Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Nicola Davis, Pamela Duncan and Carmen Aguilar Garcia report that the toll of long COVID in the UK has surpassed a million people. And Jane Dalton reports on the UK's massive increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations - which in past waves had tended to precede similar jumps in Canada. 

- Eric Levitz interviews Adam Tooze about the damage the U.S. Federal Reserve's obsession with suppressing wages figures to inflict on the global economy. And Paul Krugman likewise warns of impending self-inflicted economic damage. 

- Meanwhile, Robinson Meyer discusses the transformative potential of the U.S.' newly-passed climate legislation if it isn't completely counteracted by measures to prevent economic growth. Alex Ballingall reports on the push by Canadian oilsands workers for a transition to work that isn't tied to a dying industry, while Natasha Bulowski reports that the Libs have instead committed to an ever-escalating price tag for the Trans Mountain pipeline. And Aime Williams reports on the IMF's recognition that the costs of a total climate breakdown far exceed the investment needed to avert it to the extent possible. 

- Elizabeth Thompson reports on the growing amount of unpaid taxes identified from the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers - while noting that the Canada Revenue Agency can't say whether it's started a single audit to being recouping money that's been hidden offshore. 

- Finally, Tom Cardoso and Robyn Doolittle report on Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard's warning that the reflexive tendency to suppress and redact information has left Canada's access-to-information system falling far short of its legislated requirements while also costing far more than it should. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jon Henley writes that COVID is surging across Europe as governments and people alike ignore desperate warnings not to let their guard down. And Eric Topol writes about the reality that reinfection produces even worse outcomes than initial exposure - even as governments have largely abandoned any effort either to minimize spread through public health measures, or to reduce individual impacts through further vaccines. 

- Alex Cosh discusses how more and more Canadians are going hungry while corporate profits soar. 

- Fiona Harvey reports on research showing the need for consistently accurate climate messaging for people to understand the urgency of our climate crisis. David Moscrop writes about the stark contrast between Justin Trudeau's spin on climate change and his government's consistent catering to the fossil fuel sector. And Jan Gorski argues that Canada is more than capable of meeting its climate commitments if it stops operating in denial of the steps needed to get there. 

- Meanwhile, John Michael McGrath points out how the determination of where to bury nuclear waste comes down to a decision as to whose water supplies will be put at risk of radioactive contamination if all doesn't go as planned.  

- Finally, Ken Rubin discusses how Canada's access to information system has fallen far short of the promise of open government due to the combination of overly broad exemptions and governments' cynical refusal to comply with either the spirit or letter of access legislation. And Elizabeth McMillan reports on the results of the Mass Casualty Commission's review showing how the RCMP endangered lives by withholding crucial information from the public in the midst of a shooting spree.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mariano Zafra and Javier Salas offer a handy visual aid as to how COVID-19 spreads indoors - showing that masking is a valuable partial solution, but that effective ventilation can significantly reduce community transmission. And Jessica Wong reports on the results of a teachers' survey showing how COVID-19 has dumped far more stress and responsibility on already-overworked educators. 

- Meanwhile, Apoorva Mandavilli discusses how some COVID-19 patients wind up with antibodies which attack their own bodies rather than the virus.

- George Monbiot exposes how the UK's move to privatize the coronavirus response resulted in untrained teenagers being handed the work of health professionals - with corporate cronies pocketing the difference even while failing to perform their duties. 

- Gordon Asmundson writes about five of the most dangerous mental health effects of the COVIS-19 pandemic. And John Paul Tasker reports on the wide range of social ills documented in the latest annual report from the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

- Corey Ranger argues that the Kenney UCP's response to the opioid crisis amounts to nothing less than social murder. And Zak Vescera reports on Saskatchewan's overdose crisis - which continues to worsen as Scott Moe prefers to spend his time posturing against Ottawa rather than saving lives in his own province.

- Campbell Clark discusses how the Trudeau Libs are trying to use the pandemic as an excuse to clamp down on access to information. 

- Finally, Willy Blomme offers a reminder that it's never too late to change the world for the better. And Glen Pearson writes about the need for people to join together in order to accomplish the task.

On personal choices

It remains clear that the victim of Scott Moe's careless driving isn't about to give up on finding out what happened - even if the local media continues to operate under Moe's orders not to so much as ask questions.

But if Moe is avoiding questions about the crash itself, here's a simple one he should have no problem addressing when it comes to Steven Balog's search for answers. 

