Despite US Republican presidential candidate John Mccain’s assurances that the impending US economic downturn is purely a product of our collective imagination, the sad truth remains otherwise.

Yes, “psychological” factors do play a significant role - albeit an intangible one - in moving the economy one way or the other. Consumer spending, for example, depends on our day to day decision-making and our own expectations of the future. Feeling good about the future? You’ll probably treat yourself to a Starbucks Caramel Macchiato during your coffee break. Worried about how to make ends meet with hefty mortgage payments, outstanding tuition loans and the like? You’ll likely think twice before splurging on that $4.50 cup of coffee, and settle for a less glamorous, but equally satisfying double-double for $1.25 at Tim Hortons. These decisions, multiplied a thousandfold, do affect the economy.

However, the impending US recession - or depression, in some circles - has less to do with demand-side factors (i.e. consumers) than it does with real and tangible supply-side factors and the role of a self-serving Bush administration. These are the “real” problems with the economy, problems that can’t simply be solved by hiding under our sheets, closing our eyes and wishing them away.

I will first examine the effect of rising oil prices on the US economy, and then move on to discussing the role of the current US administration in exacerbating the economic situation by involving itself in the unnecessary occupation of Iraq.

The integral supply-side problem at the heart of wracking the US economy is oil. How do rising oil prices do so much damage? Rising oil prices mean that pretty much everything is more expensive. Every productive process requires energy to function, and since oil prices - and thus energy costs - have risen sharply in recent years, producing stuff is a lot more expensive. In response to these rising costs, productive firms have no choice but to reduce production in order to stay alive.

Essentially, this means that the aggregate supply of the economy decreases, resulting in a sickening situation called stagflation, which combines the evils of inflation, unemployment and a recession. What this means to Mr. Average Joe is that he’s more likely to get laid off, and that he can’t live the way he used to before since everything is more expensive now. He now can buy less than he used to with his wages - unless he gets laid off, in which he can’t buy a single thing.

All this because of rising oil prices. But that isn’t the worst of it. The craziest part about stagflation is that the government faces a terrible dilemma when it attempts to reverse the damage caused. If the government tries to right the ship and restore the economy to its potential GDP, by fiscal policy for example, it worsens inflation and prices rise even further. However, if the government, in fear of inflation, does nothing in an attempt to protect the integrity of its currency, the economy is doomed to languish in a recession, and many workers will stay unemployed. The government can seemingly do no right in this situation, whatever good intentions it has.

Basically, in an oil-price-initiated state of stagflation, the government and consumers are screwed every which way they turn, and are thus at the mercy of ruthless oil companies and oil-producing countries. Unfortunately, the situation we are facing right now, whether Senator Mccain believes it or not, is even worse than the one I’ve described above.

Why? Because key members of the Bush administration have vested interests with the oil companies that have the entire world at their mercy. Most evidently, US Vice President Dick Cheney retains strong ties with Haliburton, in the form of deferred salary and significant stock options. This ridiculous conflict of interest creates a terrible situation - since the government and the oil companies are on the same “winning” side, the only losers are… everyone else.

In a nutshell, Bush, Cheney & Co. profit from the rising oil prices. They profit from the crippled economy. They profit from the death of the American dream. The stagflation dilemma faced by governments (inflation or recession?) doesn’t apply to them, because they win no matter what.

This brings me to my next point: the occupation of Iraq. Whatever way the Bush administration has strip mined the US economy for personal gain pales in comparison to what they have done to Iraq. So much has been written on this unjust occupation, this terrible atrocity, this hellish nightmare that has materialized from one little man’s thirst for blood and another’s psychotic avarice, that I won’t even go there in this article. What I’m going to talk about is the opportunity cost of the war - not even in intangible terms, such as the loss of American prestige and goodwill with its allies.

