This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Frank Vibert writes that our democratic system includes more than just electoral politics, while recognizing that we all too often neglect the distinct role of regulatory bodies: When one looks more closely at regulation and the interdependencies between systems the more apparent
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David Atkins highlights how public policy and corporate strategy have both instead been directed toward squeezing every possible dime out of the public: The less noticed but potentially more consequential way that policymakers across the industrialized world set about accomplishing this goal was
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb comment on the dangers of failing to talk about taxes: The tax debate is often muddied by disagreement about whether taxes have actually gone up or down. As the economy grows, so too do tax revenues and spending,
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Michael Harris writes that the Cons’ primary purpose while in power has been to hand further power and wealth to those who already have more than they know what to do with: These corporations and their political mouthpiece, the Republican Party, are Stephen
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Krugman explains how one’s political values figure to affect one’s view of evidence as to the success or failure of a policy: (T)he liberal and conservative movements are not at all symmetric in their goals. Conservatives want smaller government as an end
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Harris observes that the Cons’ vote suppression tactics match the worst abuses we’d expect from the Tea Party: Stephen Harper would make a good governor of Arizona. In addition to the lies and sleaziness his government has been serving up during its
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Trish Hennessy’s latest numbers focus on the skills gap myth in Canada. And PressProgress documents a few of the Cons’ damaging public service cuts which kicked in yesterday, while Theresa Boyle reports on the end of Canada’s health care accords (featuring the observations
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Yves Smith notes that a short-sighted focus on returns for shareholders generally represents a poor allocation of resources even on the level of a single corporation – while also pointing out what that mindset does when shared across the business sector: As the
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Nafeez Ahmed writes about the dangers of combining growing inequality and increased resource extraction: By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Brian and Karen Foster question why steadily improving productivity has led to increasing stratification rather than better lives for a large number of people: (W)ith all the optimism, why hasn’t technological progress actually opened up a world where we all work, and we
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The Star’s editorial board sees Canada’s woeful job numbers as a signal that it’s time for some economic management in the interests of people (rather than artificial manipulation of numbers): Economists used words like “dismal” and “ugly” for these results, and no wonder.
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Katz looks back at how the U.S. abandoned its poor – and how that choice continues to affect people across the income spectrum today. And Michael Valpy discusses how Canada can and should avoid travelling any further down the same path –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In the course of grading Canada’s job market, Kayle Hatt traces the rise of precarious employment in both absolute and relative numbers – and notes that other countries haven’t seen the same type of move toward temporary employment encouraged by the Cons.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Hassan Arif theorizes that a failure to identify and address growing inequality may have played a significant role in the rise of Rob Ford’s destructive anti-socialism: The Toronto of towering new condos, of downtown coffee shops and trendy restaurants and stores, is far
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Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Nick Cohen writes that the corporate sector is home to some of the most dangerous cult philosophy in the world: (T)he language of business has become ever more cultish. In the theory of “transformational leadership”, which dominates the business schools, the CEO is
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Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Wells and Dan Lett offer roundups of today’s federal by-elections, while Chantal Hebert offers some advice to the candidates (whether or not they’re elected to Parliament today). And Murray Dobbin explains why there’s only one true progressive choice in Toronto Centre in
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot writes that corporate control over a political system may be a huge factor in limiting public participation – even as it makes a substantial counterweight all the more important: The political role of business corporations is generally interpreted as that of
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper discusses Stephen Harper’s current list of distractions – with Rob Ford and his Senate appointees naturally topping the list. But sadly, while John Ivison may be right in noting that actual citizens are having trouble getting the Cons to bother administering
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Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom writes that the Harper Cons’ much-hyped economic record in fact offers ample reason to demand a change in government: The Conservatives insist that the economy is their strong suit. And for a while it was. In 2011, voters bought Harper’s pitch.
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Assorted content to start your week. – Frances Russell discusses the dangers of Stephen Harper’s authoritarian democracy. And Michael Harris takes note of Harper’s decision to mete out career executions to his own Senate appointees based on exactly the same evidence he once declared to be fully exculpatory. – Dan
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