IPE Soap Box
A blog for timely thoughts on all things political and economic.
Monday, 3 January 2022
Redefining the Floor....Down
Thursday, 23 September 2021
It's Not Okay, None of This is Okay...
Over the last several months, governments everywhere have been rolling out their various passport schemes to drive up (coerce) vaccine uptake. I've been flamed, mostly on Twitter, for suggesting that passports were not the "get-out-of-jail" cards many people think they are.
The evidence everywhere passports have been introduced is that they juice vaccination rates. Those who
Surrender |
were lazy about it, sitting on the fence, or just unsure are strongly incentivized to get the jab. Fine. I'm all for more jabs in more arms. However, once that surge in vaccination is complete, what then for the passports? My strong suspicion is that these passports are never going away. Even where passport schemes have begun with paper cards/certificates, nearly everyone expects them to become electronic and increasingly harmonized (standards, format, etc). Moreover, I doubt these schemes will remain limited to combatting Covid-19. Technologies like this, once introduced, will be repurposed for all kinds of new "emergencies."
There are two big things that trouble me about the apparent public support for these schemes; first, the implicit acknowledgement that freedoms have been restricted and that passports are a way to get them back, and second, blaming the unvaccinated for the necessity of needing the passports at all.
We can live a life of sorts in spite or normalizing the abnormal. But doing so isn't really living.
Thursday, 16 September 2021
FAIL!... With a Side of Segregation?
FAIL!
Last night, Alberta's Premier declared a healthcare state of emergency, sent everyone back home again, and also announced the introduction of a vaccine passport scheme. I can't say I was surprised by any of this. The writing was on the wall toward the end of August as, little-by-little, ICU admissions to Alberta's fragile healthcare system began pushing it toward the breaking point.
I am worried about what the inability to persuade significant numbers of people as to the virtues of vaccination says about our public institutions and where our politics are headed.
Saturday, 11 September 2021
Twenty Years On...
Instead, I thought I'd try a short post that was a bit more personal, albeit probably still full of conflicting sentiment. Indeed, it's hard not to reflect on the last two decades and not be conflicted. It's a source of conflict that began on a morning in September that was exactly as beautiful as everyone says it was.
Monday, 6 September 2021
Passport to My Own Island
Me in Intellectual and Political No-Man's Land |
Monday, 23 August 2021
Been Away for a While
Locked Down for More than 18 Months |
ing in a space that wasn't limited to a short newspaper op-ed (readership there is declining there anyway), but was less formalized than academic publishing (with a different set of narrow readership problems).
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
Fear and Loathing,.. But Mostly Fear
Fear? Who, Me? |
I shouldn't be surprised at the level of fear this has all generated, but I am.
Sunday, 19 April 2020
The Return of Big Brother
There's An App for That
The past week of coronavirus news has more than once left me staring, mouth-open at the television or re-reading something in news multiple times just to make sure I read it correctly. It's not the mounting casualty numbers. It's not Trump's daily efforts to one-up the previous day's buffoonery.
A Message from The Ministry of Truth: Stay Home and Get the App |
We've known for a long time that our phones have been "spying" on us. Indeed, our phones are doing things most of us would rather not know about. As we live more and more of our personal and professional lives through our smart phones, we've become complacent about the data we willingly share. Sure, there are these ubiquitous "terms of use" certificates we instinctively click without reading. If we actually read them, the proper reaction ought to be to throw the phone in the river. But, since a lot of the data being mined about our habits is designed to sell us more stuff we don't need, we just roll with it.
Thursday, 9 April 2020
David, Goliath and SARS-CoV-2
Not Quite as it Appears |
More broadly, the instances of "coordination" or "every-man-for-himself" are revealing of aspects of the asymmetrical distribution of power in the international system and, for the purposes of this post, Canada-U.S. relations in particular.
Wednesday, 8 April 2020
SARS-CoV-2 Isolation Diaries
Dusting Off the Old Plans? |
The litany that follows here eventually leads me to a more serious set of points I think I have something to say about as we contemplate life during and after this pandemic.
Monday, 16 March 2020
Black Swans and Presidential Campaigns
Redefining the Floor....Down
I was scrolling through some YouTube clips the other day and came across the great Seinfeld episode in which Frank Costanza invites Seinfeld...
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In Part I of this post, I suggested Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump had more in common than many have acknowledged. Here, I'd like to o...
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In the days since the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership was release, I and many others have been scouring the text looking for what'...