Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders: The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over
Continue readingTag: Thomas Walkom
Politics and its Discontents: The New E.I. Tribunal
Last week, The Star’s Thomas Walkom had an excellent column on Harer-led changes to the Employment Insurance Tribunal that turn it into a complete repository of patronage, rewarding the party faithful even more lavishly than those who have earned a partisan place in the Senate. Some contrasts to show the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mark Gongloff reaches the unsurprising conclusion that a tax system warped to favour the interests of the wealthy leads to greater inequality (but not the promised growth): Slashing top tax rates has had none of the positive effects on economic growth that the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Krugman draws a much-needed connection between austerity politics and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: What Smith didn’t note, somewhat surprisingly, is that his argument is very close to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, with its argument that elites systematically exploit disasters to push through
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Larger Problem
In his column this morning, Thomas Walkom suggests that Mike Duffy’s current scandal-plagued problems are representative of much deeper ones in the Senate, namely that our much-cossetted members of that ‘chamber of sober second thought’ are appointed, not because of their expertise (many of them have none), not because of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how a narrow focus on pursuing a seemingly safe path to a bare majority government may have contributed to the B.C. NDP’s stunning election defeat this week. Needless to say, there’s no lack of other commentary on the election, with Alice Funke, Sixth Estate, Michael Stewart, Paul Ramsey
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Mike Duffy – A Senator With Neither Credibility Nor Honour
Thomas Walkom explains why. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Daniel Boffey catches one of David Cameron’s top aides saying what most Cons leave as an unstated assumption: that recession and depressed wages are good for business (as long as “business” is defined only to mean short-term profits based on exploitation): The prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom writes that yesterday’s minor tinkering aside, the goal of the Cons’ temporary foreign worker program is still to drive down Canadian wages. And Miles Corak argues that the resulting distortion of employment markets shouldn’t be any more acceptable to a libertarian
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Adams rightly points out that there’s no inherent value in centrism merely for the sake of centrism – especially when the spectrum of choices is itself shaped by decades of distorted assumptions: (T)he reality of modern politics is that the muddled middle
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that banks are far from the only corporations who are conspicuously moving jobs offshore to the detriment of Canadian workers and citizens: Unions are being ground down; wages are being ground down. Jobs are being ground out of existence.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom offers an insider’s look at outsourcing: Arlene says any outsourcing scheme begins with the institution’s senior management. Usually, she says, the aim is to transfer about 60 per cent of the affected jobs — often in back-shop areas like information technology
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Linda McQuaig tears into the Cons for exacerbating the gap between the too-rich-to-pay-taxes class and the rest of us: Ordinary citizens diligently spend hours calculating their income and deductions and meticulously filling out forms, fearful of the probing eye and relentless reach
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Just Another Pretty Face
Those of a certain age will remember the much beloved 1970’s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Set in a television newsroom in Minneapolis, the series chronicled life both inside and outside the studio of its many and varied employees, who ranged from the gruff but ultimately lovable Lou Grant,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on Kevin Page’s concerns that the Cons are set to effectively destroy the PBO. And the Star’s editorial board slams Stephen Harper’s war against transparency and accountability in general: Stonewalling, foot-dragging and contempt for Parliament pay. At least that’s what
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Strange Economics of Stephan Harper
Even though he only has a Master’s degree in economics, our Prime Minister likes to present himself as an economist. And, like the myriad other untruths propagated by his regime, perhaps the biggest lie is that resource extraction, especially tarsands oil, is the most prudent activity around which the Canadian
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Plenty more commentators are taking a turn duly mocking the Cons’ Senate shenanigans. Here’s Tabatha Southey: In fact, Mr. Duffy lives and votes in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa, in a home he purchased five years before he was appointed to the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Ongoing Outrage
The host of letters appearing in today’s Star attests to the ongoing public outrage over the Senate porkbarrellers. Although in many ways a mere sideshow to the endemic and systemic problems that face our governance, it nonetheless illustrates that Canadian anger, when it can be aroused, can be formidable. I
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Molly Ball writes about the false assumptions underlying far too much political discussion – with one looming as particularly significant for Canadian purposes: 5. Campaign ads really, really, really don’t make much difference. In this part of the paper, Fiorina’s exasperation becomes
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