from keeping its money…
By Stacco Troncoso and Ann Marie Utratel, Truthout, Op-Ed, January 7, 2018 One of the most difficult systems to reimagine is global manufacturing. If we are producing offshore and at scale, ravaging the planet for short-term profits, what are the available alternatives? A movement combining digital and physical production points toward a new possibility: Produce…
From Dr. Jerry Ackerman, March 6, 2017 I am writing in response to your letter of February 24 as written by Ian Foucher, your Senior Policy Advisor, in which he argues that it would be a mistake to have the government create the necessary domestic currency to fund the tens of Billions of infrastructure that…
Dear parliamentarian: My name is Jerry Ackerman. I am a financial analyst with degrees in Agriculture, Economics and Economics Applied to Agriculture. My life began on a subsistence farm at the depths of the Depression. My career(s) have involved 24 years at the University of Manitoba – kitchen table consulting with prairie farmers, and sharing…
By Chris Parsons, Halifax’s Website The Coast, January 4, 2018 Nova Scotia’s bosses would rather kill their own companies than negotiate with their workers. With the holidays coming to an end, negotiations between the Irving family’s Halifax Shipyard Inc. and its unionized workers are set to resume this month with the help of a mediator.…
The Public Bank Option: Safer, Local and Half the Cost By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog, November 4, 2017 Phil Murphy, a former banker who has a double-digit lead in New Jersey’s race for governor, has made the state-owned bank concept a centerpiece of his platform. If he wins Nov. 7, the nation’s second…
By Jennifer Wells, Business Columnist, Toronto Star, January 2, 2018 At the hourly minimum of $14, an Ontario worker would have to labour 1.1 months to match 60 minutes of CEO pay. It’s three minutes to 11 in the am, the first working day of the New Year. You are about to purchase your second…
theREALnews.com, March 12, 2018 Student Debt Cancellation a Viable Option, Economists Say. A new in-depth study on the consequences of cancelling all student debt in the US shows that it would help the economy far more than it would cost. We talk to Stephanie Kelton, one of the study’s co-authors. SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real…
By David Brooks, The New York Times, OP-ED, February 8, 2018 Bill Drayton invented the term “social entrepreneur” and founded Ashoka, the organization that supports 3,500 of them in 93 countries. He’s a legend in the nonprofit world, so I went to him this week to see if he could offer some clarity and hope…
By James Laxer, Toronto Star, September 6, 2017 As inequality grows, the NDP needs to think about remaking Canadian society from the bottom up by putting the focus back on democratic socialism. With the selection of a new leader in a few weeks, the federal New Democratic Party will place a fresh face in its…
theREALnews.com, March 5, 2018 Former BIS chief, author of Revolution Required, praises the insights of Akyuz’s book, Playing with Fire, notably in uncovering the current state of financial fragility triggered by the G7, worsened by the absence of international mechanisms to recover from systemic debt fall-outs. LYNN FRIES: For The Real News, I’m Lynn Fries…
January 26, 2018 Dear Bill, When I get requests for funds I include a note about COMER and the Bank of Canada and the website. I do the same with phone calls. Almost always it’s the first the person has heard about it. I can’t thank you enough for your persistence in this cause which…
By David Orchard, Ottawa Citizen, January 18, 2018 In 1854, the Canadian colonies entered a free trade agreement with the United States. In 1866, the Americans cancelled it, believing that the Canadian colonies had become so dependent on the US economically that they would ask, or beg, for entry into the American Union. Instead, the…
By Joyce Nelson, Watershed Sentinel, January 18, 2018 Paradise and Panama papers, Canada and red herrings, and the international agreement on tax havens with “enough loopholes to drive a fleet of Ferraris through.” It’s not clear whether the Bill Morneau/ Tax Revolt saga that roiled the media and Parliament throughout the last half of 2017…
We Own It After the collapse of the worldwide privatisation giant Carillion, political and public service leaders from Ontario and around the world are calling for its services to be brought back under public management and control. “Carillion was a mess, and its sudden demise puts services, workers, and the public at needless risk,” said…
Public Goods, John McDonnell and We Own It, January 16, 2018 This week 20,000 Carillion workers and many more in the supply chain have had their livelihoods put at risk. The responsibility lies with this shambolic Tory government and mismanagement by Carillion’s fat-cat bosses. The collapse of Carillion, embarrassing for a government that had championed…
By Jack Rasmus, jackrasmus.com, January 7, 2018 Since the run-up to the election of 2016, the ruling elite in America who control the two wings of the single Corporate Party of America (CPA) – the Republican and Democratic Parties – have been battling it out with “right populist” challengers over who will define US policy…
Part I of this article appeared in the November– December 2017 issue of ER. By Ellen Brown, Common Dreams, January 5, 2018 The lending business is heavily stacked against student borrowers. Bigger players can borrow for almost nothing, and if their investments don’t work out, they can put their corporate shells through bankruptcy and walk…
The REAL news.com, January 2, 2018 Low interest rates, “quantitative easing,” and the mitigation of antitrust laws led to more mergers and acquisitions in 2017, but that’s only going to fuel greater wealth inequality and tighten the corporate grip on the political system, explains economist Michael Hudson. Transcript: GREGORY WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News…
By Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News, January 2, 2018 Maintaining a vibrant democracy based on principles of justice has never been easy. In these dangerous and unprecedented times, it may be more difficult than ever. Yes. We all know that we have seen a president take office who is the most dishonest, bigoted, divisive and…
By Ellen Brown, Common Dreams, December 28, 2017 Higher education has been financialized, transformed from a public service into a lucrative cash cow for private investors. The advantages of slavery by debt over “chattel” slavery – ownership of humans as a property right – were set out in an infamous document called the Hazard Circular,…
By Brent Budowsky, The Hill, readersupportednews. org, December 22, 2017 The passage of the tax cut bill locks President Trump and Republicans in Congress together as the party of the rich and the rulers of the swampland in Washington. The stage is set for a historic progressive renaissance that will win the 2018 midterm elections…
By Toby Sanger, Canadian Dimension, November 30, 2017 In their election platform and in ministerial mandate letters, the federal Liberals promised they would “establish the Canada Infrastructure Bank to provide low-cost financing (including loan guarantees) for new municipal infrastructure projects.” This had the potential to be a positive initiative. The federal government can borrow at…
The following is the preface to A Power Unto Itself by William Krehm. Much of the material in this book was drawn from my writings in Economic Reform, ¹ the monthly newsletter of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER). In that sense it is a blend of journalism and editorial comment, written in…
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog, October 30, 2017 Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly- owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies. At his confirmation hearing in January 2017, Treasury Secretary Stephen…
By Zoe Williams, The Guardian, October 29, 2017 85% of MPs were unaware that new money is created every time a bank extends a loan. Were you? Shock data shows that most MPs do not know how money is created. Responding to a survey commissioned by Positive Money just before the June election, 85% were…
By Linda McQuaig, Columnist, The Toronto Star, December 21, 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is wrong to want to reduce the federal contribution to health care. If we want to control health care costs, we should extend the publicly funded portion, not open more services to the private sector. At Canada’s Wonderland, you can buy…
By Murray Dobbin, Counter Punch, November 17, 2017 The world is now at the mercy of a coalition of three of the most dangerous autocrats on the planet: Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s new absolute ruler Mohammad bin Salman a name that will become increasingly familiar as the months go by. It now…
By Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, November 17, 2017 Veteran climate scientist says litigation campaign against government and fossil fuels companies is essential alongside political mobilisation in fighting “growing, mortal threat” of global warming. One of the fathers of climate science is calling for a wave of lawsuits against governments and fossil fuel companies that are…
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt, October 15, 2017 During his visit to hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump shocked the bond market when he told Geraldo Rivera of Fox News that he was going to wipe out the island’s bond debt. He said on October 3rd: “You know they owe a lot of money…
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept, January 13, 2018 Five years ago, when 350.org helped kick off the global fossil fuel divestment movement, one of the slogans the team came up with was “We > Fossil Fuels.” The T-shirts and stickers were nice, but I have to admit that I never really felt it. Bigger than…
By Bernie Sanders, Common Dreams, November 13, 2017 “This massive level of wealth and income inequality, and the political power associated with that wealth, is an issue that cannot continue be ignored. We must fight back.” One of the major, untold stories of our time is the rapid movement toward global oligarchy, in which just…
By Ed Finn, rabble.ca/blogs, November 10, 2017 During the 20 years I was editor of the CCPA Monitor, monthly journal of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, we published a dozen or more articles about offshore tax havens. Until the leak of the Panama Papers a few years ago, however, the identity of most of…
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Project Syndicate, readersuportednews.org, January 8, 2018 There is nothing about the GOP’s recentlypassed tax package that lives up to its proponents’ promises; it is neither a reform effort nor an equitable tax cut. Rather, the bill embodies all that is wrong with the Republican Party, and to some extent, the debased…
