Category Archives: Society

Jul 04 2013
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Humour, Society

The mysteries of life on Earth abound

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Nietzsche was wrong. God is not dead. But he is. . .well, uninteresting.

Or that’s what the latest issue of The Atlantic reports in a wee item entitled, “We’ve figured Out the Universe – and It’s Boring.” The magazine’s Rebecca J. Rosen, a senior associate editor, quotes several scientists suffering from mild depression, a not-yet-diagnosed malady I’ll call “post-Higgs boson syndrome.”

Having borne witness, last year, to the discovery of the particle that was supposed to explain everything (and, in fact, does, just as predicted) British mathematician Stephen Wolfram complained, “At some level I’m actually a little disappointed.”

Why? The formidable Stephen Hawking, the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, put it this way: “The great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn’t expect.” Added Columbia University physicist Peter Woit, “I always felt the best possible thing. . .would be to not see the Higgs.”

All of which only proves what every nerd and geek knows in his or her ComiCon-drenched soul: Poets can’t hold a candle to scientists for unalloyed sentimentality.

But if the cosmos is entirely explicable, what are we to make of its constituents – specifically, this third rock from a yellow dwarf star in the suburbs of the average-sized galaxy we call The Milky Way? The mysteries that attend life of Earth show no sign of remission. If anything, they advance in perfect marching step.

Today, Egyptians rejoice at the removal, by their unelected military, of their duly elected president Mohammed Morsi. As the Globe and Mail’s Patrick Martin notes, “Historic Tahrir Square exploded in joy shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday when, for the second time in two years, Egypt’s military leaders announced they have forced the country’s president from office, relieving him of his command and replacing him with an executive of their choosing. . .It was an odd thing to celebrate. Just 29 months ago, many of these same people had occupied Tahrir Square and cheered the prospects of democracy finally coming to Egypt. This warm night in July, they were welcoming back a military-led transition in place of a democratically elected president.”

Today, U.S. President Obama (who doesn’t know what to think about the latest developments in Egypt) is hell-bent on completing his man hunt for Edward Snowdon, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked specifics about American and British surveillance programs that target, essentially, everyone.

According to the Guardian this week, “The plane carrying the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, from Russia has been rerouted to Austria, following suspicions that (Mr. Snowdon) was on board, leading to a major diplomatic incident. The Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said French and Portuguese authorities refused to allow the plane to fly through their airspace. He added that rumours Snowden was on board were unfounded. ‘We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,’ Choquehuanca told Associated Press.”

Today, a new study from the World Meteorological Organization finds that the ten-year span between 2001 and 2010 was the warmest decade in 160 years. Says the WMO news release: “The world experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes during the 2001-2010 decade, which was the warmest since the start of modern measurements in 1850 and continued an extended period of pronounced global warming. More national temperature records were reported broken than in any previous decade. . .Global-average concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to 389 parts per million in 2010 (an increase of 39 per cent since the start of the industrial era in 1750), methane to 1808.0 parts per billion (15 per cent) and nitrous oxide to 323.2 parts per billion (20 per cent).”

Still, other research paints a somewhat different picture. In May, Scientific American reported: “The Earth is now warming faster than at any time in the last 11,000 years, but scientists do not understand clearly why the atmosphere has warmed less than they expected over the last decade or so – and more slowly than in the 1990s.”

God may be boring. We, on the other hand, continue to ignore His example.

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Jul 04 2013
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Economy, Society

We’re forever blowing (and bursting) bubbles

What goes up, must come down

What goes up, must come down

The increasingly trustworthy Wikipedia defines a bubble as “a globule of one substance in another, usually gas in a liquid.” Thanks to something called the “Marangoni effect – the mass transfer along an interface between two fluids due to surface tension gradient – bubbles may remain intact when they reach the surface of the immersive substance.”

Ultimately, however, the laws of the universe will not be denied. All bubbles burst. It’s just a matter of when.

