Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading - with an economic fairness theme.

- John Burton highlights Saskatchewan's ownership of its own potash resources - pointed out so frequently by Brad Wall in opposing BHP Billiton's bid for PCS - as being exactly the reason why it's foolish to oppose getting fair value for our potash:

Declarations that resources belong to the people of the province are empty words unless they are backed up to give them some real meaning. The assertion that the benefits of development, real as they are, should satisfy us along with royalties as they are does not meet the test of determining whether they fulfill the level of benefits to which the province is entitled. Obviously, the company is entitled to a reasonable return on its investment.

There are other considerations that also have to be taken into account. One is that the potash resource we own is by far the richest in the world. We now have 52 per cent of world reserves. Furthermore, the increasing level of prices must be considered. When royalties were determined some years ago, potash prices were much lower than in succeeding years. If prices go up as they did, the people of the province are entitled to a greater share of that increased profitability. How much that should be, of course, is a matter for review and negotiation.

- And Andrew Jackson points out a study by Peter Burton and Shelley Phipps as to what's really happened in terms of both income and work time for families of various income levels over the past few decades:

Between 1994 and 2006, the average real family income of parents with children in the top 10% rose by 40.3%, compared to 18.9% for those in the middle decile. Meanwhile, average family hours of weekly paid work rose from 61.6 to 67.9 hours for the middle decile, but fell from 76.7 to 74.4 hours for those in the top 10%.
It is not only families in the middle who have been working more paid hours, but also those in the bottom income groups. The norm of two earner families with children has shifted decisively down the income scale.

The authors find that subjective feelings of stress due to too many demands and too little time have also shifted down the the income scale as most families put in more hours of paid work, and have less time to spend with their children and in other activities.

- But I suppose it was inevitable that a sorely-needed focus on inequality would be met with a backlash. First, there's Erica Alini drawing an inexplicable distinction between providing money to those who need it most (which is of course a laudable goal), and finding a source for that money in those who don't.

- And finally, there's shorter Andrew Coyne: Who cares whether inequality is obviously increasing in such arcane terms as "real dollars"? Dammit, everybody I know measures their relative well-being in terms of rates of change with selective endpoints!