Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes that by finally recognizing the unfairness and ineffectiveness of Alberta’s regressive tax system, Jim Prentice may be starting a needed national debate: Alberta Premier Jim Prentice talks up taxes for individuals including a sales tax (Alberta is the only province
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Crawford Kilian writes that growing inequality has been largely the product of deliberate engineering rather than any natural process, while Paul Krugman focuses on the preferential treatment of capital income in particular. And Simon Barrow discusses the sources and beneficiaries of the increasing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the now-infamous story of Eric and Ilsa bears a disturbing resemblance to how Brad Wall has handled Saskatchewan’s finances. For further reading…– Again, the original Eric and Ilsa story is here, with Rob Carrick following up here. And the story was picked up (with appropriate criticism) here,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Amy Goodman discusses Barack Obama’s call to reverse the spread of inequality in the U.S. And Seumas Milne writes that the effort will inevitably challenge the world oligarchs have built up to further their own wealth and power at everybody else’s expense:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Economist argues that lower oil prices offer an ideal opportunity to rethink our energy policy (with a focus on cleaner sources). And Mitchell Anderson offers a eulogy for Alberta’s most recent oil bender: For now the latest Alberta bender is over,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Never enough now
Rob Carrick is half right in his response to the firestorm surrounding the story of Eric and Ilsa: Canada’s No. 1 problem in personal finance is not a lack of saving, it’s spending beyond our means. Eric and Ilsa show us that it’s a problem uniting people of all backgrounds.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Rosenberg writes about the high-priced effort to undermine public institutions and the collective good in the U.S. And Paul Krugman highlights how the Republicans’ stubborn belief in the impossibly of good government (regardless of large amounts of evidence that such a thing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Tasini at Daily Kos discusses the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy’s finding that every single U.S. state has a regressive tax structure in the taxes imposed at the state and local level. And John Cassidy examines the Center for American Progress’
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Gerald Caplan writes that we all bear some responsibility for growing inequality – and how we’ll need to use our electoral power to reverse it: (S)elf-sacrifice is not going to be the key to reducing inequality, with all the great damage it inflicts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Oliver Milman reports on research showing how humanity is destroying its own environmental life support systems. And our appetite for exploitation is proving a failure even from the standpoint of the pursuit of shortsighted greed, as David Dayen considers how the recent drop
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jeff Begley criticizes the Cons and the Quebec Libs for their refusal to even recognize inequality as an issue – which of course results in their only exacerbating the gap between the rich and the rest of us: While Couillard and Harper find
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joan Walsh discusses Elizabeth Warren’s work on improving wages and enhancing the strength of workers in the U.S., while Jeremy Nuttall interviews Hassan Yussuff about the labour movement’s work to elect a better government in Canada. – Bob Hepburn argues that getting rid
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Robert Ferdman reports on a Pew Research poll showing that wealthier Americans are downright resentful toward the poor – and think the people with the most difficult lives actually have it too easy: (T)he prevalence of the view might reflect an inability
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Exley points out that the UK has nothing to be proud of when it comes to income inequality. And Bill Curry reports on the Cons’ full awareness that the temporary foreign worker program was both taking jobs away from Canadian youth,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nathan Schneider discusses the wide range of support for a guaranteed income, while noting that the design of any basic income system needs to reflect the needs of the people who receive it rather than the businesses who see it as an opportunity
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Sam Pizzigati interviews Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett about the fight against inequality and the next piece of the puzzle to be put in place: [Pickett:]…In The Spirit Level, we have all these correlations between inequality and social problems, and we have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Emma Woolley discusses how homelessness developed into a social problem in Canada in large part through public neglect. Judy Haiven is the latest to emphasize that charity is no substitute for a functional society when it comes to meeting people’s basic needs. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb writes about the corporate push to treat taxes as a burden rather than a beneficial contribution to a functional society – and why we should resist the demand to slash taxes and services alike: How is it that we don’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Robin Sears offers his theory that the upcoming federal election could represent a meaningful referendum on competing visions for Canada – and Paul Wells seems to expect much the same. But while that might make for a useful statement of the actual consequences
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Mariana Mazzucato discusses how inequality and financialization have teamed up to create an economy with little upside and serious risks for most people: (W)hat should we do in 2015? Financial reform–aimed at bringing finance and the real economy together again–must thus critically first
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