Juggling Dynamite

As always, intolerance from consumers is a critical part of driving change.  This requires thinking people to actively seek alternate products and producers that minimize plastic packaging, as well as bringing our own containers and bags to stores and leaving plastic packaging piled up at the checkout where necessary.  When it happens enough, store managers and owners take note.  See Intolerance for plastic pushing producers to change.

With its deep fossil fuel industry ties (90% of present plastics are petroleum-based), Canada is far behind the EU and other countries in banning non-biodegradeable single-use plastics.  We have to dramatically reduce packaging, and where plastics are wanted make them from plants and other biodegradable materials; time for bold actions.  There are already solutions like combining natural rubber with bio-plastic which are stronger and more felxible than petro-plastics. A ban on non-biodegradable plastics would focus investment and demand on sustainable packaging types.  See Study shows potential for earth-friendly plastic replacement.

We name and rate the top five most outrageously overpackaged products, and we take them all to our federal environment minister Catherine McKenna to see what’s being done to minimize the waste. All companies agree plastic is a big problem but most won’t agree to make change. So will government act? After our interview, she promises changes coming in June.Here is a direct video link.

Financialization, share buybacks, the shareholder primacy mindset, decades of tax cuts and government bailouts for ‘too big to fail’ companies, have all worked to socialize costs and subsidize a tiny fraction of the population at the expense of the rest.  Systems that don’t self-correct end up imploding one way or another.  Prior eras of extreme wealth inequality have typically ended in periods of redistribution through high taxation,  confiscation and sometimes war.

A growing number of those who’ve benefited from the current system are increasingly sounding the alarm about the need to take proactive redistributive steps to help rebuild strength in the broader population and economy before more harsh forces do the job. This segment discusses.

Peter Georgescu, chairman emeritus at Young & Rubicam and author of “Capitalists Arise!,” and Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, discuss the challenges presented by income inequality and the depth of the problem in the United States. Here is a direct video link.

Also, see hedge fund manager Ray Dalio’s recent essay Why and How capitalism needs to be reformed (Parts 1 and 2) for his ‘To Do’ list on this topic.  And, John Mauldin’s Capitalism Gone Wild this week is also worth reading.

Canadian insolvencies are on the rise as their debt comes home to roost. For more on this and why the piggybank is empty for some Canadians looking to borrow against their home, BNN Bloomberg spoke with Keith Emery, operations director at Credit Canada. Here is a direct video link.

Meanwhile, a Stats Can report this week highlights the harm that lax lending and ultra-low rates have wrought on Canadian seniors. While those that are homeowners have seen their property prices rise over the last decade, so have property taxes, carrying costs and related serves (as well as rents for non-owners) while their income from savings has halved with low yields. The result has been a troubling double in the median household debt-to-income ratio for households over age 65 since 1999, with 36% of senior households having more total debt than income in 2016 up from 21% in 1999. These debt ratios are pretty certain to have worsened further since the 2016 data (latest available).  Elder years are no place to be carrying debt as the report Debt and assets among Canadian senior families notes:

“The level of debt and value of assets are especially important for the financial security of seniors. Because income typically declines during the retirement years, seniors often need accumulated assets to finance their consumption, especially if they do not benefit from a private pension plan…Debt can also be particularly problematic for seniors as repayment can be more difficult on a reduced income.”