This and that for your Thursday reading.- Linda Tirado writes that whatever the language used as an excuse for turning public benefits into private profits, we should know better than to consider it credible:Given how much I had heard my whole life abo…
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Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here (via PressReader), arguing that there’s no longer any escaping the fact that Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party can’t be trusted to be either honest or reasonable about its biggest and costliest decisions. For further reading…– Mike McKinnon reported here on the glaring gap between what Brad Wall knew about the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Les Leopold takes a look at the underpinnings of Bernie Sanders’ unexpectedly strong run for the Democratic presidential nomination. And Sean McElwee discusses the type of politics U.S. voters are rightly motivated to change, as big donors have been successful in dictating
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Balanced Budget Myopia Breaks Both Ways
Opinions on deficit budgeting have become a short-hand litmus test in Canadian politics. Deficits are left-wing and balanced budgets are right-wing austerity. Economists know that there is virtually no difference between a small surplus and a small deficit, but politicians and voters are a different story. I have spent the past
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Grifts within grifts
Shorter Saskatchewan Party Ministry of P3 Giveaways: There’s always a risk that the corporate giants we’re paying to take over government operations might be more interested in making money than the public interest. We’re pretty sure the only answer is to pay off more corporate giants.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, reminding us that it’s our communities who ultimately pay the price for the poorly-thought-out election announcements from senior levels of government that we’ve seen so frequently recently. For further reading…– CTV reported on last week’s Evraz Place expansion announcement, while the Leader-Post offered an all-too-obvious example of cheerleading for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Daniel Tencer discusses the latest evidence that trickle-down economics are a fraud, while David Roberts and Javier Zarracina write about how the elite seems to get its own way even when the results are worse for everybody. And Heather Stewart reports on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Kevin Carson discusses David Graeber’s insight into how privatization and deregulation in their present form represent the ultimate use of state power to serve special interests at the expense of the public: What mainstream American political discourse calls “deregulation” is nothing of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the need and opportunity to show some vision in our provincial budgeting and planning – even if the Wall government has no interest in bothering. For further reading…– I posted previously on the Sask Party’s habit of locking Saskatchewan into ill-advised long-term contracts which serve nobody’s interests but
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Vognar argues that we should push for a guaranteed annual income not only as a matter of social equity, but also as a means of building human capital. – Mike Benusic, Chantel Lutchman, Najib Safieddine and Andrew Pinto make the case
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Kendra Coulter discusses the connection between human treatment of animals and humans: Close to home and around the world, working class and poor people are really struggling. In countries like Canada, unemployment and underemployment persist. We have been told that corporate tax cuts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Stephen Burgen reports on Thomas Piketty’s view that it’s long past time for voters to have anti-austerity options where none existed in the past. And along similar lines, Murray Dobbin sets out the stark choice facing Canadians: Canadians will have to continue to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Sam Pizzigati interviews Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett about the fight against inequality and the next piece of the puzzle to be put in place: [Pickett:]…In The Spirit Level, we have all these correlations between inequality and social problems, and we have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna comments on how far too many governments have bought into the P3 myth with our public money: Governments in Canada have become seduced by the wonders of private-public partnerships – so-called P3s – and blind to their potentially costly flaws. In
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – George Monbiot opines that curbing corporate power is the most fundamental political issue we need to address in order to make progress possible on any other front: Does this sometimes feel like a country under enemy occupation? Do you wonder why the demands
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Ontario Auditor’s damning report on P3s
The Ontario Auditor General’s 2014 Report includes a chapter on Infrastructure Ontario’s P3 program that is particularly damning–and corresponds with many of the criticisms made on this blog and elsewhere by myself and others. While the headlines were that P3 projects cost the province an additional $8 billion than if
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Clark and Peter DeVries remind us that any fiscal problems Canada has faced under the Cons have been entirely of Stephen Harper’s making: Harper needed a deficit problem; the fact that the previous government neglected to leave him one was just a
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Today’s big demonstration at Queen’s Park
Today will likely be the biggest Ontario Health Coalition demonstration at Queen’s Park since 2008. Across Ontario seniors groups, union activists and family members frustrated with their own access to care will be boarding more than 40 buses, some in … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the City of Regina has learned a painful lesson about the Saskatchewan Party’s habit of accepting credit but not responsibility on P3 projects. For further reading…– Emma Graney reports on how the province forced the City to foot the bill for immediate site development costs here.– For
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Kershaw examines political parties’ child care plans past and present, and finds the NDP’s new proposal to achieve better results at a lower cost. The Star’s editorial board weighs in on the desperate need for an improved child care system, while PressProgress
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