man, you guys read too much into stuff. i know that's the deal with what you do, but at the same time you're often soooo close. i'm a little (ok a lot) behind on video feed, so i'm just getting to this now.

1) bowe bergdahl was charged with desertion this week. this was the obvious setup. i'm pointing it out here to demonstrate that it was obvious and you guys should have seen it. there's been rumours for a while, now, that desertion in afghanistan is under-reported. and, this is something that goes back to vietnam or further. but, it's really right out of 1984. i don't doubt for a minute that the stories around bergdahl are accurate, or that he was really in detention. rather, i'd point that this is exactly why they needed to get him back. the united states army is not a democratic institution. it's a violent, ruthless, top down structure where rape is rampant as a tool of control. most civilians (and i'm a civilian...) couldn't contemplate how this really works. so, you've got a deserter. what the army is going to do is take the guy, bring him back, force him back to duty [to send the message that you can run, but you can't hide] and then send him to jail. it's been a long time since they executed somebody for desertion, but it's still a possibility. so, is it a "psy-op"? well, sort of. but, the audience is every serviceman or woman who's ever considered just taking off into the countryside. the message is clear: the army will track you down, put you back in service and then punish you for it. there is no escape.

2) this iran/america "detente" is totally overblown. and, i think it's an error to think that the americans wanted to prop up maliki. rather, it's pretty clear that they wanted maliki out. my reading into the situation is that a substantial part of the isis movement into iraq was to force a regime change one way or the other - either maliki steps down, or isis takes him out. and, of course the saudis think any shiite is a heretic that should suffer their equivalent of being burned at the stake, so it's right in line with their interests. what the americans are doing here is creating the situation which they wanted in the first place, which is bringing forces back in. remember: the americans wanted a force to remain in iraq, but couldn't get maliki to sign a sofa. the crux of the fighting seems to be a proxy war between the saudis and the turks, and the americans may be helping to knock out a few undesirable elements. but all i can see happening in front of me is the americans finding a sneaky way to reestablish the presence they didn't really want to terminate. of course, that's on top of an excuse to blow up abandoned syrian military installations...

this is a Big Deal.

forget the stuff about the province and socialized housing, it's a front to get the loan. the purpose of this policy is the financialization of the budget deficit.

what this means is that, from this point forward, the bank will have a revenue stream coming from taxation in toronto. the city will collect property taxes and give it to the bank as interest on the loan. so, shareholders will be directly taxing citizens.

"they can't do that!". you're right - this is illegal in spirit. it's legal on a loophole. it's an abuse of power. hence the front story.

this is consistent with pc policy over the last few decades, which has been to transfer wealth from public institutions to financial institutions. this is just considerably more ballsy than anything you saw from the harris or harper governments. none of them would consider creating a revenue stream out of taxation...

it's again indicative of the contempt that government has for people right now. economists all over the spectrum have been calling for taxes on financial transactions. a "bank tax". well, toronto just got a bank tax. but, instead of being a tax on financial transactions that transfers wealth from banks to public institutions, it's a property tax that creates a revenue stream for the bank.

this is a structural problem, and it will spiral out of control. it threatens to create the same kind of systemic problems that exist in cities like detroit. torontonians can expect to wake up in ten years and realize that their interest payments to jp morgan are so high that they have to sell off public services.

it's sneaking under the radar. that can't happen. this must be challenged. it creates a feudal tax structure that is not consistent with a free society and will have dramatic, third-world type consequences.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/29/john-tory-rejects-provincial-money-will-take-a-bank-loan-to-help-balance-books/

note the allusion to household spending. this is done to create confusion over the nature of public and private debt.

again, the purpose of this is to put the city into private debt. this is an abuse of power, and if it's not fought the city will face severe consequences. the financial institutions will also repeat the stunt in other cities.

i wouldn't count on the province to do anything, either; from what i can see, they seem to be in on it.

the purpose of the post is to get the idea out to residents of toronto to organize to launch a legal challenge. i can't and won't get into the details. it's just a call to action.

this is of course very different than selling off highways and electricity grids. but, it's following the same playbook.

1) obfuscation. the electricity privatization was sold as a way to reduce costs by opening up a market. but, ontarians know how that worked out. it went through the roof, with no end in sight. they'll blame it on "environmentalism", but the reality is anybody that got through economics 101 saw this coming as clear as day. people are switching to coal and gas to reduce costs, as the climate warms. it's outrageous, given that it costs almost nothing to run a hydro plant. who wins? bay street. likewise, they're running all kinds of plays here to confuse people - pinning it to the cost of social housing, talking about the city like it's a "house" etc. these arguments get rammed down your throat by media, and people just don't have the economic education to see through them.
2) privatizing profits, after you confuse people. but this is really different. this isn't just taking over something that could arguably be a business. i mean, i'd argue that resources ought to be publicly owned, but there's at least a debate there. we're talking about turning taxation into private revenue, here. we're talking about the government collecting money from people at gun point and giving it to the financial sector.

it's different, but it's the same process, and the same end point. which is why it's so transparent. it's one thing to whine about people being fucking idiots. but it's secondary, right now. this has got to be fought.