Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Don Reisinger reports on Capgemini’s latest research into the continued concentration of wealth at the extreme top end. And James Galbraith comments on the instability which arises inevitably out of extreme inequality: Controlling inequality—like controlling blood pressure—is good for your economic health. Economies
Continue readingTag: budget
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Claire Connelly calls out the perennial right-wing spin that there’s always money available for corporations or the security state, but that anything which would actually help people is invariably unaffordable. And Jim Pugh discusses how Republicans are looking to punish and impoverish
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin discusses the distinction between giveaways to the rich which are perpetually seen as carrying no price, and the expansion of the commons which is treated as intolerably costly: (O)ffer something that is actually free and things get downright snarky. In
Continue readingMind Bending Politics: Ontario PC’s Running The Largest Deficit Projections in Current Platform
Mike Moffatt who is a director an the independent think tank Canada 2020, and an associate professor at the Ivey Business School, has come up with an interesting post comparing the platforms of each party in the Ontario election and how they compare to deficit projections. Moffatt’s deficit projections put
Continue reading52 Ideas: We should reform, amend or change government but we should never attack it.
When I was nineteen, I joined my first political campaign. In some ways, it was odd. For, while, I lived in a house that talked about the problems of the world, a house where the news was avidly watched, I had never thought about joining a political party. I just
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Alex Himelfarb warns about the dangers of participating in Donald Trump’s race to the bottom for public revenues – and the importance of highlighting the value of collective funding for social priorities: Sure, our tax revenues as a share of the overall economy
Continue readingDefend Public Healthcare: Has the Financial Accountability Office over-estimated the deficit once again?
Buried in this week’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) report on the Ontario government books is a very quiet admission that Ontario ran a surplus of $700 million in 2017/18 (when using the government’s accounting method for pension surpluses and hydro). Just a year ago, the FAO claimed there would be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jake Johnson writes about the obscene amount of money handed to the wealthy in the U.S. by the Republicans’ tax scam. And Robert Reich discusses how the spread of inequality and isolation helped to lay the groundwork for Donald Trump’s destructive presidency.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Denise Balkissoon writes about the importance of ensuring a just transition for fossil fuel workers – rather than using their jobs as bargaining chips to preserve oil industry profits. And Andrea Olive, Emily Eaton and Randy Besco point out that there’s plenty
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On the social environment
Having written my column this week on one of the more glaring areas of increasingly alarming neglect from the Saskatchewan Party under Scott Moe, I’ll take a moment to point out the other single policy change that I find most striking. D.C. Fraser has reported on a reduction in funding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Simon Enoch offers his take on Saskatchewan’s latest budget – including what little the Saskatchewan Party has learned, and how much it’s still getting wrong: (W)hile the 2018 budget is more measured in that it doesn’t replicate a 2017 budget that saw cuts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Scott Moe’s first budget is just more of the same in leaving Saskatchewan’s low-income residents behind in the face of rising costs of living. For further reading…– D.C. Fraser’s general report on the budget is here. – The inflation data cited in the column is here, while
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Faiza Shaheen discusses the UK Cons’ attempts to paper over the harmful effects of austerity. And Amir Fleischmann points out that while the human cost of cuts to public services is all too real, the supposed fiscal benefits are usually illusory: Many social
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Council of Canadians sets out the key numbers in the Libs’ all-talk, no-action federal budget, while David Macdonald highlights its ultimate lack of ambition even when there’s plenty of fiscal room to work with. David Reevely focuses on the grand total of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Livia Gershon discusses why relative equality plays a far greater role in people’s well-being than absolute income in developed countries. And Stefanie Stantcheva writes about the cultural roots of the U.S.’ relative acceptance of extreme inequality (though it’s worth noting that even in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Rick Smith writes about the Filthy Five loopholes taking the most money out of Canada’s public coffers for the least benefit to anybody but the wealthy. And Ed Finn reminds us to follow the money in figuring out who stands to gain from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Krugman reminds us of the fraud that is right-wing bleating about deficits: There have been many “news analysis” pieces asking why Republicans have changed their views on deficit spending. But let’s be serious: Their views haven’t changed at all. They never really
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michelle Chen takes note of the influx of young energy into the U.S.’ labour movement: (I)n contrast to the myth of millennials’ being economically and politically adrift, they’re stepping in readily to fill the union ranks that have hemorrhaged middle-aged workers over
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Joe Romm discusses new research showing that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have ended an 11,000-year era of climate stability. – Thomas Walkom points out the contradictions in Justin Trudeau’s declaration that there will be no federal climate policy without new pipelines. And David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Victor Cyr discusses the problems with a public policy focus on capitalism without any concern for human well-being. And Ann Pettifor highlights the concentrated wealth and power arising out of corporate monopolies, while noting that political decisions are behind those realities. –
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