No, I’m just going to focus on the monetary opportunity cost of the Iraq occupation, in terms of averting the impending economic disaster which we face today. To date, close to a trillion dollars has been spent on Iraq - conservatively. This trillion dollar opportunity cost is massive - imagine what the economy would’ve been like had even a fraction of this been spent on educating future leaders, on training and developing an able labour force and keeping that very labour force healthy. This ABC article by Temple University professor John Allen Paulos cleverly states what a trillion dollars would have meant for the US economy. The trillion-dollar war, as Paulos writes, could have funded the annual budgets of national US health and science organizations hundreds of times over, bringing significant improvements to healthcare methods and green technology. It could have given every US citizen $3000 each - indubitably boosting aggregate demand and thus the economy where misguided mass-media attempts to coax consumers into buying more crap have failed miserably. It could have paid for $150 worth of healthcare to every single living human being on earth.

What indeed is the opportunity cost of the Iraq occupation? Forget merely averting the imminent recession. The trillion dollars could’ve changed the world - for the better. Instead, barely 5 years after US troops invaded Iraq, we have a credit crunch, dispossessed homeowners, soaring oil prices and plummeting living standards.

Perhaps the most hurtful, saddening but undeniably apt metaphor of our current situation is the site of the 911 attacks itself. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Americans were promised that their country and their pride would be rebuilt from the ground up - and that the very symbol of their freedom which had been struck down, the World Trade Center itself, would be resurrected, grander and more majestic than ever before. Today, seven years on, the World Trade Center is still a rubble-filled hole in the ground, the sorry victim of logistical and financial problems - much like the US economy.

Thank you, George and Dick.

I was downstairs having dinner with my family while watching CNN. The half an hour I spent watching CNN during dinner served as a microcosm for CNN’s coverage over the last few months; little or nothing was said about education, the economy, or healthcare. Instead, I was treated to non-stop coverage of the various US presidential candidates, including an in-depth breakdown of their body language (Hillary’s pointing and clapping vs. Barack’s mild wave vs. Mccain’s Vietnam-injury-encumbered two-handed half raise).

What punctuated this inane deluge of presidential campaign information? Scary facts about the Enemy! China is recruiting American-Chinese people to work as spies to steal American technology! Russia is up to their usual devious no-good ways! And then Hugo - I had no idea what Chavez was up to at this point as I was helping myself to more roast pork, but big close ups of scary Hugo in customary menacing red shirt accompanied by the threatening tone of the CNN news anchor sure worked me up good!

Had I been living under a rock for the last 22 years of my life, or stuck on a deserted island with a volleyball as my sole companion, and were I to have sat down to watch the last half hour (last few months’) CNN broadcasts, I would know of only two things in the world today:

1. US presidential candidates are the centre of the universe and it is imperative that I educate myself about the intricacies of their body language.

2. No other countries matter (Kenya, East Timor, Darfur), except vile enemy nations (China, Russia, Venezuela) who’re always up to dastardly deeds like stealing US technology.

Put one and two together; what message are we being shown? A combination of fear mongering and an overexposure toward the various presidential candidates. Something’s amiss. Switch on the TV and just leave it on CNN for 15 minutes, and think hard about the picture that’s being painted.

PS. My laptop has been dead for 2 weeks now. It doesn’t even switch on now. I will have to try to fix it again - for GOOD this time - during reading week ahead. Sparse blogposts until then.

Since school started, I’ve been tremendously swamped with work. I haven’t been busier, but my classes and involvement in school have never been more, well, involving and fun. Grades have sadly taken a dip, however.

One morning a few weeks ago, I hopped onto the feeder bus near my house to go to school. The bus went on its way once I got on, but 2 stops later, the driver stopped next to a small neighbourhood mall, stopped the bus engine, and sat reading a newspaper for a good 15 minutes. The driver only gingerly started the engine and continued driving us on our route when an annoyed woman told him off because she was going to be late due to his tardiness. In this way, what should’ve been a mere 10-minute bus ride took nearly half an hour. Ironically, this was the first day the 15 cent hike was implemented - which left me wondering, “Is this what I’m paying for?”

Upset by this incident, I started noticing ways in which the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) policies are currently lacking, and must be dealt with if TTC management has any serious intent on improving its service and bettering its relationship with its commuters. The humble recommendations of a 3rd-year commerce student follow:

1. Improving Employee Safety:
Forget about installing protective plastic barriers. A year has passed since the 2006 wildcat strike, and employee safety remains a top employee concern. Putting a movable plastic barrier up to protect TTC employees is not only ridiculous, it is also a stupidly shortsighted stopgap measure. Instead, why doesn’t TTC management try to give commuters less reason to be frustrated at TTC employees?

