This and that for your Thursday reading. – Mitchell Anderson reports on how Norway has assured itself of long-term fiscal security by saving a fair share of its oil resources: Norway produces 40 per cent less petroleum than Canada and has one-seventh our population, but has saved more than $600
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Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the Gateway pipeline serves as a prime example as to why governments shouldn’t be too quick to minimize environmental assessment processes. For further reading…– Robyn Allan’s latest discussion of the Gateway pipeline is here.– Kevin Logan documents Christy Clark’s position prior to her latest desperate call for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rick Salutin discusses the link between parity of wealth and democratic participation, while pointing out why there’s reason for people to engage much more in the latter (W)hy didn’t the majority ever vote to expropriate the rich and take all their stuff? Perhaps
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Olive comments on the world food crisis, making the point that what we’re lacking is some link between more-than-sufficient productive capacity and the nutritional needs of less wealthy people around the globe: (A) permanently higher price for oil spurred successful innovation to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Frances Russell comments on how the Harper Cons are ready to impose exactly the kind of centralized and unresponsive decision-making they’ve long loathed – but only when it comes to favouring Alberta’s interests over B.C.’s real environmental concerns. But Michael Harris notes that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Robyn Allan notes that there’s plenty of weakness in Christy Clark’s position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she’s made so far – and Vaughn Palmer points
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Stuart Trew comments on the Cons’ utterly implausible claims to try to impose the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the EU without the slightest bit of public scrutiny: CETA will also most certainly give European firms the power to challenge and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Yes, the usual caveats about trying to predict future commodity prices apply. But Stephen Maher’s warning about the effect of rising fuel and food prices is still worth keeping in mind: That shift doesn’t mean that North Americans are about to take meaningful
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – The Guardian reports on the Tax Justice Network’s study on offshoring which finds tens of trillions of dollars to have been funneled to tax havens: Using the BIS’s measure of “offshore deposits” – cash held outside the depositor’s home country – and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Doug Saunders discusses how corporate cash hoarding is limiting any economic recovery – and what we can do about it: (T)his should be a great time for companies to invest: low prices, low interest rates, cheaper labour costs. A sensible company would build
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Vaughn Palmer discusses the unfortunate gap between the outrages that may lead to a government being pushed out of power, and a new government’s ability to actually reverse what’s been done. Which, a propos of nothing, makes it rather important to push
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Harris continues to highlight some of the fundamental problems with the Cons’ view of politics, this time identifying Stephen Harper as being afflicted with “master of the universe syndrome”: When you control all the levers of power, when you have no scruples,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Patient Zero
Paul Krugman highlights what seems to him the first example of the “repeat a lie until it’s taken as conventional wisdom” messaging strategy of the North American right: I originally got the term “zombie lies” from the healthcare field, specifically Canadian health care, where there are certain stories — like
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Lana Payne sees reason for hope in the sheer breadth of citizens who are protesting against the Harper Cons: Scientists. Doctors. Nuclear engineers. Academics. Researchers. Stephen Harper has a big problem. He has ticked them all off. And they are not suffering their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Will Hutton discusses how the increasing gaps in economic equality are leading to radical differences in opportunity – with the U.S./U.K. push toward private schooling serving as a particular source of exclusion: (T)he middle class of whatever ethnic background is spending more on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer theorize that we should discuss the economy as a garden rather than a machine: A well-designed tax system — in which everyone contributes and benefits — ensures that nutrients are circulated widely to fertilize and foster growth. Reducing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On definition
Others have weighed in on the NDP’s latest set of ads in English… …and in French: But it’s worth highlighting what most sets the latest ads apart from what we’ve seen from the opposition parties between elections since the Cons took power. Contrary to some of the headlines, the ads
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sid Ryan rightly criticizes Tim Hudak’s anti-labour plans as a push toward poverty rather than prosperity. – Via Climate Progress, Steven Mufson reports on the causes of Enbridge’s Michigan oil spill – with Enbridge’s complete failure to repair known defects over a period
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Janet Bagnall neatly dissects the Cons’ plan for dismantling public services: The Harper government is nothing if not predictable in how it goes about dismantling a program or service. It starts by denigrating the program and the program’s beneficiaries, and telling Canadians that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On parallel pursuits
Let’s follow on the theme of both Thursday’s column and the Mound of Sound’s post with a closer look at the corporatist “there are no bad jobs” philosophy – which serves as the obvious foundation for constant attacks on wages, unions and workers even if it’s been walked back as
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