Europe and why it's headlines really do matter

There's an economic storm brewing in Europe. It really should be front page news, and we really should be screaming about it; it's effects on the world will be unprecedented and unparalleled. The ripples of this sustained storm could be enough to wipe out any financially protective measures we had put up after our last worldwide crisis. The bursting of financial bubbles shows us that no momentous economic run is without it's fall, no mountain of debt is without it's stresses, and no economic free-fall is without it's futile politicians and consequently an army of dissidents the whole machine creates.

The truth is we are headed for economic Armageddon. It is not guaranteed, nothing economic ever is. But on the current path we are on, a collapse is inevitable. The evidence is mounting.

I've tried denial. I tried to surround myself with good news... the news sources that seemed to preserve the status quo, always assuring me the future is bright; however littered with tragic exposés. But as I grow up, and started to correlate economic news with my own economic future, I began to recognize that there are significant cracks in this system, and significant holes in the stories that I was told growing up.

One lesson I learned about modern economics is that they are never stable...

We have different currencies, with some financially entrenched to collections of countries (ex. The Euro).

We have different growth rates, based on a massive array of economic indicators (ex. Unemployment rate, interest rates, population growth rates etc.. )

We have different economic structures. Some countries are rich in oil commodities, some countries are dominated by financial innovation. Inequality of economic standing among nations is very dependent on the amount of resources a country has to offer the world.

We have different cultures, with completely different cultural goals. Some cultures are addicted to consumption and mindless monetary accumulation, and some cultures are still largely egalitarian and dependent on the community for survival.

I could go on for days.

Now take these widely varied national characteristics and try to combine them into one working system. I think it is unbelievable that we have maintained this destructive system for so long. But as mentioned, no economic run is without its fall. This system is unsustainable on almost every level.

If you are a person that has been watching this economic landslide from a distance, I less-than-proudly introduce you to Europe and the troubles of the European Union:

The truth is that Europe is an absolute economic basket case at present moment. The European Union (EU) is incredibly indebted, with the majority of the continent's participating countries already in recession* (Spain, Greece and Italy), with some of the largest EU economies heading there quickly (Germany, France). Additionally, countries such as the UK which chose to opt out of the EU are headed to recession as well as downward pressures are now widely boiling over all over the world.

Countries faring the worst among the web of disarray include Greece and Spain, Greece likely being the worst:

In Greece, talks regarding debt solutions have stalled. This is devastating, as a failure to reach a deal will likely lead to a full-blown default. Here are some additional indicators Greece is coming apart at the seams:
- Unemployment sitting at 18.2%.
- Stock market value has dropped over 80% in just the past two years.
- During the same period, consumer confidence has understandably plunged.
- Greece's debt to GDP ratio is over 160%. That means Greece has more total public debt debt than it's government can make in revenues on a yearly basis...
- On February 13th, 2012 Greece received another bailout. It is not stimulus, it is simply a debt restructuring that is completely conditional. Greece must pass all the reforms its creditors demand to receive the money and avoid default. The night before, riots in Athens erupted.
- There is much talk of a second bailout, and Germany has already approved it despite deep opposition from German citizens. Remember, these bailouts are not solutions to any of Greece's issues, they are simply measures to which Greece can avoid outright disorderly bankruptcy for perhaps another year.

Yes, Greece is in the verge of going bankrupt, and massive civil unrest surely to follow...

Spain is not fairing much better:
- Already braced with austerity measures, Spaniards are set for more degrading social conditions as the government reported huge shortfalls on deficit targets.
- Unemployment is at an unbelievable 22.9%.
- Industrial output took a nosedive, falling by 7%. Economically speaking, 7% is a huge drop in volume.
- Youth unemployment at 46% (as of November 2011). In fact, the problem of youth unemployment spans across Europe.

Other countries with notably nasty economic situations include Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Scotland... well, to be honest, every EU country is at risk...

And when we remember that the EU economy is actually quite a bit larger than that of the US, it is absolutely true that severe troubles for Europe equal severe dilemmas and pressures for the rest of the planet.

On September 15th, 2008, the collapse of one of the worlds largest financial services companies (Lehman Brothers) effectively created a negative economic domino effect, nearly bringing down the entire global financial system to it's knees. Just one bankruptcy of one company did this... what happens when entire collections of countries begin to go bankrupt?

Europe has actually already claimed it's first major victim, as holdings company MF Global recently filed for bankruptcy after concerns over its exposure to European debt caused a breakdown in business, in this case it was a "severe cash crunch".

MF Global is facing massive lawsuits from investors and shareholders looking to recover cash... cash that doesn't actually exist. It is the way value works, the market determines it. And unfortunately, the market doesn't care what you have to say unless you plan to throw billions at it.

There has already been bailouts of European countries as well, which did not have any luck. Many economic analysts predicted this. They knew that you cannot solve a problem by throwing money at it. Bailouts are not a recipe for recovery, they are most often signals of already defeated and broken economies on the brink of collapse.

And interestingly, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) just had it's credit rating downgraded.  The EFSF is also known as the EU bailout fund. Yes, even the agencies whose job is to improve economic conditions for other countries by making cheap loans to it are falling victim to credit downgrades.

It has gotten so desperate in Europe that the G20 is considering injecting 2 TRILLION DOLLARS into the European financial system. If all the other bailouts weren't enough...

It should be obvious that these constant bailouts are not the solution, they never have been unless they are huge enough to spur economic growth. And not even $2,000,000,000,000 is enough to restore the broken system in Europe.