Even absolute numbskulls (for lack of a better word) often need some sort of provocation to be set off and become violent. The numerous inconsistencies in TTC service quality - the frequent delays and breakdowns, the poorly maintained stations, the list goes on - give these potentially violent commuters ample excuses to unfairly vent their frustrations on poor TTC employees. Instead of posturing and making a misguided attempt at a lame preventive measure, the TTC has to look at the harsh truth that is the source of the problem: customer dissatisfaction, the direct result of a poor product.

TTC employees are, for the most part, extremely polite and courteous men and women. In my experience - I take the TTC nearly every day - they are generally helpful and patient with commuters, and smile a lot. It is therefore very, very unfortunate that the shortsightedness of management - translating to angry and dissatisfied customers - has in turn led to ground-level employees’ suffering.

2. Better Employee Management
The same article states: “Another unresolved item is the lack of a job description for drivers. Vehicle operator duties have never been formally defined, though the two sides agreed more than five years ago to do so.” Therefore, there is a lack of proper internal control procedures in place to govern TTC employees’ performance of their duties - which to begin with, aren’t clearly defined.

What does this translate to? Non-value added activities, downtime and most annoying of all, irregular service and frequent delays, which tick commuters off, leading us back to our first point about employee safety. Commuters are generally pretty understanding if TTC vehicles are slightly late, but the pervasive irregularity of the bus and streetcar services almost makes the transit schedules at TTC stops a farce.

Measures must be put in place to clearly define employee responsibilities, and to ensure that incompatible responsibilities do not lie within a single role. Objective methods to monitoring performance must also be implemented to ensure that personnel follow their roles satisfactorily. The inability to clearly define employee responsibilities, particularly in a company that so strongly depends on its personnel, creates ample opportunity for non-constructive employee behaviour and is a surefire recipe for disaster.

3. Long-Term Cost Savings
To cut a very long story short, the TTC needs more money. It suffered a net operating loss of $319.7 million in 2006 (even worse than 2005’s $260 million figure), and is only staying afloat due to huge operating subsidies.

What then is the TTC’s solution to improving operational cashflows? Yet another stopgap solution: hiking up transit fares by another 15 cents. Is the TTC losing money because it isn’t getting enough revenues from its commuters? No - the TTC is losing money because of its own lack of foresight, and commuters have been made to bear the brunt of the TTC’s rising costs.

In what ways can the TTC most easily improve, instead of making commuters pay more? For one, by investing in better internal control procedures, particularly employee safety measures. How does spending more money translate to cost savings, you may ask? Accident claims cost the TTC $21.5 million in 2006 - a figure which rose by more than $5 million, a significant 34% increase from 2005’s figure of $16 million. By making smart, longsighted investments into safety measures, the TTC can safeguard its employees, while simultaneously saving it millions of dollars in accident claims in the future. Instead, it hikes up its rates.

A second way in which the TTC can improve its cashflow is to make another long-sighted, future-oriented investment: invest in future contracts to hedge its fuel costs. Basically, this means entering pre-agreed purchase agreements in advance in order to safeguard the TTC from being at the mercy of volative fuel prices. To illustrate my point, let’s just look at its income statement: vehicle fuel expenses rose by more than 50% from $36 million in 2005 to $54 million in 2006. Did the TTC expand its routes or its fleet by 50% in 2006? No, but why then did fuel expenses skyrocket? A pure lack of foresight.

Due to its reliance on fuel, the TTC must find better ways of securing this key resource for its vehicles. A quick look at its financial statements reveals no evidence of any attempt to hedge against fuel price risk. Knowing that their operations rely so much on fuel, and that fuel prices are indeed extremely volatile, the TTC cannot continue to ignore hedging contracts as a means of protecting their future cashflows. Instead of exploring such long-term cost-savings options, the TTC merely continues to raise commuter transit fees higher. And higher.

