Juno Beach Landing 70 Years Ago

 

Juno Beach Landing 70 Years Ago

Column: Juno Beach Landing 78 Years Ago

By David Murray  

 

By David Murray. June 6th 1944 saw my father “Bud” Murray land on Juno Beach with his Canadian brothers in France. He was with the second wave of soldiers hitting the beach. The first group that landed got bogged down and took many casualties. My father remembered the first couple of soldiers jumping into the water from the landing craft go down in
front of him. Luckily he was able to get a few feet ahead to where there was a couple of pieces of metal he could stand behind and exchange fire from his weapon. He did not realize it , his adrenaline pumping , his left leg had a big piece missing from shrapnel which had exploded just inches from him.
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His group was lucky, they had an armored vehicle land beside them and that gave them some cover. Unfortunately the driver of the vehicle popped his head up briefly, it was within an instant my dad said that a sniper shot him. The commanding officer yelled out, can anyone drive this vehicle . My dad yelled out, still not even realizing that he was wounded said he could drive it. He got in the armored vehicle , kept the lid down and figured out how to drive this machine.
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My dad drove a lot of different tractors on the farm and he could figure out how to drive most vehicles very quickly.

Wave after wave of Canadians hit Juno Beach June 6, 1944

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My father was 33-years-old the day he hit Juno. He turned 18 in 1929 which saw the worst economic depression of the last century. He always was amazed, he used to tell me. There was no money anywhere before the war started. The second Canada declared war on Germany there was no shortage of money anymore. This always bothered my father. A man who played pro hockey, rode the rails from coast to coast looking for work , and getting involved politically, first on the On to Ottawa Trek and then working on Tommy Douglas’s winning campaign in October 1935 in Weyburn Saskatchewan.
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My dad passed away in 1984, very seldom speaking of his experiences in the war. To all the remaining veteran’s who survived the horrors of this day. Thanks very much from my generation. We owe you all so much!

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 I had to blog this.  I went to the BC Lions game last night. It was so nice to do something I enjoy since Covid-19. 

I think the team needs a lot of work. Michael "Don't Call Me Mike" I think is done. He is simply not worth the money anymore as the CFL #1 pivot! 

He was actually done in 2019. It was a mistake to sign him again. He can't run. In the CFL that is lethal. He left town a decade ago because of that fact. Was he all of a sudden going to be able to run??

We need to try and bring in a good quality NFL cut , the money Reilly gets should get us somebody reasonable anyway.

It was sickening to watch the Lions last night. The "Elks" almost the whole game crowded the line of scrimmage. Probably only 10 yards back. All game pretty much. Every once in a while Michael would throw a Paul Brother end over end pass, maybe 25 yards or so.

The "Campbell Coach" will be run out of town on a rail if he trys to have the same offensive schemes as last night. 

They have NO defensive rush. The offensive line is a bit better but still not even close enough to help the banged up Reilly.  

The kicking game is a bit better.  They have a new field goal kicker Jimmy Camacho who seems ok. Maybe 45 yard range. The punter was horrific and has been that way all season so far.

They brought back Chris Rainey after he has been cut by almost every team in the CFL. He was great 10 years ago but he needs to released now. TJ Lee or Lucky Whitehead can run back kicks. I wish we had 5 TJ Lee's on defence but we don't. 

Bryan Burnham is amazing. Righ up there with the all-time Lions greats. You think Campbell might try to get a short pass to him if that is his strategy. They need to get YAK (After catch Yards) yards from some of their players.

I have been a Lions fan going back to the Kapp , Fleming days and actually helped out with the equipment with Stu Kehoe in the 1970's. I used to shag punts for Slade Willis and hold for Ivan MacMillan. I would warm up another end or end thrower Don Moorehead. He hated the bigger CFL ball.

With only a 14 games season it is going to pretty tough unless wholesale changes happen quickly. Oh well I guess we will be looking for a new coach soon. 

I spent with parking , food, a couple of beers and tickets close to $400. By no means the best seats. I feel hurt because of love the Lions. I am just sick of watching this mess!

