Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Miles Corak reviews Branko Milanovic’s new book on the complicated relationship between globalization and income inequality. Dougald Lamont examines the current state of inequality in Canada. And Matth…
Continue readingTag: alex himelfarb
Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Justin Trudeau’s control over the federal electoral reform committee looks to extend a familiar pattern of top-down government into the design of our electoral system. (And I’ll add one point here which didn’t make it into the column: the …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Carolyn Shimmin discusses the connection between inequality and social ills, while Sarah Khapton reports on new research showing part of the biological explanation.- Rachelle Younglai documents the growing nu…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Time To Reject Magical Thinking
Canadians, along with the West in general, have been fed a neoliberal diet of propaganda and policy for so long that far too many have succumbed to magical thinking, the belief that we can have it all with only minimal pain, the later in the form of lo…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Himelfarb writes about the urgent need to reverse the vicious cycle of austerity. And Toby Sanger takes a look at the economic records of Canada’s political parties, and finds that the NDP ranks at the top of the class not only for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Alex Himelfarb highlights the vicious circle the Harper Cons have created and driven when it comes to public services: Today’s austerity is not a response to fiscal crisis. The 2012 budget demonstrated that it’s about redefining the purpose of government, about dismantling, brick
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb writes about the corporate push to treat taxes as a burden rather than a beneficial contribution to a functional society – and why we should resist the demand to slash taxes and services alike: How is it that we don’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb write about the growing appetite for stronger public services and the taxes needed to fund them in 2014 – even if we’re a long way from having that translated into real policy changes: Certainly tax phobia has framed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Ryan Meili examines why Craig Alexander of the TD Bank is calling for a move toward greater income equality in Canada: The OECD reports that income inequality is at the highest level in 30 years, and that economic growth has been slowed by
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Thank you Danielle for reminding us what this country is worth
It wasn’t one of her three big ideas to improve health care, but it was a brief moment of brilliance. During Monday’s RamsayTalks at the University of Toronto, Dr. Danielle Martin had just been asked by the Rotman School’s Mark Stabile how she … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Two Takes On Taxation
The contrast couldn’t be more striking. As announced by federal Fiance Minister Joe Oliver the other day, Ottawa is well on its way to posting a $9 billion surplus, but Canadians shouldn’t expect any massive new spending programs. Instead, he plans to reduce taxes once the deficit is eliminated in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb comment on the dangers of failing to talk about taxes: The tax debate is often muddied by disagreement about whether taxes have actually gone up or down. As the economy grows, so too do tax revenues and spending,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Reading Recommendation.
I have a deep respect for Alex Himelfarb, the director of the Glendon School of International and Public Affairs and tireless proponent of responsible, progressive taxation. The latter, as one can well-imagine, likely makes him persona non grata in many circles, but those are likely the same circles that close
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: We won’t have Medicare II without federal leadership — Himelfarb
Alex Himelfarb understands the 2004 10-year health accord better than most. At the time it was negotiated, he was the highest ranking civil servant in Ottawa. The $41.3 billion Accord was supposed to fix health care for a generation. It would … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Doherty recognizes that Saskatchewan’s failure to collect a reasonable royalty rate for potash and other natural resources is directly responsible for the province crying poor when workers are laid off. And Alex Himelfarb points out that the magical theory behind perpetual tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb comment on Canada’s dangerously distorted conversation about public revenue and the purposes it can serve: As we argue in our new book, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word, the Canadian tax conversation has become dangerously distorted. Any reasonable
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Ontario’s austerity policies self-defeating — Hennessy
There are many ways to tell a story. For Trish Hennessy, Ontario director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, one way is to look at the most searched word annually for the on-line Mirriam-Webster dictionary. Speaking last night at the … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Tuesday Night Thought
From one of my favourite writers, speakers, thinkers and bloggers, Alex Himelfarb. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that to end your Thursday. – The Huffington Post discusses a study showing how poor Canadians pay the highest marginal tax rates on income that pushes them over benefit thresholds. But it should be fairly obvious that the solution is to set up rational models for social programs
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders: The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over
Continue reading