In summary, I believe that the TTC has been too focused on short-term, stopgap solutions to its employee welfare, personnel management and operational cost problems. Worsening working conditions, inconsistent service, customer dissatisfaction and threats to employee safety form a vicious cycle that has resulted from this lack of foresight, which ultimately causes low-level TTC staff and commuters to suffer the most. By even considering my recommendations, I believe that the TTC can at least make an educated step towards improving their operational efficiency, their employee welfare and the strained relationship with their commuters.

Your friend,

Joel Ong

Charity, in my mind, starts from very basic things - and is a very simple thing to do, actually. It all stems from having very basic courtesy and empathy for other human beings, and doesn’t require one to join Doctors Without Borders or go volunteering in a less developed country halfway across the world.

What do I mean? If everyone was charitable to their family and friends around them, if we just did the tangible things we could to better the lives of our brethren, people wouldn’t need to go volunteering halfway across the world on some large-scale charity mission half as often.

Be good to your parents, and take care of them - otherwise some charitable stranger in an old folk’s home will someday have to. Don’t haphazardly throw litter on the floor when you’re out on the streets - that way road cleaners won’t have to pick it up, right? You get what I mean?

I’m not saying that large-scale, high profile charitable acts are a bad thing; no, in fact in many cases, they are very necessary and save many, many lives. What I am saying is that when we try to do good, sometimes we forget about the little, simple courtesies that we can do for people closer to us - ironically, people whose lives we can directly impact most with our actions.

Why fly to Africa to help the poor and sick when you can walk to your local mission and do the same? The same sick, the same dying, the same homeless. Toronto is filled with thousands of homeless people. So are other great metropolitan cities like New York, London and the like. They all could use a little help, too.

There are many factors, mainly economical and political reasons, why we continue to chose to help the poor and the suffering of another country rather than those close to us. On a more personal level, it is far easier for many people to donate $100 in helping some faraway AIDS victims than it is to give a $0.25 coin to a homeless man on the sidewalk, for a very simple reason: the NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) rule.

A relevant example of this occurred over the last year in The Beaches, one of Toronto’s posher and “classier” neighborhoods. The residents of The Beaches were lauded when they brought forward a charitable movement where homeless people would be given free food and shelter in local churches. However, when one such shelter was planned to be set up in The Beaches itself, the residents vehemently resisted, protesting strongly against it.

For a more obvious example, look at the USA’s involvement in the Middle East. Billions of dollars have gone into rebuilding Iraq (Waitaminute… why did it need to be rebuilt in the first place?), yet hulking highway bridges in the US are crumbling from disrepair. Katrina funds, collected over the years from millions of well-meaning donors and organizations, mysteriously don’t seem to be translating to much: New Orleans is still pretty much in shambles, a shadow of what it once was. Think about it: take every dollar spent on the Green Zone in Iraq and imagine it put into actually rebuilding New Orleans: the people there would be much, much better off than how they are now.

To sum my point up: charity then, is apparently a lot easier to perform the farther away one is from the person being helped.

Which is why a man like the late Ed Mirvish is so special, and so great. To those who are unfamiliar with “Honest” Ed, Mr. Mirvish was the owner of a huge discount store in Toronto (very similar to Mustafa’s in Singapore), as well as being responsible for nearly singlehandedly revitalizing the theatrical industry in Toronto. A true man of the people, Honest Ed showed that charity is as simple as loving those who are around you, and helping them in whatever simple means available to you. He didn’t have to go jet-setting across the world to help people; Honest Ed helped the people he could see and touch. The thousands of free turkeys he’s personally given out every Christmas to anyone who’d line up for them is just one example of Honest Ed’s charity. Honest Ed is just one of many good examples of how doing the simple things in our power to help our neighbours can very tangibly better their lives.

I write this not to judge, nor to dissuade or criticize. I merely am telling all who happen to read this, myself included when I reflect upon this in the future, to look closer to us when trying to do something good for someone else, because it’s a heck of a lot harder than to just dump $100 into some charity box, feel good about ourselves and think we’ve done a great deal of good by our sacrifice.

Instead, maybe we should try and just start by simply being considerate and courteous to our neighbours, our housemates, our parents and our friends… or, before we know it, in a generation or two, some humanitarian group from halfway across the world is going to have to waltz into our homes to help us.

