Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses how Canadian workers are feeling the pain of decades of policy designed to suppress wages – and notes there’s plenty more all parties should be doing to change that reality. And Doug Saunders points out what we should want our
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan details (and expands on) how corporate tax cuts have served solely to further enrich the people and businesses who already had the most: (F)ar from improving economic outcomes, there is evidence to suggest that corporate income tax reductions depressed Canadian GDP
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, pointing out that if the Harper Cons have little idea what they’re doing in Canada’s federal election, it isn’t for lack of advantages over their opponents in planning out a campaign. For further reading…– Alice Funke offers a thorough look at the new strategic challenges facing all of Canada’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ian Welsh discusses how our problems with poverty and inequality arise out of artificial scarcity: We either already have excess capacity or we have the ability to create more than people need of all necessities. This includes housing, food and clothing. We still
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Hurley and Sam Gindin discuss the need for workers to organize to reverse the trend of precarious work, while the Star recognizes that the work is already well underway. PressProgress highlights the benefits of joining a union, while Tom Sandborn offers
Continue readingHow many refugees should we accept?
Joseph Stalin once said that if you kill one person it’s murder, if you kill a million it’s a statistic. The old psychopath, who knew a lot about killing one person and about killing a million, put his finger on a key element of human sensibility. We have difficulty connecting
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Louise Arbour’s interview with The House includes both her compelling criticisms of both the Cons’ terror bill, and the Libs’ failure to stand up against C-51. And the Canadian Press reports on Justin Trudeau’s continued fecklessness, as he won’t even take a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The refugee crisis: Harper Conservatives just can’t spin it both ways
PHOTOS: Refugees from the Syrian civil war clog a road near the Syria-Iraq border. (UNHCR photo.) Below: Saskatchewan Conservative MP Kelly Block’s constituency leaflet; Ms. Block herself; Immigration Minister Chris Alexander. For several years, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has played to the worst instincts of a significant
Continue readingEh Types: Will To Live
You can just hear the water. It laps against the makeshift pier beating a slow, near silent rhythm in stark contrast to the rapid and seemingly thunderous beating of your heart. Only the smell of fear sits heavier on the air than the salt. You look at what the smugglers generously
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Kate McInturff puts forward some big long-term goals which deserve to be discussed as we elect our next federal government. And Leah McLaren discusses how a lack of child care affects every Canadian: The single most shocking thing to me about becoming a
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Canadians don’t expect Canada to solve the world’s problems…
Stephen Harper says, “Canadians don’t expect Canada to solve the world’s problems.” Of course, Canadians don’t expect Canada to solve the world’s problems. Canadians do, however, expect Canada not be part of the problem and Canadians do expect Canada to be part of the solution. Bottom line: Stephen Harper is
Continue readingLeft Over: No Hope With This Pope…
Pope Francis tells priests to pardon women who have abortions The Guardian Tuesday 1 September 2015 16.46 BST How condescending can this ‘religious’ leader get? Who cares about forgiveness when there is nothing to forgive? Will the Pope also issue orders to ‘forgive’ the man who didn’t wear a condom, or
Continue readingLeft Over: No Hope With This Pope…
Pope Francis tells priests to pardon women who have abortions The Guardian Tuesday 1 September 2015 16.46 BST How condescending can this ‘religious’ leader get? Who cares about forgiveness when there is nothing to forgive? Will the Pope also issue orders to ‘forgive’ the man who didn’t wear a condom, or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Following up on this post, it was Terry Glavin who broke the story about refugee children dying after being refused admission into Canada. And the Guardian recognizes that the tragic image of Aylin Kurdi represents only a reminder of a a long-running
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition II: Humanitarian Boogaloo
From one stunt… The news of McCain’s suspension drew gales of derision from the press. No one was willing to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt…that his motivations were anything less than craven… McCainworld had assumed that the suspension would be viewed as an authentic, characteristic act of
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
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Barbara Tasch writes about the IMF’s latest research on growing inequality in developing and developed countries alike. And Michael Krassa and Benjamin Radcliff study the impact an improved minimum wage can have on economic well-being: Simply stated, as the minimum wage increases, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jim Stanford highlights how the Cons are focused on exactly the wrong priority in pushing for cuts at a time when Canada’s economy is in dire need of a jump-start: In the grand economic scheme, a deficit incurred as the economy slows
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Emmanuel Saez examines the U.S.’ latest income inequality numbers and finds that the gap between the wealthy few and everybody else is still growing. The Equality Trust finds that the UK’s tax system is already conspicuously regressive even as the Cameron Cons plan
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Three for the road
Cootie Catcher, written and performed by Lucas Brooks, focuses on Brooks’ close encounters of the transmissible kind. Using a cootie catcher, better known to some as a fortune teller, Brooks regales the audience with tales of all the times he thought he had been exposed to one STD or another,
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