Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Danielle Martin highlights how investments in ending poverty including a basic income can improve health outcomes among other key social indicators: Far more than consumption of medical care, income is the strongest predictor of health. Canadians are more likely to die at an
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Eshe Nelson interviews Richard Baldwin about the future of globalization and the possibility that the worst disruptions to workers are just beginning: What happens to the chart on global income distribution during this phase of globalization? It keeps going down. It will be
Continue readingThings Are Good: Riding a Bike in the USA is Getting Safer
Riding a bicycle is getting safer in American cities thanks to improvements in infrastructure. Usually the USA is associated with being the land of the car (and it still is very car-focussed) so it’s really nice to see that a sustainable and friendly form of transportation is getting the attention
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roy Romanow writes about the dangers of focusing unduly on raw economic growth, rather than measuring our choices by how they actually affect people’s well-being: At the national level, the picture that emerges over the past 21 years is a GDP rebounding post-recession
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Krugman writes about the dangers of Donald Trump’s crony capitalist infrastructure plan. And Tom Parkin warns us that Justin Trudeau’s Canadian equivalent is headed toward exactly the same results: A private infrastructure bank means paying more for financing. It means getting less
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kevin Connor reports that the more Ontario voters are exposed to the realities of public-private partnerships, the more they’re turning against the idea – with a quarter or less of respondents seeing any upside to handing public services over to businesses. Tony Keller
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Wolfgang Munchau writes that the rise of right-wing insurrectionism can be traced largely to “centre-left” parties who have focused most of their attention on imposing austerity and catering to the corporate sector while offering little to citizens, while Naomi Klein comments on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Burning questions
How does a new U.S. president focusing on actual protectionism (not “trade barriers” in the form of the incidental effects of governance in the public interest) affect the viability of Brad Wall’s GTH and bypass projects which depend on perpetually expanding trade? And are we stuck with the multi-billion-dollar costs
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bike Lanes Save Lives of Non-Cyclists
Cities can improve the health and well being of everyone by simply adding bike lanes. That’s right, drivers not only benefit from faster traffic flow they also benefit from increased health when cities install bike lanes. As Bloomberg reports, cities around the world are catching on and adding bike lanes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Brent Patterson criticizes the Libs’ short-sighted plans to privatize public services in lieu of any coherent economic policy. And Tom Parkin calls out their bait-and-switch approach to infrastructure. – Robin McKie reports on Nicholas Stern’s recognition that his much-cited work on the impacts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that the Libs’ fall economic statement represents a massive (and unjustified) shift away from promised infrastructure funding even while planning to privatize both existing operations and future developments. And Joie Warnock highlights why it would represent nothing short of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot rightly makes the point that a general attitude of kindness is a must for a functioning society – while lamenting that anything of the sort is all too often lacking from public policy choices. – James Di Fiore discusses Justin Trudeau’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Toby Sanger offers some important background to the federal government’s expected plan for privatized infrastructure by noting that the anticipated result would be to double the costs. And Luke Kawa notes that the Libs are already having trouble spending the money they’ve
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Star’s editorial board writes that while we can do more to provide supports to make workers less dependent on a single job, we shouldn’t pretend there’s nothing we can do to improve working conditions. And Lana Payne reminds Morneau and the Libs
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dani Rodrik discusses the growing public opposition to new corporate-dominated trade deals based on the lessons we’ve learned from previous ones: Instead of decrying people’s stupidity and ignorance in rejecting trade deals, we should try to understand why such deals lost legitimacy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Thomas Walkom writes that the federal Libs’ idea of “real change” for the economy reflects nothing more than the same old stale neoliberal playbook: At its core, the federal government’s “bold” new plan for economic growth is strikingly familiar. The scheme, worked out
Continue readingThings Are Good: Clean, Renewable Energy Continues Amazing Drop in Costs
The cost of installing solar energy systems of every type has seen double digit decreases in cost since 2008. This reduction is astonishing because it means that solar becomes competitive with coal (which we’ve already seen) and that arguments against using solar get less powerful every year. There’s also a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
– Andrew Jackson discusses how the rise of right-wing, prejudiced populism can be traced to the failures of global corporate governance. And Dani Rodrik argues that it’s time to develop an international political system to facilitate – rather than overriding – democratic action:
Some simple principles would reorient us in the right direction. First, there is no single way to prosperity. Countries make their own choices about the institutions that suit them best. Some, like Britain, may tolerate, say, greater inequality and financial instability in return for higher growth and more financial innovation. They will opt for lower taxes on capital and more freewheeling financial systems. Others, like Continental European nations, will go for greater equity and financial conservatism. International firms will complain that differences in rules and regulations raise the costs of doing business across borders, but their claims must be traded off against the benefits of diversity.Second, countries have the right to protect their institutional arrangements and safeguard the integrity of their regulations. Financial regulations or labor protections can be circumvented and undermined by moving operations to foreign countries with considerably lower standards. Countries should be able to prevent such “regulatory arbitrage” by placing restrictions on cross-border transactions — just as they can keep out toys or agricultural products that do not meet domestic health standards.…Third, the purpose of international economic negotiations should be to increase domestic policy autonomy, while being mindful of the possible harm to trade partners. The world’s trade regime is driven by a mercantilist logic: You lower your barriers in return for my lowering mine. But lack of openness is no longer the binding constraint on the world economy; lack of democratic legitimacy is.It is time to embrace a different logic, emphasizing the value of policy autonomy. Poor and rich countries alike need greater space for pursuing their objectives. The former need to restructure their economies and promote new industries, and the latter must address domestic concerns over inequality and distributive justice.
– William Lazonick and Matt Hopkins note that already-appalling estimates of the gap between CEOs and other workers may be severely underestimating the problem. And Iglika Ivanova laments British Columbia’s woefully insufficient changes to its minimum wage which will keep large numbers of workers in poverty.
– In one positive development for corporate accountability, Telesur reports that the International Criminal Court is now willing to take jurisdiction over land grabbing, environmental destruction and other corporate crime.
– Harry Stein writes that there are significant economic and social gains to be achieved by better funding social infrastructure.
– Finally, Jeremy Nuttall interviews Robert Fox, the NDP’s new national director, on the plan to building a more activist party – both in the sense of better engaging with existing activists, and developing a culture of ongoing action. And Robin Sears offers a long-term path for the NDP to once again lead Canada toward progressive policies.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Chris Hamby’s brilliant series on the effects of investor-state dispute settlement continues with articles on the shift in power from governments to corporations, as well as the developing market in settlement …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Chris Hamby’s brilliant series on the effects of investor-state dispute settlement continues with articles on the shift in power from governments to corporations, as well as the developing market in settlement …
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