Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Ed Broadbent laments Canada’s failure to meet its commitment to end child poverty – and notes that the Harper Cons in particular are headed in exactly the wrong direction: This child poverty rate is a national disgrace. It jumped from 15.8 per cent
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lynn Stuart Parramore writes about our increasingly traumatic social and political culture, along with the response which can help to overcome it: A 2012 study of hospital patients in Atlanta’s inner-city communities showed that rates of post-traumatic stress are now on par with those
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tom Sullivan’s advice for Democrats south of the border that it’s essential to reach out to dispossessed voters of all types of backgrounds with a compelling alternative to the status quo is equally relevant to progressives in Canada. – But the good news
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Dennis Raphael and Toba Bryant write about the devastating health effects of income inequality in Canada: Imagine the response, from industry, government and the public, if a plane was crashing every day. If there were something that killed as many people in a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – George Monbiot comments on the far more important values we’re endangering in the name of constant financial and material growth: To try to stabilise this system, governments behave like soldiers billeted in an ancient manor, burning the furniture, the paintings and the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The 25th anniversary of Parliament’s unanimous – if failed – commitment to eliminate child poverty has given rise to plenty of worthwhile commentary. Marco Chown Oved talks to Ed Broadbent about what the resolution meant at the time (as well as how it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Richard Wike notes that inequality is properly being recognized as a higher priority around the globe. But Steven Rattner observes that recognition of the issue isn’t doing anything to resolve it, as income and wealth concentration are only getting worse. And Linda McQuaig
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Dealing with Climate Change and Inequality
Two of the defining problems of our times are wealth inequality (both globally and within the first world) and climate change. With any socioeconomic order – our mixture of capitalism and government being just one – there are going to be consequences both good and bad. There are going to
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Dealing with Climate Change and Inequality
Two of the defining problems of our times are wealth inequality (both globally and within the first world) and climate change. With any socioeconomic order – our mixture of capitalism and government being just one – there are going to be consequences b…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Dealing with Climate Change and Inequality
Two of the defining problems of our times are wealth inequality (both globally and within the first world) and climate change. With any socioeconomic order – our mixture of capitalism and government being just one – there are going to be consequences both good and bad. There are going to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – The Economist discusses how a tiny elite group is taking a startling share of the U.S.’ total wealth: The ratio of household wealth to national income has risen back toward the level of the 1920s, but the share in the hands of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Forget About the 1%. It’s the .1% Who Are the Emerging Problem.
They’re now buying elections as efficiently as they once had to settle for buying politicians (or judges) and they’re buying their way to ever dizzying heights of aberrant prosperity. They’re the top one-tenth of the top one per cent and, thanks to rampaging inequality in the United States, their wealth
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jonas Fossli Gherso discusses the unfortunate (and unnecessary) acceptance of burgeoning inequality even by the people who suffer most from its presence. And Ryan Meili interviews Gabor Mate about the ill health effects of an economic system designed to keep people under stress:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna looks to Norway as an example of how an oil-rich country can both ensure long-term benefits from its non-renewable resources, and be far more environmentally responsible than Canada has been to date. – Michal Rozworski discusses how the devaluing of work
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Globe and Mail reminds us why we should demand the restoration of an effective census, while Evidence for Democracy is making a public push toward that goal. And Tavia Grant discusses how the destruction of effective data collection is affecting Canadian workplace:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Robert Reich discusses the right’s utter lack of – and aversion to – empathy as either a personal or political value. Bob Norman reports on a particularly galling example of that phenomenon, as Fort Lauderdale has begun arresting people for feeding the homeless.
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Forget income splitting, tax the rich!
For now, I’ll keep double-posting my pieces for Ricochet here. The latest is on income splitting and taxing the rich more generally. The idea is that even though taxing the rich won’t get generate huge revenue, there are lots of other good reasons to do it, like even just slightly shifting the balance
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Will Hutton rightly slams David Cameron for his antisocial view of taxes and public institutions – which should of course sound all too familiar in Canada: Believe the prime minister and it is morality, rather than economics, which requires him to cut
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chris Matthews takes note of the gross growth of inequality in the U.S. Dean Baker notes that much of the wealth built on what’s branded as “innovation” reflects little more than successful attempts to evade health, safety and consumer protection laws. And Mike
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Natasha Luckhardt examines what we can expect from Burger King’s takeover of Tim Hortons – and the news isn’t good for Canadian workers and citizens alike. But Jim Stanford reminds us that we’re not without some public policy options by following up on
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