Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Elaine Godfrey writes about Iowa's disastrous COVID-19 spread as a prime example of what happens when a government chooses to do nothing about a collective action problem. David Climenhaga compares Australia's successful strategy of containment and clear direction to Alberta's calamitous reliance on personal responsibility to paper over a refusal to take action. And Adam Hunter contrasts Scott Moe's insistence on pitching the relaxation of public health standards against the alarming reality of Saskatchewan's second wave.
- BBC News reports on Argentina's wealth tax which has been passed to ensure that COVID benefits are funded by those who can most afford to pitch in. Christo Aivalis writes that the Libs, Cons and Bloc have shown who they work for by voting down the NDP's modest wealth tax proposal - even as Luke Savage points out that Canada's wealthiest few are accumulating all the more wealth by profiteering off a pandemic.
- Oliver Moore and Shane Dingman report that Toronto is the next Canadian city examining a vacant house tax to ensure that housing is used proportionately more to meet human needs, and less as an investment vehicle. But Douglas Todd writes about the role of hidden foreign money in inflating the gap between Vancouver's incomes and housing prices. And Tim Kiladze notes that apartment buildings are the next targets for capital in seeking to turn needed homes into fully-exploited profit centres.
- Finally, Andrew Leach discusses how Alberta's reliance on regular oil booms looks to be sorely out of date.
No comments:
Post a Comment