Keep an eye on Europe. It is facing massive citizen protests within nearly every member country, with the protests becoming more and more pronounced the more governments keep throwing away the people's money without addressing the root causes of such an interconnected and catastrophic crisis.

Remember Canada, our economic system is dependent on others. The head of Bank Of Canada has already warned us that the situation in Europe is critical for Canadian economic growth... and subsequently economic prosperity as a whole. Our unemployment rate has been rising for several months now... and European collapse would only make that worse.






Europe DOES matter.


"We are on the verge of an economic collapse which starts, let's say, in Greece. The financial system remains extremely vulnerable" - Billionaire Investor George Soros




Written by Shelby Bouchard
Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical

A Fair World: The Big Picture

In this life, nature is our greatest dictator. When we cause adverse harm to our earth, the impending harm reacts within a cyclical feedback system. Our interdependence with the environment in which we live is important to understand if we are to come in harmony with it; that is, if the eventual goal is a harmonious relationship with the living environment. The same can be said for the relationships among the human race: the fact that we are interdependent on each other, and that negative relations do cause lasting and systemic ripples throughout the socio-economic system we have constructed.

Living in the western world, we have been culturally bred to accept the paradigm that we are living in. Most of us have stakes in it, and most are admittedly satisfied by the system. I would contend that the reason people are so satisfied is because they don't know what they're missing, but that's another argument.... The notion I'm going to challenge is the one claiming the present state of world affairs in it's entirety is fair. I will evaluate it's prevalence of fairness based on the generalized definition of fairness (as stated on dictionary.com): 

Fairness: the state, condition, or quality of being fair, or free from bias or injustice; evenhandedness. 

To start, I'll address economic inequality. I've harped about this topic many times, but it is only appropriate to do so as the topic and economic inequality are very much connected. It is important to understand that with an inequality of money, coupled with the fact that it takes money to buy virtually all of the fundamental human needs, social inequality is imminent:

- There are 137,000 children in British Columbia alone who are living below the poverty line. That's 16% of BC's children, and the rate is rising. Not surprisingly, the inequality of income in British Columbia has also been growing. 

- 49 million people in the United States have been deemed poor. Now check out this chart demonstrating the increasing income inequality in the United States: 

Yes, we can admit that a good number of us still live decent lives, with the ability to at least provide for our human needs. And although we must realize that the number of social disparities and potential economic downward risks in developed nations is growing, understanding the atrocious state of socio-economic fairness in developing countries is useful for understanding fairness at a global level:

- In Africa, 1 in 2 people live on less than a dollar a day. Additionally, 33% suffer from malnutrition, with less than 50% having access to adequate medical care. This is compounded by a host of other disparities. 

- With a population of 1.3 billion, 85% of people live on less than $2 per day  in South East Asia.

- In Latin America, the richest tenth of inhabitants own 48% of the wealth. The bottom tenth own just 1.6% of the wealth.

If we want a fair world, doesn't it make sense to have a discussion about income and general wealth inequality? As discussed in previous articles, the environments in which we are raised have a huge impact on the shaping of psychological function and personality. If people are born into adverse social environments, can you expect anything else other than less chance of measurable success? This is the basis of inequality. Our media hardly reports it. I never remember hearing about income inequality growing up, I just assumed that rich people were either more brilliant academically or just worked unnaturally hard. This is far from the truth though. The truth is that it becomes easier to accumulate wealth as you get more of it.

For example:

Let's take someone coming out of high school, with assets totalling 5,000 dollars. We will compare it to someone with assets of 500,000 dollars. And then we will compare it to someone with assets totalling 5,000,000 dollars.

High schooler, or recent graduate. (Income, roughly 1,000/month, assets: 5,000). Options for making money immediately:
- Go to school, in hopes that there will actually be jobs when you finish.
- Start up a business by selling a given product (requiring a business loan with a limit of no more than 10,000 dollars, assumably with an interest rate far exceeding the average. This is due to the lack of credit worthiness the high-school person has, as well as the limited amounts of assets they have in case they fail to repay the loan)
- Take up a trade. Make pretty decent money doing a job you will likely come to hate.
- Become a wage slave in the service industry, slowly climbing a corporate ladder only to have your social services cut in the name of austerity while your wage continues to stagnate.

Middle class person (Income: roughly 4,500/month, assets: 500,000) Options for making money immediately:
- Assuming there is equity in your home, downsizing in an upwards market can open up some very profitable opportunities.
- Purchasing an established local business. Using the credit worthiness built up over 10+ years of paying bills, as well as the collateral from assets they own, the bank can grant a loan. The loan limits would far exceed the limits of a high-school kid, without even taking into account the actual feasibility of that business venture in the given market.
- Invest in the stock market/bond market/bullion market. Using either savings from your career or a low-interest loan from the bank, these ventures can provide to be very lucrative. The more you put in smartly, obvious the more you can multiply your earnings.
- If this person is a business owner, they can consider cutting a certain portion of staff to immediately cut operations cost. While in a position of financial power, and being on the leading end of employment, this gives the employer the complete control over employment in the workplace.

