Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Hugh MacKenzie reminds us how quickly Canada's richest CEOs will exceed the income of the average Canadian worker on the year's first work day. And James Surowiecki takes a look at how the U.S.' corporate sector is fleeing any social obligations by sending profits offshore. 

- Stephen Kimber rightly slams the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies for demanding austerity which will only make a stagnant economy even worse.

- Roderick Benns suggests that Canada take the lead in developing a basic income to combat inequality at home and set an example for the rest of the world.

- Eric Doherty points out that any new infrastructure program will have significant consequences for our ability to rein in climate change - and there's reason to worry the Libs will focus on projects which make matters worse. And Evan Herrnstadt and Erich Muehlegger study (PDF) a connection between air pollution and violent crime.

- Finally, Scott Gilmore highlights the rarity of terrorist violence compared to far more significant risks:

In France, cervical cancer is seven times more lethal than terrorism, but Hollande would be ridiculed for convening a special session of parliament to address that threat. In the U.S., you are 28 times more likely to be shot by a policeman than by a terrorist. But that’s a problem the Republican primaries won’t be debating. And the murder rate in Edmonton is almost twice that in Paris. Although I suspect the pitiable school trustees lack the math skills required to decipher “homicides per 100,000 people per annum,” or the common sense to know what to do with that information.
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In the New Year, learn to ignore the primal fears in your brain and relax. Remind yourself that you’re safe; safer than you were last year and every year before that. But remember that others, people in the Middle East and Africa, aren’t. And don’t let your politicians go on about how they’re going to protect us; demand to know what they’re doing to protect those less fortunate than us. Also, please check in with your doctor. Cancer is several thousand times more likely to kill you than a suicide bomber.