Child Poverty

 

Child poverty has a negative and long-lasting impact on a child's ability to learn, build skills, find employment and avoid poverty. It is well-understood that children who experience poverty and lack of educational opportunities often grow up to become adults who experience poverty and low education levels. A lack of healthy food, health care, and a stimulating environment lowers a child's ability to learn for the rest of their lives. A child's experience during the early years of development (prenatal to 8 years of age) sets a critical foundation for their entire life course. All aspects of Early Childhood Development (ECD) - including physical, social/emotional and language/cognitive domains – strongly influence basic learning, school success, economic participation, social citizenry and health. The environments where children grow up, live and learn – with parents, caregivers, family, and teachers – have the most significant impact on their development. 

Children living in poverty show almost 3.5 times the number of conduct disorders, almost twice the chronic illnesses and twice the rate of school problems, hyperactivity and emotional disorders as children who don't experience poverty. Canadian children that live in poverty often suffer from iron deficiencies, which lead to difficulties in cognitive development. They also have such health, social, and cognitive disadvantages compared to other children, that they are generally less equipped - socially, emotionally and physically - to undertake school programs. If their disadvantaged position and different day-to-day experiences are not taken into account by school education, they are unable to benefit fully from the school system. Numerous studies have consistently shown that the strongest single predictor of educational achievement and attainment is the socio-economic status of the student's family. Education - in close co-operation with health care, guidance and counseling services, and income generating activities - is pivotal in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and social exclusion that is the reality for many families.

 

Since 2009, 88 Percent Of Income Growth Went To Corporate Profits, Just One Percent Went To Wages

By Guest Blogger

After the longest recession since WWII, many Americans are still struggling while S&P 500 corporations are sitting on $800 billion in cash and making massive profits. Now, economists from Northeastern University have released a study that finds our sluggish economic recovery has almost solely benefited corporations. According to the study:

“Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. Pre-tax corporate profits by themselves had increased by $464 billion while aggregate real wages and salaries rose by only $7 billion or only .1%. Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. …The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented.”

The New York Times adds, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average real hourly earnings for all employees actually declined by 1.1 percent from June 2009, when the recovery began, to May 2011, the month for which the most recent earnings numbers are available.”
So as average wages fall, and nearly 14 million people remain unemployed, America’s economic recovery has almost entirely benefited corporations. This development adds another chapter to the decline of the middle class, whose incomes are shrinking and wages are stagnating. Last year, top executives’ salaries increased 27 percent, while workers’ salaries increased only 2 percent. At the moment, income inequality in America is the worst it’s been since the 1920s, as the richest 1 percent make nearly 25 percent of the country’s income.
–Sean Savett

 

Tommy Douglas' big dreams

Tommy Douglas' big dreams

Douglas knew how to dream big, championing medicare even when the critics said he'd never succeed.

Wed 24 Mar 2010

By Jack Layton, as published in the Mark
When Canadians voted Tommy Douglas our “Greatest Canadian” in 2004, we honoured a man whose example sets the highest bar for today’s political leaders. A portrait of the preacher from Weyburn hangs in my Centre Block office, watching over every meeting with every delegation from every corner of this country. A momentary meeting of the eyes often brings to mind Tommy’s essential teachings.
“Dream no little dreams,” Tommy would say – then show us how. Medicare is impossible, the world cried out. You’ll never balance Saskatchewan’s budget. The medical establishment won’t allow it. It can’t be done. Then he got it done, through a dramatic team effort sparked by his courage to dream big. That same courage lowered Saskatchewan’s voting age to 18, pioneered public-sector bargaining rights, prototyped public auto insurance, launched a public air ambulance service, and issued a bill of rights – all in Tommy’s first term as our party’s first provincial premier.

Contrast Tommy’s vision with more “modern” leaders whose idea of nation-building is to prop up big business and hope for the best. We need more of Tommy, and less of that. More of that Douglas-style dreaming that’s genetically linked to getting things done.
When he came to Ottawa as the NDP’s first federal leader, Tommy set to work building bridges with Lester Pearson’s minority government. Persistently. Pragmatically. The results became defining aspects of Canadian society – national medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, a world-class affordable housing strategy. That’s why older Canadians aren’t surprised to see today’s New Democrats making minority Parliaments work. We’re learning from the very best.