Upper class person (Income: Roughly 450,00/month, assets: well over 50 million). Options for making money immediately:
- Ability to pay off a mortgage much much easier. We have to realize that the gap between middle class and upper class wealth is vastly larger than the gap between middle of the road and top of the line real estate prices.  Much of the wealthy class has the ability to pay off a mortgage in a matter of months, weeks, and sometimes even days. When we consider that Jon Paulson made millions everyday from 2007 onwards, the staggering ability of the rich to be able to pay off their personal debts becomes more obvious and clear.
- Buy up, or buy out companies/corporations.
- Engage in tax evasion. This is often done illegally, but also in many ways legally.
- Invest in real estate, nationally or internationally. Start-up costs for real-estate are often pennies for investors with such deep pockets.
- Buy up local media sources to perpetuate your agenda to society, therefore increasing the chances of socio-economic circumstances being tipped in your favour.
- Become a politician, where you can easily gain support as long as you have businesses willing to fund your cause. (With the often less heard part where that company can make millions or billions  off of you).With this method, you also gain celebrity status... so long as you can hold your own in some Fox News debates or interviews.
- If successful in the financial or business industries, advisor positions are readily available at massive arrays of firms looking for insight. These positions can be very lucrative.
- Invest heavily in human needs related industries, whereby the demand for business is almost guaranteed.

As you can see, there is no actual "fairness" within this type of social model. Fairness is to begin on a level playing field, or at least a somewhat level one... I realize there are many more money-making opportunities for each class that I missed, with generalization inevitable in this type of analysis... but you see my point. The precondition of having money immediately gives you an advantage over someone who doesn't. That is fact.

And when we take a look at inequality rates, in correlation with the obscene and very real circumstance of varying social mobility, we further realize that this world is far from fair.

Fairness to me, is not a world where 1% of the population can control 40% of the wealth.

Fairness to me, is not a world where the politicians that are supposed to represent all of us can be bought and sold by elites who can afford to lobby them.

Fairness to me, is not a world where populations can be effectively discontented, disgraced, and assimilated like the Natives in Canada, or the Palestinians by Isreali security forces (Israel happens to be supported by the US, Canada, as well as several other large industrial nations), or even African-Americans in the US, who face tremendous inequality after several severe financial crises.

Fairness to me, is not a world where we still have homeless people. We have all the means of providing human needs to every single human being on this planet, we have just created a system that bleeds inequality and has created social mechanisms/institutions that justify this kind of moral brutality and stupidity. In fact, the cost of all the destruction created by countries involved in World War 2 could have easily provided for every single human need for every single person in the world. The capitalist system of today is the most wasteful of any system in history, yet we try to pretend that we effectively and morally allocate appropriate amount of goods to the appropriate people. This purely political mind-frame MUST stop if we are to constructively deal with human scarcity.

Fairness to me, is not a world where our food supply is threatened by money hungry corporations.

Fairness to me, is not a world where even our water supply is monopolised and profited from...

I think it would be tremendously difficult to make an argument that this world is fair, and able to be effectively and humanely utilized by all beings, regardless of colour, ethnicity, geographical location, or wealth.







We are lying to ourselves if we think this world is collectively doing a good job. It would take a very distorted view of "good job" to believe we are achieving it. It is easier however, which is the reason we engage in it so relentlessly now without thinking about the social effects which result from our everyday actions and ambitions.

We have become disconnected with the humans in which we share this earth with. Animals of the same race tend to band together, in hopes of creating unity and consequentially, strength and power through numbers rather than socially constructed instruments such as money. We have lost our sense of love towards each other...

But fairness; whether it be by mutual respect or mutual work, coincides with love...

 For love is the foundation for all that is fair.


"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that" - Joseph Campbell

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity" - Albert Einstein

Written by Shelby Bouchard

Follow me on twitter: @SBtheradical

Influence: Becoming Products of Environment

Assumptions tend to eat away at the negative end of my psyche, so I thought I would address a common theme I find among some of the most false statements present in our society. They have to do with influence and the social environment. I'm talking about statements such as these:

- "That person is lazy, that's why they're homeless. Being homeless is a choice"

- "Everyone has equal opportunity to make money as long as you work hard"

To begin to break down the connection I'm going to try and establish to you, we must first understand that influences play a unique roll in our social lives. Unfortunately, we have forgotten that influence stems further than most people believe. The importance that influence has on our psychological development is unprecedented, and this must be realized and applied to social environment study in order to really understand the state of our social well-being.

Keep in mind this is a complex and multi-faceted psychological concept, and fully explaining it is impossible within the confines of a blog post. But here it goes:

In accordance with the first irritating comment listed above: Our ability to respond to influence begins as soon as we have an environment. For example, a mother who drinks during pregnancy will often cause the baby to develop Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This view is widely accepted and justly so by the vast majority of health professionals. It makes sense, as the environment of the baby is affected by a type of chemical invader, a reaction to that invader is imminent. The same is true with stress. Developmental biology in the past few years has been continually dismantling the assumption that genetics are the root cause of complex conditions such as stress and mood disorders. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurological Sciences at Stanford University, has stated that "it is virtually impossible to understand how biology works outside the context of environment". What he means by this is that our psychological development, a prime example of biological function, is subject to environment above all else. This notion already places common assumptions of homelessness on a path of falsity.

Dr. Gabor Mate, a preventative care specialist who works with the hardcore addicts of East side Vancouver, has also released several resources indicating that homelessness is not genetically determined or born out of laziness, but the result of severe mental and/or physical abuse stemming from childhood. This also apparently is why drug use is prevalent among people who are so stressed or emotionally scarred, because the drugs properties are what the user has been seeking. It is a sort of safe haven, an escape from a painful reality.

