Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kevin Connor reports that the more Ontario voters are exposed to the realities of public-private partnerships, the more they’re turning against the idea – with a quarter or less of respondents seeing any upside to handing public services over to businesses. Tony Keller
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Karl Nerenberg examines new research from the Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards showing how workers have seen hardly any benefit from four decades of productivity gains which have filled corporate coffers: (I)n Canada, the productivity of labour — the amount
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk highlights how Donald Trump’s election is just one more predictable consequence of the end of shared growth – even as it figures to perpetuate that reality. And Andrew Coyne argues that Trump’s win under the U.S.’ warped electoral rules should
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Wolfgang Munchau writes that the rise of right-wing insurrectionism can be traced largely to “centre-left” parties who have focused most of their attention on imposing austerity and catering to the corporate sector while offering little to citizens, while Naomi Klein comments on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Karen Foster and Tamara Krawchenko discuss how policy can – and should – be designed to improve intergenerational equity: Canada trails far behind other industrialized nations in its attention to intergenerational equity. The country could do far more to report on a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Community Food Centres Canada highlights the need for social assistance benefits to keep up with the cost of living, while noting that Ontario (among other jurisdictions) has fallen well behind in that task: It’s been far too long since social assistance rates
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Larry Beinhart argues that aside from the gross unfairness and economic harm from growing inequality, there’s a basic problem trusting the uber-rich to make reasonable decisions with massive amounts of wealth. And George Monbiot makes the case that even as he pretends
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten things to know about the CPP debate
This fall, Canada’s Parliament will debate a proposal to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). And over at the Behind the Numbers web site, I’m co-author of a blog post titled “Ten things to know about the CPP debate.” The blog post’s other co-authors are Allan Moscovitch and Richard Lochead.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ben Casselman points out how corporate consolidation can produce harmful results for consumers and workers alike. Guy Standing discusses how we’re all worse off for the spread of rentier capitalism. And Mariana Mazzucato reminds us that an entrepreneurial government is a must if
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jordan Brennan points out why Nova Scotia (and other jurisdictions) should move past austerity economics: The McNeil Liberals appear set to rack up budgetary surpluses through a strategy of public sector wage suppression. This is likely to backfire. It is an elementary
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Thomas Walkom writes that the federal Libs’ idea of “real change” for the economy reflects nothing more than the same old stale neoliberal playbook: At its core, the federal government’s “bold” new plan for economic growth is strikingly familiar. The scheme, worked out
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Owen Jones highlights the toxic stress and other health problems borne disproportionately by members of the LGBT community who face systematic discrimination. And Tayla Smith and Jaitra Sathyandran discuss how temporary foreign workers (and others facing precarious work situations) tend to suffer
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Joel Wood highlights the social cost of carbon as a crucial reason to work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions rather than insisting on doing the absolute least the rest of the world will tolerate. And needless to say, Brad Wall’s idea of an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Baratunde Thurston makes the point that even beyond income and wealth inequality, there’s an obviously unfair distribution of second chances in the U.S. depending on one’s race and class. Denis Campbell reports on the link between poverty and childhood obesity, while Jen
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy offer their take as to what we should expect out of Ontario’s basic income experiment: Critics rightly argue that basic income is no magic bullet, that indeed there are no magic bullets. The history of the idea of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David Boyle discusses how the principle of free trade – once intended to empower consumers against monopolies – is instead being used to lock in corporate control: (T)he original idea of free trade was not a simple licence to do whatever you
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Larry Elliott writes that the public is rightly frustrated with an economic model designed to shift money to those who already have the most – and that progressive parties in particular need to offer a meaningful alternative: The belief on the left was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – In The Public Interest studies how the privatization of services leads to increased inequality: In the Public Interest’s analysis of recent government contracting identifies five ways in which government privatization disproportionately hurts poor individuals and families… Creation of new user fees: The creation
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Guaranteed Annual Income
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a blog post titled “Ten things to know about Canada’s guaranteed annual income debate.” Points raised in the blog post include the following: -There are people and groups on both the left and right of the political spectrum
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Lawrence Summers discusses the economic damage being done by a top-heavy income spectrum – as the effect of major stimulus programs may have been wholly outweighed by the decline in middle-class incomes. – Meanwhile, Canadians for Tax Fairness points out the impending tax
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