I’ve written before about attempts in Canada to create more separation between university teaching, on the one hand, and university research, on the other. In 2009, I wrote this opinion piece about an attempt by five university presidents to each acquire a larger share of university research dollars. And last
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The Progressive Economics Forum: The Big Banks’ Big Secret
The CCPA today released my report: “The Big Banks Big Secret” which provides the first public estimates of the emergency funds taken by Canadian banks. The report bases its estimates on publicly available data from CMHC, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, US Federal Reserve, the Bank of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – For much of the relatively recent past, one of the areas of relative consensus in economic theory is that productivity increases would find their way to workers. But Paul Krugman shows that hope to be utterly misplaced: Where did the productivity go? The
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: James K. Galbraith: Inequality and Instability
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Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: PBO Strikes Again
I wanted to tip my hat to the hard working folks at the PBO for a particularly revealing Economic and Fiscal Outlook that was published today. While the PBO has more than once eaten my lunch on various issue they’ve done a superb job of looking at Canada’s economic and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jared Bernstein discusses the effect of raising taxes on the highest-income households, featuring this in particular: Growth and jobs. History shows that higher taxes are compatible with economic growth and job creation: job creation and GDP growth were significantly stronger following the Clinton
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading. – As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I’ll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath’s call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Buchhelt offers five reasons why the extremely wealthy should pay more in taxes. But if we can anticipate some conflict over that idea, there’s stronger evidence than ever that the public is rather united behind one side. – Bob Hepburn notes that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – In an excerpt from the Occupy Handbook, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells discuss how a right-wing obsession with exacerbating inequality led to the U.S.’ disastrous response to the 2008 crash: How did America become a nation that could not rise to the biggest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Alex Himelfarb laments the Cons’ dismantling of a progressive state in Canada. But lest we lose all hope, Annie Lowrey reports on the Piketty/Saez economic work that’s paving the way for fairer taxes in the U.S. And Kelly McParland has to admit
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: On Wednesday in Ottawa, Occupy This!
I just received an invite from an activist friend to attend the Ottawa launch of Judy Rebick new book on the Occupy movement and solidarity-building, Occupy This! The book excites the activist in me already, even before I’ve read it. … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it’s gone too far. So here’s McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP’s proposal for a slight increase in income tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades – with the former seeing a “picket fence” growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a “staircase” effect (aside from an utterly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin comments on the growing resonance of inequality as an issue for Canadian voters. But the most telling sign may be less the Ontario NDP’s steps to highlight the need for more progressive taxation (as Martin recognizes), but the McGuinty Libs’
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Slightly Aged Column Day
Here, on how the latest round of cuts at multiple levels of government has been conspicuously designed to avoid having the wealthiest pitch in to improve public balance sheets. And while the column discusses earlier polling, the Broadbent Institute provides the best confirmation yet that the selective pain has nothing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Karl Nerenberg reported on Marc Mayrand’s Robocon testimony, featuring some much-needed discussion of what can be done to improve the Canada Elections Act to ensure fair elections rather than creating an incentive for electoral fraud: Mayrand fretted to the Committee that there are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – If there’s any lesson we should all be able to draw from the past decade in Canadian politics, it’s that anything can happen. But it’s still rather amazing to see Gerald Caplan get hopeful about the NDP’s prospects of forming a social-democratic government:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Setting the agenda
Quick, spot what’s different in the NDP’s response to the federal budget compared to any other official opposition ever: NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair today slammed Stephen Harper’s Conservatives for introducing a budget that recklessly cuts the vital services that Canadians rely on—such as Old Age Security and health care. “Stephen
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Fred Wilson weighs in on Thomas Mulcair’s mandate as the NDP’s new leader: (M)any progressives with no interest whatsoever in a “Blairist” agenda had found their way to the Mulcair camp. They supported Mulcair for two reasons — to maintain the party’s base
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your afternoon reading. – Linda McQuaig writes that Robocon is placing Canada at the forefront of dubious electoral results in the developed world. Which of course means it’s time to evaluate the Cons’ fraud merely as a matter of political damage control, rather than focusing on who’s
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