Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson weighs in on the need for our public policy to ensure a fair initial distribution of income and power in order to ensure that further redistribution is sustainable: The issue of how to deal with rising inequality and the squeezed middle-class
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Accidental Deliberations: On minimal solutions
Shorter Corporatists to Fleece the Irrelevant Beggars trying to avoid a living wage for Alberta: Has anybody pointed out that if we ensure that the hungry have food, some of them might gain weight? That’s why we consider it more responsible to force-feed them diet pills.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If anything, the headlines are getting worse for Jim Prentice and Alberta’s faltering PCs
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Jim Prentice just hasn’t been getting the good headlines a guy in his position would normally be looking for at a time like this. Typical Fort McMurray street scenes from 2013 may not have appeared exactly as illustrated. Below: Actual Tory MLA Mike Allen in his St.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Workers Link $15 Minimum Wage to Decent Work
Wednesday April 15th is a global day of action on a $15 minimum wage and decent work. Actions are happening across the U.S., and in BC, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Both in the US and in Canada, workers are making links between decent wages and other employment standards. The Ontario
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Minimum wage workers not the only ones getting screwed
I have a populist piece in The Tyee this morning on how last week’s paltry $0.20 minimum wage increase in British Columbia actually reflects stagnant wages across the economy and why the Fight for 15 is everyone’s fight. Here it is in full. Last week, the B.C. government reacted to the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford highlights the fact that a deficit obsession may have little to do with economic development – and calls out the B.C. Libs for pretending that the former is the same as the latter: I found especially objectionable the article’s uncritical cheerleading
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: ‘Tis the Season to Rethink Our Charitable Giving
This op-ed by yours truly was published in The Province. The examples are BC-specific, but the message is much broader: donating to charity is not enough, we also have to change the status quo that forces so many people to turn to charity in a rich country like Canada. —
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Martin O’Neill and Rick Pearce interview Thomas Piketty about possible policy responses to growing inequality: [Martin O’Neill]…(D)o you think that the response to the increase in inequality might be one that explores the sorts of avenues that Meade opened up, and doesn’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that with oil prices in free fall, we’re now seeing the inevitable consequences of the Cons’ plan to build an economy solely around unstable resource revenues: Sensible countries try to lessen their dependence on volatile commodities. Canada, whose economy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford points out that the choice to leave drug development to the market resulted in a promising ebola vaccine going unused – and indeed untested – for years until the disease threatened a wealthy enough target population: Canada’s outstanding work to invent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Natasha Luckhardt examines what we can expect from Burger King’s takeover of Tim Hortons – and the news isn’t good for Canadian workers and citizens alike. But Jim Stanford reminds us that we’re not without some public policy options by following up on
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Minimum Wages and Employment Outcomes
Last week my Unifor colleague Jordan Brennan and I published a study through the CCPA Ontario office examining the historical empirical evidence regarding the link between changes in minimum wages and employment outcomes. We find there is no robust evidence in Canadian historical data that increases in real minimum wages cause
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sarah Lazare reports on UNICEF’s research showing an appalling increase in child poverty in many of the world’s richest countries: “Many affluent countries have suffered a ‘great leap backwards’ in terms of household income, and the impact on children will have long-lasting repercussions
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Martha Friendly highlights how families at all income levels can benefit from a strong child care system: Isn’t it the Canadian way to include people from diverse groups and social classes in community institutions like public schools, community recreation facilities, public colleges
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: Kshama Sawant
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/podcast-141001-kshama-sawant.mp3 Last year, Kshama Sawant shocked the continent by winning a seat on Seattle’s City Council. She defeated an incumbent Democrat to become the first openly socialist city councillor in Seattle in a century. Sawant, an immigrant from India with a background as a software engineer and an economics professor,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that to end your weekend. – Paul Krugman notes that a concerted effort to combat climate change could be as beneficial economically as it is important for the future of our planet: Where is the new optimism about climate change and growth coming from? It has long been
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Canadian New Democratic Party – A $15 Minimum Wage – Why not?
The NDP seeing the traction that the fifteen dollar minimum wage is getting in the US has made it part of their platform. “NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he will put the idea of a $15 an hour minimum wage to a vote in Parliament when it resumes next week.
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