One need not hold an advanced degree in fluid dynamics to recognize that we infuse society with bubbles every day. We create them from the fabric of our fads, which soon become crazes and, finally, business as usual. That’s why when they pop – as, inevitably, they must – we are left owning little to fill our empty pockets.

In this fine, early summertime, bubbles dance about our ears.

An interesting commentary from Keith Helmuth, a member of the Woodstock Sustainable Energy Group (published by the Telegraph-Journal the other day), describes the coming “carbon bubble,” which now worries economists and environmentalists, alike.

“If the nations of the world act to constrain carbon emissions, as they are pledged to do,” he writes, “the asset base of the hydrocarbon industry will suddenly contract by an enormous amount, leaving oil and gas companies with ‘stranded assets.’ Unfortunately, the industry debt load of $1.5 trillion will remain on the books.”

Why is that “unfortunate?” As Gwynne Dyer explains in one of his recent columns, “If you liked the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in 2008, you’ll positively love this one. . .It’s a grim choice: either financial meltdown if we act decisively to halt climate change, or physical meltdown if we don’t.”

Pop!

Meanwhile, the venerable Economist outlines the dimension of a more familiar bubble. “Housing markets are notoriously prone to boom and bust,” it declares in a report published two months ago. “To judge whether prices are at sustainable levels we use two yardsticks. One is the ratio of prices to disposable income per person, a measure of affordability. The other is the price-to-rent ratio.

“On this basis, Canada’s market is especially vulnerable. A large bubble now looks set to burst. Home sales in March were 15 per cent down on a year earlier. Buyers are in short supply. A recent poll showed that only 15 per cent of Canadians are likely to buy a home in the next two years, down from 27 per cent last year – the steepest decline in the 20-year history of the survey. After a big boom, the housing bust will be a wrenching affair.”

That’s indisputably good news if you’re in the market to buy, not sell. But to buy, you’ll need a good, steady job. And to get one of those, you’ll need a graduate degree in something other than applied basket weaving. Or, do you? An item by Jordan Weissmann, entitled “The Grad-School Bubble is Set to Burst,” in the July issue of The Atlantic begs to differ.

“The economic benefits of a graduate degree are dwindling,” the magazine contends. “While unemployment is still low among graduate- and professional-degree holders, underemployment seems to be rising in some fields. Nine months after graduation, for instance, barely more than half of 2012 law-school grads had found full-time, long-term jobs that required their typically six-figure J.D. And even graduates who do find decent jobs face stagnating wages and skyrocketing student loan debt.”

All of which leads him to conclude that “the grad-school bubble is one that may actually pop.”

As Jeff Jeff Kosnett is a senior editor at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance writes in his blog, “The original bubble, the blowup of the South Sea Company, lured Englishmen in 1720 to bet their spare pounds in a failed scheme to get rich trading with South America. South Sea shares soared some 800 per cent in months and collapsed even more quickly. The affair led to hostilities between Britain and Spain as well as an economic meltdown.”

Of course, the world has come a long way since then. Today’s bubbles are far more sophisticated, if no less fragile.

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Jun 26 2013
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Humour, Politics, Society

Serious sun-silliness in the summertime

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The first day of summer is always a revelation. It is the day on which, in most parts of Canada (even the formerly frozen north), we may put away our winter bomber jackets and know that, in so doing, we will not be sorry. For this reason, alone, it is the day on which the news of the world is more likely to provoke chuckles than outrage.

The U.S. economy now turns a corner – its long, dark night being over – and begins to generate jobs and growth. The unemployment rate, we are told, will probably fall to under 6.5 per cent for the first time in seven years. Gross domestic product will rise to more than three per cent a year. Thousands will build houses. Thousands more will buy them. Naturally, then, the value of the average American’s retirement portfolio won’t be worth a plug nickel.

“Markets tank as end of easy money looms,” blares the headline in the Report on Business. “The upheaval began with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernake’s observations. . .that prospects are looking up for the U.S. economy,” the story strives to explain. “Paradoxically, his forecast of better times was greeted with considerable dread among investors, coming with a likely timeline for pulling back on stimulus measures.”

