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	<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; SPCanada</title>
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	<copyright>Copyright &#xA9; World Socialist Party (US) 2010 </copyright>
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		<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; SPCanada</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org</link>
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	<itunes:category text="Society &amp; Culture" />
	<itunes:author>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:author>
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		<itunes:name>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:name>
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		<title>The Real Irish Debt Problem</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/02/the-real-irish-debt-problem/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/02/the-real-irish-debt-problem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:43:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2050</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With Ireland&#8217;s government&#8217;s recent announcement of its programme of spending cuts we should note that almost a quarter of all Irish households were in arrears on at least one bill or loan last year and 60 per cent said they had difficulty making ends meet. Gross and disposable household incomes fell in 2009 ( down 6.7 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively). The survey shows the deprivation rate rose to 17.3 per cent last year, up from 13.8 per cent in 2008. The two items people reported being most deprived of were the replacement of worn-out furniture and being able to afford to go out in the preceding fortnight. Households are increasingly dependent on State payments. Some 27 per cent of household income came from social transfers, such as unemployment benefit, disability benefit or children’s allowance, up from 22 per cent in 2008. State payments loom larger in importance in poorer families. They account for 91 per cent of income in the lowest-earning 10 per cent of the population. However, even in the highest earning 10 per cent, they account for almost 10 per cent of income. 24 per cent of households were in arrears with mortgage payments, utility bills [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Food for thought</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-4/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:30:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Canada]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Toronto Star (6/March/2010) asks “Who will be tomorrow’s Builders?” It goes on to list the famous men (no women!) who have “built” the great concert halls, university colleges and other public and private buildings of Toronto. Maybe I have missed something here. I thought builders wore jeans and hard hats and poured the foundations, and framed the buildings and plumbed, wired, and ﬁnished them. The former group only wear suits and sit on their backsides. Do we really have to wait around for these useless idlers to get anything done? Many people have lost their homes in this recession, and been put out on the street with nowhere to go. This is a bad thing. The US government, however, has been able to build a whole village styled after those in Afghanistan so the troops, American and Canadian, can practice the art of killing other human beings more efﬁciently. This is supposed to be a good thing(?). The Ontario government and the developers are salivating over exploiting Ontario’s chromite rich Ring of Fire, located in a vast area of pristine lakes and wilderness in the province’s North Country. As usual in capitalism, the squabble to get a piece of [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Food for thought</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-3/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:47:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Canada]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1517</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Under Capitalism When the lead smelters came to Jiyhuan, China, the workers rejoiced for the new jobs, the infrastructure upgrades, the new cultural hall, and the new basketball stadium. The lead smelters also brought lead poisoning. Jiyhuan’s blue skies have gone, its fruits and vegetables are stunted, its children and workers poisoned. The story details the medical troubles of worker, Li Yingfu who had half of his stomach removed. The follow-up story reported that he had died. In India, ten-year-old Muna gets up at dawn to go to the ﬁeld to collect melon-size rocks to take to the crushing machine to make gravel for the new roads that are part of India’s ‘economic miracle’. He works fourteen hours a day at this back-breaking work for about 90 cents. It is estimated that India has 60 million working children. Amazingly, Thomas Chandy, head of Save the Children India has a solution the World Bank SHOULD demand that contractors hired to build roads ﬁnanced by them do not buy gravel from quarries that use child labour! Some solution, but when you can only think in capitalist terms, what is to be done? Totally bleeping useless! John Ayers No related posts.


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		<title>Food for Thought</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-2/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/04/food-for-thought-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:12:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
		
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1503</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the poverty front, Ontario brought down its budget this week. In a preview, the Toronto Star editorial (20/March 2010) called keeping the special dietary allowance for those on welfare with medical conditions a test of the government’s much publicized ﬁght to reduce poverty (25% in 5 years). Well, the government failed the test and cancelled the program. Why? Because of abuse of the program. Apparently, doctors were too keen to sign applicants on to the program. There was no word about the abuse of NOT keeping the program and withholding food from the needy! The supplement ranged from $10 to $250/month, a signiﬁcant amount for a single person receiving just $585/month to pay for everything. 162 000 were in the program and that included 54,000 disabled persons. A doctor’s letter to the paper said, “The cancellation of the Special Diet Program Allowance is a blow to the health and dignity of people living in extreme povertyAs a physician working largely with people on welfare, I have yet to meet one person who wants to stay on social assistance, or one welfare person who doesn’t struggle everyday to feed themselves.” A replacement program will target ‘severe cases’ (i.e. reduce costs [...]


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		<title>Mississauga The Good?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/03/mississauga-the-good/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/03/mississauga-the-good/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:36:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Canada]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1466</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For some years the city of Mississauga, Ontario, has been held up as an example of how efficiently a city can be run, inferring that it is the incompetence of other jurisdictions that prevent them being run prosperously. While its next-door neighbour, Toronto, has had its financial woes for twenty years, Mississauga went without a single tax increase between 1991 and 2001 and, in fact, Mississauga has not borrowed money since 1978. A low business tax encouraged companies to relocate from Toronto, and new developments were constantly being built, bringing in more revenue. Now, however, things are not so rosy. The city is proposing a 2.3% increase on the city&#8217;s portion of the property tax bill. The cash reserves that have kept Greater Toronto&#8217;s second largest city debt-free are almost gone. The gloomy prognosis is that by 2012 Mississauga will have to borrow again. The main factor behind the city&#8217;s changing fortunes is that it is now built out and, therefore, charges on new development are no longer coming on stream. Also, repair costs are rising with $1.5 billion needed over the next twenty years to repair or replace the city&#8217;s roads, bridges, water lines, and sewers. To pay for [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Food for thought</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/03/food-for-thought/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/03/food-for-thought/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:30:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
		
