This and that for your Sunday reading. – Agence France-Presse reports that even the IMF has reached the conclusion that higher taxes on wealthy citizens are a necessary part of competent economic management – even as the Harper Cons and other right-wing governments keep trying to peddle trickle-down economics to
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Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, following up on Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb’s observations about the need to talk about the good we can do with tax revenue by noting the importance of making sure public money and authority aren’t diverted to private or corporate purposes. For further reading…– CBC reports on Alberta’s exclusion
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Nadir Khan interviews Linda McQuaig about her choice to run for the NDP in Toronto Centre – and confirms that McQuaig’s commitment to progressive politics fits neatly with her participation in a caucus: NK : You mention that you’ve been outspoken and taken
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The National Post offers an excerpt from Susan Delacourt’s Shopping for Votes discussing the role branding played in the election of John Diefenbaker. And Jeffrey Simpson discusses the continued drift toward consumer politics.– But in commenting on the Nova Scotia provincial election, Ralph
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Matt Taibbi discusses how public pension funds are being looted for the benefit of a few well-connected banksters: Hedge funds have good reason to want to keep their fees hidden: They’re insanely expensive. The typical fee structure for private hedge-fund management is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford put to rest any attempt to minimize the growth of inequality in Canada: (I)ncome inequality has reached a historic extreme. Inequality was high during the 1920s and 1930s (the “gilded age”), but fell sharply during the Second World
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on Brad Wall’s choice to bring the Southern Strategy north with a dog-whistle appeal to prejudice against First Nations. For further reading…– Rick Perlstein puts the Southern Strategy (and Lee Atwater’s description of it) in context here. – The Saskatchewan Party ad in question is here.– The NDP’s 2011
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On independent thought
It’s for the best that the idle speculation and gossip about a single point of policy difference between Thomas Mulcair and Linda McQuaig have been put to rest. But let’s make clear just how pernicious the “ZOMG!!! Candidate X occasionally thinks for herself!!! Clearly she must be muzzled!!!” line of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Carol Goar points out why Canada’s EI system is running surpluses (contrary to all parties’ intentions) – and notes that the result has nothing to do with the best interests of the workers who pay into the system: Flaherty’s explanation was true
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Christopher Ragan writes about the lessons we should be drawing from the 2008 financial meltdown – as well as so many similar bubbles before it: Contrary to what many people seem to believe, financial crises like the one that began five years
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On family ties
Laura Ryckewaert’s report on the Cons’ Senate strategy has already received plenty of attention. But I’m more interested in a senior Conservative’s excuses for Stephen Harper’s actual appointees than what looks like another delay strategy in substance: The senior Conservative source said members of the Conservative Party are less uneasy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Polly Toynbee reminds us that a precarious living for much of the middle class is nothing new – and neither is a cacophony of reactionary voices claiming that a desperate struggle for survival is the natural and proper state for most of humanity.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robert Reich discusses how we’d all better off if we acted in the public interest and insisted that our representatives did the same: A society — any society — is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On external forces
Leadnow’s latest fund-raising pitch is attracting some well-deserved criticism for once again relying (at least in part) on strategic voting in the face of ample evidence showing its futility. But I’ll point out that there’s also part of Leadnow’s message which looks new – and which may go a long
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Mark Leiren-Young shares Corky Evans’ perceptive take on how the B.C. NDP has lost its way – and the message is one which we should apply elsewhere as well: I remember when one of the Leaders I worked for asked some guys
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the tendency of both political decision-makers and the general public to give too much credence to secret information – and the need for citizens to scrutinize leaders all the more closely if they rely on bare declarations that we’d agree with their actions if only we knew what
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why Is Tom Mulcair Opposed to Tax Increases?
A recent online article suggests that Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is opposed to increasing federal tax rates. I find this quite surprising. According to the August 8 article: Mulcair seemed surprised when he was asked if taxes would go up under an NDP government. “You’re the first person who’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Atkins comments on the ever-growing disconnect between the interests of a few making a killing on Wall Street and the lives of people stuck in the real economy: (T)the entirety of supply-side economic thinking is based on the idea that inflating
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Saturday reading. – Rick Salutin writes about the need for the labour movement to better promote its contribution to the general public – and my only quibble is that I’d prefer to see a focus on what still can be (and needs to be) done rather
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that to end your Thursday. – The Huffington Post discusses a study showing how poor Canadians pay the highest marginal tax rates on income that pushes them over benefit thresholds. But it should be fairly obvious that the solution is to set up rational models for social programs
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