Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Scott Schmidt highlights how the wealthy have seized any gains in economic growth over a period of decades. Michael Hobbes discusses the “glass floor” keeping the children of rich families from facing any risk of failure. And Crawford Kilian discusses Thomas Piketty’s observations
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Linda McQuaig writes about the myth that we have no choice but to pursue privatization – and notes that electric vehicle production represents an ideal opportunity to build public economic capacity: Is it feasible to save the once-vibrant Oshawa complex and transform it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins interviews Eugene McCarraher about the cultivation of capitalist greed as a new religion. And Annie Lowrey writes about the value of cancelling the concept of billionaires: (T)here are far more urgent reasons than poverty to get rid of billionaires and reverse
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David Leonhardt discusses how the U.S.’ tax system has become definitively regressive, featuring this chart as to how the wealthiest few now pay a smaller share of their income than anybody else. – Ann Pettifor highlights how society suffers when rentier capitalism is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Steven Strauss examines the catastrophic results of the U.S. Republicans’ obsession with handouts to the rich and austerity for everybody else. And Scott Schmidt points out that Jason Kenney has exactly the same plan in mind for Alberta. – Luke Darby writes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jeff Spross discusses the effectiveness of a wealth tax both in generating revenue, and in reducing inequality. David Leonhardt notes that a wealth tax will actually boost the economy by putting to use assets which are otherwise idle (if not being used for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Paul Krugman writes that complaints by the U.S.’ wealthiest few about Elizabeth Warren reflect their insistence that extreme wealth be coupled with absolute and unquestioned power: The point is that many of the superrich aren’t satisfied with living like kings, which they will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Manfred Bienefeld writes about the gap between the urgent problems we face, and the sad excuses for policies on offer from the Libs and Cons as Canadians go to the polls. And Andrew Jackson discusses how little point there is to the tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – George Monbiot argues that it’s time to cap the amount of wealth any person can accumulate, while highlighting the importance of accepting that there’s a point where we have enough. – Donovan Vincent writes about the rental housing crisis in Toronto, while
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Trudeau’s proposed speculation tax
I’ve written a blog post about the Trudeau Liberals’ recently-proposed speculation tax on residential real estate owned by non-resident, non-Canadians. The full blog post can be accessed here.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sarmishta Subramanian writes that messages of exclusion and division tend to be amplified for political purposes rather than because they actually reflect broad public opinion. And Christopher Cheung discusses how the PPC in particular has chosen to use the language of selective inclusion
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Initiative on Global Markets finds substantial agreement among economists that inequality poses a threat to democracy. And Paul Krugman writes about the concerted efforts of corporate-funded Republicans to undermine the successes of California and other states implementing progressive policies. – Andray Domise
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Grace Blakeley discusses how the financialization of the economy has enriched a few at the expense of everybody else. And Blakeley and Harry Quilter-Pinner point out how social care in particular is suffering for having been turned into a profit centre. – David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Emily Stewart reports on Elizabeth Warren’s message about the need to end corruption and corporatism in order to make U.S. politics work for people. Martin Wolf writes that a rigged economic system is undermining the prospect of viable democracy. And Andrew MacLeod examines
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The L.A. Times’ editorial board comments on the need for everybody to pitch in toward a just transition which preserves a habitable planet – including by moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. But Natalie Hanman interviews Naomi Klein about what instead looks
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal
No doubt many raised in our capitalist society, where inequality rules and excessive incomes and wealth are seen as a right (and where even the NDP only proposes a measly 1% tax on excessive wealth), will consider this proposal to be radical but it is actually quit a modest proposal.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Kerri Breen reports on the public’s understandable frustration with Canada’s political system. Don Martin offers a prime example as to why that’s justified, as Justin Trudeau has cynically concluded that it would be counterproductive to stand up for people facing religious discrimination
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Meghna Charkabarti interviews Branko Milanovic about the destructive amount of inequality embedded in capitalism as it’s currently structured. Connor Kilpatrick and Bhaskar Sunkara argue that the corporate class has only tolerated an acceptable distribution of income and wealth when it’s been accompanied by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett and Wanda Wyporska neatly summarize the insidious social effects of inequality: (I)nequality is socially divisive, making status more important and strengthening the view that some people are worth more than others. As we judge each other more by status,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lily Patchelder and David Kamin study the policy options available to increase public revenue by focusing on the wealthy, and find that there are multiple viable options: The U.S. will need to raise more revenues in order to reduce these disparities, finance
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