But Tommy’s example also underlines vital limits on compromise. Forty years ago, I was studying at McGill University when Pierre Laporte was murdered by the FLQ. Like so many, I found myself carried away by the popular impulse to applaud Trudeau’s drastic crackdown on the threat that the FLQ seemed to represent. Then Tommy began powerfully condemning the suspension of civil rights under the War Measures Act – risking terrible ostracism to give sober voice to principle: we mustn’t use fear as a smokescreen to trample basic rights. As the vans plucked hundreds of peaceful separatists from the streets of Montreal, something clicked and I rushed to become a New Democrat.
Dream big. Be pragmatic. Stick to your principles. That’s Tommy’s distinguished example. There’s none better for aspiring young leaders looking to make a positive mark on their country.

Issues: The Link Between Incarceration And Poverty

 

The Link Between Incarceration And Poverty

Categorized | Federal Politics, Issues, Top Stories

Issues: The Link Between Incarceration And Poverty

Originally Posted on 24 February 2011
By David Murray. In my riding there is no better example of what the highest levels of underemployed, child poverty and youth unemployment result in.

Abbotsford and Prince George are two of the highest crime cities in Canada. Our tax dollars would be much better suited helping people in abject poverty. If you look at history. In almost every case , all crime bosses came from abject poverty. Johnny “the Fox” Torrio, Al Capone, Tony Accardo,Charles “Lucky” Luciano to name a few. We need to have a major tax shift and thought shift from the way we are thinking. Reactionary politics is not the answer. Preventive politics is much more attainable. We can change people’s habits. Look at what we have done to smokers.

In 1961 over 65 % of people smoked in Canada , in 2011 it is 19%. This was done by putting our energy and dollars into the prevention of trying to get people to quit smoking. For every dollar we will spend on our families in need today, it will come back over 100 times the value in related health risks, crime, productivity ,we are investing in our society. Not just a social -democratic society. As Jack Layton says ” a society that leaves nobody behind”. This was an interesting quote by Senator Hugh Segal “Almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent.”

Debates about whether approaches to crime and corrections in Canada are too soft or too tough are ongoing and endemic.
While the partisan debate continues unabated, the real issue is why prisons disproportionately house our most vulnerable citizens.
While all those Canadians who live beneath the poverty line are by no means associated with criminal activity, almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent. There is no political ideology, on the right or left, that would make the case that people living in poverty belong in jail.
Statistics underscore the bleak link between poverty and incarceration. While aboriginals, many mired in poverty, represent 4 per cent of Canada’s population, they make up almost 20 per cent of those in federal prisons. A study by Toronto Star journalists unfortunately makes the point. Sandro Contenta and Jim Rankin, in an impressive 2008 feature for the Star, reviewed thousands of pages of data concerning crime and those caught up in the system.

They noted that:
• More than 70 per cent of those who enter prisons have not completed high school.
• Seventy per cent of offenders entering prisons have unstable job histories.
• Four of every five arrive with serious substance-abuse problems.
• A Toronto study of 300 homeless adults found 73 per cent of men had been arrested and 49 per cent of them incarcerated at least once. Twelve per cent of women had served time.

In a modern, competitive and compassionate society like ours, these numbers are unacceptable. If Canadians want to wage an effective war on crime we must first reshape the debate. If crime abatement is the goal, it is time for all Canadians and their governments to become tough on poverty. By doing so, the outcomes we all want — safer communities and diminishing prison populations — will follow.

Not only would this approach — best achieved through the establishment of a needs-based, refundable income tax credit for all Canadians (a guaranteed annual income, or GAI) — prove more effective, it would also be cheaper. At a time of government restraint, prisoners are, in a word, expensive. With all costs factored in, Canadians spend more than $147,000 per prisoner in federal custody each year. By contrast, it would take between $12,000 and $20,000 annually to bring a person in Canada above the poverty line. Even at the high end of the GAI scale, this represents savings to taxpayers of $127,000 per federal prisoner each year. Those are figures that should be of interest to any federal or provincial finance minister — of any party background.
The most famous call for a Canadian GAI was issued 40 years ago by Senator David Croll. It was 1971 when his Senate committee on poverty issued its report.
“Poverty is the great social issue of our time,” Croll wrote. “The poor do not choose poverty. It is at once their affliction and our national shame. No nation can achieve true greatness if it lacks the courage and determination to undertake the surgery necessary to remove the cancer of poverty from its body politic.”
Both Conservative and Liberal federal governments have ignored this proposal ever since. In the years following, the expert calls for a GAI have only increased. The Macdonald Royal Commission challenged Canadians to take a “leap of faith” and embrace free trade with the United States in 1985. It also stated unequivocally that a universal income security program is “the essential building block” for social security programs in the 21st century.
What anyone who studies Canada’s prisons understands — be they from the right, left or centre of the political landscape — is that current approaches are not working. Whether or not one believes crime is decreasing, reducing the pipeline that feeds poverty is the best public policy. Police chiefs with whom I have spoken all agree that their areas of greatest challenge are not the better off parts of town. To be tough on crime means we must first be tough on the causes of poverty.