Op-ed by Stewart Sinclair, February 3, 2013 We all know that taxes of various sorts are almost universally considered to be vexatious in some way. But just how much so and why is usually not closely examined – like the making of sausage. It all started for me about 4 years ago when, out of…
By Ed Waitzer, The Globe and Mail, August 1, 2017 The philosopher John Locke observed the human tendency to err in “taking words for things.” He noticed that when concepts are dignified by words, they start to seem “so suited to the nature of things that they perfectly correspond with their real existence.” People maintain…
Sputniknews.com, January 26, 2017 As many tropical islands have become associated with dark tax-evasion and moneylaundering schemes, a new shady corporate tax haven has emerged, this time located in the far, cold north. After digging through the Panama Papers – a massive leak of documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca – a joint investigation by…
By Owen Jones, The Guardian, October 19, 2017 Sometimes the case for a policy is as overwhelming as the level of ridicule it will get from the punditocracy. The nationalisation of Britain’s failed banking industry – the sector responsible for most of our country’s current ills – is one such example. According to a recent…
By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog, October 7, 2017 The policy of guaranteeing every citizen a universal basic income is gaining support around the world, as automation increasingly makes jobs obsolete. But can it be funded without raising taxes or triggering hyperinflation? In a panel I was on at the NexusEarth cryptocurrency conference…
“Austerity is a class project that disproportionately targets and affects working class households and communities and, in so doing, protects concentrations of elite wealth and power.” – The Violence of Austerity, Edited by Vickie Cooper and David Whyte, p. 11. “Austerity is not necessary. Today’s debt crisis is a political result of relinquishing regulatory and…
By Ellen Brown, Counter Punch, July 24, 2017 Illinois is insolvent, unable to pay its bills. According to Moody’s, the state has $15 billion in unpaid bills and $251 billion in unfunded liabilities. Of these, $119 billion are tied to shortfalls in the state’s pension program. On July 6, 2017, for the first time in…
By John Leicester, The Associated Press, January 19, 2017 “Universal basic income” is an idea that’s gaining traction among lawmakers and tech leaders alike. Paris – I am, therefore I’m paid. The radical notion that governments should hand out free money to everyone – rich and poor, those who work and those who don’t –…
Canadian Union of Public Employees,The Bullet, Socialist Project, E-Bulleting No.1449, July 17, 2017 The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) will create a pipeline of privatization for our public transit systems. Corporations will be able to extract long-term profit from public transit fares and public subsidies. Our governments subsidize public transit because it’s critical infrastructure for our…
By Lars Syll, Real-World Economics Review Blog, March 14, 2016 Nowadays there is almost no place whatsoever in economics education for courses in the history of economic thought and economic methodology. This deeply worrying. A science that doesn’t self-reflect and ask important methodological and sciencetheoretical questions about the own activity, is a science in dire…
By Elizabeth McArdle, The Social Artist, Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 2017 When you hear the word Dumbledore, I guarantee that the wise old wizard from Harry Potter will immediately come to mind. However, the real Dumbledore is not a wizard at all but an awesome beetle. The word Dumbledore comes from an old word…
By Martin Parker, The Social Artist, Vol. 5, No. 3, Autumn 2017 The three principles of capitalism taken together – i.e., the search for profitable investment in a competitive market through hiring waged labour – have certain implications for the conduct of economic activities and point to particular dynamics of capital accumulation. Efficiency Since profits…
By Tamsin McMahon and Ken MacQueen, MACLEANS, June 3, 2014 Boomers are only now starting to take stock of retirement and many don’t like what they see As the City of Regina debated its largest tax hike in more than a decade, 76-year-old George Malish looked at his household balance sheet to see how he…
By Jack Rasmus, Global Research, August 30, 2017 My just published book, Central Bankers at the End of Their Rope?: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression, Clarity Press, July 2017, is now available for immediate purchase on Amazon.com, as well as from this blog. The following is an excerpt from an article by the title…
By Washington’s Blog, Global Research, August 21, 2017 World Bank, IMF, BIS, NBER, McKinsey now admit that globalization increases inequality. We’ve all heard that globalization lifts all boats and increases our prosperity. But mainstream economists and organizations are now starting to say that globalization increases inequality. The National Bureau of Economic Research – the largest…
By Harry Glasbeek, The Bullet, August 3, 2017 Capitalism is ugly. The major villains at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, AIG, were not impelled by any desperate need they had to meet, or by their lack of education and opportunities, the circumstances that lead the poor to commit crimes.…
By Joyce Nelson, Watershed Sentinel, August 3, 2017 Most people are horrified to watch Venezuela seemingly on the verge of outright civil war, or worse, an invasion by US military forces. The death toll continues to rise in the violent street protests led by the rightwing opposition, following the July 30 vote on a Constituent…
By Alex Ballingall, Ottawa Bureau, Toronto Star, August 1, 2017 Andrew Sanfilippo, appointed to the Superior Court this month, bought a ticket to a Liberal fundraising dinner last year. Ottawa – A Toronto lawyer who was recently appointed a Superior Court judge donated more than $1,800 to the governing federal Liberal party in the months…
CCPA Monitor, January-February 2017 A couple of centuries ago (not long, in Earth time), a host of public interest regulations that had kept the fledgling English capitalist economy operating within the carrying capacity of the social and natural environment were repealed – largely due to the lobbying power of the emergent capitalists. The social movement…
By Star Editorial Board, July 21, 2017 With the $6.7-billion acquisition of an American utility company Hydro One is growing. Ontario residents facing skyrocketing electricity bills should get some of the benefits. The big winners in the $6.7 billion acquisition of an American utility company by Hydro One, formerly owned by the Ontario government, are…
A sermon by Rev. Steven Epperson, JUSTnewscusj.org, Number 33, Spring 2017 Epiphany Sunday is a big day in the Christian world. Somewhere between a fourth and fifth of the world’s population celebrates an essential of their faith: the revelation of the divinity of Jesus as symbolized in narrative and art by the Three Wise Men…
By Andrew Nikiforuk, thetyee.ca, June 7, 2017 The facts and solutions are readily available, but our pipeline-loving PM stalls. Here’s what the Trudeau government definitely knows about the science of methane. The gas accounts for more than one quarter of all global warming, and reliable data from satellite and airplane surveys show that emissions are…
By Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian, June 7, 2017 Neoliberalism was a creature of the Regan and Thatcher era. Austerity is its death rattle. Before it does any more damage, Britain needs a plan for growth The choice facing the voters in this election is clear – between more failed austerity or a Labour party advancing…
By Paul Bentley, CounterPunch, June 6, 2017 There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, And they all lived together in a little crooked house. Canada’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau has recently reinvigorated…
By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog, June 27, 2017 Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation. We could do that too. Let’s face it. There is no way the US government is ever going to pay back a $20 trillion federal debt. The taxpayers…
The NDP leadership campaign this summer of 2017 is especially crucial. It sets the tone for the 2019 election at a time when the corporate agenda has built up alarming momentum – with the recent support of the Harper Conservatives and the present support of the Trudeau Liberals, both with majority governments. Canada is in…
By Sarabjit (Sabi) Marwah, Toronto Star, OpEd, June 20, 2017 The CIB is a creative, risk-mitigating and cost-effective way to deliver some of our public infrastructure projects that may otherwise not be built, or be built over an extended period of time. Delaying the CIB serves little purpose. Newcomers to the Senate lacking experience in…
By Joyce Nelson, June 2017 Ecuador’s new president, Lenin Moreno, was officially inaugurated on May 24. After a hard-fought, two-stage election process, Moreno defeated his opponent, former investment banker Guillermo Lasso, on April 2 with 51.14 percent of the vote. Moreno has promised to continue and expand the policies and programs introduced under outgoing President…
News Release: Supreme Court Denies Request for Bank of Canada Lawsuit to Proceed Toronto, May 31, 2017 – After nearly 5½ years of contentious litigation between the Committee On Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) and the Government of Canada involving three separate Federal Court and two additional Federal Court of Appeal hearings resulting in contrary…
By Murray Dobbin, Posted: May 26, 2017 As the mainstream pundits are putting it, the NDP leadership race just got more interesting with the declaration that Jagmeet Singh, an Ontario NDP MPP, is in the race. He has real charisma and would break the white-only leadership barrier for the first time. There seems at first…
To: The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, PC, MP, Prime Minister of Canada The Honourable Bill Morneau, PC, Minister of Finance Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, MP, House of Commons Dear Prime Minister, Minister, and Mr. Erskine-Smith, Last year an e-petition was submitted to the government requesting that the Bank of Canada fulfill its stated role “to promote…
Review of a book by Mary Mellor, Pluto, 2015, ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-7453-3554-4 “For a little while Pooh and The Floating Bear were uncertain as to which one of them was meant to be on the top, but after trying one or two different positions, they settled down with The Floating Bear underneath and Pooh triumphantly…
