Building on Nickie’s idea, I figured we’ll all feel a bit more festive this Canada Day using a Canadian flag as approved and redacted by the Cons and their Public Safety department. Enjoy!
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Margaret Somers and Fred Block write about Karl Polanyi’s critique of the free-market myth and its increased relevance today: (F)ree-market rhetoric is a giant smokescreen designed to hide the dependence of business profits on conditions secured by government. So, for example, our
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Justin Trudeau seems to have taken up the cause of unaccountable executive power even from his third-party place in the House of Commons. For further reading…– For some of the background on of the Libs’ entitlement hangover following the Cons’ taking power, see here (insisting that Parliament
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Emmett Macfarlane and Justin Ling both weigh in on the Cons’ newly-unveiled prostitution legislation – which seems downright calculated to exacerbate the risks to sex workers’ lives and safety that resulted in the previous version being struck down as unconstitutional. – And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – David Graeber writes that unfettered capitalism will never tame itself, but will instead need to be countered by a sufficiently strong counter-movement to seriously question its underpinnings. And Thomas Frank follows up with Graeber about the warped incentives facing workers as matters stand
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Joseph Stiglitz offers his suggestions (PDF) for a tax system which would encourage both growth and equality: Tax reform…offers a path toward both resolving budgetary impasses and making the kinds of public investments that will strengthen the fundamentals of the economy. The most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – PressProgress digs into the PBO’s report on tax giveaways to look at what Canada has lost from the Cons’ cuts to federal fiscal capacity – and how little has been gained as a trade-off: (T)he Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Tavis Smiley discusses the need to speak realistically about the causes and effects of poverty, rather than simply dismissing real human costs as somebody else’s fault and problem. And similarly, Tim Stacey comments on the appalling “empathy gap” – which sees upper-class
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: Knee-Jerk Government Secrecy: The Cameron Visit to Ottawa
How bizarre is this? According to a CBC news story, the Privy Council Office took two years to respond to a CBC Access to Information request asking for “documents pertaining to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s official visit to Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2011.” When the response finally arrived, it included
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jim Stanford writes that Tim Hudak’s combination of austerity and indiscriminate tax slashing represents a recipe for less jobs rather than more: Mr. Hudak’s initial policy agenda is mostly a recycled business wish list: cut taxes, cut regulations, pay for training, cut energy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joe Conason discusses the increasingly widespread recognition that inequality represents a barrier to growth. And Heidi Moore takes a look at Thomas Piketty’s place in making that point: This is a deep point. Many American households, if they are lucky, will grow their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frances Russell writes about the corrosive effects of inequality. And Robert Reich points out one creative option California is considering to address inequality at the firm level: tying corporate tax levels to wage parity, under the theory that shareholders will then have an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Stewart Prest writes about the Cons’ war against experts: (I)n modern democratic states one of the most important sources for non-partisan information and expertise is the government itself. Government bureaucracies are the only institutions in the world today with the access, the resources,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne calls out Stephen Harper’s hypocrisy in paying lip service to the problems with the use of disposable temporary foreign labour while expanding exactly that policy throughout his stay in power: The program was supposed to be a last resort for employers
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On official business
It’s no surprise that the Cons’ idea of accountability for themselves is to provide nothing but blank pages when faced with a request for information about their dealings with Senate reimbursements. But one of the reasons for the secrecy looks like a noteworthy story in itself. Here’s the exemption being
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Cassidy makes the case to call the U.S.’ war on poverty a success – pointing out that there has been a meaningful reduction in poverty over the past 50 years connected almost entirely to government programs. But lest that be taken as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Susan FitzGerald reports on new research that growing up in poverty has a significantly more damaging effect on a child’s development than exposure to drugs – leading to obvious questions as to why so many governments loudly wage a nominal war on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joan Walsh discusses how employers are exploiting the U.S.’ wage supplement policies by taking the opportunity to severely underpay their employees – resulting in both insecure income and employment, and significant public expense to reduce the poverty suffered by full-time workers. And Lana
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom points to Ontario’s experience with Kellogg’s as yet another example of the dangers of basing economic policy on blind faith that handouts to big business will benefit workers and the general public: Like Kellogg, the auto companies justify their apparent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jim Stanford reminds us that even Statistics Canada’s already-galling numbers showing increased inequality in Canada understate the problem, as they fail to reflect capital gains (and the preferential tax treatment thereof): Yesterday’s release from Statistics Canada on the income share of the wealthy
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