This and that to end your weekend. – Daniel Goleman writes about the role of wealth in undermining empathy: (I)n general, we focus the most on those we value most. While the wealthy can hire help, those with few material assets are more likely to value their social assets: like
Continue readingTag: Immigration
drive-by planet: ‘Into the Fire’ video: targeting of immigrants in Greece by the authorities and Golden Dawn fascists
Into the Fire sends a powerful message about the xenophobia and violence faced by immigrants in Greece struggling to survive against steep odds. A large percentage were driven to seek asylum not as a matter of choice but because of war and other problems in their countries of origin. Many
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Toby Sanger asks who really bears the risk when governments agree to hand over billions to the private sector through P3 arrangements: While Canada may be one of the leaders in the market for P3s, we’re far from a leader when it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the U.S.’ movement for fair fast food wages might be explained in part by greater recognition that many workers will be in the service sector for the long haul – while any Canadian equivalent may be suppressed by the use of temporary foreign workers. For further reading…–
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Untangling the Temporary Foreign Worker Knot
Banks as predators? Surely, no! Temporary foreign workers have become a lightning-rod topic in Canadian labour in recent months with the high-profile news of the Royal Bank of Canada replacing staff with TFWs. But the issue is not about RBC, which is merely the latest flashpoint. The temporary foreign worker
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tavia Grant reports on the most recent world happiness report from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. And David Doorey points out a rather striking similarity among the countries at the top of the list, while Dan Gardner highlights Stephen Harper’s longstanding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frances Russell laments the state of Canada’s Potemkin Parliament (and the resulting harm the Cons are inflicting on our political system and our country alike): Poll after poll show a majority of Canadians regularly confuse their parliamentary system with the American presidential-congressional system.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mariana Mazzucato points out that important inventions tend to come from public financing aimed at the greater good – while noting that we should also look to ensure greater public returns on our collective investments: Images of tech entrepreneurs such as Mark
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
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
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne comments on the biggest of the Cons’ many lies about the role and capacity of the federal government: Canada’s $18.7-billion deficit has (its) roots in failed economic policies, decisions made before the world financial crisis, including reckless corporate tax cuts. Remember,
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: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Myles discusses the Cons’ war on evidence: The mandatory Census was the lifeblood of almost all social and business planning. It provided key data for studying things like income inequality and poverty since both low- and high-income households were required to report.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Patrick Wintour and Simon Bowers discuss the G20’s predictable finding that our global tax system isn’t set up to address the problem of offshore tax evasion: The long-awaited report, prepared for a meeting of the G20 finance ministers in Moscow this weekend, says
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson rightly questions Greg Mankiw’s faith-based assertion that increasing wealth accumulation is based solely on merit and contribution to society rather than hoarding and rent-seeking. And Martin Lobel highlights a few of the distortionary policies that have served to exacerbate inequality in
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Immigrants heavily subsidize Medicare’s Trust Fund: says study
Harvard Medical School and Hunter College School of Public Health researchers find immigrants generated surplus contributions of $115.2 billion in 2002-2009, $13.8 billion in 2009, and actually subsidize the health care of native-born Americans. The study concludes that reducing immigration would worsen Medicare’s financial health. The post Immigrants heavily subsidize
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP’s recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan’s CCF to earn a twenty-year stay in office in the face of far more hysterical opposition: You can design a campaign that projects a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Justin Ling writes that the Cons’ aversion to accountability isn’t limited to their own government, as they’re one of the few holdouts against transparency in resource-sector reporting of payments to governments abroad. – Meanwhile, Stuart Trew discusses an international citizens’ initiative to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Not surprisingly, plenty of commentators have weighed in on the latest set of Senate scandals engulfing Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Nigel Wright and Stephen Harper among others. Diane Francis takes the opportunity to point out that the Senate is an institutional anachronism (a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron is the latest to weigh in on the Cons’ distorted sense of priorities in directing public research money toward private profits: Publicly available research is important. Since no one knows where discoveries or advances in knowledge will lead, the entire
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Babad takes a look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data on wages and employment levels – reaching the conclusion that the corporatist effort to drive wages down does nothing to improve employment prospects. But the absence of any remotely plausible policy justification
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