In the 21st century, where money becomes almost universally required to obtain the necessities of life, the endowment of basic capital as a birthright for all human beings through a system of constitutionally guaranteed citizen banking, gauranteed living income and access to microcredit is necessary both to end poverty and the corruption of aid, and to stabilize the global monetary system. This is possible as globalization creates one closed economy, as opposed to a collection of (relatively) 'open' economies.

I wish to draft a paper on this subject. Ideas? contact me

Recession and Stimulus Spending: A Preliminary Examination of Stimulus Spending on Affordable Housing in Ontario

by Arif Jinha

Full text published by CPRN - Canadian Policy Research Networks.

It's from my wordpress blog ICTa2K4D Communications for Development, but you can find it - http://stratongina.net/aggregator or at arifjinha.wordpress.com

It was a post to Budapest Open Access Initiative Forum, looking forward to a future of an open global information system for knowledge, and starting now with the best business model for journal publishing.

arif

I wrote this a few years ago and was just laughing at it, posting it again for your enjoyment.

arif

The Great Invisible Big Toe

Working in a large University, as an agent of change at the lower end of the pole, I made the following observation: the Law of the Giant Invisible Toe.

Those at the upper end of the pole can have enormous toes, the larger they are the more invisible they are so you don't know if you will step on one.

Those at the bottom working for change cannot see the toes, and since they are large they step on them.

Stepping on these toes causes a reaction. The reaction is usually overstated given that these are small toes that are stepping on big ones.

Those with small toes at the bottom end of pole rarely get stepped on, when they do they are not allowed to do anything about it.

Thus the Law is that the small toes are not permitted to step on the big ones, which are invisible. But it is hardly noticed when the big ones step on the small ones.

This is the proof of concept for a podcast by the very talented Kasey, at Skills Link Smiths Falls. here it is!

Enjoy!

There is supposedly good news about the economy (if you're a rat in a maze like most economists seem to be), that it's going to grow next year.

Lest we forget what condition we were in before Wall Street's 'the parents are away, let's have an open house party' deregulated greed fiasco thrust us into this recession. This idea of bank deregulation, coupled with powerful private money too cozy with government officials meant that the 'crony capitalism' and bad lending that was behind the unproductive bursting bubble of the Asian crisis were lessons not learned at all. Well maybe now there's something, Alan Greenspan, the guy in charge and veritable god of finance until recently actually admitted he was wrong. It's insane to keep doing the same thing, when you get disaster over and over again.

But anyway, before the recession.

Real wages have stood still against inflation since the 1970s.
EI benefits were tightened along with eligibility.

YOUTH and FRIENDS OF YOUTH: YAK is now accepting applications for Skills Link in Perth and Smiths Falls. But not for much longer... Apply now. Yes, right now at the link below. Its truly a once in a lifetime opportunity (sounds cheesy but its true!). Alumni linkers, please tell your friends! LAST CHANCE!!!!! It will take you 5 minutes to fill it out. Seriously!

Find the application here, get it in fast!! http://yakyouth.ca/

I'm a bit late to still be writing about my trip to Dakar, but I haven't finished the story. After the conference, the two other Canadians left one by one. But before this, we had the guitars out at Hotel Nina. There was an environmentallist from Kinshasha at Nina, participating in another conference I think. He played a sweet classical guitar, fingerstlye, and we played together in the Lobby, the Swahili tune Malaika and a song that he wrote about the environment. One of the Canadians joined us to play Hand Jive.

I got home June 3rd, but I hadn't written anything about the remainder of my trip to Senegal. I try to revisit now in my mind, before memories become more dilute.

I had worked very hard on the presentation, and then taken a break and ended up in the suburbs, with an interesting journey back to Dakar centre, as told earlier. I shift verb tenses willy-nilly, and I am sorry about that. I need a coruse in travel-writing, I think.