Assorted content to end your week. – Jemima Kelly highlights the massive amounts of revenue lost to tax evasion and tax avoidance in the EU – while pointing out the importance of recognizing the larger scale of the former. And PIPSC makes the case for e-commerce titans to pay their
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Dion Rabouin examines the U.S.’ unprecedented level of inequality and wealth concentration. And Orsetta Causa, Anna Vindics and James Browne highlight how worsening inequality around the globe has been the result of avoidable policy choices. – But David Dayen writes that Amazon’s failed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Suresh Naidu, Dani Rodrik and Gabrien Zucman write about the developing movement toward an economic discipline which recognizes the importance of human well-being, rather than being bound by neoliberal ideology and an assumption that GDP is the only end to be pursued. –
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Kids These Days!
Here’s Greta Thunberg, 16, at Davos 2019, the World Economic Forum: At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge we have failed. All political movements in their present form
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Why Protest?
This will be the shortest post ever! Here’s my argument delineated in premises and a conclusion (P=premise, SC=sub-conclusion, C=conclusion): P1. Human beings are wired for immediate, or short-term, survival, not long term survival. (Or, as Plato said, we are weak at the skill of measurement.) That’s why we do many
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Fridays for Future
I went to the first #fridaysforfuture protest in our area with my youngest, yesterday, outside my MP’s office. The idea is the brainchild of Greta Thunberg who wants all students to strike every Friday until the political system focuses on slowing down climate change so we can avoid hitting that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on Scott Moe’s apparent view that the only voice which deserves to be heard or amplified is that of the oil industry. For further reading…– Jie Jenny Zou is among many to have discussed the oil industry’s track record of funding science denial in the interest of being able
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roderick Benns points out the disruptive effect of the cancellation of Ontario’s basic income trial – signalling the importance of being able to plan on a stable source of income. And Jessica Chin reports on an anticipated wave of renovictions to push tenants
Continue readingwmtc: harry leslie smith — rest in power, and thank you
Harry Leslie Smith, who sometimes called himself “the world’s oldest rebel,” died in late November 2018. I was unable to acknowledge his passing on wmtc at the time. Smith, a writer and an activist, was a steadfast critic of neoliberal policies, especially the austerity agenda. He spoke out constantly and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual report on CEO pay shows that executives are again being handed hundreds as much money as their employees – and that there’s also a gender gap even at the executive level. – The Economic Policy Institute
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jeffrey Sachs writes that the fight against climate breakdown demands a concerted solution to global problem – rather than political wrangling over whether anybody will accept any responsibility for desperately-needed change. And Adam Tooze points out the foreseeable political threats posed by
Continue readingwmtc: this week, give 15 minutes of your time to defend human rights #write4rights
Are you writing for rights? I almost gave myself a pass this year. I’m living out of a hotel room and I don’t have easy access to a printer, and… what the hell? I’m one of the most privileged people on the planet. Surely I won’t skip Write For Rights
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nick Saul calls out Doug Ford for undermining the dignity of lower-income Ontarians through barriers and cuts to needed benefits. And the Star’s editorial board notes that both labour policy and social programs need to account for the needs of a workforce
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Kibasi writes that the UK’s best option in light of its impending Brexit is to develop a more active and entrepreneurial state: So in a sense, Brexit changes everything and changes nothing: it exacerbates the UK longstanding problem with an investment
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Owen Jones writes that a four-day work week being developed by UK Labour could represent an important step toward genuine personal freedom: (I)t is extremely welcome that Labour’s John McDonnell has approached eminent economist Lord Skidelsky to head an inquiry into potentially cutting
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rupert Neate reports on the latest Credit Suisse study showing that wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a few ultra-rich individuals. And Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe take note of a similar trend for U.S. wages, particularly when it comes to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Simon Wren-Lewis notes the importance of including the working class among the groups identified as part of a progressive movement. And Gary Younge writes about the importance of genuine identity politics (as opposed to the cynical right-wing counterpart) as a means of identifying
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matt Bruenig discusses how UK Labour’s plans to ensure workers have an ownership stake in major corporations fits into the wider principle of common wealth: The Labour Party’s John McDonnell recently unveiled a policy that would require large corporations with more than 250
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Sam Pizzigati discusses the predictable social consequences of allowing inequality to grow: What sort of unintended consequences [result from increased inequality]? The British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have some compelling answers in their powerful new book, The Inner Level. The more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Krugman discusses how Republican obstruction undermined both the shape and size of the U.S.’ efforts to recover from the 2008 economic crisis. And Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick and Ulrike Steins document how the crisis ant its aftermath exacerbated the U.S.’ already-alarming level
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