And even with will-power, escape from addiction is not as simple as much of the public unfortunately believes. In fact, the American Society of Addiction Medicine released a new definition of addiction, whereby addiction is treated as a "chronic brain disorder" rather than a "behavioural problem involving too much alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex".

You will find no peer-reviewed scientific study that indicates laziness or behavioural issues as causative in any kind of addiction. Rather, behaviour is either learned through environment or the result of mental deficiencies in the social environment.

A way that I was explained addiction which is easy to understand:

The great British child psychiatrist (as cited by Dr. Gabor Mate) said that fundamentally two things can go wrong during childhood:

1. When things happen that shouldn't happen. This includes things such as trauma, abandonment, abuse etc.

2.  When things that should happen, do not. This refers to the absence of positive developmental stimulus such as an emotionally available parent. This is also known as proximal abandonment.

Addiction is so much deeper than laziness, it's causes being systemic. We have done ourselves no favours by neglecting the importance of influence on our development as human beings. We forget that human societies have not always been violent, with early egalitarian societies actually having little to no violence due to the strong social cohesion and mutual understanding between them.

Our environment is us, and we are the environment. We create it, we perpetuate it. It is up to us whether we accept environment as a cause of social disconnection, and in doing so decide to recognize and constructively reverse the prevalence of negative social environments. It is then and only then that we might come close to closing the gap on addiction or general social inequality.

To address the second irritating comment: Equal opportunity is the most dumbfounded, inconsiderate, and untrue assumptions in society today. We are not all equal. Inequality is a rampant problem of society and in many complex facets of social functionality. These statistics speak for themselves:

- Canadian aboriginal people are twice as likely to be unemployed than non-aboriginal people.

- The 2008 global recession hit minorities by far the hardest. Blacks and Hispanics lost an average of over 50% of household wealth between 2005-2009, whereas whites lost an average of 16%.

- Toronto unemployment rates are up to six times higher for certain minority groups.

- The global recession wiped out the income gains of the 99%, while the 1% had only half of their gains erased.

And if we are to do comparisons on the basis of developed countries vs developing countries, the comparisons in inequality become exponentially more pronounced and perverse. This world is absolutely riddled with inequality; coast to coast, border to border and nation after nation.

When we consider that human development is in fact a question of environment, is it not safe to say our economic and social inequality is the biggest factor in some of our biggest societal problems?  People often forget that inequality has not always been such a huge problem, as middle class wage rises used to match inflation rises until about 1980. It is our government policy that determines inequality. For example, these types of policies hugely affect inequality rates:

- Tax rates, in all forms (income tax, corporate tax, etc)

- Tax cuts

- Social security

- Health care, either the quality of it or the availability of it.

- Interest rates

- Incarceration rates

- Affordable housing

As you see, all of these policies carry with them the ability to be changed. It is up to us to demand change, and in the process evaluate the ways in which to best allocate money so that a positive social change can take shape sustainably. We must not listen to the elite about which ways to properly allocate money; this is exactly what we shouldn't have done for the last thirty years but did. The ruling class have effectively gutted populations, forcing debt upon them until they cannot afford to consume more than what they need. With an economy whose life-blood is consumption, the premise of austerity is weak in theory and in practice. Cutting deficits most often means cutting jobs and cutting social services, both in Government and in the private sector

This is the reason why Bank of America cut 30,000 jobs recently.

This is the reason why MF Global cut 1,000 jobs shortly after it declared bankruptcy.

This is the reason why Europe is consumed by social unrest; as a result of broad-based austerity cuts in social services.

This is the reason why even cops are willing to stand up with Occupy protesters...

We have for too long believed that addiction and inequality is a cause of defective personality, rather than accept the truth: Addiction and joblessness is systemic, not genetically or behaviourally determined. The only way to talk about human nature concretely is to also recognize that we as humans have certain human needs. We are born with good traits when those needs are met, and born with a different and likely negative traits if those needs are not met. One only has to analyse the poor state of economic function in correlation with social condition to recognize that behaviour is socialized; subject to environmental influence.

We have been pointing our fingers at the wrong source, and raising our voices to the wrong people. Poverty is a by-product of the system, a result of poor economic planning which never seems to be in accordance with social worth as a measure of efficacy. It does nothing to dismiss poverty as unchangeable, because that view is scientifically invalid. We can change it, but only if we try; which we haven't done, as far as I can remember. At least not effectively. So let's talk about it, address ways in which people can feel socialized, and feel like there is a tomorrow. By closing the door on the future, we have been oppressing progressiveness and justifying it all at the same time. We can do better.

"Poverty is the worst form of violence" - Mohandas Ghandi

Written by: Shelby Bouchard

Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical

Harper's Crime Bill: Ideological Insanity

      Stephen Harper, just months into his term as Canadian Prime Minister after winning a majority Government, has already begun to make headway in the business of dismantling the social structure; which seems to be a recurrent theme among Neo-Conservative Government legislation. The working theory is that if you spend money creating prison space coupled with the resources to fill that space, safer streets will be the result. And in a perfect world of equal opportunity, that theory might actually have some applicable merit. But our world is not fair, as anybody with a computer, a search engine preference and some time can figure out. Our world is riddled with generationally systemic inequality, both economically and socially (actually the two most often take shape in some type of unison). Behaviour is learned, as environment shapes personality and the prevailing culture. Inequality is already established, and there is not much hope in sight of our politicians taking drastic enough measures to try and combat it.

