Checking In - 10 December 2022

[dewline]

I'm listening to The House on CBC Radio One this morning as I type this paragraph. Upstairs in the laundry room, I've started cleaning my bedding. I expect that laundry chore to take up most of the waking hours of this morning.

The job search also continues, yes, even on weekends. No, I don't record in my job search diary every single e-mailed job alert I'm subscribed to via the federal job bank, Indeed, Workopolis, Jobillico, assorted private firms and federal agencies. After nine months, I'm already at 250 pages in Apple Numbers-formatted entries in said job search diary, and that would probably triple the number of entries to keep track of. At minimum.

Noting that today is International Human Rights Day. I wish I could donate to organizations I consider worthy of support right now. One more reason why I continue the job search.

Also, it leads to thinking of Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem. Macklem recently made comments to the effect that bringing the inflation rate under control again requires some of us to be unemployed. Or so many of us seem to be reading between his messages' lines at the moment.

Well, now it seems that the Pandemic changed the national conversations about society. Right?

In the first months of the Pandemic, a lot of us found ourselves (staying) out of work whether we liked it or not. Not because of our ability to work, or willingness to work, or lack of either. It happened because working in ways that were "normal" pre-Pandemic had become hazardous to the health of most of us. At least until we figured out masking, vaccines and so on. Unemployment had become a duty to our neighbours and our country/countries instead of a survival problem to be solved.

So, if unemployment can become a duty for reasons of public health and safety - which it had - we had things like the CERB programme and the modified (un)employment insurance programme to help many of us cope with carrying it out. Not everyone who needed that help got it, not everyone who got it needed it. That's being looked into, with varying degrees of good faith depending on which level of government in which part(s) of the country are looking into it.

And now, to deal with the renewed "scourge" of inflation...Macklem argued about a week ago - as I write this - to the effect that some of us were going to have to either become or stay unemployed due to the interest rate hikes he had the Bank of Canada put into place in order to deal with that.

Wonderful.

So here we are. Macklem has, in my opinion, reopened the door about Universal Basic Income as an idea that it's finally time to put into action.

More on this as I get through today, I think.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Macklem has, in my opinion, reopened the door about Universal Basic Income as an idea that it's finally time to put into action.

Hoping.

[extraarcha]

When a problem is identified incorrectly, no "solution" is going to go well.
If things in Canada are similar to here in the states, it's rampant profit gouging that's causing what they're pretending is "inflation."

Long past time to lay off or fire corporations and hugely overpaid CEOs. Also ban "stock options" for any and all corporate officers and senior management.

UBI is going to be necessary as they figure out how more and more jobs are being done by automation. Can the CEOs be replaced by machines? It WILL happen, sooner or later. And machines won't need stock options.
LMAO.

[mellowtigger]

it's rampant profit gouging that's causing what they're pretending is "inflation."

Yes, this. Which means the traditional means of addressing the traditional problem will not work. In fact, they might make it worse. It's been said for over a year already, so I don't know what will change our system. Robert Reich proposes a few things, but as usual I have zero confidence that Democrats (and certainly not Republicans) will work hard to implement any of them. Onward toward civil war and systems collapse, I guess.

[dewline]

I suspect that things are similar enough between Canada and the States, given the integration of our respective economies that's been promoted over the decades, from World War II onward.

[extraarcha]

#smile
Although i admit i'm not all that good at it, i was trying to be tactful. Living north of Canada (ok, in Michigan where, yes, some of Canada is south of here), i'm very often watching events in Canada.

[sabotabby]

The issue with inflation is that its causes are somewhat magical and divorced from reality, and the solutions entirely depend on who you ideologically believe should pay for it. There is one correct answer to this, and the other answer leads to a much worse economy. But they always pick that one.

[extraarcha]

. . . There is one correct answer to this, and the other answer leads to a much worse economy.
Would you please specify those two things? I tend to suspect that, maybe one or more 'good' approaches exist and lots of poor or bad ones do. I agree that they seem to opt for bad ones almost without fail.

[sabotabby]

Either working people pay for it or the rich pay for it. Probably there are multiple ways to make the rich pay for it. But our leaders are uninterested in any of those.