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
Continue readingTag: Minimum wage
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Campos compares the U.S.’ hourly wages to its GDP over the past few decades to show how workers have been left out of any economic growth. And Arindrajit Dube examines the effect of an increased minimum wage, and finds a direct impact
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ben Kentish reports on the Equality Trust’s research showing that the poorest 10% of the population in the UK actually pays a higher percentage of its income in taxes than the top 10%. Dominic Rushe, Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui discuss how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan and Kaylie Tiessen write that it’s long past time to set a level of federal revenue sufficient to support the social programs Canadians want: In the decades since [corporate-driven] reforms were undertaken, Canada experienced a significant deterioration in its macroeconomic performance:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Owen Jones writes that excessive reliance on corporate profiteers is the reason why the UK’s trains don’t run on time. And Nora Loreto argues that postal banking is needed (among other reasons) to rein in abuses by Canada’s biggest banks. – Shannon Daub
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Olive offers his take on what a basic income should look like – and is optimistic that Ontario’s ongoing experiment should hit the mark: A UBI would be pointless in the absence of existing supports. In the Ontario pilot projects, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shoreline, True Grit, photo-bombing, certainty and the Deity: random observations from Alberta’s Throne Speech
PHOTOS: Alberta Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell, clad in a purple official gown, reads the NDP Government’s third Speech from the Throne in the Legislature in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. Below: Party crasher Jason Kenney, Labour Minister Christina Gray (Dave Cournoyer photo) and Opposition Leader Brian Jean. Alberta’s New Democratic Party Government
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Poverty Reduction in Alberta
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’m co-author of a blog post titled “Poverty Reduction in Alberta.” Points raised in the blog post include the following: -The NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley has undertaken important poverty-reduction initiatives since forming a government in 2015. -Alberta (relative
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Peter Martin reports on the Australia Institute’s recent study showing that corporate tax levels have little to do with foreign investment: New research ridicules the Prime Minister’s claim that cutting the company tax rate will boost foreign investment, pointing out that almost all
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Sinclair offers his take on what we can expect Donald Trump to pursue in renegotiating NAFTA, and points out that while there are some options which might boost Canadian manufacturing and other sectors, it’s also possible that matters could get far worse
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Rahul Kalvapalle reports on the latest Ipsos poll showing how younger Canadians expect to lead a worse life than the generations who went before them. – PressProgress examines how inequality has been burgeoning under Christy Clark’s B.C. Lib government. And Maimuna Majumder notes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Dean Baker discusses some of the myths about the effects of corporate globalization – with particular attention to how our current trade and immigration structures are designed to provide easy profits for capital at the expense of labour around the world. And Jason
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: An Inconvenient Truth The Corporate Agenda Would Like To Keep Hidden
Their protests notwithstanding, the truth is that raising the minimum wage is good for business. And it isn’t just the behemoths depicted above who benefit. The CEO of a popular fast food chain said this week that he was “stunned” to see profits soar each time California passed minimum wage
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Cap’n "Tip Jar Subsistence" for Trump’s Labour Secretary
Who better to serve as labour secretary than someone steeped in the idea of minimum wage politics? Now please give a big, Donald Trump welcome to Andrew Puzder, fast food empresario and CEO of the company that owns the Hardee’s and Carl Jr.’s burger chains. Puzder, who served as an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Simon Enoch and Christine Saulnier examine how P3s are used to privilege corporate profits over the public interest: The CCPA has published numerous publications on the question of P3s because they have been so pervasive and so riddled with problems. There have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jordan Brennan points out why Nova Scotia (and other jurisdictions) should move past austerity economics: The McNeil Liberals appear set to rack up budgetary surpluses through a strategy of public sector wage suppression. This is likely to backfire. It is an elementary
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Peter Fleming writes that the promise of entrepreneurial self-employment has given way to the nightmare of systematic precarious work: (T)he move to reclassify people as self-employed follows a very simple formula: it helps reduce labour costs and maximise profits for businesses that would
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Ellen Gould comments on how the CETA and other trade deals constrain democratic governance – and the fact that corporate bigwigs are threatening any government which considers giving effect to popular opposition doesn’t exactly provide any comfort. Meanwhile, Scott Sinclair points out
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy offer their take as to what we should expect out of Ontario’s basic income experiment: Critics rightly argue that basic income is no magic bullet, that indeed there are no magic bullets. The history of the idea of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David Boyle discusses how the principle of free trade – once intended to empower consumers against monopolies – is instead being used to lock in corporate control: (T)he original idea of free trade was not a simple licence to do whatever you
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