      The Harper omnibus crime bill is a pervasive example of Governments inability to address the real problems in society, instead pushing ahead with band-aid measures that have already been proven ineffective and actually counter-productive in many cases. The omnibus bill combines 9 different crime legislation sections into one bill, for which Marijuana crimes are treated as more offensive to public safety than child rapists. Yes, a marijuana grower will face more jail time than a child rapist under this bill. Other examples of measures planned to be implemented under this bill are:

- Implementation of mandatory minimum sentences

- An ending to various conditional sentences, including property crime and serious crimes.

- Ending early release for many types of criminals

      The bill is pretty much guaranteed to be passed by parliament. The costs have not yet even been finalized, however estimates are very high, with much of the financial burden being placed on provincial governments. Harper has also said that the provinces will be constitutionally required to implement the bill's measures when it receives royal assent.

      If there is one thing to understand in this article, it is that policies focused around locking people up do not increase public safety. This has been proven again, and again and again.

      If it did, the United States would have the safest streets in the world....

      With less than 5% of the worlds population, the United States claims almost 25% of the worlds prisoners. In August of this year, US prison population topped 2.4 million people. Yet the US still continues to struggle with a stubbornly high crime rate among industrialized nations.

      Even Texas Conservatives are telling us that this "tough on crime" approach will not work. Texas, as well as various other states have already tried this approach, with a failure in result always prevailing. What a responsible Prime Minister we have, one that rejects statistical and anecdotal evidence when making decisions with his cabinet members. Can this really be supported? I think that argument would be incredibly difficult to make.

      The truth is that this move is ideological. It is not grounded in evidence or fact, nor does it have to be. Government talk has always been comprised of several cause and effect statements, most often without the knowledge or any kind of evidence to support that position. One only has to watch a Government sponsored commercial, or watch some snippets of mainstream news, to understand that government leaders do not need evidence or expertise in any kind of field to get their correlating policy objectives to resonate in the minds of the public. They need a good smile, a simple cause and effect statement, and some candour driven dialogue to finish.

      Harper is not going to be convinced. He has his own agenda, and it unfortunately does not include social health or safety. The fact is that this crime bill is rooted in neo-conservative doctrine, whereby the economic benefits of imprisonment are far more important than taking a step back and addressing the human disparities  and their systemic creators that cause crime in the first place. How effective is a solution that doesn't actually solve what it set out to solve? This crime bill is a war on the public, used to increase employment and financial gain in the economic landscape of prison construction. It targets the vulnerable without addressing the causes of that targeted offence. It is like finding a rotten apple on your bedroom floor, and instead of addressing where it came from or taking it somewhere where it needs to be, just throwing it under your bed. The stench persists, the problem still prevalent. Same goes with this crime bill, it solves nothing.

      Harpers crime bill is an economic jump-starter disguised as a triumph in public safety.

      Yeah a positive economic boost could positively affect society. No doubt. Employment in corrections and construction will skyrocket, providing a standard of living for those who are awarded jobs.

      This is only one dimension of the discussion, however.

      For example: Say I go down the street and break every single window in sight as well as damage doors, locks, and other private property. Now think about what happens thereafter. The economic multiplier begins to accelerate. Window companies are praising me, for they gained much business repairing windows. Door companies as well as their tertiary counter-parts gain business to replace doors, with locksmiths experiencing a mini-boom for the week(s) after the incident. Oil companies gain business from the gas it took to both drive to the site of damage, as well as the operation of the various machinery types used to repair my damage.           Food companies in the area would likely experience an increase in sails, as the numerous amounts of workers in the area require food energy to keep working. Let's be honest, not everybody brings their own lunch to work...

      At first glance, I could be hailed as a local business hero.

      But then real questions become: At what cost did my decision have on everybody else. Did I really do good? For all the companies I helped, how many did I hurt? How many assets did I unknowingly steal from insurance companies hit with large pay-outs? And the businesses I hit, how did it affect their profits?

      As demonstrated, we must be careful how we measure our leaders political decisions. Especially when it involves the social environment.

      There is no evidence that this crime bill will positively affect public safety, which is the primary claimed reason this bill is being pushed through in the first place. We must see it for what it is. It is a war on the people, for economic benefit. The recurrence of government sponsored P3 projects in Canada suggest to me that Harper will do his best to push privatization of these services on the people as well. Just another ideological policy goal common among neo-conservatives. We should be especially wary about the possibility of a private prison system, for it to has it's various examples of negative social effects.

      The Conservative Government has even rejected the consideration of mental illness when sentencing individuals.

       This is a warning to the people. Do not let this government fool you into thinking spending billions on space for criminals will deter crime in any meaningful way. Just another example of the stupidity of this bill lies in the fact that the crime rate in Canada has been falling for decades, with it falling to the lowest rate since 1973 this year. Our media's effect on portraying a more dangerous society even when there isn't one, is a different story entirely, and has it's place in another article. But the facts speak for themselves:

      This bill is destructive, demonstrably counter-effective, and an ideological war on the citizens of the Canada. It is an insane attempt to replicate the already tried-and-failed policies of our neighbours to the south, with the burden of failure surely to be placed on us. We are wasting our time building prisons, as rehabilitation and social improvement policies are really the types of policies we should be exploring; that is, if our goal is to actually address the causes of crime and genuinely take steps toward preventing it.

