Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Linda McQuaig notes that the same financial actors who caused the global economic meltdown that's being used as an excuse for austerity measures around the world are themselves making out like bandits - even though the public strongly favours requiring them to at least pay their share:

For the past two years, Americans have repeatedly told pollsters that they support higher taxes on the rich as a way to reduce the deficit. A Washington Post poll last month, for instance, found 72 per cent supported raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000.
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But a radical rump of Republicans, threatening to pull the trigger, succeeded in forcing Democrats to abandon tax increases on the wealthy — at a time when America’s wealthy are as rich as the tycoons of the Gilded Age. Feeling the gun at their temples, the Democrats joined the Republicans in the quest for deeper spending cuts — which will only make the disastrous U.S. unemployment situation worse.

So while programs helping students, the elderly and the poor have been picked over with surgical precision, hedge fund managers can get back to work destabilizing financial markets with full peace of mind, knowing they’ll continue to enjoy a tax rate lower than the mechanics who service their private jets.

- Alison rightly points out that many of the Canadian political media figures enlisted to declare that an incestuous system of the type which spawned the U.K.'s News of the World scandal are also the same people going out of their way to set up exactly that.

- Duncan Cameron comments on some of the factors which make Nycole Turmel an ideal interim choice to lead the NDP's charge, as well as what the NDP needs to do next:

The issues that matter to Canadians are jobs and incomes, access to public services, healthcare in particular, environmental protection, and availability of recreation and cultural facilities for family members. These are issues addressed by public sector unions every day. As a noted public sector union leader, Nycole Turmel is well placed to articulate the concerns of Canadians for the future, which is why her appointment was so widely supported by New Democrats.
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In the next six weeks, caucus members will be canvassing Canadians in order to draw up lists of party priorities for the fall. NDP members of Parliament will first want to know how much support there is for Conservative policies. How many Canadians feel spending billions on new fighter jets makes a lot of sense? What degree of support is there for sending giant tanker ships through the coastal waters of British Columbia? How do Canadians feel about retiring on public pensions that will leave many of them below the poverty line?

To the extent they are known, Conservative policies are not popular with Canadians. The problem is that the public does not have a good picture of what the Conservatives are up to. So the Official Opposition needs to publicize widely what the Conservatives are actually doing. How well the NDP is able to fulfill that task -- without being able to count on media co-operation -- will determine how well it serves the public interest.

- Finally, let's close with at least some good news, as Les Whittington's report on Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken highlights the fact that there's at least one watchdog showing some bite in dealing with corporate abuses.