37 Facts About How Cruel This Economy Has Been To Millions Of Desperate American Families

By The Economic Collapse

Global Research, March 20, 2016

The Economic Collapse and Global Research 28 October 2012

Region: USA

Theme: Poverty & Social Inequality

First published in October 2012
Have you ever laid in bed awake at night with a knot in your stomach because you didn’t know how your family was possibly going to make it through the next month financially?  Have you ever felt the desperation of not being able to provide the basic necessities for your family even though you tried as hard as you could?  All over America tonight, there are millions of desperate families that are being ripped apart by this economy.  There aren’t nearly enough jobs, and millions of Americans that actually do have jobs aren’t making enough to even provide the basics for their families. 
When you have tried everything that you can think of and nothing works, it can be absolutely soul crushing.  Today, one of my regular readers explained that he was not going to be online for a while because his power had been turned off.  He has been out of work for quite a while, and eventually the money runs out.  Have you ever been there?  If you have ever experienced that moment, you know that it stays with you for the rest of your life.  If you are single that is bad enough, but when you have to look into the eyes of your children and explain to them why there won’t be any dinner tonight or why they have to move into a homeless shelter it can feel like someone has driven a stake into your heart.  In this article you will find a lot of very shocking economic statistics.  But please remember that behind each statistic are the tragic stories of millions of desperately hurting American families.
Over the past decade, things have steadily gotten worse for American families no matter what our politicians have tried.  Poverty and government dependence continue to rise.  The cost of living continues to go up and incomes continue to go down.  It is truly frightening to think about what this country is going to look like if current trends continue.
The following are 37 facts that show how cruel this economy has been to millions of desperate American families…
1. One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.
2. A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.
3. In the United States today, there are close to 10 million households that do not have a single bank account.  That number has increased by about a million since 2009.
4. Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.
5. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.
6. Median household income has fallen for four years in a row.  Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 over the past four years.
7. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
8. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is more difficult to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.
9. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.
10. In the United States today, more than 41 percent of all working age Americans are not working.
11. Since January 2009, the “labor force” in the United States has increased by 827,000, but “those not in the labor force” has increased by 8,208,000.  This is how they have gotten the unemployment numbers to “come down”.
12. Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
13. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.
14. Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
15. At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are “good jobs”, and that number continues to shrink.
16. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
17. According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.
18. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
19. In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
20. Health insurance premiums rose faster than the overall rate of inflation in 2011 and that is happening once again in 2012.  In fact, it has been happening for a very long time.
21. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.
22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned.  By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.
25. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.
26. According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.
27. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living at home with their parents.
28. The percentage of Americans that find that they are able to retire when they reach retirement age continues to decline.  According to one new survey, 70 percent of middle class Americans plan to work during retirement and 30 percent plan to work until they are at least 80 years old.
29. The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.
30. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.
31. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less than zero.  By 2010, that figure had soared to 32.5 percent.
32. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.
33. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either “poor” or “near poor”.
34. In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.
35. Approximately one-fourth of all children in the United States are enrolled in the food stamp program.
36. Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.
37. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government.  Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.
What makes all of this even more frightening is that many homeless shelters and food banks around the nation are so overloaded at this point that they are already over capacity.  Just consider this example…

When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.
Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.
Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.
“I don’t know why nobody will take this girl in,” Coe said. “The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist.”

