This and that for your Sunday reading. – Nick Falvo highlights some of the most important proposals in the CCPA’s alternative federal budget (parentheticals omitted): 3. Introduce a national pharmacare program. This proposal would help address the fact that many Canadians simply cannot access prescription medication; it would also result
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Suzuki discusses the merits of a four-day work week in improving both working and living conditions: It’s absurd that so many people still work eight hours a day, five days a week — or more — with only a few weeks’
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Simon Enoch explains why the Sask Party’s plans to inflict an austerian beating until economic morale improves is doomed to failure: It is now abundantly clear that the Saskatchewan government’s “transformational change” agenda is in reality a not-so-subtle euphemism for provincewide austerity
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tom Parkin points out that neither austerity nor isolationism offers any real solution to improve Canada’s fiscal and economic standing. And Rob Carrick highlights what should be the most worrisome form of debt – being the increased consumer debt taken on to allow
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Gary Bloch writes about the costs of poverty (and the small-minded attitude toward public supports which allows it to remain): We also see the effects of poverty at home: the discomfort of living next to people who are struggling to survive, with
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Simon Enoch and Christine Saulnier examine how P3s are used to privilege corporate profits over the public interest: The CCPA has published numerous publications on the question of P3s because they have been so pervasive and so riddled with problems. There have
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Toby Sanger offers some important background to the federal government’s expected plan for privatized infrastructure by noting that the anticipated result would be to double the costs. And Luke Kawa notes that the Libs are already having trouble spending the money they’ve
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:The E…
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Assorted content to end your week.
– Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:
The EC is also investigating state support received by Amazon and McDonalds in Luxembourg, a tax haven. Expect more costly court battles about the appropriateness of laws and systems of governance.Since the 2008 economic crisis, giant corporations have gone from being “too big to fail” to “too big to pay.”But as the big tax avoiders get feisty, so too are voters. The Panama Papers have made people aware of the hypocrisy: when those with deep pockets don’t pay, everyone else pays more. Governments are legitimately worried about their finances, and more focused on tax fairness than in decades. But as corporations both fight and rewrite the rules, occasionally cash-starved, debt-ridden nations are being enlisted to support their agenda.The Apple story is huge. It could presage the end of tax competition, as nations co-ordinate attempts to combat absurd levels of tax-dodging. Or it could signal growing dominance of corporate power over state power. High stakes, to be sure, in the evolution of 21st-century globalization.
– Meanwhile, Allan Sloan discusses how Mylan’s profiteering in ratcheting up the price of EpiPens has been paired with glaring tax avoidance. And the NDP points out the conspicuous lack of any public benefit from the Libs’ and Cons’ track record of corporate tax slashing in Canada.
– Alex Hemingway writes about the costs of privatizing public infrastructure. And Thomas Walkom highlights the Libs’ options in reviewing Canada Post’s future – which include taking an obvious opportunity to better meet a large number of social needs through a postal banking system.
– Bloomberg View rightly argues that fossil fuel subsidies are about the dumbest possible type of public policy. And Samantha Page offers another reason why that’s so by pointing out the devastating health effects of oil and gas production and distribution.
– Finally, Simon Enoch offers a much-needed warning to the rest of Canada as to what Saskatchewan faces with Brad Wall in power.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the Wall government is using a partial privatization of liquor stores to open the door to the wholesale destruction of the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority. For further reading…- The Crown Corporations Public Ownership Act is her…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Alison Griswold points out how little systemic information we have about the growing gig economy. And both Scott Santens and Richard Reeves make the case for a basic income to provide financial security where a…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – For those looking for information about today’s day of action against C-51, Leadnow and Rabble both have details. – Meanwhile, CBC reports that a professor merely taking pictures on public land near a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline site is already being harassed by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – In a theme all too familiar based on Brad Wall’s use of millions of public dollars to pay for access to U.S. lawmakers, Simon Enoch discusses the connections between Wall and ALEC: Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough is both a member and State corporate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Simon Enoch discusses the costs of turning over a profitable system of public liquor stores to corporate control – as Brad Wall has finally admitted to wanting to do: A privatized liquor market is very likely to evolve into an ‘oligopoly’, where only
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Krugman writes about the effect of a precarious labour market on even the relatively few workers who enjoy relatively secure employment: (T)hese are lousy times for the employed, too. Why? Because they have so little bargaining power. Leave or lose your
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, asking whether growth and stable employment are part of the deal when the Saskatchewan Party offers massive handouts to the resource sector – and if so, how to handle the fact that PCS is pocketing tax incentives while slashing jobs. For further reading…– The Wall government’s own press release
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: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Simon Enoch nicely challenges the City of Regina’s blind faith in “risk transfer” by pointing out how that concept has typically been applied elsewhere: So what price should we put on such a risk transfer? This is where things can get dicey. How
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Polly Toynbee discusses how the UK’s attacks on social programs are based on gross ignorance about what social spending does (and who it helps): The Citizens Advice Bureau reports a rise of 78% in the last six months in people needing food banks
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how the City of Regina’s wastewater treatment referendum campaign is based on either a major omission as to the costs of privatizing services, or a dangerous assumption that the City doesn’t need to have any idea how its own treatment plant works. For further reading…– I take my
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