Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on Kevin Page’s concerns that the Cons are set to effectively destroy the PBO. And the Star’s editorial board slams Stephen Harper’s war against transparency and accountability in general: Stonewalling, foot-dragging and contempt for Parliament pay. At least that’s what
Continue readingTag: inequality
The Progressive Economics Forum: Women On Top, By the Numbers
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we ask: Are more women making it to the top in Canada? And what does that mean for the 100 per cent? The 2013 edition, by the numbers. (All data are most recently available statistics.) 1 out of 5: 21 per cent of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Wealth Inequality in America
This just popped into my reader. It deserves to be shared and discussed. Filed under: Politics Tagged: America, Inequality, Politics, Socialism, the 1%
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Inequality Begins at Home
For your quick hit of sociological fact, look no further. Inequality is bad for societies and also bad for families. In other breaking news global warming is a “go”, religious is still deceiving people and women are still being systematically discriminated against. Enjoy the video. 🙂 Filed under: Social Science
Continue readingelementalpresent: How to Critique Wealth Inequality without Caring about Poor People
This video on wealth inequality in the United States is currently making the rounds on social media – in my universe anyway – and it got me thinking. It has clearly stirred some people who, in all likelihood, are already stirred about inequality. It probably resonated with people who
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Is Not an Endangered Species?
What is not an endangered species? Try Billionaires. It seems they’re doing just fine. Forbes reckons the world now sports 1,426 (USD) billionaires. That’s up by 210 over the last twelve months, four per week. Besides, who wants to be a mere mega-multi-millionaire anyway? By the way, if you want
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Chrystia Freeland comments on the disproportionate influence of the super-rich in a democratic system which is supposed to value citizens equally: “I think most Americans believe in the idea of political equality,” Callahan told me. “That idea is obviously corrupted when in 2012,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Star’s editorial board highlights why our elected representatives should be countering the effect of precarious employment (rather than exacerbating them as the Cons have done): Simply put, programs like Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan were created back in the days
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
That and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb weighs in against gratuitous austerity by pointing out the dishonest cycle of excuses used to push destructive policy: (T)he consequences of cuts are increasingly visible, first for the most vulnerable: aboriginal communities struggling to meet basic needs, higher tuitions and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chrystia Freeland points out why productivity doesn’t provide an accurate picture of economic development if it merely results in increased inequality rather than shared benefits: Productivity and innovation, the focus of policy makers and business leaders, no longer guarantee widely shared prosperity. “Digital
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the combination of increasingly concentrated wealth and deteriorating has eliminated any pretense of equal opportunity within the U.S.: It’s not that social mobility is impossible, but that the upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity. According to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Zoe Williams questions when being poor became grounds for deliberate discrimination and ritual public humiliation (h/t to Mound of Sound): What I cannot help noticing is a failure of normal human respect for the people at the bottom of the heap – Tuesday’s
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Fairness by design: a framework for tax reform in Canada
A new CCPA (National) report by Marc Lee and myself argues that Canada’s tax system needs a “fairness” overhaul and presents a framework for progressive tax reform. Those of you who have been following our tax work so far will find this study a great complement to the BC Tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova offer up a framework for a more progressive and fairer tax system. – Andrew Hanon looks behind the Fraser Institute’s labour-bashing and finds that what it’s really criticizing is fair pay for women in the public sector.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The CP reports on the Canadian applicants rejected by HD Mining as it chose instead to staff its Murray River coal project solely with low-rights temporary immigrant workers: The unions, which are more broadly seeking a judicial review of Ottawa’s decision to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday morning reading. – Sixth Estate is the latest to weigh in on Statistics Canada’s findings about inequality: Progressive taxes are based on the idea that the more money you earn, the more you spend on unnecessary luxuries. Poor people therefore have very low tax rates
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – The Guardian discusses how the all-too-familiar trend of growing inequality and ever more precarious lives for all but the fabulously wealthy is unsustainable: While the debate in the UK is mostly focused on growth and how best to engender it, Reich explains in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Saturday reading. – Hamida Ghafour writes about the effect of tax avoidance by the world’s wealthy on the lives of the rest of the population – particularly when coupled with austerity pushed based on a lack of revenue: The OECD is a fierce defender of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and their command-and-control philosophy: Systems are always bigger and more complex than the individuals who try to control them. So political
Continue reading