March 14, 2017 The Hon. William F. Morneau, Minister of Finance House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Dear Minister: I am writing in respect to your official response to petition 421-00858 sponsored by Elizabeth May, member of parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, BC, calling upon the Government of Canada to restore the use of the…
The following brief history is an excerpt from an article, “Canada: ‘A Northern Power’ Once Again? NAFTA, ‘A Monstrous Swindle,’” written by David Orchard, published by Global Research, November 21, 2016 Opportunity for Canada to regain economic independence In 1854, Canada entered its first free trade (or Reciprocity) treaty with the United States and by…
By Will Hutton, The Guardian, April 12, 2014 Economist Thomas Piketty’s message is bleak: the gap between rich and poor threatens to destroy us. Suddenly, there is a new economist making waves – and he is not on the right. At the conference of the Institute of New Economic Thinking in Toronto last week, Thomas…
The Real News Network, April 2017 Paul Jay says the enablers of Trumpism are the leaders of both major parties and the corporate media. Donald Trump is not an aberration. He’s the raw and naked face of an economic system that showers speculators with obscene riches and political power. “I use emotion for the many…
By Laura Tyson, Project Syndicate, April 4, 2017 Berkeley – As US President Donald Trump receives bids to build his supposed “beautiful wall” along the border with Mexico, his administration is also poised to build some figurative walls with America’s southern neighbor, by renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Before US officials move forward,…
By Tom Parking, Toronto Sun, April 2, 2017 Just 10% of Canadians believe Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent budget will help the middle class, according to a recent poll by Forum Research. Meanwhile 41% say it’ll hurt the middle class, 31% say its effects will be neutral, and 19% don’t know. It’s a sign Canadians…
By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, November 27, 2016 After choosing for his cabinet a series of political outsiders who are loyal to him personally, Donald Trump has broken with this pattern to name Betsy DeVos his Secretary of Education. DeVos, whose father-in-law is a co-founder of Amway, the multilevel marketing empire, comes from the…
By Richard Eskow, BillMoyers.com, January 24, 2017 Secret ties between the Koch Brothers and members of Congress can mean good things for the super rich and the worst for everyone else. When the history of Donald Trump’s administration is written, people may point to the appointment of a Koch Brothers operative to a little-known White…
By Tyler Durden, charleshughsmith. blogspot.com, January 20, 2017 It cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism. One unexamined narrative I keep hearing is: “OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much…
By David Macdonald, The Toronto Star, March 17, 2017 As it stands, Canadians get a better deal through publicly owned airports than if they would be controlled by private companies. If the leaks are true, the upcoming federal budget will include an ill-advised move to sell off Canada’s airports, which would result in both travellers…
By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog, November 17, 2016 Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same – privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the…
By Valentin Schmid, Epoch Times, January 12, 2017 From wrong forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Wall Street, to wrong policies by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government, wrong economic theory impacts everyone. Last year was a particularly bad one for the profession, as none of the mainstream forecasts on major events,…
Brent Patterson’s blog for the Council of Canadians, March 9, 2017 Paul Magnette, the minister-president of the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia, has warned it may not ratify the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which puts the ratification of the controversial “free trade” agreement in doubt. In order to be fully implemented,…
By Shawn McCarthy Houston, The Globe and Mail, March 7, 2017 Top North American energy executives made a plea for continued North American free trade at a high-profile conference where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will deliver a keynote speech later this week. In separate sessions, Enbridge Inc. chief executive Al Monaco and Exxon Mobil Corp.’s…
By Jason Hickel, The Guardian, March 4, 2017 A basic income could defeat the scarcity mindset, instil a sense of solidarity and even ease the anxieties that gave us Brexit and Trump. Every student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs. But…
By Dean Baker, Real-World Economics Review Blog, February 4, 2017 The trade deals negotiated in the last quarter century are becoming less focused on traditional trade barriers like tariffs and quotas. Instead, they are imposing a regulation structure on the parties, which tend to be very business oriented. In many cases, the rules being required…
By Peter Radford, Real-World Economics Review Blog, February 2, 2017 One of the greatest shifts in our economy over the past few decades has been the steady rise of what we call contingent workers. These are people who make their livings on a part-time or contractual basis and have no full-time job. In the US…
By George Monbiot, theguardian.org, February 2, 2017 A secretive network of business lobbyists has long held sway in US politics. Now their allies in the UK government are planning a Brexit that plays into their hands It took corporate America a while to warm to Donald Trump. Some of his positions, especially on trade, horrified…
By Tom Parkin, Postmedia Network, November 20, 2016 Last week, Justin Trudeau pushed his privatization plan even farther. He’s now going well beyond anything considered by any previous Canadian government. He’s closing in on Donald Trump. Don’t believe it? Believe it. A month ago he asked investment bank Credit Suisse if Canadian airports should be…
By Prof. Martin Hart-Landsberg, The Bullet, info@socialistproject.ca, Feb. 20, 2017 President Trump has singled out unfair international trading relationships as a major cause of US worker hardship. And he has promised to take decisive action to change those relationships by pressuring foreign governments to rework their trade agreements with the US and change their economic…
By Calin Rovinescu, The Globe and Mail, December 19, 2016 There is an irony not lost on us where, as a former Crown Corporation celebrating 30 years of privatization in 2018, Air Canada emerges as distinctly anti-privatization when it comes to Canadian airports – in effect, public facilities that airlines such as Air Canada have…
In 2008, at 93, William Krehm was preparing for “one final march into the breach.” Today, at 103, he continues committed to “this one contribution [he] would still like to leave.” He stands, with us, ringing the doorbell of the Supreme Court. At this point, it’s up to the rest of us to do all…
By Joyce Nelson, counterpunch.org, March 8, 2017 Last weekend, the good folks of Toronto, Ontario learned that their elected officials at City Hall are considering selling off the Toronto Parking Authority – which operates dozens of municipal parking lots as well as on-street parking.1 It’s a big, stupid idea that indicates our “city fathers”…
By Joshua Krause, Activist Post, March 8, 2016 Last month, the European Central Bank suggested that the 500-euro note needs to be eliminated. Not long after, academics and policy makers in the US started to call for the elimination of the $100 bill. This isn’t something that the average person really thinks about on a…
By Barrie McKenna, The Globe and Mail, February 4, 2017 Ottawa – So Donald Trump wants to renovate the triplex that is the North American free-trade agreement. Job No. 1 is to determine the scope of the project. As homeowners know, renovations can run the gamut from new floors and cabinets, to a full gut…
By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press, February 3, 2017 Experts expect US to seek increases in North American content requirement for auto parts Wondering what the Americans might want from Canada in a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement?Multiple clues might be embedded in a document published by the US government. The US…
By David Orchard, commonground.ca, February 2, 2017 John A. Macdonald called free trade with the US “veiled treason.” A century later, Pierre Elliott Trudeau called the FTA a “monstrous swindle.” Donald Trump has said he intends to renegotiate or cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This would be good news if we take…
By F. William Engdahl, Global Research, January 23, 2017 It’s kinda sneaking up on us like an East Texas copperhead pit viper. It began to get some wide attention in 2016, with prominent economists and financial media suddenly talking about the wonderful benefits of a “cashless society.” Then the government of Narendra Modi completely surprised…
By Peter Koenig, Global Research, January 20, 2017 A Financial genocide, if there was ever one. Death by demonetization, probably killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, through famine, disease, even desperation and suicide – because most of India’s money was declared invalid. The official weak reason for this purposefully manufactured human disaster…
To the Editor, Peterborough This Week, January 18, 2017 While being billed as an opportunity for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconnect with the people, last Friday’s town hall used the ideas of the 10 or so people who spoke, to spin us into his world view. Other than when I was on the same…
By John Lanchester, The New York Times Magazine, January 10, 2017 Two months ago, the world’s largest democracy embarked on one of the biggest monetary experiments the world has ever seen. On November 8, without warning or preamble, without discussion papers or leaks, Narendra Modi’s Indian government invalidated most of the country’s cash. The 500-…
By Jim Stanford, Real-World Economics Review Blog, January 9, 2017 For years, we’ve been told the dictates of globalization, and the intrusive and prescriptive terms of free trade agreements in particular, are immutable, natural, and unquestionable. When workers were displaced by the migration of multinational capital toward more profitable jurisdictions, we were told there’s nothing…
By Walden Bello, www.occupy.com, January 30, 2016 This is an abridged version of an essay, “Tyranny of Global Finance,” co-published with the Transnational Institute, appeared in the State of Power 2016 report. When the ground from under Wall Street opened up in autumn 2008, there was much talk of letting the banks get their just…