Keep in mind that Loudoun Country is smack dab in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of Virginia.
So if things are that bad in the wealthy areas, exactly how bad are things getting in many of the poorer areas?
Unfortunately, things continue to get worse for this economy.  DuPont has just announced plans to eliminate 1,500 jobs.  There are more major layoff announcements almost every single day.  So how bad will things get when our crumbling economic system finally collapses?  When kind of chaos will be unleashed all over the nation when millions upon millions of Americans finally lose all hope?
In the introduction to this article, I mentioned that one of my regular readers has had his lights turned off.  The following is how he described his situation…

No gas, no water, no electricity at my house. Couldn’t pay the bills. I’m broke. Desperately searching for any means of income, or at least enough cash to get the juice (electricity) restored.
Typing this missive in a dark house using the battery on my laptop. Feels like I’m camping out at home. Hope to get this situation fixed tomorrow… somehow. Needless to say, I *…. hate this.
I was ready for this, but it is still a major league inconvenience. For those of you who DO have power, etc. – and are not ready… oh brother. You need to get ready. Seriously, you do. Because what I’m going through is just an inconvenience. It may someday be a normal occurence. Ugh. (expletives deleted)

Hopefully a way can be found to get his situation turned around, but the truth is that there are tens of millions of other similar stories out there in America today.
What about you?  What are things like in your neck of the woods?  Please feel free to share your thoughts below…

The original source of this article is The Economic Collapse and Global Research

Copyright © The Economic Collapse, The Economic Collapse and Global Research, 2016

american economy

12 signs America is on the decline

Jill Hamburg Coplan

Updated: Jul 21, 2015 4:21 PM Pacific

America is declining, in large and important measures, yet policymakers aren’t paying attention. So argues a new academic paper, pulling together previously published data.

Consider this:

• America’s child poverty levels are worse than in any developed country anywhere, including Greece, devastated by a euro crisis, and eastern European nations such as Poland, Lithuania and Estonia.
• Median adult wealth in the US ($39,000) is 27^th globally, putting it behind Cyprus, Taiwan, and Ireland.
• Even when “life satisfaction” is measured, America ranks #12, behind Israel, Sweden and Australia.

Overall, America’s per capita wealth, health and education measures are mediocre for a highly industrialized nation. Well-being metrics, perceptions of corruption, quality and cost of basic services, are sliding, too. Healthcare and education spending are funding bloated administrations even while human outcomes sink, the authors say.

“We looked at very broad measures, and at individual measures, too,” said co-author Hershey H. Friedman, a business professor at Brooklyn College - City University of New York. The most dangerous sign they saw: rising income and wealth inequality, which slow growth and can spark instability, the authors say.

“Capitalism has been amazingly successful,” write Friedman and co-author Sarah Hertz of Empire State College. But it has grown so unfettered, predatory, so exclusionary, it’s become, in effect, crony capitalism. Now places like Qatar and Romania, “countries you wouldn’t expect to be, are doing better than us,” said Friedman.

“You can become a second-rate power very quickly,” added Hertz.

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To be sure, the debate over whether America is on the decline has raged for years. The US National Intelligence Council said in its global trends report a decade ago American power was on a downward trajectory. Others making the case say the US is overstretched militarily, ill-prepared technologically, at-risk financially, or lacking dynamism in the face of influential, new competitors.

Arguing decline has been exaggerated, others point to a rising US stock market, manufacturing strength, a growing population, and a domestic energy boom.

The authors collect many previously published rankings, and the picture that emerges, however, is sobering:

1. Median wealth per adult

Rank of U.S.: 27th out of 27 high-income countries

Americans may feel like global leaders, but Spain, Cyprus and Qatar all have higher median wealth (per capita) than America’s (about $39,000). So does much of Europe and the industrialized world. Per capita median income in the US ($18,700) is also relatively low--and unchanged since 2000. A middle-class Canadian’s income is now higher.

2. Education and skills

Rank of U.S.: 16th out of 23 countries

The US ranked near the bottom in a skills survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which examined European and other developed nations. In its Skills Outlook 2013, the US placed 16th in adult literacy, 21st in adult numeracy out of 23, and 14th in problem-solving. Spots in prestigious US universities are highly sought-after. Yet higher education, once an effective way out of poverty in the US, isn’t anymore – at least not for lower-income and minority students. The authors quote studies showing, for example, that today 80% of white college students attend Barron’s Top 500 schools, while 75% of black and Latino students go to two-year junior colleges or open-admissions (not Top 500) schools. Poor students are also far less likely to complete a degree.

