Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Noah Smith writes that for all the recognition of poverty and precarity in the U.S., it may be home to even more material insecurity than normally presumed: Imagine a 55-year-old single woman with diabetes working a part-time job making close to minimum wage.
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Linda Tirado writes that whatever the language used as an excuse for turning public benefits into private profits, we should know better than to consider it credible:Given how much I had heard my whole life abo…
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Christopher Majka reviews Henry Mintzberg’s Rebalancing Society as a noteworthy discussion of the need for balance between the public, private and “plural” sectors. And David Madland is pleased to see the U.S.’ Democrats finally fighting back against the view that the corporate
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna takes a look at how the Cons are pushing serious liabilities onto future generations in order to hand out short-term tax baubles within a supposedly-balanced budget, while Jennifer Robson highlights the complete lack of policy merit behind those giveaways. And Ian
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kate McInturff and David Macdonald address the need for an adult discussion about how federal policies affect Canadian families. And Kevin Campbell writes about the importance of child care as a social investment. – Vincenzo Bove and Georgios Efthyvoulou study how public policy
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna comments on how far too many governments have bought into the P3 myth with our public money: Governments in Canada have become seduced by the wonders of private-public partnerships – so-called P3s – and blind to their potentially costly flaws. In
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Daniel Tencer reports on a couple of important recent warnings that Canada is in danger of following the U.S. down the path of extreme corporatism and inequality: Speaking at a fundraiser for the left-leaning Broadbent Institute, Reich said Canada is facing the
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna looks to Norway as an example of how an oil-rich country can both ensure long-term benefits from its non-renewable resources, and be far more environmentally responsible than Canada has been to date. – Michal Rozworski discusses how the devaluing of work
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joe Cressy argues that we need to take strong progressive positions to highlight the kinds of public investment which need to be made, rather than buying into right-wing spin about slashing taxes and eliminating public institutions: Public investment is about social justice, taking
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, looking at one of Thomas Piketty’s findings about the self-propagation of wealth which has received relatively little attention – and pointing out how the a pattern of greater wealth grabbing higher returns can both be managed in order to reduce undue concentration of wealth, and even turned to the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michael Hiltzik points out new research showing that business-focused policies do nothing at all to encourage any positive economic outcomes: in fact, a higher rating from ALEC for low-tax, low-regulation government correlates to less economic growth. But Kevin Drum highlights what the
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Laura Ryckewaert looks in more detail at the continued lack of any privacy protection in the Unfair Elections Act. And Murray Dobbin is hopeful that the Cons’ blatant attempt to suppress voting rights will instead lead to a backlash among those who are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Pavlov’s lapdog
Shorter Barrie McKenna: We must respond to all tax policy developments anywhere in the world by slashing corporate tax rates. And I’ve just lowered the bar on what constitutes a “tax policy development” to include the idle posturing of a U.S. party which can’t pass anything.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Robert Reich comments on the concerted effort by the U.S.’ rich to exacerbate inequality – and points out how it’s warped their worldview. And Dean Baker criticizes the spread of inequality by design: And then there is the financial sector where Mankiw tells
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Wells and Dan Lett offer roundups of today’s federal by-elections, while Chantal Hebert offers some advice to the candidates (whether or not they’re elected to Parliament today). And Murray Dobbin explains why there’s only one true progressive choice in Toronto Centre in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Brendan Haley discusses how the role of government should include both a concerted effort to innovate, and a proper share of the benefits when that innovation proves successful: To reinforce her argument, Mazzucato provides detailed histories of some of our most important innovations.
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Barrie McKenna discusses the cost of public-private partnerships: Disturbing new research highlights some serious flaws in how governments tally the benefits of public-private partnerships versus conventional projects. Too little is known about how these contracts work, who benefits and who pays. This week,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dave Coles writes that the Harper Cons are using their power to protect the privacy of international arms dealers, while at the same time demanding stringent reporting requirements for labour unions and their members: Labour unions are among the few institutions that
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Jim Stanford neatly sums up how the Cons’ obsession with selling off both natural resources and natural resource producers affects other industries: There is no doubting the statistical correlation between oil prices and the loonie. Econometric analysis indicates that since the turn of
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it’s gone too far. So here’s McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP’s proposal for a slight increase in income tax
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