Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jim Stanford writes that union-bashing has proven to be political poison for many of the parties who have tried to distract from increasing inequality with attacks on workers: (T)he biggest problem for Mr. Hudak’s crusade was a deeper sentiment in Canadian public opinion
Continue readingTag: jim stanford
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jim Stanford discusses how unions and collective bargaining improve the standard of living for everybody: The following figure illustrates the broad negative correlation between bargaining coverage and poverty: that is, the higher is bargaining coverage, the lower is relative poverty (and the more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Reich (via GlenInCA) points out the connection between a strong middle class and curbs on corporate excesses – with may go a long way toward explaining why the business lobby is working so hard to eliminate the concept of a secure livelihood
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jim Stanford writes about the myth of a labour shortage in Canada: In this context of chronic un- and under-employment, it is jarring that so many employers, business lobbyists, and politicians continue to complain about a supposed shortage of available, willing, and adequately
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jim Stanford reminds us that even Statistics Canada’s already-galling numbers showing increased inequality in Canada understate the problem, as they fail to reflect capital gains (and the preferential tax treatment thereof): Yesterday’s release from Statistics Canada on the income share of the wealthy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jim Stanford counters the myth of labour shortages by pointing out Canada’s significant – and growing – number of potential workers who lack a job. And Janet French reports on how PCS’ job cuts have affected both the workers who were laid off,
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Are our banks really safe?
The world banking system could come crashing down around our heads again – even worse than in 2008. Giant banks apparently learned very little from the earlier collapse. Many of them are carrying on the same overly risky and even illegal activities that led to the earlier crisis. If Canada’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Economist takes a look at the effect of international trade agreements – and confirms the long-held concern that the erosion and non-enforcement of labour standards consistently follows the signing of government suicide pacts: Some results are rather unsurprising. Countries with better
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: The Lang-Jimbo Reality Show? CBC may be missing its moment
Somebody suggested that the CBC would be a far more interesting place if the Lang-O’Leary Exchange morphed into the Lang-Jimbo Reality Show. Now that’s a CBC we might be inclined to fight a little harder to protect. There are not … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Murray Dobbin recognizes that there’s more at stake on the federal political scene than merely replacing the Harper Cons – and that the most important debate may be found within the NDP. Meanwhile, Tim Harper is concern trolling on that front, demanding that
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Stephen Harper to Canada: ‘It’s not my fault! Now shut up and vote for me’
Trying to change the channel: Unfortunately for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the remote seems to have disappeared under a pillow and the movie stuck on the TV screen stars Mike Duffy, shown above moving toward the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary Friday night. Actual Canadian Senators may not appear exactly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Pat Atkinson writes that governments at all levels should be setting up realistic fiscal plans to deal with a large group of retiring boomers – not artificially slashing revenues and increasing costs. And Rick Smith laments the fact that the Harper Cons are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford put to rest any attempt to minimize the growth of inequality in Canada: (I)ncome inequality has reached a historic extreme. Inequality was high during the 1920s and 1930s (the “gilded age”), but fell sharply during the Second World
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Dechene interviews Maude Barlow about the downside of privatizing public infrastructure: Somebody asked me to point blank explain the difference between private and public and I said, profit. That’s the difference. In a public system, it’s the same amount of money; you’re
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Myles discusses the Cons’ war on evidence: The mandatory Census was the lifeblood of almost all social and business planning. It provided key data for studying things like income inequality and poverty since both low- and high-income households were required to report.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jim Stanford discusses the OECD’s findings that job protection actually improves better employment outcomes – while “flexible” labour markets serve only to ensure less opportunity for workers. And Sid Ryan makes the case for premiers to reject a low-wage agenda. – Oil spills
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Patrick Wintour and Simon Bowers discuss the G20’s predictable finding that our global tax system isn’t set up to address the problem of offshore tax evasion: The long-awaited report, prepared for a meeting of the G20 finance ministers in Moscow this weekend, says
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Eric Dolan discusses Paul Piff’s research showing that wealth tends to lead to antisocial behaviour – and that even the beneficiaries of a rigged Monopoly game are quick to take on an air of entitlement: Across multiple studies, researchers at the University of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Gavin Marshall surveys the grossly disproportionate amount of wealth and power held by a small elite class: In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – We shouldn’t be surprised that the corporate sector is reacting with contrived outrage to the Cons’ tinkering with a severely flawed temporary foreign worker program. But Jim Stanford points out what it would take to actually move labour standards upward rather than
Continue reading