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…
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Hamilton Nolan interviews Branko Milanovic about inequality on both a national and international scale – and how there’s little reason to take heart in reductions in the latter if it’s paired with increases in t…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- David Rosen discusses the connection between poverty and more general social exclusion:Poverty is a form of social powerlessness. The poorer you are, the weaker you are, the harder your life; everythin…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten things to know about the 2016-17 Alberta budget
Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I have a blog post titled: “Ten things to know about the 2016-17 Alberta budget.”
The link to the post is here.
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning LInks
Assorted content for your Sunday reading.- Peter Moskowitz highlights why we shouldn’t be counting on crowdfunding or other private sources to address social needs. And Lana Payne calls out the attitude of entitlement on the part of the wealthy which h…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Carol Goar summarizes the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s review of the steps needed to rein in inequality in the long term, while pointing out the one factor which will determine whether any…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On priorities
I’ve written before about the Saskatchewan Party’s assumption that actually meeting the basic needs of inmates wasn’t a core function of the provincial correctional system.Well, the choice to turn food service into a corporate profit centre has produce…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Owen Jones writes that the UK’s flooding is just one example of what happens when the public sector which is supposed to look out for the common good is slashed out of short-term political calculation. And J. B…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP brings to an end Alberta PCs’ bizarre experiment with one-person heath-care rule
PHOTOS: Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman announces the restoration of normal board governance to Alberta Health Services at the provincial Legislature yesterday. Below: Newly appointed AHS Board members Linda Hughes, Glenda Yeates and Brenda Hemmelgarn. Below them: Premier Rachel Notley on the big screen at AUPE’s convention, as union President
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Alex Himelfarb highlights the vicious circle the Harper Cons have created and driven when it comes to public services: Today’s austerity is not a response to fiscal crisis. The 2012 budget demonstrated that it’s about redefining the purpose of government, about dismantling, brick
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Harper’s draconian cuts making the Canadian public service bleed [VIDEO]
The Public Service Alliance of Canada wants voters to remember the impact of the Harper government’s cuts to public services when they vote during the 2015 federal election. The post Harper’s draconian cuts making the Canadian public service bleed [VIDEO] appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party is trumpeting the “success” of a hiring freeze in which the entire government saved $8 million in a quarter – or roughly $32 million per year – by not hiring staff. Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party has increased the cost of consultants in the Ministry of Highways
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s shattered Tories have a tougher task ahead than the ‘inexperienced’ NDP
PHOTOS: A really smart guy tries to figure out a way back to power for Alberta’s post-Prentice Progressive Conservatives. Actual PC strategists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Doesn’t look like it’s going that well. Below: NDP Health and Seniors Minister Sarah Hoffman; Bill Moore-Kilgannon, her new chief of staff.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matthew Yglesias points out that a particular income level may have radically different implications depending on an individual’s place in life, and that we can only address inequality by formulating policy accordingly: The median household income in the United States is about $52,000.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nathan Schneider discusses the wide range of support for a guaranteed income, while noting that the design of any basic income system needs to reflect the needs of the people who receive it rather than the businesses who see it as an opportunity
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb writes about the corporate push to treat taxes as a burden rather than a beneficial contribution to a functional society – and why we should resist the demand to slash taxes and services alike: How is it that we don’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Will Hutton compares the alternative goals of either shrinking government to the point where it does nothing or harnessing it to meet everybody’s basic needs, and explains why we should demand the latter: A financial crisis has been allowed to morph into a
Continue readingAlberta Diary: What are Premier Jim Prentice and his three ‘agents of change’ planning for Alberta’s public service?
Alberta civil servants: do you get the feeling someone may have their eye on you? Below: Agents of change Richard Dicerni, Ian Brodie, Oryssia Lennie and Steve West. Premier Jim Prentice says he intends to “reform” Alberta’s public service, fix its low morale, reverse its “shocking” turnover and deal with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood discusses the close connection between the energy sector and inequality in Canada – with the obvious implication that policies dedicated to unduly favouring the former will inevitably produce the latter: (T)he real story from last week’s Stats Can report isn’t that
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why the economy sucks (in one chart)
(The following is something I’ve prepared for the next issue of CUPE’s Economy at Work, a popular economics quarterly publication I produce.) In his annual Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU), finance minister Joe Oliver told Canadians that while the federal government will finally record a surplus next year after seven
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