Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Richard Partington reports on new OECD data showing that wages are continuing to soar for the lucky few in the developed world while stagnating for everybody else, as well as on the Rowntree Foundation's observation that single-income families in the UK have fallen far below an acceptable standard of living. Federico Diez and Daneil Leigh chart the connection between corporate concentration and the exploitation of workers and consumers. And Steph Sterling and Marshall Steinbaum examine how the Trump Republicans' tax giveaway to the rich will only make matters worse in the U.S.

- Meanwhile, David Dayen examines how California tax policy was taken hostage by soda companies - who threatened to push a referendum effectively barring municipalities from setting their own revenue policies to unless they were singled out for exemption from taxes which were proving effective both to raise revenue and improve public health. 

- Linda Stamato points out how the Trump administration is making housing even less affordable for the people who need it most. And Sadiq Khan and Ada Colau recognize the importance of treating housing as a right which must be provided to everybody, rather than a profit stream to be withheld where it serves the cause of further enriching owners.

- Stuart Trew offers a preview as to how Doug Ford's "value for money" rhetoric serves purely as a pretense to slash public services.

- Finally, Richard Denniss and Fergus Green point out the economic futility of undermining any climate change policy by pouring public money into pipelines.