This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Noah Smith makes the case for the U.S. Democrats to emphasize trust-busting as a means of restoring power to people rather than the business lobby: Big companies often argue that mergers will allow increased economies of scale, whose efficiencies will more than
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Sirota interviews Thomas Frank about the U.S. Democrats’ obsession with educational achievement as a cure-all – and their consequent loss of touch with the large numbers of citizens suffering from economic policies which left them behind: Sirota: What do you think
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Joseph Stiglitz offers a reminder that tax giveaways to the rich and the corporate sector accomplish zero – or worse – when it comes to economic development: If corporate tax reform happens at all, it will be a hodge-podge brokered behind closed doors.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – The Star’s editorial board calls for Canada to take its poor ranking among other developed countries as a prod to action in building a more secure and equitable health care system. And Abdullah Shihipar discusses the need for access to dental care in
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,
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Darlene O’Leary sets out the results from public consultations for a national anti-poverty strategy. And Dennis Howlett writes that our tax system could (and should) be set up to build a far more fair and supportive society. – Meanwhile, Ryan Cooper makes
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The Star offers some lessons from the UK’s election, including the powerful appeal of unabashed social democratic policy. Aditya Chakrabortty discusses how Jeremy Corbyn has changed his country’s politics for a long time to come. And Gary Younge observes that the gains achieved
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Robert Reich comments on the absurdity of Donald Trump’s plan to shovel yet more money toward a military-industrial complex and corporate profiteers who already have more than they know what to do with. – Sara Fraser and Laura Chapin write that food insecurity
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Krugman offers a warning about Donald Trump’s immediate moves to normalize corruption and cronyism as the foundation of his administration. And the New York Times’ editorial board points out that corporations are enabling Trump’s false claims with the expectation that they’ll be
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Ben Tarnoff discusses the two winners – and the many losers – created by the spread of neoliberalism: Neoliberalism can mean many things, including an economic program, a political project, and a phase of capitalism dating from the 1970s. At its root,
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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: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Anthony Hilton writes that stronger protections for workers tend to increase productivity. And Fiona McQuarrie makes clear that we don’t have to settle for an economy where workers face constant fear and insecurity as a result of precarious work: (J)ob churn and precarious
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Baratunde Thurston makes the point that even beyond income and wealth inequality, there’s an obviously unfair distribution of second chances in the U.S. depending on one’s race and class. Denis Campbell reports on the link between poverty and childhood obesity, while Jen
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Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Michael Harris argues that it’s long past time for the Trudeau Libs to start living up to their oft-repeated promise of real change – rather than merely slapping a friendlier face on the same old regressive C…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.
– David Dayen and Ryan Grim write that “free trade” agreements are in fact turning into little more than cash cows for hedge funds and other big-money speculators:
Under this system, a corporation invested in a foreign country can appeal to arbitration panels, consisting of three corporate lawyers, if that country enacts a law or regulation that violates a trade agreement or discriminates against the company. The ISDS courts can then award billions of dollars to the corporation to compensate it for the loss of expected future profits.
The problem is that these courts can also be used by speculators, who buy up companies for the sole purpose of filing an ISDS claim, or who finance lawsuits from corporations for a piece of the claim award.
“ISDS allows a small group of ultra-rich investors to extract billions of dollars from taxpayers while they undermine financial, environmental and public health rules across the world,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an early opponent of ISDS, told HuffPost. “Our trade deals should not include ISDS in any form.”
…
The use of ISDS as a moneymaking engine, rather than for its initial purpose ― to protect foreign investors from having their factories expropriated or their businesses nationalized ― raises the question of whether there’s a better system available.“Why should hard-won sovereign advances, like rules against polluting or consumer protections, be at risk when the obvious solution is for the investors to put their skin, not ours, in the game?” wondered Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden and a critic of TPP. “The simple solution is to have them self-insure against investment losses.”
– Mike Balkwill highlights the need to stop consulting endlessly about poverty, and instead take action by ensuring people have enough resources to meet at least their basic needs. Ann Hui reports on the especially dire circumstances facing First Nations families in Northern Ontario who have to spend upwards of half of their income on overpriced food. And Miguel Sanchez criticizes the Wall government’s attack on benefits to people with disabilities in Saskatchewan.
– Nicole Thompson points out how the Libs’ changes to the temporary foreign worker program are actually making matters worse for caregivers by eliminating any right to apply for permanent resident status. And Martha Burk documents how workers can lose out when employers force them to accept payroll cards rather than paycheques.
– Erich Hartmann and Alexa Greig argue that it’s long past time for Canada’s federal government to provide stable funding for health care in partnership with the provinces, rather than contributing only as much as it wants to at any given point. And Tom Blackwell reports on the dangers of relying on private providers by highlighting how they inevitably leave the public system to deal with complications.
– Finally, Tom Parkin notes that we should base our discussion of electoral reform on the actual experience of similar countries, not the obviously-false claims of people wanting to fearmonger us into accepting the status quo. And Andrew Coyne draws a parallel to the census as an argument for mandatory voting.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Thomas Walkom discusses Mel Hurtig’s philosophy of economic nationalism, while noting that Canada stands out as an exception in lacking a strong movement toward greater internal planning and economic control. …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Mark Karlin interviews Richard Wolff about the relationship between unfettered capitalism and poverty:How is poverty an inevitable by-product of capitalism? Doesn’t this make all these charitable drives “to …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, contrasting Brad Wall’s giveaway of public money to subsidize take-out meals against his choice to make healthy food less accessible to the people who need it most in Saskatoon’s inner city.For further reading…- The Star-Phoenix reported on the…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- The Ontario Association of Food Banks discusses the long-term damage done by childhood poverty and deprivation:When facing a very tight budget, food is often the budget line that gets cut in order to a…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Don Pittis rightly notes that there can be a significant difference between an economy trumpeted as growing due to share prices and profits, and one which actually provides benefits to workers – and that the U.S. l…
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