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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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig discusses how the interests of big banks ended the Cons’ willingness to consider postal banking which would produce both better service and more profits for the public: (C)ompetition is the last thing the banks want. And given their power (straddling the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Larry Bartels highlights how class plays a particularly large role in U.S. politics, as opinions about the role of government are particularly polarized based on income. And Paul Krugman notes that as a consequence, any demand to “stop class warfare” in favour of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Angella MacEwen takes a look at the large numbers of unemployed and underemployed Canadians chasing a tiny number of available jobs. And Carol Goar calls out the Cons and the CFIB alike for preferring disposable foreign workers to Canadians who aren’t being offered
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ezra Klein comments on the U.S.’ doom loop of oligarchy – as accumulated wealth is spent to buy policy intended to benefit nobody other than those who have already accumulated wealth: On Thursday, the House passed Paul Ryan’s 2015 budget. In order to get
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joe Fiorito discusses the spread of income inequality in Canada. And Doug Henwood reviews Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, while wondering what will follow from the empirical observation that accumulated wealth tends to perpetuate itself to the detriment of most of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that increases in Canadian inequality have been the result of deliberate policy choices: In an important recent book, Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, Keith Banting and John Myles argue that, while rooted in the market, politics has
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: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The New York Times editorial board points out that a higher minimum wage can produce clear economic benefits for businesses as well as for workers: One 2013 study by three economists — Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Reich — compared the
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Chris Alexander, Julian Fantino, and the Con Bullies
The other night I wrote about how disgusted I was to see Chris Alexander, the Con Immigration Minister, go after Deb Matthews, the Health Minister of Ontario, like a schoolyard bully.For the "crime" of standing up for the right of refugee claimants to receive health care. And I quoted this paragraph
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Angelina Chapin highlights the drastic impact a guaranteed annual income would have on Canadians currently living in poverty: To set and meet goals, you have to think long-term. When you’re poor, you can’t focus on the future (and Bill Gates wasn’t raised poor,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Like A Scab: Tim Hudak
Like a scab (not the metaphorical kind so beloved of the extreme right) that I can’t resist picking away at, once more Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak looms large. Although I wrote about him again very recently, the magnitude of either his ineptitude or his arrogance, depending on one’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bob Hepburn writes that more Canadians approve of the idea of a guaranteed annual income than oppose it – even as the concept is all too frequently dismissed as politically unpalatable. And Stuart Trew points out that a majority of Canadians disagree with
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Assorted content to end your week. – Stuart Trew fleshes out the Cons’ new(-ly explicit) Corporate Cronies Action Plan – and it goes even further in entrenching corporate control over policy than one might have expected at first glance: – The makeup of the advisory panel that consulted with Trade
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Assorted content to end your week. – Murray Dobbin recognizes that there’s more at stake on the federal political scene than merely replacing the Harper Cons – and that the most important debate may be found within the NDP. Meanwhile, Tim Harper is concern trolling on that front, demanding that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Benjamin Radcliff discusses the proven connection between progressive policies and a higher quality of life across all levels of income: Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net, or, more generally, countries whose governments “tax and spend” at higher rates,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Carol Goar points out why Canada’s EI system is running surpluses (contrary to all parties’ intentions) – and notes that the result has nothing to do with the best interests of the workers who pay into the system: Flaherty’s explanation was true
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how “we must increase stock prices!” – or worse yet, “we must increase company X’s stock prices!” – makes for a thoroughly regressive public policy goal. For further reading…– The examples referenced in the column include Carol Goar’s column threatening a revolt over telecom share prices, and Andrew
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Simon Enoch nicely challenges the City of Regina’s blind faith in “risk transfer” by pointing out how that concept has typically been applied elsewhere: So what price should we put on such a risk transfer? This is where things can get dicey. How
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Anti-Harper
I’d like to make it clear at the start of this post that I have by no means been converted to the belief that Justin Trudeau would be an appropriate choice to lead the country, for reasons that I will conclude the post with. However, I simply want to make
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