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1460</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the environmental front, the Canadian government, like the US, has announced that carbon emissions will be reduced 17% over the next ten years. Unfortunately, as environmentalists were quick to point out, this will increase emissions by 2.5% over the 2006 targets already announced. It’s like the pas de deux, two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, three steps back, and round and round we go. This bunch of lying sycophants, managing the capitalist system in the interest of the capitalists, had the gall to state, “ Throughout the Copenhagen negotiations, we maintained that our clear policy was to support the outcome of Copenhagen” (Toronto Star, Jan 31 2010). What outcome are they talking about, I wonder? Talking of liars, Tony Blair, testifying at the Iraq enquiry in London, said, “When you are the prime minister and the Joint Intelligence Committee is giving you this information (weapons of mass destruction), you have got to rely on the people doing it, with the experience and with the commitment and integrity as they doOf course now, with the beneﬁt of hindsight, we look back on the situation differently.” (Toronto Star, Jan 30 2010). Strange how he was able to dismiss [...]


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		<title>After Copenhagen, Then What?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/02/after-copenhagen-then-what/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/02/after-copenhagen-then-what/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:05:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1401</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Copenhagen Conference on climate change is over and done, the fourteenth in the last two decades since Kyoto. What did this latest one accomplish? Fifteen thousand delegates from one hundred and ninety-three UN members attended. It was generally agreed that the earth&#8217;s average temperature rise be kept at no more than two degrees. To achieve that goal, there were many promises &#8211; US promised 17% reductions of carbon emissions from 2005 levels, China promised a 45% cut in energy emissions (not from economic output), India 20-25% reductions, and Europe 30% reductions from 1990 levels &#8211; but there was no clarity on targets. A deal of sorts was salvaged at the eleventh hour between the US, China, Brazil, and India, and others, but, as usual, it was long on ideals, short on commitment, long on rhetoric, short on detail. Most scientists believe that an 80% reduction is necessary by 2050 and the big polluters &#8211; 30 countries, including Canada, are responsible for 90% of human atmospheric carbon &#8211; didn&#8217;t even come close to that goal. No long-term targets or mandatory implementation were agreed on. China baulked at international verification of any kind. The numerous attempted side deals and small group [...]


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		<title>Cab-ride to capitalism: servitude by the majority</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2010/01/cab-ride-to-capitalism-servitude-by-the-majority/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2010/01/cab-ride-to-capitalism-servitude-by-the-majority/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:19:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1158</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyday taxicab rides may appear to be lacklustre experiences that are quickly forgotten. However, this might not always be the case. Sometimes our views of events may become clouded and we cannot see things for what they really are. However, after taking many cab-rides in an urban city, I began to see things in a different way. On one of my jaunts in a taxicab I decided to investigate what it is that made people come to developed capitalist countries from less developed parts of the world. In speaking to a cab driver, who left Ethiopia to come to Canada, I found my answer. I asked, “do people tend to be more happy in Western societies than in Ethiopia?” He answered that, “Ethiopia was a poor country.” In his words I could see the influence capitalism now had on his life: he equated how much money one has to how happy they are in life. This is reminiscent of one of the trademark idioms of capitalism that money can buy happiness. This is now disputed even by some who are otherwise supporters of capitalism, but if it were wholly refuted then this could undermine the entire capitalist system. Unfortunately, many [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Climate Change?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/12/climate-change-2/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/12/climate-change-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:50:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Climate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1111</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At a recent bookfair in Toronto, members of an organization called, “Supreme Master&#8221; handed out leaflets on climate change. The main thrust of their argument is that greenhouse gases are not the major cause of global warming, but de-forestation for cattle grazing land is. To support this contention they offer various statistics, some of which are interesting, and could well be true, e.g. Over 75% of tree cutting in the Amazon rainforest is done for meat production. Livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all world-wide transportation combined. The Arctic sea reflects about 80% of the sun’s heat, stabilizing the colder temperatures of the ocean. Greenland surface ice loss is now 400% greater than fifteen years ago. Unless urgent action is taken, all the ice in the arctic could be gone by the end of the summer melt season of 2012. That methane, a greenhouse gas currently being released from arctic permafrost and bubbling up through lakes is accelerating global warming in ways not currently accounted for. Research by Dr. Gregory Ryskin at Northwestern University indicates that methane explosions from the ocean caused extinctions of ninety per cent of marine species and 755 of terrestrial species some 250 million years ago. [...]


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		<item>
		<title>The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/11/the-economic-crisis-will-capitalism-fail/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/11/the-economic-crisis-will-capitalism-fail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:06:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPCanada</dc:creator>
		
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1119</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail? Despite the recent pronouncement by the governor of The Bank of Canada that the recession is over, we are suffering through the worst crisis in capitalism since the 1930s Depression. Even he had to admit that the employment figures might not recover until 2014. So for the over seven million North Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession, the recession is definitely not over. The Toronto jobless rate was recently pegged at 9.6% and 15% for the 18-24 age group. These figures are even worse as they are shamelessly manipulated and ‘seasonally adjusted’ to reflect only a fraction of the real rate. For example, those who have given up looking for jobs, those in part-time jobs who want full time, and those who are underemployed and take temporary jobs until something better comes along, are not counted. Unfortunately, the job of the modern-day economist is to be a cheerleader for the capitalist system and put a happy face on the bleak outlook that capitalism offers. Recently, an ‘economist’ interviewed on CBC radio, explained the continued rise in unemployment as a good sign because it meant that more people must be looking for [...]


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