This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Sarah Jaffe examines the “bad business fee” proposal which would require employers who pay wages below public assistance levels – receiving work while forcing the public to subsidize their employees’ livelihood – to at least make up the difference: As inequality has
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Mariana Mazzucato writes about the need for governments to shape markets through their own investments, rather than acting only to serve existing business interests: The idea that at best the public sector can fix “market failures” and “de-risk” business, means that when the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Joseph Stiglitz writes that while we should expect natural resources to result in broad-based prosperity, Australia (much like Canada) is now turning toward the U.S. model of instead directing as much shared wealth as possible toward the privileged few: There is something deeply
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Reich discusses the rise of the non-working rich as an indicator that extreme wealth has less and less to do with merit – as well as the simple policy steps which can reverse the trend: In reality, most of America’s poor work
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Marc Lee looks in detail at the risks involved in relying on tar sands development as an economic model: The UK outfit Carbon Tracker was the first to point out this means we are seeing a “carbon bubble” in our financial markets – that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The New York Times editorial board chimes in on how Kansas serves as an ideal test case as to illusory benefits of top-end tax cuts: The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by
Continue readingThings Are Good: Solar Has Won
In Australia the amount of energy being produced by sustainable systems caused the price to fall so low it went in to the negative. This will not be the last time we see this. As more places adopt renewable energy into their power grids the old models of industry will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that to end your weekend. – PressProgress takes a look at the OECD’s long-term economic projections – which feature a combination of increasing inequality and slow growth across the developed world, with Canada do worse than almost anybody else on the inequality front unless we see a shift
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: Good Reading: Kwe Today On Sex Workers As Persons
In the context of ongoing debate over Bill C36, the so-called Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, @Kwetoday has crafted a powerful personal post urging an understanding that sex workers exist in many more dimensions than merely their occupation: they are family and friends ─ and that’s very important. Here is the
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: Good Reading: Kwe Today On Sex Workers As Persons
In the context of ongoing debate over Bill C36, the so-called Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, @Kwetoday has crafted a powerful personal post urging an understanding that sex workers exist in many more dimensions than merely their occupation: they are family and friends ─ and that’s very important. Here is the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – PressProgress highlights how the Cons’ stay in office has been marked by temporary rather than permanent jobs, while Kaylie Tiessen writes that precarious work is particularly prevalent in Ontario. And Erin Weir notes that more unemployed workers are now chasing after fewer job
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig discusses how a renewed push for austerity runs directly contrary to the actual values of Canadians, who want to see their governments accomplish more rather than forcing the public to settle for less: Their formula for achieving small, disabled government is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Anne Manne discusses how extreme wealth leads to narcissism and a lack of empathy, while pointing out that to merely recognizing the problem goes some way toward solving it: Outside the lab, Piff found that the rich donated a smaller percentage of their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Katrina vanden Heuvel criticizes the U.S. Democrats’ move away from discussing inequality by in favour of platitudes about opportunity for the middle class. And while Matthew Yglesias may be correct in responding that the messaging change hasn’t resulted in much difference in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Stephen Hwang and Kwame McKenzie discuss the connection between affordable housing and public health and wellness: In 2009, researchers followed 1,200 people in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. It was found that they experience a high
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: IV. Zone of Indeterminacy: Interdiction concerning the enclosure of the Social Commons
Here, I have taken up the enclosure of the Social Commons. And here, I have attempted to locate those shunted aside by the austerity agenda. In this post, I attempt to describe the zone of indeterminacy into which those cast aside by austerity have been and are to be consigned. The point,
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: IV. Zone of Indeterminacy: Interdiction concerning the enclosure of the Social Commons
Here, I have taken up the enclosure of the Social Commons. And here, I have attempted to locate those shunted aside by the austerity agenda. In this post, I attempt to describe the zone of indeterminacy into which those cast aside by austerity have been and are to be consigned. The point,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Atkins highlights Gallup’s latest polling showing that U.S. trust in public institutions continues to erode. And Paul Krugman notes that there’s reason for skepticism about the snake oil being peddled as economic policy in order to further enrich the already-wealthy: Why, after
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Joseph Stiglitz wraps up the New York Times’ series on inequality by summarizing how the gap between the rich and the rest of us developed, as well as how it can be reduced: The American political system is overrun by money. Economic
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Krugman offers a response to the assertion that accumulated wealth should be considered as costless capital: (I)f there’s one thing I thought economists were trained to do, it was to be clear about opportunity cost. We should compare accumulation of dynastic wealth
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