It’s been nearly six years since 911, that fateful night before my Chemistry O level practical examination, where I sat in my living room in Serangoon Gardens, Singapore watching with my mom and siblings (my dad was on a flight to Canada when it happened) as reality showed it can often be far, far worse than fiction. But what reality do we see when we switch on the TV anymore?

Perhaps I may attribute this to me “growing up” in the years since, but as time has passed since I moved here to Canada, CNN has gradually lost its educational value to me, and consequently, I’ve practically ceased watching CNN altogether.

Why? The credibility of CNN’s ability to deliver objective, informative news in recent years has deteriorated, in my opinion, to near nothingness. From dedicating entire evenings, night after night, to covering the Wacko Jacko trial instead of the Iraq War a few years ago. From their non-stop coverage of Paris Hilton’s / Lindsay Lohan’s / Britney Spears’ latest shenanigans.

This may just be my viewpoint, but it seems to me that as the years since 911 have gone by, there increasingly seems to be an agenda behind CNN’s coverage. To prove a hidden-to-the-untrained-eye political point? To distract the masses from the horrors that are happening halfway across the globe - or in America’s own back yards?

When the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech happened, CNN seized its opportunity to sink its claws into it, trying to squeeze feel-good heroic stories and tear-jerking tales of the fallen alike from everyone they could get their hands on. The nadir, to me, was seeing Paula Zahn at the candlelight vigil, trying hard to fluff up the event with hyperbole and whatever dramatic emo-nonsense she could come up with. Leave the kids alone, for heaven’s sake - their friends are dead forever and they’re just trying to show them some respect, pray for them, remember them, mourn them… the last thing they want is to have some “journalist” standing there, pretending to be emotional, shoving a mic into their faces to milk another sob story.

NFL-er Michael Vick recently got into trouble for allegedly having dog fights in his house. I switched on the TV just now, and flipped past CNN. Paula Zahn was “interviewing” 2 African-American journalists regarding the issue that hip-hop music was endorsing dog fighting. They flashed a video clip of a Jay-Z music video with dogs snarling at each other. Worth noting is that one of the guests was Jason Whitlock, whose name should resonate to MANY people out there: he’s an ignorant, confused, deceitful, self-righteous and racist journalist who fancies himself the next coming of Rosa Parks. 90 percent of the CNN piece was dedicated to him shouting and waving his hands at the camera and denouncing (too) loudly the evils of hip-hop culture, yet claiming that he wasn’t “anti hip-hop” because he himself had released/produced some hip-hop music himself.

Zahn let Whitlock, who rudely interrupted and talked over both her and the other guest on numerous occasions, go on for minutes on end - while shushing the other level-headed guest every time he seemed to have a counterpoint to make. Finally, when it seemed that the other journalist was going to mount a good argument against Whitlock’s generalized damnation of all of hip-hop, Zahn declared that they were running out of time, and ended the segment, much to the dismay of the journalist, who hadn’t uttered more than a few sentences in the entire time he was on air.

Ironically, in my disgust, I flipped the channels up to TVTROPOLIS to watch Seinfeld - which had sadly just ended - then, as I flipped past MTV’s airheaded programming, I chanced on BET, which had Chamillionaire’s “EVENING NEWS” video on. I can’t find it on youtube because it’s brand new, but the video features a faux-CNN broadcast with Chamillionaire having a heated debate with “Bill O’Wiley” (played by Chamillionaire), with Cham brilliantly bringing up a number of pressing issues in his rhymes - ultimately however, when it seems Cham is about to make another good point, he is shushed as “O’Wiley’s” half of the screen devours Cham’s half, and the victorious “O’Wiley” smiles at the screen as the video ends. F*cking on point, Chamillionaire.

My purpose in recounting my views on CNN’s Michael Vick dogfighting piece here is that CNN had an agenda. They wanted to illustrate something about hip-hop and dogfighting; they played the videos that supported their point; they let a guest who they knew would obviously leap on their bandwagon and self-righteously preach away have his way; they prevented the guest who had a different point of view from what they wanted to present have a chance to air his views. Objective? No. Effective? Hell yeah, to the uninformed.

