Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – The Economist takes a look at the effect of a “lean in” philosophy toward work – and finds that we’d get better results encouraging creative development rather than needless busy work: All this “leaning in” is producing an epidemic of overwork, particularly in
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Mark Leiren-Young shares Corky Evans’ perceptive take on how the B.C. NDP has lost its way – and the message is one which we should apply elsewhere as well: I remember when one of the Leaders I worked for asked some guys
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bicycle Commuters Save Economy $21 on Each Commute
Australian research has led to the conclusion that bicycle commuters are great for the economy! Every time a commuter chooses to ride a bicycle instead of a car or public transportation the economy benefits. With the obviousness of health benefits from riding a bicycle and the ever-increasing amount of economic
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Renewable Energy Predictions Way Off
They were vastly underestimated. .@theturner And yet @SaskPower as recently as 2013 was highlighting a #solarpower study from 2000 to guide their grid planning. #skpoli— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) August 14, 2013 Here’s info about that out of date solar power study that SaskPower was touting. @JohnKleinRegina Maybe mention to @SaskPower
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joseph Stiglitz comments on the wider lessons we should take from Detroit’s bankruptcy: Detroit’s travails arise in part from a distinctive aspect of America’s divided economy and society. As the sociologists Sean F. Reardon and Kendra Bischoff have pointed out, our country is
Continue readingThings Are Good: The B Team – A Plan B for the Economy
The economic stupidity of a few years back is still causing problems and the fact that the wrongdoers got bailouts for their transgressions hasn’t helped. Even years later economies haven’t recovered and the class divisions within multiple societies have widened. It’s time for an alternative to this current form of
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: Ottawa desperately trying to kill the housing Frankenstein
Remember that literary classic, Frankenstein? Scientist Victor creates a monster, then realizing the mistake he has made tries desperately to kill the beast. Seems an apt description for Canada’s housing market and Ottawa’s so far futile efforts to cool it off. This more modern story takes us back to
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: Ottawa desperately trying to kill the housing Frankenstein
Remember that literary classic, Frankenstein? Scientist Victor creates a monster, then realizing the mistake he has made tries desperately to kill the beast. Seems an apt description for Canada’s housing market and Ottawa’s so far futile ef…
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: Ottawa desperately trying to kill the housing Frankenstein
Remember that literary classic, Frankenstein? Scientist Victor creates a monster, then realizing the mistake he has made tries desperately to kill the beast. Seems an apt description for Canada’s housing market and Ottawa’s so far futile efforts to cool it off. This more modern story takes us back to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Dan Leger points to the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion as an all-too-vivid example of the intersection of privatized profits and socialized risks: Are we tough enough on corporations that destroy, burn and kill? What’s happening at Lac-Mégantic suggests we aren’t. There’s a scramble on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Henry Blodget recognizes that the systematic corporate squeeze on mere workers represents a deliberate choice rather than an inevitability: One of the big reasons the U.S. economy is so lousy is the American companies are hoarding cash and “maximizing profits” instead of investing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Matthew Yglesias sums up the effects of four decades of U.S. union-busting, and points out how the supposed benefit from pointing a fire hose filled with money in the general direction of the corporate sector hasn’t materialized: If you turn back 30 or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris offers a theory for the Cons’ handling of the Clusterduff – from their willingness to pay him off to their subsequent decision to cut him loose: Why were the CPC and the PM’s chief of staff willing to risk what
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Atkins comments on the ever-growing disconnect between the interests of a few making a killing on Wall Street and the lives of people stuck in the real economy: (T)the entirety of supply-side economic thinking is based on the idea that inflating
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Frances Woolley rightly challenges the conventional wisdom that there’s no such thing as a popular and efficient tax: Few taxes generate enthusiastic popular support, but some are more popular than others. Those are the ones that fill the red circle. The area labelled
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the questions raised by a sudden drop in potash prices – and why we should reconsider our economic and social priorities so that a minor fluctuation in a still-ample level of wealth isn’t seen as reason to push the panic button. For further reading…– My discussion of Robert
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that while Stephen Harper managed to push the world in the wrong direction over the past few years, he may be missing the boat on where it’s headed: The Harper government’s failure is longer-term. It still operates under the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Frank Graves comments on the fundamental political choices we’re facing in determining whether to continue operating based on corporatist orthodoxy – and the reality that the vast majority of Canadians don’t agree with the side chosen by the Harper Cons: (T)he devil’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Peter Buffett rightly questions the trend toward making the provision of basic necessities subordinate to a corporate mindset, rather than putting human needs first: As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Marc Lee takes a high-level look at the absurdity of our destructive economic choices: Exhibit one: the North Pole at the moment is a one-foot-deep aquamarine lake. After reaching record low ice cover and thickness at the end of summer 2012, an ice-free
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