Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thom Hartmann highlights how trickle-down economics have swamped the U.S.’ middle class: Creating a middle class is always a choice, and by embracing Reaganomics and cutting taxes on the rich, we decided back in 1980 not to have a middle class within a
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Steven Klees notes that there’s no reason at all to think that corporatist policies labeled as “pro-growth” will do anything to help the poor – and indeed ample reason for doubt they actually encourage growth anywhere other than for the already-wealthy. And the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Eduardo Porter highlights the continued growth in research showing that social benefits do nothing to stop people from pursuing work, but instead serve to mitigate the risks of precarious survival for the people who need it most. – And Michael Marmot discusses
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Luke Savage warns that the Libs’ election win may ring hollow for Canadian progressives: Throughout its democratic history, Canadian politics have basically oscillated between two parties that do not seriously threaten the status quo or the injustices it perpetuates. Occasionally goaded by organized
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robyn Benson rightly argues that it’s long past time for the Harper Cons to be booted from office. Stuart Trew sets out just five of the worst ways in which the Cons have changed Canada, while Murray Dobbin offers his take on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Noah Smith weighs in on the effect of cash transfers in improving all aspects of life for people living in poverty. But Angus Deaton recognizes that individual income will only go so far if it isn’t matched by the development of effective
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: David Suzuki: The ecological and economic costs of food waste
This Thanksgiving season, David Suzuki wants us to remember this fact: ” In Canada, food waste cost estimates increased from $27 billion to $31 billion between 2010 and 2014.” The post David Suzuki: The ecological and economic costs of food waste appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Paul Theroux comments on the gall of corporations who move jobs to the cheapest, least-safe jurisdictions possible while trumpeting their own supposed contributions to the countries they leave behind. And Wilma Liebman sees more progressive labour legislation as one of the keys to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood highlights how the Trans-Pacific Partnership will do little but strengthen the hand of the corporate sector against citizens. Duncan Cameron notes that even in the face of a full-court press for ever more stringent corporate controls, there’s plenty of well-justified
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jennifer Wells writes about the drastic difference in pay between CEOs and everybody else. And Henry Farrell interviews Lauren Rivera about the advantage privileged children have in being able to rely on parents’ social networks and funding rather than needing to learn
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Angella MacEwen comments on the fight for universal child care, along with the lessons we can learn from Quebec’s experience. And Claire Cain Miller notes that inequality in the workplace extends to benefits as well as wages – with child care included alongside
Continue readingThe Tory Pirate - Politics & Policy: Pirate Party TV Spot
The Pirate Party recently released its campaign ad. In what is probably a unique strategy in this campaign it attacks noone, ignores superficial fluff, and goes in depth into an aspect of the party platform. In short its a model of what all theparties should have used their ads for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Roheena Saxena points out that personal privilege tends to correlate to selfishness in distributing scarce resources. And that in turn may explain in part why extreme top-end wealth isn’t even mentioned in a new inequality target under development by the UN. – Or,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michal Rozworski highlights the deeper economic issues which are receiving minimal attention compared to deficits and minor amounts of infrastructure spending in Canada’s federal election: In the long term, two decades of Liberal and Conservative austerity have left Canada with a revenue problem,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada
This afternoon I gave a presentation at Raising the Roof’s Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit in Toronto. My slide deck can be downloaded here. To accompany the presentation, I’ve prepared the following list of “Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada.” 1.Efforts to enumerate persons experiencing homeless have
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Dix Choses à Savoir sur l’Itinérance au Canada
Cet après-midi, j’ai fait une présentation au Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit, organisé par Chez Toit, à Toronto. Ma presentation, illustrée de diapositives, peut être téléchargée ici. Pour accompagner la présentation, je vous ai préparé la liste suivante des « Dix choses à savoir sur l’itinérance au Canada. »
Continue readingThings Are Good: Redistribute Neighbourhoods Instead of Wealth
People hate taxes despite the fact that basically every person who studies economics knows they are needed and a great way to spur economic success. Despite the fact taxes are needed and good at helping poorer people in society, taxes are hated. As a result, some researchers in the USA
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that the Cons have gone out of their way to destroy the federal government’s capacity to improve the lives of Canadians: When the Harper government took office, federal tax revenues (2006-07 fiscal year) were 13.5% of GDP, a bit shy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jim Stanford, Iglika Ivanova and David MacDonald each highlight how there’s far more to be concerned about in Canada’s economy beyond the GDP dip alone. Both Thomas Walkom and the Star’s editorial board write that it’s clear the Cons have nothing to offer
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Branko Milanovic answers Harry Frankfurt’s attempt to treat inequality as merely an issue of absolute deprivation by reminding us how needs are inherently social: “[Under necessities] I understand not only the commodities that are indispensable for the support of life, but whatever the
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