Category Archives: The Economy

The Recession, oil, prisons, ponzi, gold, straw.

Mordor ON

Posted on February 18, 2013 by

The Ring of Fire. It sounds like something out of a Tolkien novel. Welcome to Mordor Ontario, an area of 5,120 square kilometres in the James Bay watershed chock full of nickel, copper, zinc, gold, palladium and chromium—especially chromium (the … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy, The Environment, Turtle Island | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Nukes in the Bruce: will SW Ontario be the nuclear dumpsite for Canada?

Posted on June 22, 2012 by

At the beginning of everything, the Navajo were shown two yellow powders. One they could use—it was maize pollen. The other they were told to leave in the ground. That was oxidized uranium. No one talks of “clean” nuclear energy … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy, Turtle Island | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Rumpelstiltskin Effect: the consequences of spinning straw into gold

Posted on June 16, 2012 by

Once upon a time in a distant land, a miller boasted to his king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. Intrigued, the king locked her up in a roomful of straw and told her, “If you can spin … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, Satire, The Economy | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Black Gold or Fool’s Gold

Posted on February 9, 2012 by

It was a text-book case of misdirection. Like snake-oil salesmen of old warming up their marks with a shell game, Prime Minister Harper and Joe Oliver accused radical environmental groups of using “foreign money” to “hijack” Canada’s regulatory process on … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ethical Oil is Snake Oil

Posted on December 8, 2011 by

Don’t buy it … Talking about ethical oil is like saying guns don’t kill people. Well they don’t. People kill people. But sometimes they use a gun to do it. Oil isn’t ethical or unethical (unless you add corn … … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, The Economy, Turtle Island | 1 Comment

Before the Revolution

Posted on August 15, 2011 by

On an unseasonably warm September afternoon, a few years before the Revolution, Winston sat in his cubicle on the fifth floor of the Department trying to connect the dots. Connecting dots was not his job. That was the job of … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, Satire, The Economy | Leave a comment

The Conservative Deficit

Posted on April 19, 2011 by

Good Conservative management is an oxymoron … ‘Economist’ is just a Greek word for ‘household manager.’ We all have households of one sort or another. Managing them is not rocket science. You don’t spend money you don’t have (or aren’t … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy | 3 Comments

A modest proposal for creating a growth economy

Posted on March 15, 2011 by

The merits of investing in crime. The G20 have been scratching their heads about how to recover from the Great Recession and create jobs in stalled economies. They could do worse than taking a page from the policy book of … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, Satire, The Economy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The End of Progress 2

Posted on June 25, 2009 by

Everything comes from the land. Everything:  the chair you’re sitting in to read this newspaper, this newspaper, the car or truck that delivered the newspaper, the gas in the car or truck, the computers that automatically typeset the newspaper, the … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy | Leave a comment

The American Dream is a Ponzie Scheme

Posted on April 18, 2009 by

The American Dream is a Ponzi scheme. Or at least that’s how it seems to be playing out these days. “Here,” the banks were telling Americans, “you can have your dream home – the one you saw every week on … Continue reading →

Posted in All Categories, News and politics, The Economy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment