Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The New York Times editorial board points out that a higher minimum wage can produce clear economic benefits for businesses as well as for workers: One 2013 study by three economists — Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Reich — compared the
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The Canadian Progressive: Loretta Saunders: Unifor calls for justice for all missing and murdered aboriginal women
by: UNIFOR | Press Release HALIFAX, Feb. 27, 2014 – Unifor members across the country were devastated to hear the news late yesterday afternoon that police had discovered the remains of Loretta Saunders near the Trans-Canada highway inNew Brunswick. “This is a terrible loss, and our thoughts are with her family, friends, and
Continue readingwmtc: the ndp: so sad, so frustrating, so maddeningly predictable
Where oh where has the NDP gone? One of the most wonderful things about Canada, for me, has always been the presence of a viable third party on the left. When we first moved here, it was so amazing to hear Jack Layton, Libby Davies, Peggy Nash, Paul Dewar, Olivia
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Stephen Hume writes about the importance of tax revenue in building a functional and compassionate Canada: My taxes provide our mostly peaceful, prosperous and safe society; a health care system that for all its flaws and glitches is pretty darn good compared to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Michael McBane highlights one of the less-discussed changes in the Cons’ 2014 budget – as it officially eliminates the federal distribution of health care funding based on provincial need in favour of handing extra money to Alberta: The Harper government is eliminating
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Smith hopes that the Cons’ backtracking on income splitting means that they won’t go quite as far out of their way to exacerbate income inequality in the future: (T)he unfortunate reality is that we are still becoming ever more unequal, a trend
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Lynn Stuart Parramore offers five convincing pieces of evidence to suggest that the U.S.’ plutocrats are losing their minds in their effort to set themselves apart from the rabble. Kevin Roose tells a story about some awful, awful (and disturbingly wealthy and powerful)
Continue readingAccidental 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 readingwmtc: cherry-picked data and undisclosed bias: the failure of freakonomics
Allan came home from one of his used-book sale sprees with copies of both Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics. I had read so many excerpts from, and reviews of, these books over the years, and their appearance was a reminder to actually read them myself. You’re probably familiar with the general
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
This and that for your mid-week reading. – Erin Weir posts the statement of a 70-strong (and growing) list of Canadian economists opposed to austerity. Heather Mallick frames the latest Con budget as yet another example of their using personal cruelty as a governing philosophy, while the Star’s editorial board
Continue readingwmtc: is the food movement elitist? michael pollan connects the dots between labour and our tables
In an excellent interview in Truthout, Michael Pollan responds to critics who accuse the food movement of being elitist. He very rightly credits Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation with explicitly drawing the connection between labour issues, animal issues, and our own food issues. And Pollan calls out the industrialized food
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Donovan Vincent reports on the Institute for Social Research’s study showing Canadians are highly concerned about income inequality: “People think the income gap has gotten worse. What was surprising to me was the universality of this belief. Younger people, older, higher levels
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Where does Hudak Niagara Falls candidate Bart Maves stand on right to work?
We know Hudak has no tolerance for his own candidates standing up for local jobs in the face of his reckless right-to-work-for-less scheming and Bart Maves himself used to be opposed to the policy? So what does Bart Maves stand for now? It’s a question worth asking. In a debate this evening, Maves
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: A Response To The Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson
A “dream palace,” The Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson calls it. Inside that dream palace, the First Nations allegedly live in a fairytale land of sovereignty, respect and healthy relations with the Canadian state. Well, in fairness, Simpson describes the perks of living inside his so-called dream palace a touch more
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: A Response To The Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson
A “dream palace,” The Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson calls it. Inside that dream palace, the First Nations allegedly live in a fairytale land of sovereignty, respect and healthy relations with the Canadian state. Well, in fairness, Simpson describes the perks of living inside his so-called dream palace a touch more
Continue readingThe Progressive Right: Another Conservative Against Tim Hudak’s Right-to-Work Gambit? ( #pcpo #onpoli )
Well, at least he used to be. Like Dave Brister and John O’Toole, the Conservative candidate for Niagara Falls, Bart Maves, likely has some reservations about Tim Hudak’s desire to legislate “right-to-work”. Did he change his tune to avoid being dumped as a candidate? The Conservative Party of Ontario’s drive
Continue readingThe Progressive Right: Another Conservative Fears Tim Hudak’s Right-to-Work Gambit ( #pcpo #onpoli )
There’s another Conservative who’s worried about Tim Hudak’s right-to-work plans. The MPP for Durham, Conservative John O’Toole, believes that the Conservative Party’s plan to introduce right-to-work legislation could cost them an election. See previously, Tim Hudak’s Right-to-Work Gambit.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Justin Fox questions whether traditional studies tracking the distribution of wealth by quintiles do much good when the most obvious economic faultline is between the (give or take) 1% and everybody else: Something really dramatic is going on up there in the top
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ian Welsh discusses the nature of prosperity – and the illusion that it means nothing more than increased economic activity: All other things being equal more productive capacity is better. The more stuff we can make, in theory, the better off we’ll be.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ken Georgetti discusses how the corporate tax giveaways of the past 15 years have hurt most Canadians: The Conservative government and special interest groups claim incessantly that cutting corporate income taxes is good for the economy and for individual Canadians. We have
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