Miscellaneous material for your Labour Day reading. – Andrew Jackson discusses the future of Canada’s labour movement, while Gil McGowan highlights the fact that unionization can be no less important in Alberta and other booming areas than elsewhere. And Jerry Dias notes that there are some reasons for celebration this
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Eric Reguly examines Apple as a prime example of how supposed market successes actually reflect the private capture of public investments – and suggests the public should benefit financially from its investments which facilitate corporate growth: Apple is such a runaway success that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ralph Surette suggests that Nova Scotia’s tax and regulatory review pay close attention to the fact that it can do more than simply slash both: Nova Scotia already has relatively low corporate taxes and lower than average taxes for the highest earners. Yet
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Buchheit highlights how inequality continues to explode in the U.S. by comparing the relatively small amounts of money spent on even universal federal programs to the massive gifts handed to the wealthy. Christian Weller and Jackie Odum offer a U.S. economic
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: The lament for Canada’s middle class
I’ve been posting more sparsely lately for a number of external reasons but this should change soon I hope. For now, here is the first major piece I wrote for Ricochet. In some ways, it’s the obligatory piece on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but really it’s my way of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – thwap nicely summarizes how we’ve allowed our economy to rely on (and feed into) the whims of a small group of insiders, rather than being harnessed for any sense of public good: (W)hat’s changed today is that the wealthy clearly have more
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Overshoot Meets Inequality
Tuesday marked Earth Overshoot Day, 2014. August 19th was the day by which humankind had consumed an entire year’s production of renewable resources. Overall that means we’re using resources more than 1.5 times the rate at which the Earth can replace them. EOD is a moving target that, unfortunately, keeps
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: It’s Not That We Disagree, It’s That I Despise Your Ideas
When ever I read another article and view another series of photographs of the carnage Israel has inflicted on the civilian population of Gaza and then think of the Netanyahu apologists, Trudeau and Mulcair, I despise them and any party that would tolerate much less follow their views. That these two greasy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
This and that to start your weekend. – Robert Reich discusses how the increasing concentration of corporate wealth and power is undermining the U.S.’ democracy, while noting that there’s only one effective response: We entered a vicious cycle in which political power became more concentrated in monied interests that used
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Olga Khazan writes about the connection between lower incomes and obesity in the U.S. And Truthout discusses how poverty and other stressors can directly affect individual and communal genetics for generations: (A) study by researchers at University College London’s Institute of Child
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Leonhardt offers a revealing look at the relative priorities of wealthier and poorer regions of the U.S. And Patricia Cohen discusses the disproportionate effect of inequality and poverty on women: It’s at the lowest income levels that the burden on women stands
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – John Abraham and Dana Nuccitelli discuss the worrisome spread of climate change denialism, particularly around the English-speaking developed world. But lest we accept the theory that declining public knowledge is independent of political choices, Margaret Munro reports that the Cons are suppressing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rebecca Vallas, Melissa Boteach and Shawn Fremstad write about the need for a new social contract. And Drew Nelles takes a look at the role of a guaranteed basic income in ensuring a fair standard of living for everybody: Although implementing basic income
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jack Peat argues for trickle-up economics to ensure that everybody shares in our common resources (while also encouraging economic development): Good capitalism is the ability to promote incentives and opportunity in equal measure. Sway too far one way and the potential of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – CJ Werleman writes that the U.S.’ inequality nightmare is getting worse even as the public gains a greater recognition of the issue. Nick Kristof recognizes that radically different levels of wealth result in a serious lack of opportunity for anybody who doesn’t win
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robert Green looks at Quebec as a prime example of selective austerity – with tax cuts and other goodies for the wealthy considered sacrosanct, and well-connected insiders being paid substantial sums of public money to tell citizens they’ll have to make do
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Monica Potts responds to the big lie that increasing inequality and perpetual poverty are necessary – or indeed remotely beneficial – as elements of economic growth: Hanauer and Piketty inspire these broadsides because they are challenging, in a far more aggressive way than
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jenna Smialiek reports on Gabriel Zucman’s conclusion that the .1% has managed to prevent the rest of us from even approaching reasonable estimates as to how much wealth is being hoarded at the top. And Bryce Covert discusses how that carefully-cultivated lack of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Robert Reich muses about how our economy would look if we actually paid people based on their contribution to society rather than their ability to exploit others. In related news, the Broadbent Institute’s next Progress Gala is looking all the more fascinating with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert write that an effective solution to wealth inequality shouldn’t be limited to redistributing individual income or assets, but should also include the development of a commonwealth which benefits everybody: Instead of just giving people more purchasing power,
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