My naturalized American of a brother has the right idea. In California, he plows his hard-earned dough straight into his Hollywood condo – all the better for properly hosting family and friends. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird should be so lucky to meet his acquaintance.

According to the Globe and Mail, our nation’s chief diplomat is currently “defending his New Year’s holidays at Canadian official residences abroad, arguing they were a favour from friends, rather than a perk. . .The opposition said Mr. Baird was freeloading from the public – but Mr. Baird’s office says the minister was only taking favours from friends, and it ‘did not cost taxpayers a dime.’”

Neither, apparently, did it cost Mr. Baird a dime, which is kind of the point of NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar’s rebuke: “It smacks of entitlement. . . abusing his relationship with the high commissioner to get a freebie. . .For him to have his vacation at an official residence of the government of Canada without paying one red cent is entirely inappropriate, and to bring along six of your friends complicates matters more.”

We wonder whether they made their own beds, or did residence staff “do them a Duffy”. Allegedly, the less-than-venerable senator from Prince Edward Island hasn’t made his own bed in years, though shortly he may be required to lie in it. Or so the Globe reports: “The RCMP is investigating Senator Mike Duffy for possible breach of trust in connection with payments he received during the 2011 federal election.

“Court documents show that the probe into Mr. Duffy’s affairs is being conducted by the ‘sensitive and international investigations’ detachment and focuses on whether a breach of trust occurred. It was revealed last week that the RCMP were investigating the Senate expenses affair, including a cheque from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former top aide, Nigel Wright, to Mr. Duffy.”

Some people have money; some do not. Take federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. He had a good thing going for awhile, charging charitable organizations a pretty penny to flash his pearly whites at their fundraisers. Then came Saint John’s Grace Foundation, which asked the good fellow to return the $20,000 they paid him last year to say a few words on behalf of old folks’ homes. Party poopers! Apparently, that sort of thing just isn’t done in those circles.

Still, according to a CBC report, “Trudeau, who was an MP at the time of the fundraiser, has offered to compensate charities that paid him to speak at events. He stopped accepting paid speaking engagements last year when he decided to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party.”

Ah yes, as Sly and the Family Stone once observed, it really is “hot fun in the summertime”, even here in the Great White North.

Jun 17 2013
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Society

The healing properties of a great walk

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Chained to a post, the bike languishes in the baby barn like a forgotten pony. It’s not its fault. It’s done nothing wrong to deserve its alienation from my increasingly fit company. It’s just that, gradually, over the past year or so, it’s been replaced in my affections by a sturdy pair of walking shoes.

Nowadays, they take me everywhere within a five-kilometer radius of my home in downtown Moncton: to the lake, the park, the grocery store, the cafe that serves the best coffee east of Montreal. They are admirably beat up, like a hobo’s boots.

I began my deliberate, quotidian, 45-minute marches for no other reason than to see if I, a man in his early 50s, could muster enough self-discipline to stick with something that had nothing to do with the usual mid-life preoccupation of making money. It was easy, at first. Then, it got hard. Walking every day without exception, I discovered, was as much a mental as physical game.

Still, in a recent broadcast of CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition, host Michael Enright explored what appears to be a renaissance for the alternately graceful and rigorous pastime of perambulation. His guests included a psychologist, a biologist and an urban planner. The show’s promo put it this way: “It seems that walking has come back in vogue. Walkable neighbourhoods are a cornerstone of current urban planning and they help drive real estate values up. People are moving back to the downtown cores of cities, where they can walk to do their shopping or get to work.”

Our ancient history, of course, supports the walker. (Even though, over the past 100 years, we’ve done everything we can to render him extinct – from inventing the internal combustion engine to enshrining the American television sitcom).

Says the CBC blurb: “Humans and their forebears have spent five million years perfecting one of the talents that make us most unique as a species. . .the ability to walk upright. We evolved to walk on two legs. Our bodies are meant to walk, and our biology wants, even requires, us to walk.”

