In January, as the Globe and Mail put it in a colourful old-timey headline last week, Canada’s job market blew past the forecasts for the month. Unemployment also fell. In Alberta, not so much. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Indeed, Alberta was the only province in Canada
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Clarke writes about the war on people living in poverty arising out of needless austerity: The OCAP years have seen the abandonment of social housing by governments, the elimination of the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), Tory cutbacks that compare to those of
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Alberta Politics – The Populist Dismantling of Alberta
I, for one, am not looking forward to the social fabric of our province being torn asunder by the austerity crazed UCP government in 2020. “Speaking of blaming others for Alberta’s ills, 2020 will see the UCP government maintain its pugilistic approach to issues via its Fight Back Strategy that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Scott Gilmore writes about the glaring need for Canada’s politicians to show more capacity for shame – through it’s worth noting both a global pattern to the same effect, and the dangers of trying to draw “both-sides” equivalency (as Gilmore does) in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post by Abdul Malik: Let’s not go all NIMBY on public transit — it’s just what Edmonton needs!
Abdul Malik is a photographer and writer based in Edmonton who covers climate justice, decolonization, and worker organizing in the era of extreme climate change. In this post he argues Edmonton doesn’t just need more public transit, it needs free public transit. By Abdul Malik Alberta’s already got a reputation
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chris Hatch discusses the glaring contradictions between Canada’s lip service to the fight against climate change, and its actions in pushing to expand dirty energy production for decades to come. The Globe and Mail’s editorial board rightly recognizes that increasing the production and
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: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew MacLeod discusses how an anti-worker campaign at the Mountain Equipment Co-op demonstrates the need for employees to be able to bargain collectively without being subject to employer interference. – Linda McQuaig writes about Doug Ford’s plans to slash what’s already Canada’s lowest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – PressProgress examines the damage Doug Ford wants to inflict on children in Ontario’s education system. Fareed Khan calls out the right-wing politicians acting like spoiled children rather than responsible decision-makers. And Rick Smith discusses how to develop public policy to withstand the vandalism
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Austerity – The History of A Dangerous Idea – Mark Blyth
A thick meaty discussion of the western political economy and the checkered history that has led us to the current financial mess we happen to be in. Great viewing, get some popcorn!
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Arwa Mahdawi writes that the outsized influence wielded by billionaires makes them something beyond merely wealthy people. Tom Whyman challenges the worship of the excessively wealthy as a particularly destructive religion. Robert Reich points out that the means of accumulating a billion
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten things to know about the 2019-20 Alberta budget
I’ve just written a ‘top 10’ overview of the recent Alberta budget. Points raised in the post include the following: -The budget lays out a four-year strategy of spending cuts, letting population growth and inflation do much of the heavy lifting. -After one accounts for both population growth and inflation,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Spence discusses how a wealth tax can work, while noting that the worst possible response to growing inequality is to refuse to do anything. And the Centre for Labour and Social Studies summarizes the current class disparity in the UK, as well
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Vrishti Beniwal writes about Abhijit Banerjee’s call to put concentrated wealth to better social use by taxing it. – Yutaka Dirks interviews Linda McQuaig about the corporate takeover of far more public wealth than is normally recognized. And Matt Coughlin discusses how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee discuss the utter failure of corporate-driven “market” incentives to produce fair outcomes: If it is not financial incentives, what else might people care about? The answer is something we know in our guts: status, dignity, social connections. Chief
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Jackson calls out the Cons for their platform of taking from the many to further enrich the most privileged few. David Macdonald studies what the unspecified cuts promised by the Cons could mean in terms of losses to public services. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Steven Strauss examines the catastrophic results of the U.S. Republicans’ obsession with handouts to the rich and austerity for everybody else. And Scott Schmidt points out that Jason Kenney has exactly the same plan in mind for Alberta. – Luke Darby writes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Martin Regg Cohn writes that Doug Ford’s brutal austerity against the people who most need social support has been based on entirely made-up numbers. And David Climenhaga points out that Alberta’s civil service has been shrinking over the past decade, showing that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett and Wanda Wyporska neatly summarize the insidious social effects of inequality: (I)nequality is socially divisive, making status more important and strengthening the view that some people are worth more than others. As we judge each other more by status,
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