Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Paul Krugman duly mocks Donald Trump's attempt to turn any discussion of social investment into a threat of "socialism":

Some progressive U.S. politicians now describe themselves as socialists, and a significant number of voters, including a majority of voters under 30, say they approve of socialism. But neither the politicians nor the voters are clamoring for government seizure of the means of production. Instead, they’ve taken on board conservative rhetoric that describes anything that tempers the excesses of a market economy as socialism, and in effect said, “Well, in that case I’m a socialist.”

What Americans who support “socialism” actually want is what the rest of the world calls social democracy: A market economy, but with extreme hardship limited by a strong social safety net and extreme inequality limited by progressive taxation. They want us to look like Denmark or Norway, not Venezuela.

And in case you haven’t been there, the Nordic countries are not, in fact, hellholes. They have somewhat lower G.D.P. per capita than we do, but that’s largely because they take more vacations. Compared with America, they have higher life expectancy, much less poverty and significantly higher overall life satisfaction. Oh, and they have high levels of entrepreneurship — because people are more willing to take the risk of starting a business when they know that they won’t lose their health care or plunge into abject poverty if they fail.

- Meanwhile, Aamna Mohdin reports on new research showing that nearly a million more young adults in the UK are living with their parents due to an economy which has kept wages stagnant while driving prices and debt upward.

- PressProgress points out the problems with the Libs' infrastructure bank which prioritizes corporate profits over the delivery and accessibility of needed services.

- Murray Mandryk discusses how Scott Moe is feeding into anti-immigrant bigotry by putting pipeline development above all else. And Sharon Kelly writes that the Keystone pipeline - one of the Saskatchewan Party's previous hobby horses - is once again spilling oil while failing to live up to promised environmental standards.

- Finally, Felicity Lawrence writes that our current food system is affecting both our health, and that of our planet.