This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jeremy Corbyn offers a look at what the next UK Labour government plans to do – and provides an example which we should be glad to follow: The next Labour government will be different. To earn the trust of the people of
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Oxford Martin School has published a new report on the spread of inequality. And Noah Smith discusses the role of offshoring along with automation in stacking the economic deck against workers. – Meanwhile, Mike Blanchfield reports on the U.S.’ refusal to allow
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Phillip Inman and Jill Treanor write about the debt time bomb facing UK households. Jim Edwards discusses how widespread underemployment has become the norm in the UK – making unemployment alone a misleading indicator as to workers’ well-being. And Owen Jones highlights
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Ritika Goel writes that good jobs lead to all kinds of ancillary benefits to both the health of workers, and the strength of the overall economy: We are in a time of increasing part-time, casual, temporary and contract work, with less access to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ben Chu reports on a new study showing that the UK’s economy is broken in failing to translate GDP gains into any help for workers whose wages are falling. And the Canadian Press reports on the latest survey showing how many Canadians are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Melanie Schmitz writes that Donald Trump’s plan to hand giant tax goodies to the rich is opposed by nearly three quarters of Americans. – CNBC reports on the skepticism among U.S. workers as to their future opportunities. And Jim Stanford offers a historical
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Stephen Metcalf discusses the meaning and effect of neoliberalism: “(N)eoliberalism” is more than a gratifyingly righteous jibe. It is also, in its way, a pair of eyeglasses. Peer through the lens of neoliberalism and you see more clearly how the political thinkers most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Susanna Rustin reports on a new study from the London School of Economics demonstrating the lifelong personal impacts of childhood poverty. And Colleen Kimmit writes that the solution to food insecurity (along with other elements of personal precarity) is a guaranteed income,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The Courage Coalition discusses why economic justice is necessary for social equality. But Ed Finn writes that instead, Canada is pushing people into serfdom: Today’s big business executives are not so outspoken, at least not in public, but privately they could make the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ben Tarnoff discusses the growing number of basic public services which are being converted into private rents as profit motives are given precedence over democracy: A profit-driven system doesn’t mean we get more for our money – it means someone gets to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will deficit hysteria finally pave the way for a sensible Alberta sales tax? Ummm … don’t count on it
PHOTOS: Never mind the political stuff, this is the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory, where astronomer Max Wolf discovered the Minor Planet Climenhaga in 1917. Below, not in the order in which they appear: Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci, British Columbia Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon, B.C. New Democratic Party Leader John Horgan, and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Des Cohen discusses how economic inequality has developed – and how it’s now rewarding people for doing nothing more than worsening its effects. And Chase Burghgrave interviews Elizabeth Anderson about the employer-based power which is used to keep American workers in line:
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 readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces
I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points raised at a PEF-sponsored panel at this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association. Points raised in the blog
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Phillip Inman discusses how austerity has proven to be an all-pain, no-gain proposition for the general public which is facing stagnant wages and higher consumer debt. – Pedro Nicolaci da Costa is duly skeptical of employer complaints about “skills gaps” which in fact
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sarah O’Connor examines the inconsistent relationship between job quantity and quality as another example of how it’s misleading to think of policy choices solely in terms of the number of jobs generated. Angela Monaghan discusses how wages continue to stagnate in the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Christopher Hoy reminds us that as much as people are already outraged by inequality, we tend to underestimate its severity. And Faiza Shaheen writes about the dangers of unchecked inequality which erodes social bonds. – Meanwhile, Andrea Hopkins discusses how Canadians are
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: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett write about the psychological and social harms arising out of inequality: Members of species that have strong ranking systems need social strategies for maximising and maintaining rank while avoiding the risk of attacks by dominants. Although there
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, examining how Steve Keen’s warning about the UK’s excessive financialization and consumer debt applies even more strongly in Canada. For further reading…– Keen makes reference to the BIS’ international data as to the ratio of private debt to GDP: – Again, Erica Alini reported on Ipsos’ latest number as
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