3. Internet speed and access

Rank of U.S.: 16th out of 34 countries

Broadband access has become essential for industry to grow and flourish. Yet in the US, penetration is low and speed relatively slow versus wealthy nations—thought the cost of internet is among the highest ($0.04 per megabit per second in Japan, for example, versus $0.53 in the US). The problem may be too much concentration and too little competition in the industry, the authors suggest.

4. Health

Rank of U.S.: 33rd out of 145 countries

When it comes to its citizens’ health, in countries that are home to at least one million people, the US ranks below many other wealthy countries. More American women also are dying during pregnancy and childbirth, the authors note, quoting a Lancet study. For every 100,000 births in the United States, 18.5 women die. Saudi Arabia and Canada have half that maternal death rate.

5. People living below the poverty line

Rank of U.S.: 36th out of 162 countries, behind Morocco and Albania

Officially, 14.5% of Americans are impoverished -- 45.3 million people--according to the latest US Census data. That’s a larger fraction of the population in poverty than Morocco and Albania (though how nations define poverty varies considerably). The elderly have Social Security, with its automatic cost-of-living adjustments, to thank, the authors say, for doing better: Few seniors (one in 10) are poor today versus 50 years ago (when it was one in three). Poverty is also down among African Americans. Now America’s poor are more often in their prime working years, or in households headed by single mothers.

6. Children in poverty

Rank of U.S.: 34th out of 35 countries surveyed

When UNICEF relative poverty – relative to the average in each society—the US ranked at the bottom, above only Romania, even as Americans are, on average, six times richer than Romanians. Children in all of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan fare better.

7. Income inequality

Rank of U.S.: Fourth highest inequality in the world.

The authors argue that the most severe inequality can be found in Chile, Mexico, Turkey -- and the US. Citing the Gini coefficient, a common inequality metric, and data from Wall Street Journal/Mercer Human Resource Consulting, they say this inequality slows economic growth, impedes youths’ opportunities, and ultimately threatens the nation’s future (an OECD video explains). Worsening income inequality is also evident in the ratio of average CEO earnings to average workers’ pay. That ratio went from 24:1 in 1965 to 262:1 in 2005.

8. Prison population

Rank of U.S.: First out of 224 countries

More than 2.2 million Americans are in jail. Only China comes close, the authors write, with about 1.66 million.

9. Life satisfaction

Rank of U.S.: 17th out of 36 countries

The authors note Americans’ happiness score is only middling, according to the OECD Better Life Index. (The index measures how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings.) People in New Zealand, Finland, and Israel rate higher in life satisfaction. A UN report had a similar finding.

10. Corruption

Rank of U.S.: 17th out of 175 countries.

Barbados and Luxembourg are ahead of the US when it comes to citizens’ perceptions of corruption. Americans view their country as "somewhat corrupt," the authors note, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based nonprofit. In a separate survey of American citizens, many said politicians don’t serve the majority’s interest, but are biased toward corporate lobbyists and the super-rich. “Special interest groups are gradually transforming the United States into an oligarchy,” the authors argue, “concerned only about the needs of the wealthy.”

11. Stability

Rank of U.S.: 20th out of 178 countries.

The Fragile States Index considers factors such as inequality, corruption, and factionalism. The US lags behind Portugal, Slovenia and Iceland.

12. Social progress index

Rank of U.S.: 16th out of 133 countries

A broad measure of social well-being, the index comprises 52 economic indicators such as access to clean water and air, access to advanced education, access to basic knowledge, and safety. Countries surpassing the US include Ireland, the UK, Iceland, and Canada.

“If America’s going to be great again, we’ve got to start fixing things,” Friedman said.

Jill Hamburg Coplan is a writer and editor and regular contributor to Fortune.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the U.S. ranked 27th in median household income; the U.S. ranked 27th in median wealth per adult. This has been corrected in the current version.

