Assorted content to end your week. – David Miller makes the case to take aim at inequality in Canada: With globalization being the holy grail of efficiency, it became a race to the bottom as international capital sought the lowest cost and the lowest wages. The result in Canada and
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Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the recent Munk Debate has helped to highlight Canadians’ preference for a fairer, more progressive tax system – and on a couple of the most important steps we can take toward that end goal. For further reading…– Ipsos Reid’s polling on public views toward taxing the rich
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Cay Johnston and Miles Corak both discuss the results of a study which compares economic outcomes in technologically advanced countries, and shows that tax giveaways to the wealthy exacerbate inequality without doing anything at all to contribute to economic development. – And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – A new Ipsos-Reid poll shows that nearly 90% of Canadians support higher taxes on the rich generally, and million-dollar incomes in particular. And there’s an obvious need for change based on how distorted tax systems already are – as Reuters reports on a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Krugman makes the case for significantly higher taxes on the rich: What would raising tax rates at the top accomplish? It would, to some extent, mitigate the rise in inequality, which some of us consider a good thing in itself: You
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mark Gongloff reaches the unsurprising conclusion that a tax system warped to favour the interests of the wealthy leads to greater inequality (but not the promised growth): Slashing top tax rates has had none of the positive effects on economic growth that the
Continue readingbastard.logic: Down and Out in Harperconia
Sweet tit-humping Christ I’m tired. Tired of the chronic lack of accountability in Ottawa. Of a parliamentary press corps that been for far too long too prissy and timid to rightly ferret and call out endless examples Conservative corruption with tenacious vigour (see also: libel chill). Tired of national apathy
Continue readingbastard.logic: Down and Out in Harperconia
Sweet tit-humping Christ I’m tired. Tired of the chronic lack of accountability in Ottawa. Of a parliamentary press corps that been for far too long too prissy and timid to rightly ferret and call out endless examples Conservative corruption with tenacious vigour (see also: libel chill). Tired of national apathy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Broadbent Institute has released a new set of polling (PDF) as to Canadians’ values. And it’s particularly worth noting that even on the Cons’ signature issues such as tax cuts, austerity and crime – where millions upon millions of public dollars
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Pat Steenberg observes that the Harper Cons’ deficits are the result of conscious choices to reduce government revenue – and that we can fix our deficit and rein in inequality at the same time by reversing the damage: (W)hen our governments say they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Karl Nerenberg reports on the House Finance Committee’s hearings into income inequality in Canada, featuring a few familiar themes which we should hear far more often from our policy-makers: “I would make all tax credits refundable, including the current non-refundable ones,” Boadway
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Armine Yalnizyan makes the case as to why wealth equates to far too much power in Canada: The problem is not that the wealthy are too powerful. The problem is that, with rare exception, as their power has increased, it has not been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – George Monbiot writes about the absurdity of the right-wing choice to promote inequality in the name of competition among the wealthy when the ultimate results are worse for everybody: The capture by the executive class of so much wealth performs no useful
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linda McQuaig discusses Stephen Harper’s class war: Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such a public outcry since the temporary foreign worker program was exposed as a mechanism by which the Harper government has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Aviva Shen looks at Monsanto’s history of regulatory capture – with the recent “Monsanto Protection Act” serving as just a minor example in a long list of control over U.S. law: Monsanto insists that its revolving door is in overdrive because Monsanto employees
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Arthur Haberman argues that our universal public health care system helps contribute to a more democratic society: There is something that political philosophers — those like Tocqueville and Mill in the 19th century — have come to call living democratically. By this it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ed Broadbent takes a look at how our tax system can combat inequality in more ways than one: The Broadbent Institute is presenting proposals Tuesday to the Finance Committee of the House of Commons. Our primary recommendation is that Canada establish as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how increasing inequality at the top of the income spectrum is creating a real disparity in opportunity affecting both middle-class and lower-income children. For further reading, see Sean Reardon’s column (or better yet, his study) discussing the U.S.’ experience in detail.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On choosing sides
There’s been no lack of past commentary (from myself and others) on how income splitting is about as regressive a policy as one could possibly design – and I won’t repeat it for the moment other than to say that the supposed “compromise” offered by Jack Mintz only goes a
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