Event the Internet is now telling us to walk. Here are some words of advice from About.com’s Wendy Bumgardner: “Walkers live longer. The Honolulu Heart Study of 8,000 men found that walking just two miles a day cut the risk of death almost in half. The walkers’ risk of death was especially lower from cancer.”

Not only that, she says, walkers are smarter: “A study of people over 60 funded by the National Council on Aging, published in the July 29, 1999, issue of ‘Nature’, found that walking 45 minutes a day at a 16-minute mile pace increased the thinking skills of those over 60. The participants started at 15 minutes of walking and built up their time and speed. The result was that the same people were mentally sharper after taking up this walking program.

They’re more emotionally stable: “Walking. . .leads to the release of the body’s natural happy drugs – endorphins. Most people notice an improvement in mood. A November 9, 1999 study published in the ‘Annals of Behavioral Medicine’ showed that university students who walked. . .regularly had lower stress levels than couch potatoes or those who exercised strenuously.”

Not inconsequentially, walkers are also more successful than couch potatoes in one other important arena of human interaction: “What better reason for men to take a brisk two mile walk each day – a reduced risk of impotence from mid-life onward.”

For all these reasons and more, I shall remain an ardent walker. My wife and I are spending Christmas week, this year, in Manhattan (a strolling man’s paradise). Someday, when we’re fit enough, we plan to tackle the Appalachian Trail (at least, a chunk of it). Who knows, we may even find ourselves, one fine year, trudging along the Camino de Santiago in northwestern Spain, en route to the holy shrine of the apostle St. James.

In an hour, maybe two, I’ll get out my bike. But first, a good walk beckons.

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May 28 2013
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Corporate Responsibility, Economy, Society

Je me souviens. . .the late, great jobs swindle

St. Paul's wasn't built in a day; the jobs were crap!

St. Paul’s wasn’t built in a day; the jobs were crap!

Few jobs are uniformly good. But some are unrelentingly awful, and you remember them as you would a bully’s fist.

I remember the wretched May of 1981 when, at the untempered age of 20, I sold encyclopedias door-to-door in poor trailer parks that ringed the outskirts of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I remember the unemployed residents, drunk and foul in their singlets. I remember the doorless freezers, rusting in gravel drives. I remember the feral dogs chained (if I were lucky) to iron bars driven into cracked and broken lawns.

I remember the infamous summer of 1982 when the only jobs recession-ravaged Halifax offered a young, university-bound father of an infant daughter were dish washer at a greasy spoon on the failing thoroughfare of Spring Garden Road and box boy at a woman’s garment store in a crumbling strip mall in the city’s dying west end.

I remember the middle-aged matrons who managed these establishments reeking of unrequited desire and cheap perfume. I remember the weekly pay packets, rattling with just enough loose change to pay for the bus rides home and 36 hours (again, if I were lucky) worth of groceries.

All of which flooded back to me the other week when, while researching a piece on youth employment in Canada and the United States, I happened upon an item penned in 2002 for my favorite parodic organ of news and opinion, The Onion.

“In a keynote address at the National Economic Summit, (former) President Bush issued a bold challenge to the nation’s business leaders Monday, calling on them to create 500,000 shitty jobs by next year,” the squib began. ‘So long as unemployment continues to rise, this recession will continue, as well,’ said Bush, speaking before nearly 400 of the nation’s top CEOs. ‘That is why I am turning to you to create thousands of new shit jobs. Whether it is a night-shift toilet-cleaning position at an airport or a fry-cook post. . .it’s up to you to help provide every hard-working American with a demeaning, go-nowhere job.’”

To be any good at all, satire demands verisimilitude, and this is good satire. More’s the pity; for in the intervening years, conditions have, if anything, worsened, especially for young people.

