This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Noah Zon points out that while it’s impossible to avoid rhetoric about eliminating “red tape” for businesses, we’ve seen gratuitous barriers put in place to prevent people from accessing needed public support:It…
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Albert van Senvoort points out that poverty is more difficult to escape in Canada today than it was two decades ago. And Jean Swanson discusses the desperate need for more action from all levels of government…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Brian Nolan, Max Roser, and Stefan Thewissen study (PDF) the relationship between GDP and household income across the OECD, and find a nearly universal pattern of nominal economic growth which isn’t finding its w…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Yvan Guillemette discusses the need for public-sector investment in economic development to make up for the massive amounts of private capital sitting idle. And Daniel Kahnemann challenges the theory that cor…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your wek.- Maia Szalavitz discusses the connection between unemployment, inequality and addictions, noting in particular that uncertainty and stress in other areas of an individual’s life make addition recovery far more …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Nick Dearden discusses how the latest wave of corporate power agreements – including the CETA – stands to undermine democracy in participating countries:Like the US deal, Ceta contains a new legal system, ope…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Robert Frank examines how market outcomes are shaped disproportionately by luck rather than significant differences in merit:(W)ith each extension of the highway, rail, and canal systems, shipping costs fell sh…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how political fund-raising scandals in Ontario and British Columbia only highlight the complete lack of rules governing donations in Saskatchewan.For further reading…- SCOTUS’ Citizens United decision is here (PDF). And Michael Hiltzik discu…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #YEG2016 Followup Links
While there’s been plenty of ill-informed commentary since the NDP’s convention last weekend, I’ll take a moment to highlight a few of the followup points which deserve a read.- Joshua Keep rightly recognizes the new leadership election as an opportuni…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Alexander Panetta reports on the G20’s agreement on the need to crack down on tax evasion – as well as the steps Canada needs to take to get our own house in order:The final communique warned of actions against c…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.- Lana Payne writes about the need for a Bernie Sanders in Canada to highlight and oppose the privilege of the wealthy few:It is in this context of blatant unfairness — rules for the rich and rules for…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: A place for discussion
Following up on yesterday’s column, I’ll expand somewhat on some of the decisions the NDP may want to consider as (or before) it elects new leaders. And since the recent federal convention has been treated by other commentators as everything from a shi…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Last week, I wrote that the NDP should be careful about assuming that changes in leadership would necessarily help in a needed process of party renewal.Obviously, both elected to seek out new leadership. And so in this week’s column, I point out that l…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Jason Hinkel writes that for as much attention as global inequality has received in recent years, it may be significantly more of a problem than we’ve previously assumed – and getting worse as time goes by:It doe…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Michael Bader argues that a cynical view of politics represents the most important barrier to progressive victories:Cynicism is a corrosive force in our politics and culture, but one that is invisible to us beca…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On open debates
As promised here, I’ll take a closer look at Saskatchewan’s leaders’ debate and what it may mean for the rest of the campaign.Most criticism of the debate that I’ve seen so far has focused on two factors.First, there’s the combination of format and mod…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On controversial responses
A propos of nothing in particular, let’s go over this a couple more times:Colby Cosh’s latest on the role of the “human search engine” in tracking down information about candidates and elected officials is worth a read. But it’s worth keeping in mind…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Glen Pearson makes the case for transcending cynicism in our politics, including the choice to stay involved once an election is done. And Ian Welsh reminds us that our definition of property is socially establi…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Justin Fox explores why it took the economic field in general (with some noteworthy exceptions) decades to start dealing with burgeoning inequality. And Bryce Covert discusses the latest study showing that in l…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On countermovements
Alison is right to highlight the latest right-wing astroturf group in Canada. But we shouldn’t assume that mere exposure will meaningfully affect the growth of corporate-owned politics alone.As is typically the case, Canadian politics tend to be influe…
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