This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Krugman offers a reminder that the great global policy failure following the 2008 finance-driven crisis was to bail out bankers alone, while leaving people to fend for themselves in the face of subsequent austerity. And Wayne Swan highlights how the continued
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Christo Aivalis discusses the future of organized labour and the need for workplace democracy in an era of increased automation: New organizing models and shorter workdays are both viable solutions to address the struggles of encroaching automation, but neither strike to the
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lana Payne writes that there’s no reason to turn Donald Trump’s giveaway to the rich into an excuse for similarly destructive policies in Canada: If tax policy levers need adjusting, there is a more effective and sophisticated approach that can be taken,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David MacDonald studies the increasing concentration of wealth in Canada, while noting the need for wealth-based taxes (and particularly an inheritance tax) to start building a more fair society. And Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley report on the Trump administration’s latest move
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Economist discusses how income and wealth inequality lead to disproportionate influence on the part of the rich: The relation between concentrated wealth and the political power of the rich is scarcely limited to political spending, or to America. The rich have many
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Eli Wolfe discusses new research confirming how unions have saved thousands of workers’ lives – and how workers stand to pay the price for political attempts to undermine collective action: The new study focuses in particular on the extent to which state “right
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Oliver Moore reports on Greyhound’s elimination of most of its Western Canadian bus service. Emily Riddle offers a reminder that the lack of transportation puts Indigenous women and other marginalized people at risk. And Simon Enoch highlights the obvious need for Saskatchewan to
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Stuart Heritage argues that a shared sense of morality is our best hope of ensuring that narcissism isn’t rewarded. And Paul Gleason reviews two new books – including Thomas Piketty’s latest – on the importance of progressive taxes to reduce inequality (in addition
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ed Broadbent examines how Doug Ford’s platform (such as it is) would only further enrich the wealthy, while causing catastrophic results for everybody else: Just imagine waking up on Friday morning and having to hear the phrase “Premier Doug Ford” for the
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin writes that greed is the only reason why we haven’t yet completed a full health care system with a pharmacare program: If we had a universal pharmacare plan — one that saves lives and relieves suffering — it would cost
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Martin Wolf reviews Mariana Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything, including its distinction between value creation and value extraction. And Yvonne Roberts points out how millenial workers are being left with little but large debts as a result of inequality between classes and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Matt Bruenig highlights Norway’s high level of social ownership, with 76% of non-home wealth in public hands in an extremely prosperous country. And Patrick Collinson reports on the latest World Happiness Survey, showing Norway within a group of relatively equal Nordic countries
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Sheng discusses the role of oversimplified assumptions about economic development in exacerbating wealth and income inequality: The American era has been very comfortable with the timeless, universal model of the free market. Inconvenient problems such as inequality are market failures, which the
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Owen Jones calls out the dogmatic centre for first laying the groundwork for the rise of the populist right, then trying to vilify anybody working on a progressive alternative. And Chris Dillow zeroes in on what’s wrong with the neoliberal view of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David MacDonald discusses the need to start tackling some of Canada’s most expensive and least justifiable tax handouts to the rich: The richest 10 per cent of Canadians enjoy an average of $20,500 a year in tax exemptions, credits, and other loopholes.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Meagan Gilmore examines how an increased minimum wage is good for business. – Hannah Aldridge offers some suggestions to keep a poverty reduction strategy on target. And Make Poverty History notes that Brian Pallister is offering a textbook example of how not to
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Barbara Ellen questions the positive spin the right tries to put on poverty and precarity, and writes that we’re all worse off forcing people to just barely get by: In recent times, there has been a lot said about those people who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Star argues that Canada can’t afford to leave tax loopholes wide open for the rich – as the Libs are doing in violation of their campaign promises. And Martin Lukacs notes that obscene giveaways to the rich seem to be the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Mary O’Hara notes that even a relatively modest and incomplete set of progressive policies has created some important movement toward reducing poverty. And conversely, Caroline Mortimer writes that child poverty is exploding under the Conservative majority government in the UK. – Dean
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