This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lauren Leatherby and David Gelles examine how people are spending money differently in the midst of a pandemic, while Lucia Mutikani reports on a massive drop in prices as declining consumer spending outweights any disruption to supply chains. And Armine Yalnizyan comments
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Damian Carrington reports on the connection between air pollution and more severe death rates caused by the coronavirus. Clyde Russell writes that there’s every reason to expect clean energy to win out over fossil fuels as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jim Stanford offers his take on how our governments should respond to the coronavirus epidemic – including an emphasis on health, income security and debt relief, along with a plan for reconstruction. And Armine Yalnizyan and Jennifer Robson provide some more specific
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your year. – Armine Yalnizyan writes about the ongoing struggle for workers’ rights a century after the Winnipeg General Strike: Most workers have no channels for acting, or even talking, collectively. That may be changing. Here in Canada, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers launched a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the failure of neoliberalism to provide gains for any but the wealthiest few has led to risks to the democratic systems which have been treated as tied to laissez-faire economics. And Armine Yalnizyan challenges the false assumption that increased
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Armine Yalnizyan comments on the need for a widespread and sustained challenge to the corporate powers which currently dominate political and economic decision-making: (P)ublic and private investments are the twin engines that propel shared prosperity. But where will the money come from
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bob Lord discusses how the concentration of wealth in the U.S. has pushed beyond even the obscene levels of the Gilded Age. Sunil Johal and Armine Yalnizyan examine (PDF) both Canada’s inequality and polarization of wealth, and a few of the options
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Assorted content to end your week. – PressProgress highlights the Canada Revenue Agency’s long-overdue estimate of the public costs of offshore tax evasion, as well as other new data on the money being withheld through corporate tax non-compliance: On Thursday, Canada’s tax collection agency published its first ever estimate of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sunil Johal and Armine Yalnizyan discuss the importance of building an economy based on a race to the top in labour and environmental standards, rather than the pursuit of the lowest common denominator. – Kevin Corinth and Claire Rossi-de Vries examine the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the Republican’s trillion-dollar corporate giveaway will only exacerbate inequality without doing anything to help the U.S.’ economy: If inequality was a problem before, enacting the Republicans’ proposed tax reform will make it much worse. Corporations and businesses will
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Assorted content to end your week. – Owen Jones writes that UK Labour’s bold and progressive platform was crucial to its improved electoral results. Bhaksar Sunkara rightly sees Labour’s campaign – in both its firm defence of the common good, and its determination to reach young and marginalized voters rather
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Armine Yalnizyan writes that a $15 minimum wage is ultimately good for businesses as well as for people: When higher income households see wage gains, some of it goes to savings. Additional consumption also often flows to vacations and luxury goods, often
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – In advance of this year’s Progress Summit, Ed Broadbent writes that burgeoning inequality threatens our democracy: Inequality matters. Promises must be kept. It’s not enough for our government to celebrate the diversity of our country but not enact policies that head off
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron writes that democratic socialism can produce a fair economy for everybody. And the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives puts the possibilities in concrete terms with its alternative federal budget. – Armine Yalnizyan argues that it’s long past time for a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron writes that democratic socialism can produce a fair economy for everybody. And the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives puts the possibilities in concrete terms with its alternative federal budget. – Armine Yalnizyan argues that it’s long past time for a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tom Parkin points out that neither austerity nor isolationism offers any real solution to improve Canada’s fiscal and economic standing. And Rob Carrick highlights what should be the most worrisome form of debt – being the increased consumer debt taken on to allow
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Ellen Gould comments on how the CETA and other trade deals constrain democratic governance – and the fact that corporate bigwigs are threatening any government which considers giving effect to popular opposition doesn’t exactly provide any comfort. Meanwhile, Scott Sinclair points out
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:The E…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
– Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:
The EC is also investigating state support received by Amazon and McDonalds in Luxembourg, a tax haven. Expect more costly court battles about the appropriateness of laws and systems of governance.Since the 2008 economic crisis, giant corporations have gone from being “too big to fail” to “too big to pay.”But as the big tax avoiders get feisty, so too are voters. The Panama Papers have made people aware of the hypocrisy: when those with deep pockets don’t pay, everyone else pays more. Governments are legitimately worried about their finances, and more focused on tax fairness than in decades. But as corporations both fight and rewrite the rules, occasionally cash-starved, debt-ridden nations are being enlisted to support their agenda.The Apple story is huge. It could presage the end of tax competition, as nations co-ordinate attempts to combat absurd levels of tax-dodging. Or it could signal growing dominance of corporate power over state power. High stakes, to be sure, in the evolution of 21st-century globalization.
– Meanwhile, Allan Sloan discusses how Mylan’s profiteering in ratcheting up the price of EpiPens has been paired with glaring tax avoidance. And the NDP points out the conspicuous lack of any public benefit from the Libs’ and Cons’ track record of corporate tax slashing in Canada.
– Alex Hemingway writes about the costs of privatizing public infrastructure. And Thomas Walkom highlights the Libs’ options in reviewing Canada Post’s future – which include taking an obvious opportunity to better meet a large number of social needs through a postal banking system.
– Bloomberg View rightly argues that fossil fuel subsidies are about the dumbest possible type of public policy. And Samantha Page offers another reason why that’s so by pointing out the devastating health effects of oil and gas production and distribution.
– Finally, Simon Enoch offers a much-needed warning to the rest of Canada as to what Saskatchewan faces with Brad Wall in power.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Armine Yalnizyan points out the choice between a basic income and the provision of basic services, while making a strong case to focus on the latter: At the federal level, the cost of raising everyone’s incom…
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