Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Coyne sees the powerful impact of local forces on nomination contests as evidence that grassroots democracy is still alive and well in Canada – no matter how much the Cons and Libs may wish otherwise: What’s common to both of these stories
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Mitchell Anderson discusses Canada’s woeful excuse for negotiations with the oil sector – particularly compared to the lasting social benefits secured by Norway in making the best of similar reserves: Digging through the numbers, it seems Norway is considerably more skilled at negotiation.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Trish Hennessy’s latest numbers focus on the skills gap myth in Canada. And PressProgress documents a few of the Cons’ damaging public service cuts which kicked in yesterday, while Theresa Boyle reports on the end of Canada’s health care accords (featuring the observations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Krugman compares the U.S.’ longtime recognition that concentrated wealth can do massive social harm to the Republicans’ recent efforts to claim that raising any revenue from the rich is somehow un-American: The truth is that, in the early 20th century, many leading
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Robert Reich discusses the Koch brothers and their place in the U.S.’ new plutocracy: The Kochs exemplify a new reality that strikes at the heart of America. The vast wealth that has accumulated at the top of the American economy is not itself
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom writes that the Cons’ economic prescriptions are doomed to fail because they’re based on a fundamental misdiagnosis: (T)hat half of the Conservative theory is correct. There is still persistently high unemployment. But the other half, the study found, does not
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the Cons’ explanations for the Unfair Elections Act reflect a disturbing attempt to rule out any voter motivation other than partisan interests – while excusing future Robocon-style deceit by placing all responsibility for accurate information on Elections Canada alone. For further reading…– Alison documents the Con MPs
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Yves Smith notes that a short-sighted focus on returns for shareholders generally represents a poor allocation of resources even on the level of a single corporation – while also pointing out what that mindset does when shared across the business sector: As the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tim Harford proposes four first steps to start combatting income inequality. And the Star’s editorial board makes clear that there’s tax room available for Ontario (among other jurisdictions) to pursue in order to serve the public good: Sousa promises to protect the “middle
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On foreseeable dangers
The NDP is in the midst of its cross-country consultations on the Unfair Elections Act – with Charlie Angus’ visit to Regina today just one of the many stops along the way. But while the Cons’ insistence on ramming through changes to Canada’s elections law makes it unlikely that we’ll
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Stewart Prest writes about the Cons’ war against experts: (I)n modern democratic states one of the most important sources for non-partisan information and expertise is the government itself. Government bureaucracies are the only institutions in the world today with the access, the resources,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mitchell Anderson compares the results of corporate-friendly Thatcherism to the alternative of public resource ownership and development in the interest of citizens – and finds far better results arising from the latter: Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jim Stanford writes that union-bashing has proven to be political poison for many of the parties who have tried to distract from increasing inequality with attacks on workers: (T)he biggest problem for Mr. Hudak’s crusade was a deeper sentiment in Canadian public opinion
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Following up on yesterday’s column, David Atkins discusses his own preference for front-end fixes to poverty and inequality: The standard way you’ll hear most progressives address inequality issues is to allow the labor market to run as usual, but levy heavy taxes on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Chris Hall notes that Brad Butt’s admitted fabrications can only hurt the Cons’ already-lacking credibility when it comes to forcing through their unfair elections legislation. And Ed Broadbent sums up what’s at stake as the Cons try to rewrite the rules to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Brian and Karen Foster question why steadily improving productivity has led to increasing stratification rather than better lives for a large number of people: (W)ith all the optimism, why hasn’t technological progress actually opened up a world where we all work, and we
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – David Atkins emphasizes the need for progressive parties and activists to discuss big ideas rather than settling for the path of least short-term resistance: Both the poor and the middle class feel threatened and increasingly pessimistic. Opinions of elite institutions across the board
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Macdonald comments on Statistics Canada’s latest wealth survey, with particular emphasis on the continued gap between a privileged few and the vast majority of Canadians: (T)he top 20% of families have twice as much wealth as the bottom 80% of families
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Alison and PressProgress both discuss how Brad Butt’s attempt to defend voter suppression is based on what even he had to concede was nothing short of legislative fraud. And Stephen Maher notes that the Cons’ unilateral rewrite of election rules figures to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Lana Payne highlights the Harper Cons’ culture of hate with just a few recent examples: Veterans. Informed-debate. People’s right to a union and free collective bargaining. Voting rights. These are all under threat in Harper’s Canada. This really is a government that hates;
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