As the The Huffington Post reported earlier this year, “In 2000, the United States had the lowest non-employment rate for 25- to 34-year-olds among countries with large, wealthy economies. By 2011, America had one of the highest youth non-employment rates compared to its peers, according to a New York Times op-ed by David Leonhardt, the paper’s Washington bureau chief. . .As unemployment soared during the Great Recession, young people – with and without college degrees – were forced to compete with more experienced candidates suddenly out of a job for very few openings. The result: Nearly half of the nation’s unemployed are under the age of 34, according to a report last month from public policy organization Demos.”

Moreover, Huff Post declared, “It doesn’t seem like things will get better for America’s young people any time soon. Demos found that the U.S. economy will have to create more than 4 million jobs before young adults will be employed at levels similar to those before the recession. In addition, 16.1 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 were out of work in April, according to Generation Opportunity, a nonpartisan youth advocacy group.”

And this doesn’t begin to touch the gathering “truly-bad-job” phenomenon, which Canadian writer and filmmaker Jim Munroe dissects to marvelous effect in his 2011  mockumentary, “Ghosts With Shit Jobs”. In it, he chronicles the daily, working lives of a band of young professionals as they struggle to survive a dystopian future following the economic collapse of the western world and the concurrent ascent of China.

His cast of characters, variously, assemble android babies for affluent Asians, operate as human “spammers” pushing corporate products and brands in the otherwise polite company of restaurants and call centers, and function as virtual-reality repairmen ridding cyberspace of plethora copyright infringements and expired slogans.

It’s damn funny stuff. It is, that is, until you realize the filmmaker is not kidding, and it’s no joke.

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May 23 2013
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Business, Culture, Science, Society

How (not) to breed a culture of innovation

Think about tech at least once in your freakin' life!

Think about tech at least once in your freakin’ life!

Once again, a major Canadian think tank concludes that the nation’s private sector is not spending enough of research and development, on science and technology. Once again, the news runs buried in the tech sections of the day’s print organs, all but guaranteeing the predictable reader response of “so what.”

For decades – at least since the early 1980s – experts have warned that unless industry picks up the pace of innovation, the consequences for Canada’s productivity and competitiveness in the global economy will be dire. But what, exactly, does that mean and why should anyone outside the pearly gates of academe give a fig?

Not long ago, the Conference Board of Canada took a shot at answering the question. In a report entitled “How Canada Performs”, the organization had this to say about the country’s low ranking, compared to other economies, on innovation:

“Overall, countries that are more innovative are passing Canada on measures such as income per capita, productivity, and the quality of social programs. It is also critical to environmental protection, a high-performing education system, a well-functioning system of health promotion and health care, and an inclusive society. Without innovation, all these systems stagnate and Canada’s performance deteriorates relative to that of its peers.”

What’s more, the Board said, “With new key players – such as China, India, and Brazil – in the global economy, Canadian businesses must move up the value chain and specialize in knowledge-intensive, high-value-added goods and services. Although Canada has some leading companies that compete handily against global peers, its economy is not as innovative as its size would otherwise suggest.”

Now, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) – a creature of the current federal government – adds its voice to the chorus. “Canada’s gross domestic expenditures on R&D (GERD) declined from their peak in 2008 and, when measured in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), since 2001,” it reports. “In contrast, the GERD and GERD intensity of most other countries have been increasing. Canada’s declining GERD intensity has pushed its rank down from 16th position in 2006 to 17th in 2008 and to 23rd in 2011 (among 41 economies). . .The more recent declines in the country’s total R&D funding efforts are attributable predominantly to private sector funding of R&D.”

The Council also notes, somewhat cheerfully that “Canadians understand that, if we want to create jobs and opportunity in a competitive world and address the key societal challenges that confront us in the 21st century, STI must be an integral part of the national agenda.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not at all sure Canadians do – understand, that is. If they did, then this conversation, which feels like a toothache, would be over. So would the chimerical debate, in government circles, about funding hard, “blue sky” science at the “expense” of applied, commercially viable research. Notice where these discussions almost never occur: Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, and, yes, even the United States.

