The Euro as a possibly defused bomb. Beginning in 2010, the Greece anti-austerity movement launched a series of demonstrations and strikes across the country in response to plans to squeeze the public sector in exchange for a €110 billion bail-out. Oddly enough, Greeks weren’t as enthusiastic as German bankers were about “austerity measures” to address the Greek government debt crisis - higher taxes, cuts to pension funds, and selling off public assets - so they took to the streets.
According to Wikipedia, “In 2011, Greece had the highest rate of those at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the Eurozone (31 per cent compared to an average of 24.2 per cent across the EU as a whole). The suicide rate in Greece had increased 26.5 per cent from 377 in 2010 to 477 in 2011. The declining conditions led to the left wing SYRIZA party being swept to power in early 2015 with their anti austerity policies being well received across Greece.”
There was talk of Greece defaulting on its payments and leaving the European Union. This would have been very bad for the Euro and its money masters, and made for a bad example for other nations struggling under their own loan shark lending arrangements. Members of SYRIZA left the party as it became less oppositional to the banking sector, and the party now sits in opposition after a 2019 defeat. For good or ill, the bomb never went off.
The removal of the Canadian penny from circulation in 2013 fed rumours that another unit of currency might be next. Don’t let the door hit you in the, uh, beaver on the way out! (Didn’t happen, of course.)
In 2018, the Trudeau goverment purchased the Kinder Morgan pipeline. In theory, now you and I own it. Did this one for The Tyee.
Self-explanatory, I think! This toon is from 2013, and here is the situation as of this year. (A scholarly history of resource extraction in this province might be titled “Giving It All Away in British Columbia, 1900 - 2021.”)
Speaking of resources, the liquid natural gas industry failed to lift BC premier Christy Clark’s fiscal balloon, in spite of her best efforts.
My Suessian sequel on the LNG situation a year later, in 2016.
Of course, the huge underground weed economy offered Christy a chance of rebranding the LNG term. I imagined her here completely fried on BC bud.
From 2016. A mayor, premier, and prime minister fobbing off responsibility on protecting what should be a human right rather than a commodity. A few names have changed, but the situation remains largely the same, civically, provincially and federally.
A comment on foreign worker permits, a controversy that also continues.
From 2017. I took a picture of a Vancouver Downtown Eastside hotel sign (The Balmoral) and altered it into a comment on the battered state of global capitalism. Still the only high-stakes game in town, with the elites taking the rubes to the cleaners through bank bailouts, treasury-raiding wars, “austerity measures,” gamed pandemics, etc. I suppose the plan is to prop up the whole rickety construction until it collapses or burns down!
Clever stuff, as always, Geoffrey. cheers, Cath M.
indeed; but you would be out of a job just now. Being a writer/artist never goes out of style, while you starve elegantly in your suite...