By Ellen Brown, counterpunch, August 3, 2016 Bernie Sanders supporters are flocking to Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential candidate, with donations to her campaign exploding nearly 1,000% after he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Stein salutes Sanders for the progressive populist movement he began and says it is up to her to carry the baton.…
By Peter Radford, Real-World Economics Review Blog, April 2, 2016 Economists, especially mainstream economists, often like to ignore the real world consequences of their theories. Instead they prefer to hide away pretending that their conversations and ideas leave no imprint on society, and that their simple little models are just representations designed to cut through…
On Wednesday, December 7, 2016, COMER’s appeal of the outcome of the last court hearing will be heard at the Federal Court of Appeal. This hearing will be held in Toronto at the same Federal Court building as the previous four hearings: 180 Queen Street West North side of the street, just west of University…
By Steven Hail, erablogdotcom, December 5, 2016 If our national Government was to spend more than the currently budgeted amount on your health care system next year, it would be good to know how they would finance that spending. It is a question that advocates of more health spending are always likely to be asked.…
Ontario Pre-Budget Hearings, December 8, 2016, presented by Natalie Mehra, Executive Director, OHC This summer my mother (whom I have brought with me today) and I, had the experience of going to the emergency department at the Smiths Falls hospitals after a nasty run in with razor sharp zebra mussels while swimming. We arrived at…
By Jennifer Wells, Toronto Star, December 30, 2016 Prepare to be inundated with talk of the “scale-up gap” and “innovation ecosystems” and “superclusters.” An easy prediction for 2017: Government-speak as it pertains to the country’s economic future will increasingly have the ring of McKinsey sound bites. I refer here to the global consultancy, which has…
By Brent Patterson, The Council of Canadians, January 6, 2017 Ed Finn, the longtime editor of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives magazine The CCPA Monitor, has written a review on the book Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism by Joyce Nelson. Finn writes, “Over the course of my 70-plus years as a journalist, I’ve…
By Ed Finn, The Independent.ca, January 6, 2017 Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism by Joyce Nelson, Watershed Sentinel Books 164 pages, $20 Joyce Nelson’s Beyond Banksters is an eyeopening, must-read exposé of a ravenous financial system. Over the course of my 70-plus years as a journalist, I’ve reviewed hundreds of books, many of them…
By Ellen Brown, Global Research, December 22, 2016 It has been called “a bigger risk than Brexit”– the Italian banking crisis that could take down the eurozone. Handwringing officials say “there is no free lunch” and “no magic bullet.” But UK Prof. Richard Werner says the magic bullet is just being ignored. On December 4,…
By Murray Dobbin, murraydobbin.ca, January 6, 2017 As has been pointed out by too many people, 2016 was a devastating year for progressives (a homely term for all those who are want equality, democracy and ecological sanity). There is no need to repeat the list of atrocities, failures and disappointments, as we all have them…
On December 7, 2016, the Federal Court of Appeal heard the appeal from Justice Russell’s second decision, ruling to strike COMER’s statement of claim. The Federal Court of Appeal, in its terse and non-responsive reasons, dismissed the appeal. In dismissing the appeal, the Federal Court of Appeal simply: 1. Re-cited the judicial history of the…
By Joyce Nelson, counterpunch, October 28, 2016 Wallonia is not alone. Not only has the region been joined by several other Belgian regional parliaments in opposition to CETA (the Canada-EU Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement), but now a Canadian constitutional challenge against CETA has been launched in the Federal Court of Canada. On October 21,…
There are two profound reasons for opposing the ratification of CETA. It would be illegal. It would result in a unilateral change in the Constitution of Canada – that is outside the power of both the government and Parliament. The second reason is that to ratify CETA would be monstrously immoral. It would be the…
By Thomas Walkom, National Affairs Columnist, The Toronto Star, April 3, 2016 Moves in Quebec and Saskatchewan toward two-tier health care will force the new Liberal government to act, one way or another. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s government passed a law in November allowing private MRI clinics to operate, change fees and bill patients directly…
By Leo Panitch Canada’s Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland’s sense of amour propre was clearly dented last week when the latest talks to salvage the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada appeared to fall apart in face of the refusal of the Belgian regional parliament in Wallonia to accede to…
By Chris Hamby, BuzzFeed, September 1, 2016 Part I appeared in the July-August 2016 issue. Meanwhile, the government has changed its laws, stripping public-interest lawyers and average citizens of the right to file court challenges to dubious public contracts, such as the sale of public land to a developer like Sajwani. One purpose of the…
At the last AGM for the Council of Canadians, motions from the Hamilton Chapter of CoC were passed to utilize the Bank of Canada for infrastructure funding. There are CoC chapters in many communities across the country. They have their own programmes and agendas but using the BoC for infrastructure financing has now been approved…
Readers are encouraged to review Joyce Nelson’s article, “The Government’s Proposed Infrastructure Bank: A 21st Century Trojan Horse,” COMER, March-April 2016. $40 billion in Infrastructure Funding Urged By Bill Curry, Sean Silcoff, Ottawa, The Globe and Mail, October 21, 2016 Expert panel on economic growth predicts ambitious bank proposal could deliver more than $200 billion…
By Robert Fife and Steven Chase, Ottawa – The Globe and Mail, October 27, 2016 Federal lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd says she is investigating what she called the governing Liberals’ “pay-foraccess” fundraisers to determine whether senior Trudeau cabinet ministers have breached the Lobbying Act. The probe began in response to stories in The Globe and…
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research News, August 31, 2016, Centre for Research on Globalization, www.globalresearch.ca Conspiracy Theorist: Someone who Questions the Statements of Known Liars Do you smirk when you hear someone question the official stories of Orlando, San Bernardino, Paris or Nice? Do you feel superior to 2,500 architects and engineers, to…
By C.J. Polychroniou, www.truth-out.org, August 6, 2016 In today’s global economy, neoliberalism reigns supreme, organized labor is in deep retreat and public debt has shot through the roof. In the face of these crises, is a global 21st century remaking of the 1930s-era New Deal what people on the left should be fighting for? Contemporary…
Toronto Star Option Readers’ Letters, August 19, 2016 Timing is everything. Currently, along with a several other Ontarians, I am particularly interested in the timing of the Ontario Liberals’ Climate Change Action Plan. Last November 15, the Ontario Liberals privatized Hydro One when they sold off 15 percent of the former Crown Corporation. Sad but…
By William R. Neil, Real-World Economics Review Blog, July 15, 2016 It’s hard not to notice, during the American Presidential election drama, that despite all the debates and speeches, and multiple candidates, the terms “Neoliberalism” and “austerity” have yet to be employed, much less explained, these being the two necessary words to describe the dominant…
By George H. Crowell Political struggles against so-called “free trade agreements” have consumed vast amounts of time and energy from us social activists. Despite great efforts in Canada and the US against the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) until 1988, we lost; and then together with Mexicans on until 1994 struggling against the North American…
By Herb Wiseman Through the kind efforts of Joseph, representing the International Movement for Monetary Reform, (IMMR), COMER joined with Manfred Freund of Dinero Positivo, from Spain, and Manuel Klein of Monetative, from Germany, at the World Social Forum held during August, in Montreal. Representatives from COMER included Ann Emmett, Herb Wiseman, Margaret Rao and…
By George Monbiot, The Guardian, April 15, 2016 Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative? Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that…
By Chris Hamby, BuzzFeed, September 1, 2016 Imagine a private, global super court that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will. Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole country for daring to interfere with…
By Ellen Brown, OpEdNews, July 26, 2016 Fifteen years after embarking on its largely ineffective quantitative easing program, Japan appears poised to try the form recommended by Ben Bernanke in his notorious “helicopter money” speech in 2002. The Japanese test case could finally resolve a longstanding dispute between monetarists and money reformers over the economic…
By Joyce Nelson, Watershed Sentinel, SepOct 2016, Vol. 26, No. 4 The Canada-EU trade deal called CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) is being rammed down our throats on both sides of the Atlantic. Portions of it could come into effect as soon as November 1, according to the Council of Canadians. PM Justin Trudeau…
Et Sicut Radix Ad Arborem (As the Root So the Tree) In the May–June issue of COMER, we carried a three-part series of articles by Ed Finn, first published in the CCPA (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). That series (accessible at comer.org) is an invaluable analysis of the “thinking” behind neoliberalism, and its consequences. It’s…
By Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, June 30, 2016 Democracy no longer exists in the West. In the US powerful private interest groups, such as the military-security complex, Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness and the extractive industries of energy, timber and mining, have long exercised more control over government than the people. But…
By Rex Murphy, National Post, June 30, 2016 You have to consult the Lamentations of Jeremiah to find a grim parallel to the wailing and gnashing of Europhile teeth after the Brexit side won the recent referendum in the UK. The Remain crowd have proved to be sore losers, with their flood of excoriation, mockery,…
