Here, on the still-growing gap between the income of CEOs and that of workers at large – and a few of the fixes which might help to reverse the trend. For further reading…– Again, David Macdonald’s latest report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is here (PDF). And for
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Stephanie Blankenburg and Richard Kozul-Wright comment on the rise of rent-seeking as a driver of stagnation and inequality. And George Monbiot argues that we shouldn’t let our common wealth be used for the sole benefit of a privileged few: A true commons is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the Libs’ weakness in closing even modest loopholes is allowing tax entitlement to win out over tax fairness. For further reading…– Justin Ling offers a useful look at the minor moves to rein in the abuse of private corporations in this year’s budget. Konrad Yakabuski rightly argues
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The Global Alliance for Tax Justice examines the most common tax evasion practices used to allow the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. And Desmond Cohen points out how our current estimates of inequality underestimate exactly how much is being hidden. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Patrick Gossage discusses the desperate need for Canadian governments at all levels to take meaningful action to eliminate poverty: The reality is that low-income Canadians are invisible and lack political clout. In Toronto, they are concentrated in downtown areas close to the gleaming
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David MacDonald discusses the need to start tackling some of Canada’s most expensive and least justifiable tax handouts to the rich: The richest 10 per cent of Canadians enjoy an average of $20,500 a year in tax exemptions, credits, and other loopholes.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David MacDonald studies the federal government’s loopholes and giveaways targeted toward those who already have the most – noting that there would be plenty of revenue to fund the programs we’re told are unaffordable if that preferential treatment was ended. And Felicity Lawrence
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Maureen Conway and Mark Popovich argue that something has gone severely wrong if (as seems to be the case) Wall Street is treating higher wages as bad news: In 2017, America has a jobs problem: It’s not that we don’t have enough jobs,
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Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Brian Jones rightly argues that a fair tax system would go a long way toward eliminating any serious concerns about government deficits. And Marco Chown Oved offers some reason for optimism in the Canada Revenue Agency’s response to the Panama Papers. – David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David MacDonald examines how Canada’s tax expenditures systematically favour higher-income individuals over the people who actually have a reasonable claim to public support: This study finds that Canada’s personal income tax expenditures disproportionately benefit the rich and cost the federal treasury nearly as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.
– Joseph Stiglitz discusses how entrenched inequality and unearned income hurt the economy for everybody:
We used to think of there being a trade-off: we could achieve more equality, but only at the expense of overall economic performance. It is now clear that, given the extremes of inequality being reached in many rich countries and the manner in which they have been generated, greater equality and improved economic performance are complements.
…
(A) key factor underlying the current economic difficulties of rich countries is growing inequality. We need to focus not on what is happening on average— as GDP leads us to do— but on how the economy is performing for the typical citizen, reflected for instance in median disposable income. People care about health, fairness and security, and yet GDP statistics do not reflect their decline. Once these and other aspects of societal well-being are taken into account, recent performance in rich countries looks much worse.The economic policies required to change this are not difficult to identify. We need more investment in public goods; better corporate governance, antitrust and anti-discrimination laws; a better regulated financial system; stronger workers’ rights; and more progressive tax and transfer policies. By ‘rewriting the rules’ governing the market economy in these ways, it is possible to achieve greater equality in both the pre- and post-tax and transfer distribution of income, and thereby stronger economic performance.
– David Macdonald discusses Canada’s growing consumer debt levels, and notes that matters figure to get worse before they get better. And the CP reports on Canada’s high gender wage gap as another area where we’re lagging even on an international scene where there’s far more work to be done.
– Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines the economic fallout we could expect from the CETA, while the Canadian Labour Congress suggests a few ways to minimize the damage. But Murray Dobbin asks why we’re wasting any time on corporate power agreements when they’ve so thoroughly failed to live up to any promises to the public.
– Juha Kaakinen writes about the success of Housing First in alleviating homelessness in Finland. And Gary Bloch and John Silver point out how encouraging people living in poverty to file tax returns (and thus receive available benefits) can produce positive outcomes all around.
– Finally, PressProgress discusses Wayne Smith’s resignation as Chief Statistician of Statistics Canada due to a lack of meaningful change from the Cons’ attempts to politicize data collection and management.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- David Blanchflower notes that there’s virtually no dispute that the UK is headed into an economic downturn – meaning that there’s also no excuse to hold off on fiscal relief for the public. And Brad DeLong po…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Paul Willcocks discusses British Columbia’s two-tiered education system and the role it plays in exacerbating inequality – which is well worth keeping in mind as Saskatchewan deals with the fallout f…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- David MacDonald argues that the federal budget should focus on desperately-needed public investments – with any revenue issues dealt with by raising taxes where past cuts have produced nothing of value. And Lead…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Joseph Stiglitz writes that inequality is killing the American middle class. And Crawford Kilian examines the direct connection between inequality and midlife mortality:For some white Americans born between 1961 …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the Libs’ first major budgetary choice has been to continue the Cons’ dangerous pattern of chipping away at the federal government’s fiscal capacity.For further reading…- Scott Clark and Peter DeVries have previously summarized the…
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This and that for your Tuesday reading.- David MacDonald offers some alternative suggestions that can do far more to reduce inequality and boost Canada’s economy than the Libs’ upper-class tax shuffle. And Karl Nerenberg reminds us that the most import…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Martin Lukacs writes that while a change in government offers some possibility of change, the Trudeau campaign wasn’t anything more than a ruse. And Seth Klein and Shannon Daub remind us that we’ll need to be the ones to advance progressive policies in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jim Stanford points out that the Harper Cons’ already-dismal economic track record is only getting worse. And Nora Loreto notes that even on the Cons’ own estimates, the Trans-Pacific Partnership looks to result in Canada paying more in compensation to industries hurt by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Edsall discusses how increased atomization is making it more difficult for people to join together in seeking change, no matter how obvious it is that there’s a need to counter the concentrated power and wealth of the privileged few: The cultural
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