That’s because these nations, unlike Canada, have recognized the truth of their circumstances, which is, both simple and elegant: If you want an innovative culture, you have to breed a culture of innovation. And silos of self-interest won’t help you accomplish the task. All segments of society – government, industry, higher education – must pull in the same direction if we’re going to get anywhere.

Or, as the STIC observes, “The responsibility is shared: all participants in our STI ecosystem have a role to play in driving enhanced performance and lifting Canada into the ranks of the world’s leading innovative economies. It is not just about investing more, but about investing more strategically and coherently, focusing our resources and efforts, learning from the experience of global STI leaders and improving agility to seize emerging opportunities. That is how Canada will truly be able to ‘run with the best.’”

It’s also how you convince average Canadians, who may not often read the tech sections of their newspapers, that their material well being – their wages and standards of living – depends directly on the quantity and quality of the innovations they enlist in the service of their respective futures.

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May 07 2013
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Media, Society

Social bonding: Give till it works

No political ties bind the moral authority of non-partisan giving

No political ties bind the moral authority of non-partisan giving

Those of us who bother to vote maintain a defiantly imbecilic relationship with the governments we elect. We require them to provide us with all the services we’ve come to expect even as we castigate them for spending our hard-earned dough.

Less government is good government until, of course, we want more. This is the dance public officials perform for us as they attempt to balance their responsibilities to making sound public policy and the more practical consideration of surviving the next rush to the ballot box.

Given the truly wretched condition of many western governments’ balance sheets these days, it’s not surprising that a “third” way is emerging or that Ottawa is taking a good, hard look at it as a way to underwrite program spending and, in the process, save a few bucks. It’s called social investing and, according to the Center for American Progress, it works a little like this:

“In the social impact bond model, a government contracts with a private-sector financing intermediary we’ll call a ‘social impact bond-issuing organization’ (SIBIO) to obtain social services. The government pays the bond-issuing organization entirely or almost entirely depending on whether it achieves performance targets. If the bond issuer fails to achieve the minimum required target, the government does not pay.”

Meanwhile, “The SIBIO raises operating funds by issuing bonds to private investors who provide upfront capital in exchange for a share of the government payments that will become available if the performance targets are met. The bond issuer uses the operating funds to contract with service providers to deliver the services necessary to meet the performance targets.”

The Center concludes that the model is probably not a silver bullet. Still, it observes, “any new tool with the potential to accelerate solutions in even a subset of our most pressing social problems is an important breakthrough – one that deserves careful consideration from the policymaking, philanthropic, and investment communities.”

Certainly, that’s what the Conservative government of the United Kingdom thinks. It is widely credited with getting the ball rolling for social impact bonds in 2010 when, according to an item in theguardian.com, “a pioneering plan announced by the government. . .could eventually (transform) the way much welfare work is financed. . .

Private investors will pay for a project to rehabilitate prisoners and receive a return on their money if reoffending rates drop.”

Now, the Globe and Mail reports, the Government of Canada has issued a list of works that it believes are suited to this type of programming-cum-funding, including those “to build housing for people with disabilities, reduce recidivism among young offenders or encourage more young aboriginals to learn a skilled trade. Ottawa said it will work with interested groups toward launching projects.”

Naturally, many will worry that the approach gives governments too much control over the social agenda – that they will cherry pick their worthy causes, filtered through their ideological sieves. But, in fact, that’s what governments do anyway.

A more practical concern involves the precise definition of “performance targets” and how this incentivizes the assumption of risk among investors. As the Center for American Progress observes, “Contractors may require large fees in order to accept performance risk, or they may decline to bid altogether. These systems create strong incentives to manipulate outcomes measures or to focus excessively on those aspects of performance that are rewarded in the incentive-payment system.”

On the other hand, “because the bond issuer spreads the risk across its bond holders, it will be substantially more risk tolerant than would be a non-profit service provider in a direct performance contract.”

All of which may only mean that social impact bonds aren’t for everyone or, more accurately, for every social problem.

Still, it is heartening that these instruments are attracting support from people and organizations on all points of the political spectrum, suggesting, for once, that governments do occasionally get things right.

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