By Joyce Nelson, counterpunch, July 6, 2016 Stung by Brexit, the EU bureaucrats seem intent on showing just how undemocratic they can be. Here are two examples just in the last seven days. The Glyphosate License On June 24, EU member states again refused (for a third time this year) to approve a renewal of…
By Michael Hudson, Real News Network, June 25, 2016 GREGORY WILPERT, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Gregory Wilpert, coming to you from Quito, Ecuador. Britain’s referendum in favor of leaving, or exiting, the European Union, the Brexit referendum, as the results are known, won with 52 percent of the vote on Thursday,…
By Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, June 25, 2016 Information continues to come in about the Brexit vote. A member of the British Army said that 90% of the lads in his unit voted to leave. They voted exit because they do not believe they should be involved in Washington’s wars. He said that his…
By Paul Wells, Toronto Star, June 25, 2016 Quick – who’s the president of the European Council? How about the president of the European Commission? Which is more powerful? How were they selected? For terms of how long? What countries are they from? While we’re at it, please discuss the terms acquis communautaire and “snakes…
By David Haggith, The Great Recession Blog, June 24, 2016 Regardless of the extent to which global fear mongers are right about the economic catastrophe that will hit every shore of the world after the Brexit, the most significant fact of the Brexit will be that the UK was the first nation to start the…
By Mitch Potter, Foreign Affairs Writer Toronto Star, June 24, 2016 Younger generations had most to gain by staying in Europe For all the societal fault lines the Disunited Kingdom revealed in the harsh morning after – North versus South, English versus Scot, urban versus rural, moneyed versus not – none gaped more cruelly than…
IN HIS LATEST BOOK, And the Poor Suffer As They Must?, Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, argues that the poor should not, need not – indeed – had better not suffer. He traces the history of the European Union from its inception to the present, laying bare the inherent flaws responsible for its…
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog, July 2, 2016 Brexit could trigger a $500 trillion derivatives meltdown, by forcing the EU to allow insolvent member governments and banks to write down debt. Italy is in financial crisis and is already petitioning for that concession. How to avoid collapse of the massive derivatives house of…
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.” – Oliver Goldsmith Seventeen years ago, I wrote a column in which I described free-market capitalism as “the most unjust and barbaric economic system ever created, and one that now oppresses and abuses most of the world’s people.” I was…
By Yanis Varoufakis, Project Syndicate, June 1, 2016 Athens – A commitment to the independence of central banks is a vital part of the creed that “serious” policymakers are expected to uphold (privatization, labor-market “flexibility,” and so on). But what are central banks meant to be independent of? The answer seems obvious: governments. In this…
By Elizabeth May, elizabethmaymp.ca/ how-bad-can-the-tpp-be, May 18, 2016 There are several layers of offences in the thousands of pages of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Some are embedded in the inferior bargaining positions in which Canada found itself as the former Prime Minister rushed to catch up with a train well and truly leaving the station.…
John Hahn Riddell JOHN PASSED AWAY on Sunday, May 15, 2016, in his 74th year, following a gallant, long-term struggle against cancer. He brought to that struggle, the same wonderful qualities that made him such an asset to COMER and to many other organizations and individuals, right up to his final attack. His courage and…
By Ed Finn, CCPA, May 11, 2016 This is Part 1 of a three-part series that examines the ideology of neoliberalism and the enormous harm its implementation imposes on people and the planet. “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” – George Bernard Shaw Having recently become a nonagenarian, I spend a lot of time these…
This year we have the chance to receive an important gathering in Canada. In Montréal, from August 9 to the 14, the World Social Forum (WSF) will be held for the first time in the northern hemisphere of the planet. The WSF is the largest gathering of civil society to find solutions to the problems…
“There was a wise man in the East whose constant prayer was that he might see today with the eyes of tomorrow.” – Alfred Mercier Elmer the frog strayed away from his pond and lost his way. While searching for another pool to avoid dehydration, he wandered into a picnic area. Spying a large pot…
By Paul Craig Roberts This from a reader: “It was reported this morning that recently the jet that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was on just happened to be on the same ramp as the one carrying Bill Clinton. “And somehow each party apparently knew of the presence of the other. “And they were in close…
By Joyce Nelson, May 2016 In mid-April, Bank of Canada (BOC) governor Stephen Poloz surprised many Canadians when he stated that the Federal Finance Minister “is not my boss,” while insisting that the Bank of Canada “is a fully independent policymaker.” In reporting this, the Financial Post (April 13) also quoted a UK-based economist who…
By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog, April 12, 2016 Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the “limited hangout” of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds. The bombshell publication of the “Panama Papers,” leaked…
By Gar Alperovitz, The Nation, February 11, 2016 Experiments with public ownership are thriving across the country. The challenge is to link them and scale them up. In 1970, the great liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith declared that the “Democratic Party must henceforth use the word ‘socialism.’ It describes what is needed.” Like many others,…
By Sunny Freeman, Toronto Star, April 7, 2016 Financial institution fined $1.1M by money-laundering watchdog should be named, group says. That’s what a wide-ranging group of critics – from lawyers to investor advocates to companies whose infractions have been made public – want to know about the first penalty against a bank by the Financial…
By Chris Hedges and Michael Hudson, CounterPunch, April 1, 2016 This is an edited transcript of part two of Chris Hedge’s Days of Revolt interview with Michael Hudson. CHRIS HEDGES: So, we spoke in previously about the parasitic quality of the banks, hedge funds and the speculative class that has in essence cannibalized the country…
By Lars Syll, Real-World Economics Review Blog, March 28, 2016 “…The US economy has, on the whole, done pretty well these past 180 years, suggesting that having the government owe the private sector money might not be all that bad a thing. The British government, by the way, has been in debt for more than…
SADLY, COMER has lost another colleague. Bob Campbell died, in his 100th year, at Sunnybrook Veterans’ Residence, in February. Bob was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His family immigrated to Canada in 1922. He attended the University of Toronto, and Osgoode Hall Law School. He served in the RCAF, in England and Europe, during WWII. We…
By Thom Hartman, Program, February 18, 2016 The big Republican knock against Bernie Sanders – and, to some extent, the knock on Hillary Clinton and any Democrat – is that they want America to be more like Europe, in particular Northern Europe. Bernie’s socialist policies might work fine for Scandinavia, Republicans say, but they’re pretty…
Jason Fekete, Ottawa Citizen, March 18, 2016 As the federal Liberal government prepares to deliver its first budget on Tuesday, behind the scenes it has been slowly laying the groundwork for a mammoth, multibillion-dollar undertaking that could revolutionize how infrastructure projects are planned and funded in Canada. A federally backed Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) that…
This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the reality of US politics today. Big money has always played a significant role, but the Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United and Speech Now has made it the dominant factor. In Mayer’s well documented book, the US has become a de facto oligarchy.…
By Yanis Varoufakis, www.project-syndicate.org, February 22, 2016 Berlin – “Europe will be democratized or it will disintegrate!” That maxim is more than a catchphrase from the manifesto of the Democracy in Europe Movement – DiEM25, the group I just helped to launch in Berlin. It is a simple, if underacknowledged fact. Europe’s current disintegration is…
Joseph Stiglitz, www.socialeurope.eu/2016/01/the-new-geo-economics Last year was a memorable one for the global economy. Not only was overall performance disappointing, but profound changes – both for better and for worse – occurred in the global economic system. Most notable was the Paris climate agreement reached last month. By itself, the agreement is far from enough to…
By Peter Radford, Real-World Economics Review Blog, February 21, 2016 Paul Krugman seems to be spending an awful lot of his time nowadays trying to discredit Bernie Sanders. The last two of his blog entries at The New York Times are devoted to explaining why Sander’s extravagant claims are wrong and potentially damaging to the…
By Nick Hanauer and Eric Beinhocker, evonomics, The Next Evolution of Economics, September 30, 2015 What prosperity is, where growth comes from, why markets work For everyone but the top 1 percent of earners, the American economy is broken. Since the 1980s, there has been a widening disconnect between the lives lived by ordinary Americans…
By David Ruccio, Real-World Economics Review Blog, February 16, 2016 As everyone knows, robots and artificial intelligence are coming. The question is, what effects will they have on us? In particular, will they replace workers and lead to massive unemployment? And what about the other workers, the ones who manage to keep their jobs? According…
By Michael Parenti, Global Research, August 18, 2014, Dandelion Salad and Global Research January 27, 2013 Through much of history the abnormal has been the norm. This is a paradox to which we should attend. Aberrations, so plentiful as to form a terrible normality of their own, descend upon us with frightful consistency. The number…
By Paul Craig Roberts, www.counterpunch.org February 9, 2016 Michael Hudson is the best economist in the world. Indeed, I could almost say that he is the only economist in the world. Almost all of the rest are neoliberals, who are not economists but shills for financial interests. If you have not heard of Michael Hudson…
