It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair trade coffee shop run by a workers’ co-op inspired by the Mondragon movement in Spain. Meet-ups like this are quite
Continue readingTag: Privatization
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Bill Tieleman tears into James Moore for his callous disregard for child hunger, while PressProgress reminds us that plenty of the Cons’ policy choices reflect Moore’s complete lack of concern for his neighbours’ children. And Polly Toynbee looks in detail at the
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Notes on pensions and risk
Canada’s finance ministers are meeting this weekend and a proposal to expand the CPP is at the top of the agenda. If implemented, this proposal would bolster an important public program at a time when public programs are under attack and the public sector as whole is shrinking. There are many good arguments in
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Austerity and the profitability puzzle: government gives profits a helping hand
This is the third and final post in what has become a three-part series on the puzzle of high profitability and low investment in the Canadian economy. In the first part, I looked at some data that shows the existence of the puzzle and explored a few of the factors
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot comments on the dangerous effect of agreements which place investors’ interests above those of governments and citizens: From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to “co-write” it.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Nick Cohen writes that the corporate sector is home to some of the most dangerous cult philosophy in the world: (T)he language of business has become ever more cultish. In the theory of “transformational leadership”, which dominates the business schools, the CEO is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Stuart Trew fleshes out the Cons’ new(-ly explicit) Corporate Cronies Action Plan – and it goes even further in entrenching corporate control over policy than one might have expected at first glance: – The makeup of the advisory panel that consulted with Trade
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Toilets without seats — warnings from England
Too big to fail. For most that expression applies to big banks, but what about our health care? As Ontario prepares the way for further transfer (read: privatization) of hospital services to mostly for-profit independent health facilities, it’s a good … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: More CBC Privatization
The private sector is grinning at the stealth privatization of Hockey Night in Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Hockey Night in Canada, privatization version! Yes, the CBC is now in a privatization scheme called a public-private partnership [see below] to continue its mission to dump the most culturally significant
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Chris Dillow discusses how a shredded social safety net may turn into a vicious cycle – as voters are more prepared to cast ballots based on resentment when their own livelihood is less secure: Marko Pitesa and Stefan Thau first manipulated subjects’ perceptions
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Glen Pearson theorizes that inequality will be the defining theme of the current political era. Tavia Grant and Janet McFarland document the extreme (and continually-increasing) disparity between the top 1% and the rest of the world. And Eduardo Porter writes that education
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how P3 structures create a divergence of interest between short-sighted governments and the general public – and a few policy fixes to ensure we don’t lose value or accountability as a result of politically-motivated choices to use them. For further reading…– The Saskatchewan NDP introduced its P3 accountability
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – David Green asks whether decades of corporate insistence on “flexible” labour markets (i.e. ones which offer no stability for workers) have resulted in the improved wages promised at the outset: Increased wages are how we share the benefits of economic growth among a
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: The grip of privatisation on our vital services has to be broken | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian
The grip of privatisation on our vital services has to be broken | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian. Any doubts about who really controls Britain should have now been dispelled. Any thought that the financial crisis might have broken the neoliberal spell, rebalanced the economy or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – James Bloodworth discusses the most important challenge facing Ed Miliband and Labour in the UK – which largely matches the task for progressives around the globe: People have never put all that much stock in politicians of course, and the expenses scandal
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Poking the beast – “P” word missing from reform talk
The problem with discussing health care sustainability is there is no definition of what that means. Data would suggest that our health care spending is not out of control – the so-called cost curve has already been bent. Past increases … Continue reading →
Continue readingAutonomy For All: What a Free Market Municipal Transit "System" Looks Like
Former Rob Ford chief of Staff Mark Towhey gained some notoriety in the 2010 mayor’s race for a blog post he wrote prior to joining Ford’s team where he advocated the city simply shut down the TTC and sell off whatever assets that anyone wants to buy. For anyone familiar
Continue readingAutonomy For All: What a Free Market Municipal Transit "System" Looks Like
Former Rob Ford chief of Staff Mark Towhey gained some notoriety in the 2010 mayor’s race for a blog post he wrote prior to joining Ford’s team where he advocated the city simply shut down the TTC and sell off whatever assets that anyone wants to buy. For anyone familiar
Continue readingAutonomy For All: What a Free Market Municipal Transit "System" Looks Like
Former Rob Ford chief of Staff Mark Towhey gained some notoriety in the 2010 mayor’s race for a blog post he wrote prior to joining Ford’s team where he advocated the city simply shut down the TTC and sell off whatever assets that anyone wants to buy.&…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the tendency of both the Saskatchewan Party and the federal Cons to pretend a problem doesn’t exist for years on end, then suddenly proclaim there’s no time to do anything other than force through the most regressive “solution” possible. In shorter terms, the Shock Doctrine has evolved into
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