"If passed, C-10 will take Canadian justice policies 180 degrees in the wrong direction, and Canadian citizens will bear the costs" - Tracy Velazquez, executive director of the Washington-based Justice Policy institute.


Written by: Shelby Bouchard
Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical

The Money System: Perpetual Debt, Inevitable Struggle.

      Money is unreal. Few know that money is actually an imaginary concept. Currency is the symbol of non-existent money; the physical representation of a certain denomination based off the inherent value of goods or financial instruments. The denominations and their value are not fixed, they are variable. The value of money is always changing.

      Why?

      If money accumulation is the basis of societal success, which by capitalist definition it more or less is, then why is the currency system we have created so unstable and not predetermined, with the rules of monetary change being well known to the public? Unfortunately, money and currency are foreign terms to most people. Yes, most if not all will understand what we can do with money, and how much we need to do certain things, or how much we need to survive... but the bigger questions regarding money and currency have been hidden from the vast majority of society. I believe understanding the basis of money creation and currency circulation is a fundamental key to understanding the destructive nature of the economic paradigm that we are living in. I will try to the best of my ability to answer certain types of questions, the ones that very few of us think about on a daily basis; or even at all. Such questions include:

- What is money really?

- Who has the legal rights to create and/or distribute money?

- Where does interest come from? and why does it go hand in hand with perpetual debt?

- Lastly, and most importantly: Can world debt ever be paid off?

      So here we go...

      It is very important to understand that money, as it exists today, is merely an economic tool of measurement. The human race has not always had money, therefore you must immediately release your mind from any type of presupposition that money is a fixed part of socio-economic life. That is simply wrong. Human beings have created the money system, just like we have created political parties, nations, and ideologies. Therefore, it should be fair to criticise the ways in which money is used in hopes of inspiring a change for the better if there is a disparity (and there is).

      Money is not real. It is created. Currency is real in terms of its physical existence, but it is representing something false = money.

      Money is your chequeing account balance, or your savings account balance. That is your legal share of money.

      Currency are the Dollars, Euros, or Yen that are created to represent money. They are merely symbols. This is also known as "fiat currency".

      So where does it come from? As mentioned, it is created. But not everyone is allowed to create money, that duty is reserved legally for certain institutions. In Canada, the Bank of Canada is legally allowed to print currency and create money by placing a line in a ledger. It is a crown corporation that works in unison with the Federal Government (well, it is technically owned by the government), who is largely in charge of the distribution of that money (government funding ring a bell?). Our chartered banks can also create money, examples of chartered banks include Royal Bank and TD bank. In the United States, the country with the highest rate of currency creation, it is the Federal Reserve that carries these rights. And as crazy as it sounds, the Federal Reserve is a private corporation. Yes, the currency that circulates throughout American society is distributed solely by a private entity.

      Money creation is also called "fractional reserve banking". It goes something like this: You walk up to the bank to get a mortgage. The bank grants you the mortgage at a fixed or variable interest rate. Now keep in mind a bank will have Less than 1% of their asset base in currency reserves. The mortgage money is created by putting a line in a ledger, an exercise of legal money creation. So they gain your business because you are stuck in a 25+ year interest payment schedule, which means their asset base rises. This is how banks grow in terms of their assets, one of the most common measures of financial health for a financial institution. The bank themselves actually carry very little currency as compared to what their asset base is.

      Have you identified this problem?

      Here's an example of the craziness of this system...

      As most should know now, the economy is in very rough shape. Unemployment is stagnant or rising, stock market falling month over month, and buying power being lessened . It is very likely we are going to experience a financial collapse, with a run on the banks inevitable when that happens. It is what happened during the Stock Market collapse of 1929. What this means is that people will be frantically trying to pull their funds out of the banks in an understandable move of financial protection. As companies and currencies alike lose value, it is a necessary protection. But because banks only carry a very small amount of the assets that they claim to have, it will be literally impossible for the banks to return the savings of millions of people, for that currency does not exist.

      Banks make their money off of interest payments. Interest is the money that is created out of thin air when you sign a type of loan contract.Think about it, interest is not tangible. It cannot be held in your hands, it cannot be used to produce goods. It is simply a number, ones that represents value but does not physically exist. And since money is created when you oblige to go into debt because of interest payments, it is important to note what this really entails:

      Money IS debt.

      Money is created, and always with the interest payment attached. Us as citizens are forced to go into debt if we are to afford the luxuries that this economic paradigm calls for. When we buy a car, we owe interest. When we buy a house, we owe interest. Almost any type of payment contract we sign nowadays comes with an inevitable interest payment. It has become normalized that we must go into debt to afford such luxuries, since interest is attached to the contract. Same goes with governments to banks, there is always an interest charge attached. It is the reason every single country on this planet is saturated in debt.

      And it is also the reason why debt will never be conquered, no matter how much our politicians promise to make this possible. This is because our systems of money creation are rigged for the upper class, whereby money is created out of thin air to act as a type of condition for us to have any type of measurable wealth. The middle class cannot engage in this large-scale money making scheme, because a) we don't have the asset base or the legal rights to create an asset base like our government and chartered banks do, and b) much of the middle class is too busy paying off outstanding debts anyway. As long as there is interest is attached to the creation of money, we will never solve the global debt problems and we will always struggle to slow down global inequality.

       It is disheartening to see governments engage in name-calling and debate false solutions such as austerity (cut-backs in government expenditures designed to decrease fiscal deficits), when the real problem lies within the very system the government operates within. It is mathematically impossible to pay off debt with the way that we tie interest to money creation. These next figures should make you worried.