Mark Twain once had occasion to report that “news of [his] death [had] been greatly exaggerated.” History has repeated itself in an internet message that the COMER lawsuit “had reached its end.” Far from it! Decision of Federal Court, February 8, 2016 On February 8, 2016, Justice Russell of the Federal Court, after having his…
By Mitchell Anderson, Today, TheTyee.ca; February 1, 2016 Fastest way to transition Canada to a green economy? Quit the giveaways. Justin Trudeau has a problem. How can Canada meet our international climate commitments so recently inked in Paris with an increasingly empty economic larder? The International Monetary Fund may have the answer. Last summer, the…
By Ellen Brown, Huffpost Business, January 27, 2016 The world is undergoing a populist revival. From the revolt against austerity led by the Syriza Party in Greece and the Podemos Party in Spain, to Jeremy Corbyn’s surprise victory as Labour leader in the UK, to Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican polls, to Bernie Sanders’…
The Kingston Chapter of COMER evolved from The Kingston Study Group on Monetary Policy which was formed in the fall of 1998 and recognized as a Chapter of COMER a year later. Its immediate objective was to increase public awareness of how monetary policy affected the community, how changes to it in 1975 had led…
By Herb Wiseman The promised answer to the puzzle. In the last issue I wrote about our eyes wide shut and presented the bat and ball problem. I did not include the solution because I wanted people to struggle with the answer. Let me restate the problem, show the solutions and explain what it means.…
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Project Syndicate, January 3, 2016 New York – The year 2015 was a hard one all around. Brazil fell into recession. China’s economy experienced its first serious bumps after almost four decades of breakneck growth. The euro zone managed to avoid a meltdown over Greece, but its near-stagnation has continued, contributing…
By Prof. John McMurtry, FRSC, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, in Global Research, January 01, 2016, http://bit.ly/1VwUmAW Prof. McMurtry was asked to “co-operate with Ayatollah Khamenei in the Supreme Leader’s letter to the Youth in Europe and North America.” The questions herein, posed by a designated US enemy opened a new…
By Daniel Tencer, The Huffington Post Canada, March 14, 2015 One of America’s most prominent oil men has issued an apology to Canadians over the Obama administration’s long delays to a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. “To my friends in Calgary and across Canada: I apologize on behalf of my fellow Americans for the…
RT Question more, December 25, 2015 A radical initiative to strip private banks of their power to “create money” and make it exclusively a central bank privilege has gathered enough support for the Swiss government to announce a referendum on the issue. A vote in favor may result in a return to 100 percent reserve…
By Steve Watson, Infowars.com, October 23, 2015 74 years of sentences for high-level fraudsters; US and rest of Europe bailed theirs out. In a story not reported on at all by any Western mainstream media source, Iceland just sentenced another five high level bankers to prison for directly contributing to the collapse of the country’s…
Canada’s new copyright laws, passed last fall, cap the liability for unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material at $5,000, so long as the downloading is not for commercial purposes. But the TPP could force Canada to institute criminal penalties even for small-time downloaders, according to a number of consumer advocacy groups. Canada’s top negotiator at the…
By George Crowell Early in March 2015, we of COMER were surprised and delighted to learn that the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) had just endorsed our “Call for Renaissance of the Bank of Canada” which had been on our website for several years without attracting much attention. Having written the “Call,” and having contributed to…
By Jim Coyle, Feature Writer, Toronto Star, April 25, 2015 Conservatives are better at promoting their world view because they know how to tell a story; they are adept at using narrative, metaphor and emotion to sell their message, says cognitive linguist and author George Lakoff. The estimable George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist from the…
Iceland Stuns Banks: Plans to Take Back the Power to Create Money By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, Global Research, April 13, 2015 Who knew that the revolution would start with those radical Icelanders? It does, though. One Frosti Sigurjonsson, a lawmaker from the ruling Progress Party, issued a report today that suggests taking the power to…
By Alexandra Stevenson, The New York Times, October 15, 2015 T. Boone Pickens made billions drilling for oil and gas and squaring off in bareknuckled corporate takeover bouts. Now the 87-year-old tycoon is embroiled in what may be the last big battle of his career. Only this one is aimed thousands of miles north of…
By Ellen Brown, ellenbrown.com, November 20, 2015 In uncertain times, “cash is king,” but central bankers are systematically moving to eliminate that option. Is it really about stimulating the economy? Or is there some deeper, darker threat afoot? Remember those old ads showing a senior couple lounging on a warm beach, captioned “Let your money…
By Samuel Alexander, Economic Reform Australia Review, vol. 7, no. 5, 2015 We are used to hearing that if everyone lived in the same way as Australians or North Americans, we would need four or five planet Earths to sustain us. This sort of analysis is known as the “ecological footprint” and shows that even…
To members and supporters of COMER, please forward this letter to Prime Minister Trudeau (pm@pm.gc.ca) and urge him to borrow from the Bank of Canada. As well, send a copy to your contacts and ask them to do the same. The letter below was published in the Kingston Whig-Standard on Wednesday, October 21, 2015 and…
Posted on April 6, 2015 by Ellen Brown at www.webofdebt.com/articles “The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t…. You have owners.” – George Carlin, The American Dream According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800…
Posted in June 2015 by Ellen Brown at www.webofdebt.com In March 2014, the Bank of England let the cat out of the bag: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. So wrote David Graeber in The Guardian the same month, referring to a BOE paper called “Money Creation in the…
By Joyce Nelson, Watershed Sentinel, January-February 2016, vol. 26, no. 1 One of the most important legal cases in Canadian history is slowly inching its way towards trial. Launched in 2011 by the Toronto-based Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER), the lawsuit would require the publicly-owned Bank of Canada to return to its pre-1974…
By Peter Bohmer, counterpunch, October 27, 2015 I first visited Greece in fall, 2010 to give two talks at a major anti-authoritarian festival in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second biggest city. Anti-authoritarians are a significant political current in Greece. They believe in and organize for anti-capitalism, direct democracy, building non hierarchical economic and social institutions, and confronting…
By Dr. Vanessa Brcic, CCPA Monitor, Volume 21, No. 5, October 2014 One of the most important constitutional trials in Canadian history was set to begin on September 8, 2014 before the BC Supreme Court. Dr. Day, owner of the for-profit Cambie Surgical Centre says he is fighting for the freedom of patients who are…
After twenty years on the front lines of the movement to protect our public health care in Ontario, perhaps I should be more jaded. But when I read the headlines today announcing the mulish determination of Kathleen Wynne and her government to sell off Hydro One despite all reason, despite overwhelming public opposition and the…
Press TV, October 2015 An American writer in Washington, DC says economic downturns are not “organic happenstance” but they are orchestrated by international bankers to plunder the public. “When the economy crashes people don’t have the money to pay their bills and their loans. When this happens, real material wealth is transferred to these very…
By Herb Wiseman, Peterborough This Week, August 31, 2015 To the editor: Myths, often sincerely held, dominate the media in order to manufacture the consent of the public thus enabling those in power to maintain their privileges and entitlements. Myths also obscure what is real. The balanced budget narrative proves this rule. Libs and Cons…
By Don Pittis, CBC News, May 22, 2015 Even the OECD says inequality is bad. But making it go away is much tougher. It almost feels like an old story. Ever since the economy crashed in 2008 a growing chorus of voices has warned that inequality was wiping out the middle class and damaging society.…
By Daniel Tencer, Huffington Post Canada, October 16, 2015 For the past four years, Texas oil billionaire and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens has been suing the Liberal government in Ontario under NAFTA, arguing he has been the victim of “unfair” backroom deals involving the province’s green energy program. A NAFTA tribunal is expected to…
By Rocco Galati, BA, LLB, LLM On October 14, 2015, the Federal Court heard the government’s motion to strike (#2) from the amended statement of claim filed March 26, 2015, following the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling dismissing the government’s appeal from the Federal Court allowing the pursuit of declaratory relief with respect to the…
By Pete Evans, CBC News Posted: October 14, 2015 The richest one per cent now own half of all the wealth in the world, a new report from Credit Suisse says. The bank’s Global Wealth Report 2015 marks the first time that the world’s super rich have amassed enough wealth to cross that symbolic line.…
By Ann Emmett “Freedom is participation in power.” – Cicero The basic truth about “free trade,” of course, is that what is negotiated away is national sovereignty and the public interest, democracy, and justice. Without deception and secrecy this corporate drive for power would never have succeeded. Excerpts from Canada After Harper and The Great…
By Duncan Cameron, www.rabble.ca, October 6, 2015 With 14 days to go in the election campaign, Stephen Harper announced the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, a comprehensive economic integration deal pushed by the US, that will cover 12 countries including Japan, but excluding China. The TPP constructs an American-led trade bloc aimed at…
