Occupy Movement – The Progressive Economics Forum

Why The Income Inequality Deniers Are Wrong

December 21, 2012 Armine Yalnizyan One comment

This article was published in an abridged form today in the National Post.Â http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/21/armine-yalnizyan-sorry-andrew-coyne-but-income-inequality-is-a-real-problem/ Â I like this opening better so I posted it here. You couldn’t have made it through 2012 without running into a story about income inequality. Â Chances are, it made you think about how you fit into the story.Â That’s “entirely constructive”, as Bank of Canada Governor […]

The Quebec Student Protests: ‘Going International’

April 28, 2012 Nick Falvo Leave a comment

A recent article by Stefani Forster, of the Canadian Press, suggests that the Quebec student protests may be starting a larger social movement outside of Quebec. According to the article: In the last few days, Quebec’s student protests have received coverage in French news outlets like Le Monde and Agence France-Presse, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in the U.S., […]

New Generation of Thinkers Link Inequality, Innovation and Prosperity

February 26, 2012 Armine Yalnizyan 25 comments

(This guest blog was written by Mike Marin and Anouk Dey. It originally appeared in the Toronto Star on February 24. The authors are part of a team that produced the report Prospering Together (in English http://bit.ly/z4GQx5Â and in French http://bit.ly/yabiK2) What do the Occupy Movement and Canadian software giant OpenText have in common? Most people, including the campers and […]

We Are The Many

November 20, 2011 Marc Lee Leave a comment

By now, you’ve probably heard about the artist Makana, who played We Are The ManyÂ to a room full of the handmaidens of the 1% (politicians), most of whom did not notice. It is a lovely song, and not to hard to play. Here are the lyrics and my version of the chords (based on this version). He plays it with […]

Challenging capitalism: a 12-step program

November 18, 2011 Marc Lee 17 comments

Over a year ago, I posted “What are the Game Changers?“, an attempt at sparking some strategic thinking for the broader left. Now that we’ve had a month of Occupation, building on the original Occupy Wall Street action, I’ve been wanting to put these ideas back on the table, so below I recycle much of that post and update it, […]

What Do Banks Actually DO? Teach-In With Occupy Toronto

November 6, 2011 Jim Stanford 12 comments

What do banks actually DO?Â Create credit out of thin air. Were Canadian banks bailed-out?Â Absolutely, to the tune of $200 billion.Â And they are still protected and subsidized more than any other sector of the economy. What must be done with these banks?Â Tax them, control them, and ultimately take them back. Those are the “take-aways” from a short […]

Occupying the Lange and O’Leary Exchange

November 3, 2011 Armine Yalnizyan 12 comments

Starting today I will be on a regular weekly biz panel for the Lang and Oâ€™Leary show, every Thursday night. The panel will take on two six minute segments to discuss the big economic stories of the day. Todayâ€™s proposed topics â€“ the Eurozone mess, whither Canada’s GDP, is Occupy a media invention/will it hold without media attention, upcoming job […]

Occupation, democracy and coops

October 18, 2011 Marc Lee 2 comments

I hung out a while yesterday at the Vancouver Occupation, and was impressed with their efforts at radical democracy. Many in the mainstream press have been quick to pile on for how time-consuming decision-making can be under this model, but perhaps they have not spent enough time in legislatures and committee meetings and public consultations. Democracy takes time, so what? […]

Occupy Together: It’s About Time!

October 17, 2011 Jim Stanford 8 comments

Here is a Globe and Mail commentary I wrote after attending the wonderful Occupy Toronto protests on the weekend. The media keep going off about how this movement has no “central demand.”Â Go to a Tea Party event in the U.S. and see if you can find “one central demand.”Â That doesn’t stop them from being politically influential.Â Their power […]

Europe, G20 and financial transactions taxes

October 14, 2011 Toby Sanger 6 comments

Thanks mostly to the superb campaigning by international development, poverty and environmental activists, there’s been remarkable progress in getting Europe to introduce financial transactions taxes, aka the Robin Hood Tax. Â Â Last month, the European Commission presented a proposal for a broad-based financial transactions tax in all 27 members states of the European Union. At a rate of 0.1 percent […]

Canada’s Billionaires

October 14, 2011 Jim Stanford 5 comments

Just in time for the â€œOccupy Bay Streetâ€ protest this weekend, Canadian Business magazine has come out with its annual listing of the richest 100 people in Canada.Â So in honour of the protestors and their noble cause (demanding more attention to the 99%, instead of the 1%), letâ€™s peruse together the sordid details of Canadaâ€™s ultra-rich.

Why Are They So Angry at Wall Street?

October 14, 2011 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

Well, we know, but these Charts tell an incredible story. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

First We Take Manhattan….. What Occupy Wall Street Could Mean

October 13, 2011 Armine Yalnizyan One comment

This is not the stuff of usual protests. Over the past month, a little idea from a Vancouver outfit has mushroomed into a cross-continent movement. Occupy Wall Street, kicked off by Adbusters in July and coming to Toronto this weekend, has already spread to 70 American cities and is going global as protestors challenge society to rethink how the economy […]

Why occupy? It’s the inequality.

October 12, 2011 Marc Lee One comment

The Occupy Wall Street protests hinge on injustice, in particular a malaise with the current economic system that has brought us a tremendous inequality and the rise of the super-rich, or top 1%. But surely that isÂ just the US? Alas, no. The figure below shows the change in BC labour income (wages and salaries) and corporate profits (before tax) going […]

Occupy Wall Street

October 6, 2011 Ellen Russell 4 comments

In search of some background on the Â â€œOccupy Wall Streetâ€ movement, I recently caught up with Rick Wolff.Â He is a progressive economist and rising alternative Â media celeb in NYCÂ (you can hear Â his entertaining weekly radio discussion of economic news at http://rdwolff.com/).Â He (with others like Stiglitz) among other spoke to the Occupy Wall Street teach-in on Tuesday.Â Below […]