Today the libertarian Montreal Economic Institute think tank released a short report claiming that Ontario’s $14 minimum wage is costing thousands of young workers their jobs and raising prices for everyone else. These overblown claims, based on skewed and cherry-picked data, came out—purely coincidentally to be sure—on the same day
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jonathan Watts reports on a new study showing how the world’s largest economies (including Canada) are falling far short of the Paris climate goals due mostly to the influence of the fossil fuel industry, while also noting that Canada ranks with China and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Trish Garner comments on the need to acknowledge the humanity of people living in poverty – which leads to the inescapable need to use readily-available resources to ensure a reasonable standard of living. And Arindrajit Dube studies the effect of an increased minimum
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Owen Jones writes that a four-day work week being developed by UK Labour could represent an important step toward genuine personal freedom: (I)t is extremely welcome that Labour’s John McDonnell has approached eminent economist Lord Skidelsky to head an inquiry into potentially cutting
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Jackson argues that Canada has nothing to gain in trying to race Donald Trump to the bottom when it comes to corporate taxes: While marginal effective corporate-tax rates are clearly a factor in business investment decisions, they are by no means
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Moscrop discusses the need for a more meaningful definition of “progress” which doesn’t hand-wave away the long-term harms and risks created by the single-minded pursuit of immediate gains in top-end wealth. – Rajeev Syal reports that the UK Cons pushed through public-sector
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rupert Neate reports on new research showing that the world’s billionaires saw their wealth increase by 20% in 2017 alone. – Pete Evans discusses the increasing debt facing most Canadians as ever more net wealth is diverted to the extremely privileged few. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Barry Ritholtz comments on Donald Trump’s choice to model his budgetary policy on the combination of freebies for the rich and attacks on everybody else that produced nothing but misery in Kansas: Kansas has been a disaster, with giant budget shortfalls, service cuts,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wondering about Jason Kenney: Would you buy a used truck from this man?
So, who’re ya gonna believe? Jason Kenney? Or Alberta’s used car dealers? I’m sure readers will agree that this is a very tough question. Nevertheless, with the publication of third-quarter political donor data by Elections Alberta, the attention of the public has fallen on the significant fund-raising effort for the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tiffany Crawford interviews Kirsten Zickfeld about the contradiction between new fossil fuel infrastructure and any serious attempt to reverse our climate breakdown. Murray Mandryk offers a reminder of the local costs of climate change. Fatima Syed highlights how Doug Ford’s supposed climate plan
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Harris writes that we shouldn’t expect politicians to lead the way toward the action we need to combat climate change. Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that the economic effects of carbon pricing are modest, while ignoring climate change will have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Judy Paul discusses how everybody benefits from the fight against inequality: Also of interest is the levels of trust and community life were stronger in more equal societies. There is more mixing of people from various socio-economic groups in more equal countries and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Laurie MacFarlane writes that flows of income and wealth have everything to do with bargaining power and social decision-making, rather than productivity or merit: (A)ggregate wealth is not simply a reflection of the process of accumulation, as theory tends to imply. It
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Patrick Kingsley points out how children are feeling the effects of the UK’s austerity, including by being driven into avoidable poverty. And Michelle Bellefontaine reports on the predictable damage to Edmonton’s schools even from the cuts being bandied about by Jason Kenney
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Emily Atkin offers a reminder that the people with the least stand to face the most severe costs of climate change. But lest we take that as a signal that there’s an irreconcilable gap between countries, Eric Levitz writes that even in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Melissa Benn discusses how private schools entrench a class divide within a generation – and argues that they should be eliminated in favour of an inclusive education system: (W)e urgently need to renew the conversation about the private-public divide, and move beyond the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Taylor argues that it’s long past time for our leaders to take poverty and food insecurity seriously: While nonprofits do incredible work, I can’t think of many that can truly claim to be reducing poverty. Why? Because, while non-profit organizations, such as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Colby Smith writes about the changing role of public stock markets, which are serving primarily to allow already-wealth investors to cash out rather than to fund the growth of expanding businesses. And the Equality Trust examines the growing gap between the CEO class
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doomsayers, Chicken Littles and Conservatives get it wrong on the impact of minimum wage increases
Now there’s a surprise! Ontario’s minimum wage increase behaved exactly as predicted by most mainstream economists. That is, the 21-per-cent wage increase implemented by the former Liberal government that took effect on Jan. 1 this year did none of the terrible things Conservative politicians, right-wing think tankers, Astro-Turf “tax watchdog”
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Humberto DaSilva comments on the need to recognize that it’s the distortion of the political system by the wealthy that’s left most people with a standard of living that’s stagnating or worse. And Davide Mastracci makes the case for an inheritance tax
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