Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Moira Herbst is the latest to comment on the connection between the lack of good jobs and an excess of corporate cash hoarding: (I)t would be refreshing if the pundit-political class considered a radical but obvious idea: tapping the multitrillion-dollar stockpiles of corporate
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for a sunny Sunday. – Mitchell Anderson’s second article on Norway’s success in converting oil resources into a massive source of public wealth focuses on the country’s history of resistance to outside ownership. But I wouldn’t see much reason why Canada couldn’t turn its own sense of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jonathan Chait points out how the gap between the citizens hardest hit by a weak economy and a political class which faces virtually none of its effects explains the lack of urgency in dealing with mass unemployment: The political scientist Larry Bartels has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Tim Harper suggests that the Cons are running out of options to try to push the Gateway pipeline on a thoroughly-opposed public in British Columbia. But in keeping with the Cons’ general view of the world as nothing but a public relations problem
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
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
Continue readingAccidental 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
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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
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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
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