- Canadian citizens cumulatively have over $1.5 trillion in household debt. We also have an ever-growing national debt.

- The United States debt load just exceeded $15 trillion. The debt level now exceeds United States GDP.

- Greece's external debt load was 128% of it's GDP as of 2009. Greece is not alone, other countries with enormous debts include Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Europe is in a serious debt crisis.

      Do these figures not speak for themselves? These types of debt levels are not sustainable. However, they are perpetual because of the way that we create money and print out fiat currency. Our financial institutions did their part in wreaking havoc on world markets which lead to the 2008 recession, by way of irresponsible lending practices and a massive housing bubble. It is true that with financial regulation and a government that actually placed human needs first, we could be living in a much more caring and plentiful world. However, debt issues will always need to be addressed down the road. No debt can grow forever, so long as different currencies are tied to the same financial system.

      Money has become the centre-piece of a very broken and disconnected global community. Finance has become one of the worlds biggest businesses. The worlds biggest company is a financial institution (JP Morgan Chase). The trading of money to get more money is the cause of financial instability, financial bubbles, and eventual financial collapses. Deregulation of finance has rendered the global economy unstable; and that's putting it lightly. But the trading of money has no connection to social progress, because human needs is not in the lexicon of determining a successful company for an unsuccessful one. The money sequence of value has trumped the life sequence of value, whereby success is a term that is now culturally synonymous with money accumulation. It is a fundamental disconnection with human life, one that is so seldom realized and reflected upon.

      "I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people." - Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924.

Written by Shelby Bouchard
Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical

Gentrification In Vancouver

Occupy Vancouver
Affordable Housing March
November 12th, 2011

Being at Occupy Vancouver a couple times already, once being overnight, I knew for the most part what to expect. And for the most part, much was unchanged in terms of functionality. The community feel was still withstanding the societal anxiety and tensions caused by poor regional reporters, always keeping in mind the fight was meant to be for the 99%: with those placing blame for the moment being included in this demographic. The fight is in the hearts of those involved and there is no doubt that conviction for change has not changed.

One thing I've noticed about Occupy Vancouver is that every single trip there offers a lesson or educational experience. Personal speeches by locals signify the struggles we collectively recognize, and lectures by intellectuals of local status anecdotally examine and reinforce the values we fight for. What I had not yet experienced was the power of a sentimentally united march. The topic of the day was affordable housing, an issue connected socio-economically with the concept of gentrification.

I had little knowledge about affordable housing conceptually, well, I suppose I still do. I had researched gentrification briefly after hearing the term in an Immortal Technique song entitled "Harlem Streets". The lyrics of note are still stained in my memory:

"And fuck flossin', mothers are trying to feed children
But gentrification is kickin' them outta they building
A generation of babies, born without healthcare
Families homeless, thrown the fuck off the welfare"

I found many resources related to these words, and came to find out that Harlem is a brutally distinguished symbol of gentrification. It is an unsettling reminder that our society is riddled with inequality, with the brute end of that manifesting itself in concentrated levels in particular social niches, such as Harlem, New York. Rich man's attempt to restore neighbourhoods by developing them has rendered many homeless, and many displaced. Economic measures often indicate social progress, but that is measured merely by economic output. Social health indicators such as homeless rates, are often left out giving us a false sense of social cohesion and progressiveness. Low-income individuals get left out of the discussion, as developers take centre stage on the evening news after another "lucrative property acquisition".

I was much less aware of the fact that Vancouver's low-income population has fallen victim to the same type of property manipulation.

During the march we stopped at various locations to carry out planned activities and speeches. We occupied intersections, and at one near the waterfront we heard a speech of support by running mayoral candidate Randy Helten. From there we trekked into the Woodward building, a once occupied site of protest that I had absolutely no knowledge of. Inside we congregated, in circles or in crowds. Several people spoke of their struggle, highlighting their connection or knowledge to the Woodward complex and its less than progressive history. I was touched by the speeches of those who struggled to find affordable housing as Woodward was being sold off to real estate companies, reducing low income dwellings and making them more expensive all at the same time. The words shared represented the negative social consequences of gentrification, a process of destroying opportunistic equality in regards to housing while investors continue to convert living space into luxurious living space; profit being the highest order of concern, obviously.

It has been said that real-estate is Vancouver's own type of Wall Street, where developers are given more than generous opportunity by our elected leaders to take affordable living space and transform it into space reserved for elites. Of course Wall Street uses financial trading as a means of increasing inequality on all levels, but the corporate parallel is what should be noted as a comparative means of observing greed as it continues to degrade social health.

The fact that the condo developments at the Athletes Village are STILL not sold is an indication that we should not be encouraging the continual upgrading of a city to the point where costs begin to rise beyond our means to afford our necessities. We are slowly but surely following the socio-economic trajectory of our neighbours to the south: social stratification through economic inequality. It is true that societies with higher levels of economic inequality also have higher crime rates, lower literacy rates, etc.. the magnitude of the effects caused by inequality are evidentially proven and documented by a vast array of intellectuals and academics. A simple google search would likely render you countless results.

Profit over people is a common thematic vantage point for the "Occupy" movement to criticize. The affordable housing debate is a definite example, and as demonstrated in the housing march in Vancouver it becomes easier to see that the lower income people of Vancouver are in fact at a disadvantage when it comes to housing.

