This and that for your weekend reading.- Kai Nagata’s post on why he quit his job as a reporter is well worth a read in full. But let’s particularly note his observations which may apply just as much to many other jobs as to positions in the media (eve…
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week.- I’ll join the seemingly long list of commentators who wouldn’t ever have expected to cite David Brooks, but can’t avoid it based on his latest column:Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- David Green nicely explains the basic choice to be made in determining what type of economy we want to pursue:(T)he basic tenet of the new policy regime – that any increase in wage costs kills jobs a…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Ian Welsh serves up some tough commentary as to whether Canadian voters saddled with unrepresentative and downright destructive governments are merely getting what we deserve:(W)e have selected, to rule our soci…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Canada Day reading.- Oh, how nice it would be to be able to take pride in Dan Gardner’s message about Canada’s true identity:The level of civility seen every day at fourway stops across Canada is unheard of in countries around…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: BC’s Regressive Tax Shift
With much of the talk on taxes in BC about the HST, we issued a new report today that looks at the bigger context for BC’s tax system (Vancouver Sun oped here, CTV News story here). Iglika Ivanova, Seth Klein and I compare and contrast BC’s tax system after a decade where tax cuts were […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that (with a B.C. flavour) for your Tuesday reading.- Yes, the CCPA’s report showing that taxes in British Columbia are downright regressive is stunning enough on its face. But the real story may lie in the response of the province’s finance m…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On downturns
Sure, it might seem like reason for concern that it’s only the type of government spending which the Cons are determined to slash that allowed Canadians in general to somewhat avoid a significant economic collapse over the past few years:In 2009, avera…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Unions and Inequality
An important paper by Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld which is forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology finds that the decline in private sector union density in the US (from 34% to 8% for men, and from 16% to 6% for women) explains one fifth to one third of the increase in inequality […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Adam Radwanski points out how Stephen Harper’s continuing Senate embarrassment figures to play into the NDP’s hands:If Mr. Harper was looking to signal once and for all that he’s abandoned his populi…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Crawford Kilian interviews Linda McQuaig on inequality, including this comment on how to handle the damaging effects of inequality politically:On whether inequality is becoming a serious political issu…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament In Review: June 13, 2011
As I’d suspected, there looks to be plenty of material for a review post from just a day’s worth of events in the House of Commons. So here’s an inaugural daily review of what you may have missed in Ottawa yesterday – with a few themes I’ll be developi…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Rhys Kesselman rightly points out how the populist message that propelled the Cons to power has given way to elitist policy-making:Once the federal budget is balanced, the Conservatives plan to double the TFS…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
A variety of content for your weekend reading.- The Lethbridge Herald nicely points out who figures to have a problem with Stephen Harper’s decision to have the Canadian public pay tens of thousands of dollars to send him to Game 4 of the Stanley Cup F…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading.- In case we didn’t already have enough examples of the Wall government’s contempt for voting, James Wood notes that it’s dragging its heels on authorizing any enumeration before the official writ period. That fig…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada Doesn’t Deserve the Silver
It has been widely reported in the Globe and elsewhere that Canada ranks #2 in the just-released OECD Better Life Index, outstripped only by Australia. I am all for measures of objective and subjective social well-being that go beyond GDP as a measure of progress, and this OECD report offers up some useful information. But […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Stephen Harper’s Economic Record: Best in show?
According to the polls, Stephen Harper gets the highest score on handling the economy, though he only gets the nod from 38 per cent of Canadians. As the incumbent, he’s got the advantage on all other candidates. What the others have done and might do is a topic for another blogpost. This short summary of […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: False Consciousness, Part I: On Elections and the Middle Class
The following appeared in the National Post today. We’re in the last week of a federal election campaign, and every party wants you to believe they’re there for the hardworking families of a middle class under enormous pressure. That’s you, right? The idea of the middle class resonates, because it is a notion we all […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Courting the Women’s Vote in 2011
Every party is courting the women’s vote. They are The Undecided – more women than men are still parking their vote. That’s typical of most elections. Women listen for longer, decide later in an election campaign. When the time comes, they will be the kingmakers, if you’ll pardon the term. It leaps to mind because […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Shock and Awful – The Truth Behind CIT Cuts
Cutting corporate income taxes doesn’t create jobs. They may raise wages, but probably not for you and me. And they mean Canadian taxpayers are paying more….to help the Americans pay down their debt Here’s how I know these things to be true: Yesterday SUN TV rolled out its first full day of programming. The prime […]
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