Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Owen Jones writes that excessive reliance on corporate profiteers is the reason why the UK’s trains don’t run on time. And Nora Loreto argues that postal banking is needed (among other reasons) to rein in abuses by Canada’s biggest banks. – Shannon Daub
Continue readingTag: Privatization
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Ed Finn reminds us how the economy as a whole – including the private sector – suffers when austerity is inflicted on public services: The public and private sectors have become so interdependent that one cannot be attacked or diminished without hurting the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Nick Falvo, Janice Chan and Chidom Otogwu point out that housing is just one of the areas where federal action is needed to reduce poverty and its social harms in Canada. And Falvo also reviews Greg Suttor’s “Still Renovating” as a worthwhile look
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Julia Smith argues that one of the primary responses to the recent reports about banks exploiting consumers (and pressuring staff to carry out their plans) should be a drive to organize workers: Banking is often viewed as an industry offering secure white-collar
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Clark and Peter DeVries point out that with interest rates still at historically low levels, Canada would be far better off funding infrastructure for itself rather than locking itself into privatized structures: But that is not true at all at the federal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Olive offers his take on what a basic income should look like – and is optimistic that Ontario’s ongoing experiment should hit the mark: A UBI would be pointless in the absence of existing supports. In the Ontario pilot projects, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Vicki Nash challenges the claim that unemployment in a precarious economy is generally a matter of choice rather than the absence thereof. And Jia Tolentino argues that we shouldn’t pretend there’s any value in being forced to work oneself to death: It does
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Just A Couple Of Questions
Given that I have no background in economics, I will leave it to more finely-tuned minds to debate the merits of yesterday’s federal budget. However, there are a couple of things that, from my perspective, need to be answered, and they both relate to the Infrastructure Bank the Liberal government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Josh Bivens explains why increased fairness would likely lead to improved overall growth for the U.S.’ economy: (O)ne key driver of slow productivity growth in recent years can be fixed: the remaining shortfall between aggregate demand and the economy’s productive potential. Running the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Heather Whiteside discusses how the privatization schemes being toyed with at all levels of government represent nothing more than reckless gambling with public money and goods: When a federal, provincial, or municipal government builds a bridge, a highway, a school, or a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig discusses the need to fight fake news about Canada’s health care system (and the corporate raiders trying to amplify it): (I)t was with some pleasure last week that I watched as a Republican congressman tried to insist that Canadians routinely flock
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Erica Johnson reports that the problem of bank employees being pushed to fleece customers (legality be damned) is common to all of Canada’s major banks. And Lisa Wright reports that the result will be a national investigation. But it’s appalling that it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Chris Dillow examines a few of the reasons why neoliberalism hasn’t produced the promise of economic growth as the supposed benefit in exchange for dissolving social links. And William Berkson discusses the importance of an activist government in building a strong economy: The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Chris Dillow examines a few of the reasons why neoliberalism hasn’t produced the promise of economic growth as the supposed benefit in exchange for dissolving social links. And William Berkson discusses the importance of an activist government in building a strong economy: The
Continue readingWe Pivot: Remember When You Thought Trudeau Was Progressive?
If it isn’t his Finance Minister telling us to get used to job churn, or that the middle class isn’t a real thing with data and statistics [it’s just an aspirational ideal], it’s Trudeau outflanking the NDP in the 2015 … [Read more]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – CBC reports on Nav Persaud’s research showing how universal prescription drug coverage could produce improved health outcomes for a lower cost. But Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew note that the Libs are instead taking us in the opposite direction with a combination of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – CBC reports on Nav Persaud’s research showing how universal prescription drug coverage could produce improved health outcomes for a lower cost. But Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew note that the Libs are instead taking us in the opposite direction with a combination of
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Ours to own, not theirs to profit
It seems the public sector is under attack from all directions these days. Despite historically low public financing costs, despite proven efficiency and innovation, the public sector gets a bad rap in the public eye—something all manner of politicians from hardened right-wingers to cosmpolitan neoliberals take advantage of, letting markets
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Suzuki discusses the merits of a four-day work week in improving both working and living conditions: It’s absurd that so many people still work eight hours a day, five days a week — or more — with only a few weeks’
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Louis-Philippe Rochon writes that while American voters had to know what they’d get in casting their most recent ballots, far too many Canadians may have believed the Libs’ promises of something else: On this side of the 49th parallel, however, when Canadians elected
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