The working poor need a place in the discussion, and one that isn't moderated by business interests. Vancouver's homelessness rate is stubbornly high and it is my contention that this is largely due to the real-estate plunders of short sighted local and provincial governments. Money should be taken out of the equation, with social needs replacing it as a focal point of policy validation.

Kids are taught to help each other, forgive each other. It is a lesson that we seem to fail at withholding as time ticks away, along the way forgetting that humanity comes first.  We're stuck in a value system double standard and it needs to be changed.

Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical

Addiction: It's Everywhere

    Sabotage is expected from the opposition of the occupy movement, however I must address one form right now. That is the issue of addiction which has been used politically to discredit the movement altogether. For example, A woman at Occupy Vancouver recently died of a drug overdose. Instead of our local newspapers reporting on the tragedy for what it is worth, and perhaps shedding light on the causes of this type of tragedy, the news teams decided to use the death as a means of trying to discredit the occupation and dismiss it as "out of hand" and "unsafe". I have yet to find a person opposing the movement who has a logical explanation for this death somehow undermining the movement. The premise would be hard to make, as it is, and it is the reason why ideology in our news has trumped meaningful and accurate reporting. This fear mongering by our major news sources is becoming more and more common as political officials continue to bicker immaturely about solutions to the occupations presence. Presence alone has got people worried and pissed off for no real reasons, while we all continue to ignore the issues actually being put in the spotlight by the occupation.

Anyway, back to addiction. The negative view of addiction as a whole has been perpetuated elsewhere also, my twitter feed was littered with tweets about an occupation that experienced something quite odd. Someone proceeded to dump needles around the perimeter of the property....

Somehow, some people in society have gotten the idea that falsification through drug abuse exposure will be effective. I might remind some people that those on Wall Street are notorious for cocaine use and prostitution. Several elite prostitution rings around New York have come out publicly and stated that a good portion of their business comes from high-ranking banking officials, representing all of the major financial firms. Studies have also come out showing that the chemical reactions in the brain caused by winning monetary reward are the same reactions caused by ingesting cocaine. This explains the cyclical nature of Wall Street drug use. Therapist Jonathan Alpert stated "it is amazing to see how much cocaine these wall streeters can use, and then get up and go to work the next day". Huh, post-binge bankers are responsible for handling and investing my money... that's just fantastic.

We never hear about the drug lawsuits involved on Wall Street, yet we always find a way to blame the homeless for participating in addiction. We forget that addictions take many forms, power and acquisition of wealth both included in this terminology. We see nothing wrong in de-humanizing an addict for a Meth addiction, but forget that this type of addiction is far less reaching socio-economically than say; General Motors cutting jobs in the 80's while posting record profits in attempts to improve their bottom line. Or a tobacco company executive deciding to spend millions more on advertising in attempts that people will buy the product, despite the fact that this will directly contribute to rising death rates and accumulative health problems in society. These addictions, as Dr. Gabor Mate explains (PhD physician who works in preventative care in downtown Vancouver), are rewarded greater despite their exponentially higher level of negative social consequences.

And although I can compare all day, it does not give me the right to falsify character on the basis of addiction, no matter what that addiction is. We are all a product of environment, shaped by the experiences that occur in our lives and also by the people we are surrounded by. Certain emotional responses are in fact there because of another experience, your brain justifying the action with the response. Some are subconscious, some are formed in the rational mind. Whatever the emotional offence, we all have coping mechanisms that accompany our addictions, as well as negative circumstances that always seem to define them. A drug addict, most likely severely emotionally scarred, is coping with the pain by taking a drug that ups the endorphines; These are our "feel good" emotions that occur naturally with proper environmental upbringing. With endorphins lacking, we feel the need to compensate, as it is our minds seeking safe haven. Who are we to judge addictions, when we most of the time have no idea of the circumstances that lead to them? How can we work to rid ourselves of these influences in the most enriching of ways, when we are so fixated on blaming them and simultaneously convincing ourselves that addictions cannot be reversed or prevented.

Addictions can be meaningfully addressed, but only if we recognize that no human is free of environmental influence; negative influence will lead to improper social connections within the brain, and thus a decreased ability to adapt to social conditions that we otherwise could have conquered through perseverance, will-power, or financial opportunity.

Addictions play a critical role in the Occupy movement. It has exposed the fact that addictions are everywhere, and that we tend to vilify the least risky of addictions as the most acute and unchangeable ones. Addiction takes so many forms, and we all experience them. We can only identify them if we mature enough to realize that we have them, and that they became manifest through emotional response to an unfavourable condition.

We MUST address these unfavourable conditions, and attack them at the source rather than try to blame some, and justify others. Housing, preventative care, harm reduction, job opportunity... these are easily implemented steps to reducing the prevalence and occurrence of devastating substance addictions. These types of policies are advocated by protesters adamantly. However, the more powerful of addictions.... power, wealth acquisition, profit margin performance, control... these are built in components to the system that we continue to justify and forget to pay attention to. It is because of this that it does not help to blame individuals in power. They are simply puppets playing their role.

The most negative of addictions have become the most celebrated, and this has to stop. Addiction built into the system has spelled trouble, as was expected. One of the key aspects of addictions is it's negative consequences and denial of them, therefore we must address the negative consequences and identify them as changeable; and ultimately, create solutions that limit our ability to inherit socially devastating addictions.

Prevention is always better than the cure folks.


Follow me on Twitter: @SBtheradical