This and that for your Sunday reading. – Christine Berry offers a reminder that protecting public health is absolutely necessary for us to see any economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. And Mike Moffitt reports on the prospect that widespread mask use could prevent future waves of
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jason Warick reports on the concern of doctors that Scott Moe’s insistence on reducing protections against the spread of COVID-19 doesn’t take into account the health of older or less healthy residents. And Sheri Lecker notes that the social isolation imposed so
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This and that for your Sunday reading. – Heather Scoffield points out some of the people who have been systematically excluded from any discussion about what steps need to be taken next in response to the coronavirus pandemic, while Althia Raj focuses on self-employed Canadians in particular. Simon Enoch is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Daniel Markovits argues for a wealth tax to fund the relief and rebuilding effort needed in response to COVID-19, while Paul Mason points out the need to not only tax existing wealth but build new economic structures which deter extreme wealth accumulation.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew MacLeod writes about the importance of patience in the face of astroturfed demands to put more workers’ lives at risk in the absence of effective vaccines or treatments against COVID-19. And Rachel Miller highlights the importance of taking social distancing seriously,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Mark Rowlinson points out how the obvious frailty of our current supply chains highlights the need to develop Canadian manufacturing. And Amanda Follett Hosgood notes the importance of localized food production in particular. – Bill McKibben calls out the oil industry’s attempts to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jim Stanford writes about the need for a new Marshall Plan to rebuild once we’ve won the fight against COVID-19: For many years to come, Canada’s economy will rely on public service, public investment and public entrepreneurship as the main drivers of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Eric Holthaus calls out any attempt by the uber-wealthy to paper over their profits from climate destruction with “philanthropic” donations. And David Wallace-Wells notes that while a response to our climate crisis is possible using the resources of society as a whole,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Annie Lowrey writes about the affordability crisis which has left most Americans in dire financial straits even as aggregate economic numbers look reasonably strong: (B)eyond the headline economic numbers, a multifarious and strangely invisible economic crisis metastasized: Let’s call it the Great Affordability
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ben Jenkins rightly calls out Australia’s right-wing government and media for caring not a whit for the people seeing their country go up in flames: If you were holding out hope that the cynical and partisan way we currently talk about climate change
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linsey McGoey discusses the historical case for abolishing billionaires rooted in Adam Smith’s critique of plutocracy: Smith was scathingly critical of the wealthy’s disproportionate power over government policymaking. He complained about the tendency of the rich to shirk tax obligations, unfairly passing tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Will Hutton discusses how the U.S.’ monopolistic economic system threatens anybody who becomes subject to its whims. And Eric Levitz points out how a wealth tax which ensures that everybody is required to contribute to the price of a functional civilization should appeal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Olivia Bowden reports on new research showing that the harmful health effects of air pollution are even worse than previously known. – But in case anybody was under the illusion that we’d expect polluters to pay for the cost of their damage, Chris
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Dayen highlights a rare moment of honesty from the payday loan sharks in their recognition that fair wages would reduce the consumer desperation underpinning their business model. And Brendan Greeley discusses the wealth tax – the merits of which are only
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Stephen Mihm writes that among other positive outcomes, wealth taxes and other progressive tax options reliably produce a boost in life satisfaction for a large number of people (while having little impact on the positional interests of the ultra-rich against each other). And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Justin Fox writes that there are plenty of options available to push for the wealthiest few to pay their fair share toward a functional and compassionate society. And Christine Berry discusses the need for a progressive plan of attack to fundamentally restructure
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Vrishti Beniwal writes about Abhijit Banerjee’s call to put concentrated wealth to better social use by taxing it. – Yutaka Dirks interviews Linda McQuaig about the corporate takeover of far more public wealth than is normally recognized. And Matt Coughlin discusses how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Jackson calls out the Cons for their platform of taking from the many to further enrich the most privileged few. David Macdonald studies what the unspecified cuts promised by the Cons could mean in terms of losses to public services. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joao Medeiros writes about Mariana Mazzucato’s push to have governments use collective wealth and power for the common good. – Matt Elliott wonders why the Libs and Cons have nothing meaningful to say about housing or transit in an election where those
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Linda McQuaig writes about the myth that we have no choice but to pursue privatization – and notes that electric vehicle production represents an ideal opportunity to build public economic capacity: Is it feasible to save the once-vibrant Oshawa complex and transform it
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