Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Michael Enright interviews Linda McQuaig about the loss of public resources to privatization - even in the face of popular opinion:

People don't like big corporations. They don't like the big five or six banks because of the banking fees, etc. So the idea of privatization and private enterprise is a pretty easy target for you, isn't it?

You're absolutely right. Polls show privatization is generally very unpopular. That's why they renamed it public-private partnerships, to make it sound more friendly. And the big banks are anything but popular.

The interesting thing, though, is the gap between the public's attitudes — which is very skeptical about big business, wanting to rein it in, wanting to tax at higher — and our governments. Even though they [the government] don't go around openly siding with business and they're sensitive to the public mood, in their policies they're actively privatizing in ways that are very costly to Canadians. I think it's pretty clear that they're doing it because they're getting that demand from the private sector.

- Robert Booth reports on how private rental housing is harming health outcomes in the UK, while the Economist points out the problems flowing from an obsession with homeownership. Daniel Tencer highlights Canada's lack of transparency in real estate holdings. And the Star's editorial board makes the case for a vacancy tax in Toronto.

- Amelia Hill discusses the glaring gap in life expectancy based on wealth and other social factors.  And Olga Khazan writes about the many interrelated causes of the opioid crisis.

- Monika Dutt and Edward Xie offer a reminder that employers who require sick notes from employees make everyone worse off.

- Finally, Scott Schmidt rightly argues that the purpose of government should be to serve the interests of people, not to facilitate the concentration of capital in the name of economic growth.