Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Katrina vanden Heuvel discusses how the Trump tax giveaway to the rich will exacerbate class and race inequality in the U.S. And David Climenhaga offers a reminder that Alberta’s budget crunch remains a product of its failure to collect a reasonable level of
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Claire Connelly calls out the perennial right-wing spin that there’s always money available for corporations or the security state, but that anything which would actually help people is invariably unaffordable. And Jim Pugh discusses how Republicans are looking to punish and impoverish
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ed Finn reminds us that ending child poverty makes good economic sense in addition to being a moral necessity: The same huge financial benefit would be reaped in Canada from an equivalent investment in curbing poverty here. Based on the variance in populations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew O’Hehir talks to Yanis Varoufakis about the impossibility of building shared prosperity on a foundation of consumer debt and financialization. And the Institute for Public Policy Research offers a discussion paper on the important equalizing role of organized labour – and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lee Drutman points out that Donald Trump’s presidency represents an entirely foreseeable result of a two-party, first-past-the-post electoral system: (C)ontrary to claims that American political parties have to appeal broadly to win, they only need to win a quarter of the voting-age population
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Dylan Walsh interviews Jeffrey Pfeffer about his book Dying for a Paycheck, and the ways in which employer demands make people worse off: Has this connection always been there, or has there been an evolution in workplace culture that got us to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Elizabeth Bruenig makes the case for the U.S. to make a much-needed turn toward democratic socialism: In fact, both Sullivan’s and Mounk’s complaints — that Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – May Boeve and Michael Brune comment on the danger that political- and court-based attacks on U.S. unions could substantially weaken the progressive movement as a whole. But Jane McAlevey writes that West Virginia’s successful teachers’ strike may provide an important reminder that the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Anna Coote discusses some of the potential problems with a universal basic income on its own – particularly to the extent it takes momentum away from the prospect of universal basic services. – Scott Sinclair examines how little has changed – and how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David Brady, Ryan Finnigan and Sabine Hubgen challenge the claim that there’s any relationship between single motherhood and poverty. And Doug Saunders writes that there’s an opening for progressive movements to take back the theme of family values which obviously bear no
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Victor Cyr discusses the problems with a public policy focus on capitalism without any concern for human well-being. And Ann Pettifor highlights the concentrated wealth and power arising out of corporate monopolies, while noting that political decisions are behind those realities. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin writes that job numbers inflated by part-time employment shouldn’t distract us from the consumer debt and wage stagnation which are living more and more people with precarious financial situations. Ben Leubsdorf reports on the recognition by members of the American
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Economic Policy Institute charts how inequality and precarity are growing in the U.S. – and how that can be directly traced to the erosion of organized labour. And the World Inequality Report examines the trend toward increasing inequality on a global
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Larry Elliott interviews Joseph Stiglitz about the rise of Donald Trump and other demagogues in the wake of public anger over inequality and economic unfairness. And Stiglitz also joins a group of economists calling for an end to austerity in the UK. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Brent Patterson discusses how the Libs are putting the hands of their already-dubious “infrastructure bank” in the hands of people with a track record of turning public services into private cash cows. – David Suzuki takes note of another U.S. government climate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jonathan Ostry comments on the emerging recognition that inequality represents a barrier to economic development: I argue that greater attention should be paid to the consequences that economic policies have for income distribution (inequality). The reasons are four-fold. First, excessive levels of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Angella MacEwen offers her suggestions as to what a fair and progressive trade agenda should look like: Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms are especially unpopular, as they prioritize investor rights over investor responsibilities. Canada and Mexico have had similar dismal experiences under NAFTA
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the historical competition between the NDP and the Greens hasn’t precluded cooperation where it counts in British Columbia – and how the governing accord there might offer an example of cross-party collaboration for all levels of government. For further reading…– Martyn Brown wrote about the danger the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Larry Elliott is optimistic that the UK’s election result will lead to an end of destructive austerity. James Downie comments on the example Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign provides for progressives in the U.S. (and elsewhere). And Karl Nerenberg writes about the importance of youth
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