This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Karri Munn-Venn argues for a federal budget focused on social well-being – not merely on economic productivity. And Tom Hale discusses the harm done by social isolation. – The BBC reports on new research showing that the UK’s public support for parents
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson write that equality of opportunity is an illusion if people don’t have the necessary equality of income to make meaningful plans: British social mobility is damaged by the UK’s high income inequality. Economists have argued that young people
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Assorted content to end your week. – Leo Gerard calls for an end to trade deals designed to favour the wealthy at the expense of everybody else. And Rick Salutin writes that NAFTA can’t reasonably be seen as anything but: (N)o matter how many numbers Freeland plucks to show the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roderick Benns interviews Ryan Meili about the value of a basic income in freeing people from perpetual financial stress. And Doug Cameron reminds us that we have a choice whether to show empathy toward people facing homelessness – even if far too many
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Asher Schechter examines new studies showing how massive markups are enriching corporations at the expense of workers: The two standard explanations for why labor’s share of output has fallen by 10 percent over the past 30 years are globalization (American workers are
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Angella MacEwen and Cole Eisen challenge Galen Weston’s laughable claim that he and his multi-billion-dollar empire can’t afford to pay something closer to a living wage. And Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg connect the U.S.’ growing inequality to policy choices which have facilitated
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jerry Dias writes that corporate greed is the common thread in numerous stories about Canadian workers being left without jobs or support. And Yves Engler points out that trade agreements have ultimately served little purpose but to entrench corporate power. – Chris
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Bill Kerry discusses the role of inequality in causing a global financial meltdown Leaving aside the greed and stupidity of so many of the world’s financial institutions and, particularly, their leaders, it is easy to see why poor Americans jumped at what they
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Assorted content to end your week. – Noah Smith offers a reminder that market principles don’t work for everything. And Amelie Quesnel-Vallee and Miles Taylor note that in the health sector in particular, the use of private providers to supplement an underfunded public system is leading to inequitable disparities in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Leonhardt looks at the glaring growth of inequality in the U.S., while Matt Bruening charts how that trend is based entirely on capital ownership. And in the face of the Republicans’ plan for another round of giveaways to the rich, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linda McQuaig makes the case as to why any NAFTA renegotiation needs to focus on workers’ rights: NAFTA has been key to the transformation of Canada over the last two decades, enabling corporations to become ever more dominant economically and politically, while rendering
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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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Assorted content to start your week. – Paul Buchheit discusses the U.S.’ combination of increasing inequality, systematic tax evasion and false promises of social mobility. Michael Savage reports that even UK Cons are recognizing that a refusal to ensure that the rich pay their fair share makes for bad politics.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Crawford Kilian writes that Donald Trump’s presidency is merely a symptom of the wider disease of undue deference to wealth. And Matt Karp comments on the need for progressives to identify the problem rather than soft-peddling class divisions: What distinguished the Bernie Sanders
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Assorted content to end your week. – Greg Jericho writes about Australia’s increasing income stratification and wealth inequality. Matt Bruenig examines what sets the Nordic countries apart from the rest of the world – including high unionization levels and substantial public ownership of industry along with their well-funded social programs.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Charles Mathewes and Evan Sandsmark write that it’s long past time to start treating the excessive accumulation of wealth as something to be questioned – rather than accepted as an inevitability, or worse yet admired: The idea that wealth is morally perilous
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign. – Alex Ballingall reports on Guy Caron’s infrastructure and jobs plan which features both a large investment in public works, and substantial improvements in both wages and working conditions under federal jurisdiction. – Thomas Walkom criticizes Singh’s plan to roll Old Age
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Dennis Howlett writes that a properly designed and fair tax system can reduce inequality both by ensuring support for the people with the least, and ensuring that the people capable of contributing the most actually do so: We need to tackle inequality
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Louis-Philippe Rochon discusses the need for monetary policy to be better coordinated with fiscal policy to ensure both sustainable economic growth and a more fair distribution of wealth: Monetary policy has been a failure. It has failed to encourage growth, as has been plainly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – George Monbiot examines the history of James McGill Buchanan, Charles Koch and others who have used massive amounts of time and money to ensure that wealth wins out over democracy in shaping U.S. policy – and how their influence will sounds familiar elsewhere
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