Shares of the Week: Revenge of the Poors
When Being Ethical is Profitable
Apple’s next iOS 14 beta will begin forcing developers to ask for permission to track you - This huge step towards forcing app developers in to being more transparent to their users should also help educate users in knowing just how much of their data is being used and with whom it is being shared with. The ball is now in your court, Google.
Bonus: A Day in the Life of Your Data: A Father-Daughter Day at the Playground (pdf) - Apple’s handy guide on data and privacy.
Billionaire Tears
How Redditors Beat Hedge Funds at Their Own Game(Stop) - Here is more evidence that in order to manipulate the economy you must be part of the special group of privileged elites who do it behind the scenes. When peasants in a public forum discover your game and expose its corruption, all of a sudden it is them that are greedy, manipulative, and fraudulent. The ownership class may have looted and hoarded most of our money but events like this reveal the power that collective action has in overcoming this economic disadvantage, while also exposing how much of a fugazi the stock market really is. The elites are terrified that we are starting to realize that the stock market may not be the most rational way to organize capital.
Bonus: Saagar Enjeti: Wall Street Elites DESTROYED, Beaten By Redditors At Their Own RIGGED Game (YouTube) - This is a must watch for a quick summary of the GameStop story.
Bonus 2: 'Cry Me a River': Sanders Hits Back as Billionaire Investor Whines About Potential Tax Hikes Amid GameStop Fiasco - Bernie Sanders has choice words for the plutocrats on Wall Street.
Bonus 3: Billionaires are blaming the GameStop surge on Covid stimulus checks - Billionaires sure hate government spending because it means they have to share more of their loot. But really, should we even give a shit about what billionaires think?
The Covid Corner
Snowbirds outraged they were only given one year notice on non-essential travel Satire - It must really be tough to be a snowbird nowadays. What a shame it would be for them to have to join the plebs in riding out this pandemic from their cold and isolated Canadian homes.
Sadly, You Can’t Entirely Blame Justin Trudeau For Canada’s Vaccine Delays - The precarious situation we in Canada are in, that has us relying on corporations in other countries to help us recover from this pandemic, is the culmination of decades of neoliberal policies from the defunding and outsourcing of essential public services, starting with Brian Mulroney’s free trade aspirations and capped with Stephen Harper’s gutting of research including for pharmaceuticals. When are we going to stop the madness and cruelty of putting our lives in the hands of profiteers?
Correcting the Record
Critics say green policies stifle growth. The opposite may be true. - Anyone complaining about environmental policies are only wanting to continue polluting the earth for free while passing on the cleanup cost to others. There is nothing free about a market that operates in such way. With worsening economic inequality and human-made climate change, stronger environmental policies that force companies to innovate could be the boon our economy - and our planet - needs.
McDonald's CEO: Chain will do 'just fine' with higher wages - If McDonald’s can admit that minimum wage increases have a negligible effect on business, then so can everyone else who claims to know about economics but are against the idea. If businesses want to prove they don’t need to rely on exploitative wages to operate, they should follow Ronald’s lead.
Epoch Trash
MAGA-land’s Favorite Newspaper: How The Epoch Times became a pro-Trump propaganda machine in an age of plague and insurrection - The only utility the Epoch Times has is to act as a fire starter. Instead of letting this far right tabloid contribute to the burning of democracy with its racism and conspiracy theories, do yourself a favor and toss it in your fire pit.
Bonus: 2 Canada Post workers in Regina suspended after refusing to deliver Epoch Times - Canadians are getting sick of the copious amount of hateful and misleading speech being shared online and in traditional media, which presents a moral dilemma for advocates of both free speech, and a well-informed and equitable society like myself.
Football Players are Workers Too
It’s Time for Players to Tackle the Great Canadian Football Rip-Off - While CFL teams before the pandemic were making millions in revenues, many of their players have had to get second jobs to supplement their physically- and mentally-demanding, yet short careers as professional athletes. I have been a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan since I was a child but if more of the copious amounts of money I spend at games and the attention I give to CFL advertisers doesn’t begin to trickle down to the players in a more fair and equitable fashion, I may stop spending any money or attention on the CFL and the Roughriders at all.
NFL Players Endorse Amazon Warehouse Workers Unionization - Capital spans industries and borders, which is why it is important for all workers on this planet to unite in solidarity. Unionized NFL players are doing their part in helping educate and bring power to Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama, which would be Amazon's first union in a country that has seen both union membership and middle class wealth drop since the 80s.
Pipe Dreams
Erin O’Toole says drug offenders deserve help, not stiff penalties - Well this is quite the turn around since former-PM Stephen Harper ridiculously suggested that marijuana is 'infinitely worse' than tobacco and former-leader and still-loser, Andrew Scheer, rallied against safe injection sites. But when it comes to actual legalization or decriminalization of drugs, “now is not the time” says O’Toole. So it turns out he actually doesn’t want to do anything meaningful about the suffering of drug users and still thinks the existence of drugs are the problem. This is how you speak to both law enforcement and to communities hit by drug addiction without actually taking a stance, as any good coward lacking any real values would do.
For Trudeau, there's no political reason to fight for Keystone XL - Most Canadians want to move on from Keystone XL. Neither Trudeau or O’Toole has anything to gain by continuing to fight something US President Joe Biden was willing to do on his first day in office. It’s time to move on.