By Anthony Gucciardi, Natural Society, October 1, 2015 Russia has just announced a game-changing move in the fight against Monsanto’s GMOs, completely banning the use of genetically modified ingredients in any and all food production. In other words, Russia just blazed way past the issue of GMO labeling and shut down the use of any…
By Ann Emmett Economic historian Karl Polanyi’s definitive analysis of the market economy was published in 1944. In The Great Transformation, he celebrated what he believed was the passing of that particular economic system. In the foreword, R.M. MacIver identifies a profound level at which “events and processes, theories and actions, appear in a new…
By Gus Van Harten, www.rable.ca, September 28, 2015 Corporations win, people lose in transpacific partnership. One of the most controversial parts of trade and investment agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the special status they give to foreign investors. Foreign investor lawsuits under these agreements have exploded, growing from a few cases in the…
UK House of Commons Debates, Thursday, November 20,2014 Part IV Part III appeared in the March-April 2015 issue of ER. Source: http://bit.ly/1rqvLxQ Steve Baker: I do not actually support Positive Money’s proposals, although I am glad to work with it because I support its diagnosis of the problem. Of course, this argument could have been…
By Murray Dobbin, TheTyee.ca, January 26, 2015 New signs civilization is veering towards collapse. If you are searching for significant anniversaries for 2015, one that you might find illuminating is the publication of a book 40 years ago entitled The Crisis of Democracy. The title would seem fitting today but that’s not the crisis its…
In a previous issue we looked at how the balanced budget narrative is misleading because it obscures how the federal budget transfers large quantities of tax dollars to the well-off – loosely defined as the top 10% of income earners. This was accomplished by privatizing the federal debt using tax dollars to pay the interest…
Sunny Freeman, The Huffington Post, January 14, 2015 Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the country’s environmental laws, according to a new study. The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per…
By Ellen Brown, TheWeb of Debt blog posted July 30, 3015 “My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract.” – The Godfather (1972) In the modern global banking system,…
By Herb Wiseman Libs and Cons lament and wring their hands about balanced budgets, debts and deficits. The heritage of the NDP should lead it to lament and wring its hands on the transfers of taxpayers’ dollars to the wealthy in the form of interest on the debt but it doesn’t. The media are complicit…
“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks…
By Prof. Michael Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 21, 2015 Fira, Greece – On Sunday, July 5, the Greek people voted in a historic referendum to refuse the Troika’s draft agreement. The Referendum was an outright “ritual of democracy.” The Greek people were betrayed. On Monday morning, July 6, on the day following the referendum, Prime…
By Jonathan Forani, Toronto Star, May 7, 2015 Joyce Rankin, who with her team heal the ailments of homelessness, received an honourable mention in this year’s Nightingale Awards Joyce Rankin always knew she’d be a nurse. But what she didn’t know was that she’d be as much a public advocate for her clients as a…
Dear COMER, We (Manfred and Irene) are members of the monetary reform association of Dinero Positivo, which was created in Spain about one year ago. Recently, we translated into Spanish a speech, Ms. Emmett, that we consider very special. You made this speech called “People vs. Bank of Canada” some month ago together with Mr.…
By Michael Hudson, www.counterpunch. org, July 8, 2015 The major financial problem tearing economies apart over the past century has stemmed more from official inter-governmental debt than with private-sector debt. That is why the global economy today faces a similar breakdown to the Depression years of 1929-31, when it became apparent that the volume of…
By John Pilger, Global Research, July 13, 2015 An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week’s landslide “No” vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a “bailout” that means sinister foreign control and a…
By Will McMartin, TheTyee.ca, July 20, 2015 No time to coast New Dems! To gain victory in October, still more lift needed in key regions. You’ve seen the polls putting Thomas Mulcair and his New Democrats on top. Surely the ever rising fortunes of the NDP, turbo-boosted by the Alberta breakthrough, spell the end of…
By Paul Gallant, Toronto Star, May 7, 2015 Nurses at shelters and on the street know that homelessness and poor health are intertwined. A client of the Regent Park Community Health Centre had been homeless for years, going to emergency rooms almost daily for a variety of health problems. Nurses at the health centre, working…
By Judy Kennedy The great challenge of our time is to wrest control of our lives from Big Money, beginning with the control of our national finance. Our forefathers did just that 80 years ago during the Great Depression when, in 1935, they established the central bank, the Bank of Canada (the Bank), responsible to…
By Susan George, The Social Artist, Spring 2015 Most people haven’t noticed yet but, except for a small minority, we’re all in prison. The guards aren’t stupid, they let us walk about freely in the sunshine and attend the movies of our choice, but, for many of the most important aspects of our lives, we…
By Raul Zelik, The Bullet A Socialist Project e-bulletin, No. 1113, May 7, 2015 (Translation by Eric Canepa) Even if one almost always goes wrong with such prognoses, the fact is that the Spanish state is facing the biggest rupture since the end of the Franco dictatorship. In several large cities, the left radical-democratic lists…
Editorial by Stuart Trew, CCPA Monitor, May/June 2015 The high-profile Duffy trial is said to have put a spotlight on the inner workings of the federal government and notably the chain of command from the PMO downwards – the who-knew-what of the Nigel Wright cheque exchange, for example (if anyone still cares). So far, Duffy’s…
By Warwick Smith, Economic Reform Australia Review, Vol. 7, No 2., March-April 2015 Treasurer Joe Hockey is experiencing difficult times. Deteriorating terms of trade and an uncooperative senate mean that he cannot deliver the surplus when he said he would and he cannot continue to cut government expenditure without risking a recession. I have some…
By Ben Protess and Michael Corkery, The New York Times, May 14, 2015 For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote. But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud…
By Heather Mallick, The Toronto Star, June 2, 2015 Canadians have grown quiet, afraid to speak up. Let’s change that. Canada is a less interesting place than it used to be. Or rather it is harder to be interesting in this country. It is harder to speak loudly or off-the-cuff, crack a joke, be wry,…
By Rocco Galati, May 13, 2015 On March 26, 2015, COMER served and filed its amended statement of claim. On April 26, 2015, the Department of Justice indicated that it would not be filing a statement of defence, but would again move to strike the claim. Shortly thereafter, I was served with what is an…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIRRfZEO31I
By Murray Dobbin, TheTyee.ca, April 17, 2015 Canadians have been fleeced for billions, but no traction in media for complex banking case. “Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation.” – William Lyon Mackenzie King,…
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt blog, April 8, 2015 According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the…
We urgently need monetary reform in Canada in order to overcome the austerity agenda which is bringing cutbacks and privatization of public services. Pressure on our government to act must come from widespread grassroots action. What can ordinary people do to exert pressure for monetary reform? Read the open letter below. Use it to gain…
By Steve Keen, ERA Review, Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 2014 The following is an extract from Prof. Steve Keen’s recent article on the economic foundations of the European economic malaise. Mainstream economic theories assert that private debt does not matter. Translations of my book Debunking Economics have helped spread the understanding that the parlous…
By Jim Stanford, CCPA Monitor, May/ June 2015 With a document whose very timing, let alone content, was so transparently politicized and manipulative, it’s hard to even know where to start. Among the many galling, short-sighted, and ultimately destructive components of this federal budget, here are five that stand out in my view: 1. Timing.…
By John Riddell Quote On – Quote In Party of One author Michael Harris covers the Harper administration so far, from 2006 (minority government) through 2011 (majority government) and on to 2014. This review is a bit different. It offers a series of quotations in two parts. Harris Quotes; and Quotes by others. All quotes…
By Andrew Walker, BBC World Service Economics Correspondent, January 29, 2015 There have been two important, connected economic developments in Europe. New official figures from Germany show that prices have fallen, by 0.5%, over the previous 12 months. Meanwhile the Danish Central Bank has cut one of its main interest rates for the second time…
Part II appeared in the January–February 2015 issue of ER. Source: http://bit.ly/1rqvLxQ Mr MacNeil: To quote Harry S. Truman, the worst thing about economists is that they always say, “On the other hand.” The hon. Gentleman talks about limiting and regulating how much money is to be sucked in by the economy, but who would…
By Linda McQuaig, www.ipolitics.ca, January 7, 2015 The Harper government’s anti-democratic actions have been so numerous, it’s easy to lose track of them. I almost forgot, for instance, about the way it clamped down on that little birdwatching group in southwestern Ontario, putting its charitable status under surveillance after the group raised concerns about government-approved…
By Danny Hakim and Peter Eavis, The New York Times, February 27, 2015 Hvidovre, Denmark – At first, Eva Christiansen barely noticed the number. Her bank called to say that Ms. Christiansen, a 36-year-old entrepreneur here, had been approved for a small-business loan. She whooped. She danced. A friend took pictures. “I think I was…
By Staff, The Canadian Press, metronews. ca, November 27, 2014 C.D. Howe Institute. A revamp of Canada’s system would create fairness, argues paper’s author Ottawa – A new research paper for the C.D. Howe Institute says Canada can help combat rising income inequality by taxing people separately for their paycheque and investment income. The paper’s…
By Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com, posted February 8, 2015 We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing rags down their throats. They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead…
By Claus Offe, Social Europe, March 6, 2015 Europe has had a rocky start to 2015. The Eurozone crisis is back on the agenda, a war is developing at Europe’s border and people across the continent seem more and more discontent with their political systems leading to the rise of different forms of populism. How…
By Les Whittington, Ottawa Bureau reporter, Toronto Star, March 24, 2015 Renowned Toronto lawyer brings unusual case to change the way Canada’s central bank operates. Ottawa – Renowned Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati is pursuing a court case intended to do nothing less than force the Bank of Canada to reorient its activities on behalf of…
By Bruce Campbell, CCPA Volume 21 No. 9, March 2015 On January 26, a political earthquake brought the left-wing Syriza party to power in Greece with a sweeping mandate to end the six-year nightmare of economic austerity imposed by the European establishment. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the so-called German-backed troika – the European…
By Damian Carrington, theguardian.com, March 3, 2015 Global action on climate change could cause insurers’ investments in fossil fuels to take a huge hit, says bank’s prudential regulation authority Insurance companies could suffer a “huge hit” if their investments in fossil fuel companies are rendered worthless by action on climate change, the Bank of England…
By Joyce Nelson, CCPA Monitor, Volume 21 No. 2, March 2015 Since October’s shooting and attack on Parliament Hill, the Harper government has introduced or passed four pieces of legislation that impinge on civil liberties in ways that almost certainly contravene legal protections in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Though the government claims these…
By André Marentette, Windsor Star, April 8, 2011 “There must be a discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.” – John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873 With the onset…
By Ellen Brown, December 2, 2014 On the weekend of November 16, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing…
By Carol Goar, Toronto Star, February 11, 2015 If it’s crass to talk about money while parliamentarians and pundits are praising John Baird’s political prowess and pondering his legacy, pardon my etiquette. But one piece of the story is still missing. By stepping down this year, the former foreign affairs minister locked in his entitlement…
Part 1 appeared in the November–December 2014 issue of ER. Source: http://bit.ly/1rqvLxQ Steve Baker: …My bottom line on this is: I want to live in a society where even the most selfish person is compelled by our institutions to serve the needs of other people. The institution in question is called a free market economy,…
By Brian Staples, JUSTnews, Vol. 18, No. 2. Winter 2014-2015 Prorogations of Parliament. Other governments have prorogued Parliament many times. But Harper’s prorogations were seen as more crassly motivated for political gain than others. His second prorogation brought thousands of demonstrators to the streets to decry his disregard for the democratic way. The demonstrations did…
By James Ridgeway, www.counterpunch. com, September 9, 2009 As we grow older more and more of us will become demented. A new research study by David Laibson, a Harvard professor(and colleagues at NYU, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Federal Reserve Board in Washington), reports dementia doubles every 5 years after age 60 until…
By Ellen Brown, Global Research, January 7, 2015 Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday“ if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are…
Available from COMER Publications: 27 Sherbourne Street North, Suite 1 Toronto, ON M4W 2T3 comerpub@rogers.com Price EXcludes postage and handling. Hazel Henderson The United Nations: Policy and Financing Alternatives: Innovative Proposals by Visionary Leaders, Editors Harlan Cleveland, Hazel Henderson, Inge Kaul, $10 W.F. Hixson It’s Your Money, $10 William Krehm Towards a Non-Autistic Economy –…
William Krehm and I went to Greece specifically with intent to meet with Tsipras, the leader of the Syriza party (once we learned of their existence). We both were excited about the possibilities for the world which might ensue if this man and party could take hold. We went in almost cold, in that we…
By Marco Chown Oved, Toronto Star, December 19, 2014 Centre says it can’t provide proper care for resident, who has reluctantly agreed to find new residence. It’s a sad byproduct of longevity. Like many who have made it to her age, 94-yearold Marie Sparrow has outlived her entire family: first her husband, then her sons,…
By Murray Dobbin, Today, TheTyee.ca That’s what corporations hoard while Tories refuse to stimulate jobs. Imagine for a moment two societies living side by side. One has discovered the wheel and uses it. The wheel makes life easier for workers and boosts the economy for everyone. Prosperity reigns. The society next door is well aware…
On April 24, 2014, we were, in the main, successful in our appeal before Justice Russell. We appealed, to the Federal Court of Appeal, on two minor points. The government crossappealed on the ruling that we can proceed with the bulk of COMER’s action. On January 26, 2015, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed our…
Today’s House of Commons debates — Thursday 20 November 201411.18 amSteve Baker (Wycombe) (Con):I beg to move,That this House has considered money creation and society.The methods of money production in society today are profoundly corrupting in ways that would matter to everyone if they were clearly understood. The essence of this debate is: who should…
Organizations Endorsing the Call for Renaissance of the Bank of Canada: Aaron Ander, Nutritionist in B.C. Alberta Monetary Authority ArkDesigns.org Canadian Action Party Community Advisor Council of Canadians Greg Gerrie Seminars International London Health Coalition National Farmers Union OurBankOfCanada.ca Perry Computer Service, Oshawa Public Banking Institute, Canada Chapter SparQ Corporate Training TheRealVote.ca World Cycles Institute…
By Sean Fine, The Globe and Mail, August 23, 2014 Wherever I’ve gone this year in Canada, lawyers are talking about Rocco Galati. What’s Rocco going to do next? If the Prime Minister tries any funny business with the courts, Rocco will stop him. Rocco won’t sit by…. It’s as if Mr. Galati, the Toronto…
By Rocco Galati, In its 59-page decision of April 24, 2014, the Federal Court (Justice Russell), substantially over-turned the decision of Prothonotary Aalto which had struck the claim, with no opportunity to amend it. Justice Russell, in over-turning the decision of Prothonotary Aalto, ruled as follows: 1. That the declaratory relief sought, which is the…
December 10, 2013, marked the second year for COMER – Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform – in Federal Court since the Canadian dollar [Loonie] became an object of claim that its governance could be found wanting in need of reform. Canadian constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati filed Toronto Action T-2010-11 on behalf of William Krehm,…
And so is the cost! To date, this action has cost just over $215,000. We have been fortunate on two fronts. First, until now, one person, Bill Krehm, has carried the cost entirely. Secondly, we have an outstanding and committed lawyer, Rocco Galati, who has, in the past, trimmed his fee to lower the cost…
Your Honour(s): We are Canadian citizens familiar with the positive history of our publicly-owned bank – the Bank of Canada – from 1940 to 1970. We wish to ensure that you also understand this history. With interest-free money created by our own bank during that 30-year period, we paid for the war effort, the St.…
Comments by Connie Fogal, aided by Ann Emmett, the Statement of Claim, and Rocco Galati’s August 2013 report The Court On December 10, 2013, Bill Krehm, Ann Emmett and COMER were in court again defending the right of Canadians to the use of our Bank of Canada in the interest of Canada and Canadians, not…
By Rocco Galati, BA, LLB, LLM On August 9, 2013, Prothonotary Aalto (a Justice of the Federal Court), struck COMER’s claim against the Bank of Canada and Minister of Finance. On August 16, 2013, COMER issued a Notice of Appeal. The Appeal is scheduled to be argued, for a full day, on Tuesday, December 10,…
By John Riddell “Courage my friends, ‘tis not to late to make a better world.” – Tommy Douglas If you are an activist, concerned about climate change and the corporate state (the merging of corporations and governments), Chris Hedges, in his new book, Wages of Rebellion, says you are in the right place. This Pulitzer…
The Canadians plead for declarations that would restore the use of the bank of Canada for the benefit of Canadians and remove it from the control of international private entities whose interests and directives are placed above the interest of Canadians and the primacy of the constitution of Canada. Canadian constitutional lawyer, Rocco Galati, on…
By Connie Fogal, Re: BoC court application on December 5, 2012, by the government to strike out our challenge on the use of the Bank of Canada as intended by statute. This application by the government heard on December 5 was not dealing with the merits of our case, but rather just with whether or…
By David Oakley and Norma Cohen, Financial Times, October 16, 2012 Employees face a much greater risk their pensions will not pay out than regulators have made assumptions for, amid growing efforts by the industry to tackle the problem of underfunded schemes. Companies such as BT Group and British Airways, which have some of the…
A summary by Connie Fogal, The meeting took place at OISE on September 8, 2012. The judicial process is not a unique tool to raise issues. The process arises out of the political reality of the time. It is a lightning rod. There is no such thing as a failure in a court application on…
Dear Mr. William Krehm, I am an Italian journalist/photographer and I follow your interesting economic publications. I have heard that in December 2011 you and COMER have filed an action in federal court. Let me make the best wishes and express my gratitude for what you do. I would kindly ask you if it is…
Our court case against our government’s trifling with the very serious matters of its once-recognized investment in human capital – as a prepaid asset a government can make – has come to life again. Threats from southern Italian gangsters against the lives of our solicitor’s new-born babes have been handled and Rocco Galati has been…