Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Erika Shaker points out how Quebec’s student protests are a natural and justified reaction to the policy choice to saddle young workers with debt: (T)he effects of student debt are not exactly “character building”. Postponement of owning a home or starting a family.
Continue readingTag: Thomas Walkom
Politics and its Discontents: The Economy And The People
Several years ago, while he was still writing for Canada’s self-proclaimed ‘newspaper of record,’ Rick Salutin wrote a column entitled something like, The economy is doing fine, the people not so much. In it, he made some trenchant observations about how, over time, the well-being of the economy and the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom makes the point that the hysterical response from Brad Wall and others can’t mask the fact that Thomas Mulcair is right in his analysis of the effect of a high, resource-driven dollar: Mulcair’s solution is hardly radical. He argues that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: When The Left Is Right
Although one wouldn’t know it by listening to the predictable, hysterical, and politically-motivated campaign Harper Inc. is mounting against Thomas Mulcair for his ‘Dutch disease’ comments, there is a growing view amongst analysts and think tanks that the NDP leader is correct to an extent in his assessments of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom criticizes the Cons’ war on labour at the federal level – though John Ivison notes that the Cons’ habit of interfering in every federal labour dispute looks to help the NDP all the more. And Pat Atkinson worries that the Sask
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Harris rightly tears into the Cons for turning our federal government into Versailles on the Ottawa: The Harper government has more than a touch of Queen Nancy. It has already morphed into Versailles on the Ottawa. The facts, and the rules, are being
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Thomas Walkom Opines on E.I. Changes
To this Conservative government, anything that might interfere with the mythical free market — and particularly with the market’s downward pressure on wages — is anathema. The above is just a brief excerpt from Thomas Walkom’s column in today’s Star, additional food for thought as I continue trying to critically
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron discusses how the Cons have already taken Canada and the world in exactly the wrong direction. But Murray Dobbin points out that we should be working on how to change things for the better once they’re finally removed from office,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Erin points out that there’s a relatively simple cure for Dutch disease – just as long as provincial governments are willing to put citizens ahead of resource extractors: (S)ince resources are priced in American dollars, the higher exchange rate further reduces provincial resource
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Gerald Caplan looks at the principled leadership which Stephen Harper embarrassingly made into an attack on the NDP as an example what Canada desperately needs now: Repeating that war settles nothing, Mr. Woodsworth declared: “I rejoice that it is possible to say these
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – For much of the relatively recent past, one of the areas of relative consensus in economic theory is that productivity increases would find their way to workers. But Paul Krugman shows that hope to be utterly misplaced: Where did the productivity go? The
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Spring Signs of A Thaw In Our Political Passivity?
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen in print the term ‘Red Tory’, used to describe an economic conservationism balanced by a social progressiveness. Yet it is included in columns today by The Star’s Thomas Walkom and Chantal Hebert as both reflect upon the significance of Alison Redford’s Progressive
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading. – As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I’ll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath’s call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades – with the former seeing a “picket fence” growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a “staircase” effect (aside from an utterly
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Thomas Walkom on Fair Taxation
Long a taboo subject, increasing tax rates for the wealthy is back on the agenda, in no small part due to the Occupy Movement and, more recently, Andrea Horwath. In today’s Star, Thomas Walkom presents an interesting perspective on the issue. You can click here to read it. Recommend this
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Would You Buy A Used Car From This Man?
The above question, first asked about Richard Nixon as he ran against John Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential race, was designed to underscore the seemingly untrustworthy nature of the candidate – his shifty, evasive gaze, heavy perspiration, and his 5 o’clock shadow all seemed to suggest a man hiding something.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Thomas Walkom’s Budget Analysis
Earlier today I wrote a post congratulating The Toronto Star for its journalistic integrity and the crucial role it plays in helping to keep citizens informed of the important issues affecting our country. Columnist Thomas Walkom, who epitomizes that integrity, has written his analysis of the federal budget, reminding us
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A New Call For a Return to Progressive Taxation
I suppose one has to be of a certain age to remember that progressive taxation has been a mainstay, until fairly recently, of our taxation system. Little by little over the past two decades, probably starting with the introduction of the GST, that principle has been on the wane, to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Amy Minsky uncovers some suspicious-looking spending patterns underlying Robocon, while Postmedia also points out that election results in at least a couple of seats may plausibly be subject to challenge. Emma Pullman offers some more details on the Manning Centre’s voter suppression
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that the McGuinty Libs’ choice to emphasize austerity rather than stabilizing Ontario’s economy may lead down exactly the same destructive path travelled by Greece and other countries: (T)he crises in Spain, Portugal and Greece occurred because government spending cuts
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