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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

Jun

22

2017

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Alex Collinson discusses how insecure work makes it impossible to reliably structure an individual’s life: Many respondents told us about how difficult it is to budget without knowing how much you’ll be earning from one week to the next. The number of hours we are given every ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Jun

19

2017

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Phillip Inman discusses how austerity has proven to be an all-pain, no-gain proposition for the general public which is facing stagnant wages and higher consumer debt. – Pedro Nicolaci da Costa is duly skeptical of employer complaints about “skills gaps” which in fact arise out of their refusal ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Jun

18

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nina Shapiro comments on the price of privatizing public goods. And George Monbiot weighs in on how the Grenfell Tower fire confirms that what corporatist politicians deride as “red tape” is in fact vital protection for people: For years successive governments have built what they call a ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links

Jun

16

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Wanda Wyporska writes about the scandal of growing inequality and the separation of the ultra-rich from the rest of society. And Richard Reeves calls for the people with the most wealth and privilege to stop denying the advantages they enjoy compared to the vast majority of people. – ...

Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

Jun

15

2017

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sarah O’Connor examines the inconsistent relationship between job quantity and quality as another example of how it’s misleading to think of policy choices solely in terms of the number of jobs generated. Angela Monaghan discusses how wages continue to stagnate in the UK despite a low unemployment ...

Canadian Dimension: $15 and Fairness Shakes Up Ontario

Jun

13

2017

Photo by 15 and Fairness The Fight for $15 and Fairness scored a big victory on May 30 when the Ontario Liberals announced they would raise the minimum wage to $15 by January 1, 2019. The Liberals also announced a slew of other legislative changes they will introduce as part of the Fair Workplaces, Better ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links

Jun

10

2017

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Larry Elliott is optimistic that the UK’s election result will lead to an end of destructive austerity. James Downie comments on the example Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign provides for progressives in the U.S. (and elsewhere). And Karl Nerenberg writes about the importance of youth turnout in boosting Labour’s fortunes. ...

Accidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links

Jun

7

2017

The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign… – Charlie Angus has made his pitch for a national pharmacare program as one way of reducing health care inequality. – Guy Caron’s proposal for tax reform features plenty of progressive ideas to bring in more public revenue, including through inheritance and wealth taxes. And his subsequent ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Jun

5

2017

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michal Rozworski highlights how UK Labour’s platform provides for a needed move toward the democratization of economic activity along with an end to gratuitous austerity. And a distinguished group of economists has signed on to support the plan. – Charlie Skelton examines how this year’s Bilderberg conference is ...

Accidental Deliberations: New column day

Jun

1

2017

Here, on how several other provinces are setting new (and necessary standards) for worker protections while Saskatchewan falls further behind. For further reading…– Ontario’s Changing Workplaces Review is here (in full), and here (in summary form). CBC reports on Kathleen Wynne’s subsequent minimum wage announcement, while Sheila Block crunches the numbers on how it will ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

May

30

2017

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman examine (PDF) the size and distribution of tax evasion and (not surprisingly) find it clustered at the top – with the wealthiest .01% dodging 30% of its obligation to society at large. And Marco Chown Oved reports that the Canada ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

May

28

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nick Saul reminds us of the need for strong and consistent public pressure to end poverty. And the Economist points out how punitive criminal justice policies coupled with a lack of rehabilitation strand people in poverty rather than allowing for a path toward contributing to society. – ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links

May

27

2017

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David MacDonald studies the federal government’s loopholes and giveaways targeted toward those who already have the most – noting that there would be plenty of revenue to fund the programs we’re told are unaffordable if that preferential treatment was ended. And Felicity Lawrence highlights how multinational corporations are ...

Canadian Dimension: Fifteen plus: the minimum wage & austerity in Québec

May

23

2017

Photo by Michel Giroux In April 2012, during the height of Québec’s Maple Spring, one of the key leaders of the student movement, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, said the hope was for that movement to be a “trampoline.” The “Red Square” movement gave voice to widespread popular opposition to austerity in Québec that both preceded and outlasted ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

May

22

2017

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Krugman criticizes the use of non-compete agreements to trap workers at low wage levels with no opportunity to pursue comparable employment – as well as the Republicans’ insistence on pushing employer-based health care which further limits workers’ options: At this point, in other words, noncompete clauses are ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

May

21

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Josh Bivens notes that U.S. corporations are already paying a lower share of taxes than has historically been the case – meaning that there’s no air of reality to the claim that handing them more money will produce any positive economic results. And Noah Smith writes that ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links

May

19

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Maureen Conway and Mark Popovich argue that something has gone severely wrong if (as seems to be the case) Wall Street is treating higher wages as bad news: In 2017, America has a jobs problem: It’s not that we don’t have enough jobs, but that we don’t have ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

May

17

2017

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Binyamin Appelbaum highlights the strong consensus view that Donald Trump’s planned tax giveaways to the rich will do nothing for overall economic development. And John Buell points out that Trump’s plan for privatized infrastructure – much like Justin Trudeau’s – will serve only to enrich and empower corporations ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links

May

13

2017

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Claire Provost writes about the spread of the private security industry – which now exceeds the size of public police forces in Canada among other countries – as a means of privileging the protection of wealth over public interests. – Meanwhile, Lana Payne comments on the importance of ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links

May

10

2017

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nick Falvo lists ten things to know about social programs in Canada. And Mike Crawley offers a painful example of Ontario’s social safety net and employment law both falling short, as injured workers are forced to go to work even when ill or injured in the absence of ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links

May

8

2017

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Dean Baker notes that a reduction in required work time could go a long way toward ensuring that workers share in productivity gains. – Meanwhile, Max Ehrenfreund writes about new research on the state of the U.S.’ middle class – showing that lifetime wage earnings peaked for people ...

Canadian Dimension: Unions are critical in youth fight against precarity

May

8

2017

Photo from RankandFile.ca “It is the instability, not knowing how many hours I would get in a week,” says Samuelm, who’s quoted in a 2015 report by the Workers’ Action Centre entitled Still Working on the Edge: Building Decent Jobs from the Ground Up. “Wages are low…. We get about $11 or $12. The number ...

Joe Fantauzzi: Desmond Cole, the Toronto Star and Another Existential Crisis for Professional Journalism

May

7

2017

DISCLOSURE: I worked as a mainstream news reporter between 2003 and 2012. I see this as a two-fold issue; firstly, actions and secondly, words. I’ll consider both briefly and then elaborate on my concerns. Actions There is no point in rehashing here the now well-known details of what lead to Desmond Cole’s departure from the Toronto ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

May

7

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Branko Milanovic reviews Mike Lofgren’s The Deep State, and highlights how entrenched wealth and power have hijacked our public institutions for their own benefit: The deep state includes the old-fashioned military-industrial complex, top of Wall Street and Silicon valley, think tanks and foundations, and the mainstream media, ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

May

5

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Clive Hamilton discusses the accelerating calamity of climate change which we’re allowing to happen: Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet in the face of these facts ...