When the V-Tech massacre happened, why didn’t CNN have a feature saying that some hip-hop musicians out there are actually trying to inform, educate, and better the lives of our youths? That there are hip-hop artists who are trying to prevent things like V-Tech from happening? Why didn’t they show a clip Kelly Rowland’s “Stole” - a beautiful, melancholy song about an alienated, bullied student who shoots up his school and then turns the gun on himself? The song resonates from both the suicidal shooter’s point of view, as well as those of the poor students - an aspiring actress, a promising basketball player - whose lives were stolen; and without making any grand political point, it just mourns the senseless loss of stolen lives.

Because, as I’ve said before, CNN presents “news” with an agenda - their agenda. Not to inform, nor to educate, but to bring their point across - or, when the occasion requires it, to bludgeon our senses senseless with mindless celebrity ramblings. Is it any wonder why people young and old the world across are turning their backs on the mainstream media, and getting their news from blogs - because even though bloggers usually have a point to make, they’re at least transparent about it, and don’t masquerade their arguments as “news”?

In the last six years, CNN has played a huge part in making the world believe in the existence of WMD’s in Iraq, WMD’s which to this day, years after the US seized power there, more than half a year after Saddam’s death, have yet to be found. You cannot doubt that CNN has played a big part in that lie to the entire world, which many of us bought into. They aren’t the only media agency responsible, but their reach extends to every corner of the globe; CNN influences the viewpoints of millions.

To conclude, I would like to challenge everyone out there to watch CNN’s coverage from now on with a grain of salt. To look at other news agencies as a counterpoint, to think about current events as a backdrop, and wonder…

…What the hell is CNN trying to cram down my throat today?

Why is it so that foreign, talented athletes have to face an age-doubting problem once they come over to the US - that their ages are always put to question? The same thing happened to a number of good Euro players, as well as Dikembe Mutumbo.

Yi Jianlian, a very promising basketball player out of China, may see his draft stock plummet if his age is in doubt.

We really have to question ourselves: is this just North-American society’s underlying xenophobic tendencies emerging to the fore? Particularly with US-China relations getting edgy recently, this appears to be the case. I’d rather not this get all political - but it already is.

To prove my point, take a look at Lebron James. Honestly, with that Olympian physique of his and that big beard, he doesn’t look 22. Not to mention his absurd skillset. If four years ago Lebron had come out of, say, Nigeria or Cameroon, all the “experts” would’ve been doubting his age too.

Respected NBA journalists, “experts” and bloggers are already questioning Yi’s age - and are in fact challenging him to prove his “true” age of 19. So I’ll ask the opposite question then: What level of proof do we need to prove he’s 22? By the assumption that he’s already older, we’re already guilty of bias.

If Greg Oden or Kevin Durant were from Nigeria, we wouldn’t be rating them as the surefire top 2 picks. We’d be questioning the legitimacy of their ages, too, and they’d drop all the way down to being mid-first rounders at best.

Look at Oden in particular. Does he even look like a college freshman? As Oden is now, the entire sporting world is salivating over his “maturity”. However, had he come from overseas, we would’ve seen this “maturity” as “being 3 years older than he claims”, and questioned his age, just as Yi (and Mutumbo before) is being subject to.

Some sports “experts” find it hard to believe Yi is 19…

…yet they praise Oden (19), the surefire number one draft pick and future star, for his outstanding “maturity”…

… Lebron James is 22. No doubt about that, but had he come out of a foreign country, people would say he’s 30. And he looks it, actually.

Someone was killed today for “war crimes” that were committed “against humanity”.

When will someone else have to pay for these? Hell, how about this?

What happened today was wrong. Everyone knows it deep inside, whether we want to admit it or not. The past cannot be undone, but the future can be changed. That feeling that you feel, that unplaceable, unnameable feeling - that is the recognition of the gravest injustice. Think about it.

Remember this day, and remember this feeling. And know that the entire world has been hoodwinked, dragged by our noses into supporting the most unjust, senseless span of violence that humanity has ever indulged in - a span of violence that culminated in a sad circus show of an ending.

Weep at the injustice, and look in horror at the crimson on our hands.