   Politics: Van Jones Speaking At The Broadbent Institute In Toronto

Politics: Van Jones Speaking At The Broadbent Institute In Toronto

By David Murray on January 1, 2017

I came upon this great speech by Van Jones after the US election. If you get time it is 35 minutes well spent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU5z4rnOs0Y. This is also what Van Jones had to say on CNN on election night about electing a bully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdgewCeLtrU

NDP In Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge Back Bob D’eith

Press Release: NDP In Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge Back Bob D’eith

By David Murray on May 5, 2015

MAPLE RIDGE – Yesterday afternoon, New Democrats from across the riding of Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge gathered to elect lawyer, musician, and active community volunteer Bob D’Eith to be their candidate for the next federal election.
“Beyond Bob’s extensive and vast experience, he is also committed to his community and a strong advocate for accountability, openness and action,” said NDP Leader Tom Mulcair. “The fact that, like me, he is also a former minor hockey coach, is just icing on the cake. I’m very happy to have him on our team.”
A father of five, D’Eith has been involved in the music industry for twenty-five years in a variety of capacities from two time JUNO Award nominee to music lawyer. For the past fourteen years, he has been the executive director of the Music BC Industry Association and, for the last two, an active member of the Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Arts Council.
“I am honoured to have been chosen to be the NDP candidate for the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge,” said D’Eith. “The people I speak with are ready for change and only Tom Mulcair has the experience and principled policies to replace Stephen Harper.”
Speaking after the meeting, D’Eith continues, “The NDP stands for the Canada that I know and love. A Canada that provides peace-keepers to countries in need. A Canada that cares about the environment, our water and our coast-lines. A compassionate Canada with a strong middle-class that takes care of those less fortunate. A Canada that values our rights and freedoms. I hope that I can be part of the solution, working with Tom Mulcair and the NDP to move our amazing country towards a Canada that we can all be proud of.”

Bob D'EithCanadaNDPPitt Meadows-Maple Ridge NDPThomas Mulcair

http://nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.ca/2010/06/reflections-on-regina-riot.html

http://nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.ca/2010/06/reflections-on-regina-riot.html

Tommy Douglas' big dreams

Douglas knew how to dream big, championing medicare even when the critics said he'd never succeed.

Wed 24 Mar 2010

By Jack Layton, as published in the Mark
When Canadians voted Tommy Douglas our “Greatest Canadian” in 2004, we honoured a man whose example sets the highest bar for today’s political leaders. A portrait of the preacher from Weyburn hangs in my Centre Block office, watching over every meeting with every delegation from every corner of this country. A momentary meeting of the eyes often brings to mind Tommy’s essential teachings.
“Dream no little dreams,” Tommy would say – then show us how. Medicare is impossible, the world cried out. You’ll never balance Saskatchewan’s budget. The medical establishment won’t allow it. It can’t be done. Then he got it done, through a dramatic team effort sparked by his courage to dream big. That same courage lowered Saskatchewan’s voting age to 18, pioneered public-sector bargaining rights, prototyped public auto insurance, launched a public air ambulance service, and issued a bill of rights – all in Tommy’s first term as our party’s first provincial premier.

Contrast Tommy’s vision with more “modern” leaders whose idea of nation-building is to prop up big business and hope for the best. We need more of Tommy, and less of that. More of that Douglas-style dreaming that’s genetically linked to getting things done.
When he came to Ottawa as the NDP’s first federal leader, Tommy set to work building bridges with Lester Pearson’s minority government. Persistently. Pragmatically. The results became defining aspects of Canadian society – national medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, a world-class affordable housing strategy. That’s why older Canadians aren’t surprised to see today’s New Democrats making minority Parliaments work. We’re learning from the very best.

But Tommy’s example also underlines vital limits on compromise. Forty years ago, I was studying at McGill University when Pierre Laporte was murdered by the FLQ. Like so many, I found myself carried away by the popular impulse to applaud Trudeau’s drastic crackdown on the threat that the FLQ seemed to represent. Then Tommy began powerfully condemning the suspension of civil rights under the War Measures Act – risking terrible ostracism to give sober voice to principle: we mustn’t use fear as a smokescreen to trample basic rights. As the vans plucked hundreds of peaceful separatists from the streets of Montreal, something clicked and I rushed to become a New Democrat.
Dream big. Be pragmatic. Stick to your principles. That’s Tommy’s distinguished example. There’s none better for aspiring young leaders looking to make a positive mark on their country.

Abbotsford NDP Candidate David Murray with Ed Broadbent at Halifax convention