Big Pharma, Big Price, Big Profits

The German playwright, Bertolt Brecht wrote in the 1930s that it is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up one. If Brecht were alive today, he might want to revise the statement by substituting pharmaceutical company for bank. Using a measure called Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), research shows that […]

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Trudeau’s UN vanity failure

Over $2.3 million was the cost of Trudeau’s failed attempt to get Canada a seat on the UN Security Council. In the age of the pandemic with the billions of government dollars swirling around for different programs, $2.3 million may seem like a drop in the ocean. But it isn’t. For the middle class, so […]

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COVID-19, War and Economics

The metaphors of war have been in abundance since the onset of COVID-19. In Britain, the Queen, in a speech, evoked the WW2 song, “We’ll Meet Again.” The Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, also invoked WW2 when he used Winston Churchill’s words to talk about Italy’s “darkest hour.” Donald Trump has described himself as a […]

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Synchronicity, Teaching and the struggle for an equitable education system

In 1983, The Police, recorded a song called “Synchronicity.”  Some of the lyrics: We know you, they know meExtrasensorySynchronicityA star fall, a phone call,It joins all,Synchronicity The word synchronicity generally has positive connotations and is briefly defined as a “meaningful coincidence.” Could it be a coincidence, meaningful or otherwise, that the Ontario Minister of Education […]

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The Backlash Against Capitalism

Before COVID-19 had become the all-consuming news story it is today, the elites of world capitalism, under the name of the World Economic Forum, were meeting in January in Davos, Switzerland. According to the WEF pronouncements, the key issues facing capitalism, in the year ahead, would be that: 1) The global economy is under pressure, […]

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