The information Moe has requested from the RCMP will almost certainly include what would be considered personal information about Moe. And Moe's consent - or lack thereof - figures to have a substantial impact both on how long the request takes to process, and how much will actually be released. 

So if Moe refuses to speak to Balog until it's politically convenient, is he at least prepared to consent to the release of records about the crash? And if he demurs in helping at least to that minimal extent, can anybody see his apology to the cameras as anything but a cynical ruse?

Unmaintainable

Particularly as parents face difficult decisions in determining how to handle a return to unsafe schools in the midst of a pandemic, it's no surprise that the Moe government's secrecy about the infrastructure deficit it's accumulated in the education sector is raising some outrage. But it's particularly jarring to see how the choice to withhold that information affects the province's impending election campaign.

In the Information and Privacy Commissioner's report (PDF) recommending the release of that information, the government used these excuses to claim it was entitled to keep Saskatchewan in the dark about the investment needed to ensure a safe education for our province's children:
- that the numbers should be considered "recommendations" as to needed investment which could affect educational budgeting: para. 15;
- that the numbers could form the basis for budgeting decisions, both overall and between school divisions: para. 23; and
- that the numbers could harm the government's interests by revealing that funding being provided for deferred maintenance actually isn't being used for that purpose: para. 31.

While all of those submissions were rejected, it's worth highlighting how appalling it is that they were made at all.

After all, Saskatchewan's voters will have to decide this fall whether the government is living up to public expectations in managing government institutions (as well as local authorities under its jurisdiction). And it would seem obvious that in order to make any informed decision, we'll need to be able to make comparisons between what investment is needed to make schools safe, what's been allocated, and what's actually been put to its intended purposes.

Instead, the Saskatchewan Party government's explicit position is that the public has no business knowing the scope of the problems it will be shouting about having addressed. And even more tellingly, it's willing to go on the record saying that the government's interests will be damaged if people learn how the funding earmarked for school maintenance is actually being spent.

Needless to say, that should set off massive alarm bells whether or not the numbers are released in advance of the election - particularly as we see the real-life effects of the Saskatchewan Party's underinvestment. And we should be eager to take the opportunity to vote out a premier who thinks that what the province needs and how funding is actually being spent are matters which should be concealed from the public.

New column day

Here, on the "hush memo" issued to Saskatchewan doctors, and the Moe government's eagerness to limit any voice for public servants to an ineffective whistleblower process.

For further reading...
- David Giles previously reported on the Saskatchewan Party's plan for a snitch line to centralize all concerns about the health care system. And Adam Hunter's initial report includes the original SHA memo.
- The Public Interest Disclosure Commissioner's most recent annual report is here (PDF). And the relevant legislation is here (PDF): see in particular the limited scope of "wrongdoing" under section 3 which may be addressed, as well as the Commissioner's discretion not to investigate matters of policy choice in section 16(1)(d).
- Finally, Murray Mandryk has also weighed in.

On buried dangers

There have been a few recent reports dealing with issues surrounding the Northern Village of Pinehouse - including a systematic refusal to answer access to information requests to which continued at last notice, the disappearance of the village's website and public records, an inspection recommending the removal of Pinehouse's mayor and a councillor which has turned into a formal inquiry and audit, and the recusal of Finance Minister Donna Harpauer from all discussions due to a close personal connection to the councillor in question.

But most of the media discussion of the village's current circumstances avoids a crucial piece of background information - even as the mayor who has also been recommended for removal identifies the significance of the issue, without recognizing that it provides no excuse for thumbing his nose at legal obligations.

The relationship between Pinehouse and the nuclear industry has long been the source of justified concern. The same leadership now dismissing any obligations of transparent governance include the same people behind a sketchy deal which included millions of dollars in payments from Areva and Cameco in exchange for a cover-up of the social and environmental impacts of uranium mining.

And the village's leadership tried to volunteer Pinehouse for a nuclear waste disposal site through communications - which were exposed through what was then at least a marginally functional access to information system under the current administrtion. The attempt to become a dumping ground for radioactive waste was ultimately ruled out due to a lack of support in the community.

So let's turn the spin around.

Does it make sense that Pinehouse would be uniquely unable to meet its access to information obligations - both compared to its own history and compared to other Northern and rural communities - even as it receives substantial funding from the uranium industry to cover what would normally be municipal expenses?

Does it make sense that Pinehouse would be unable to meet basic access to information requirements, but have enough spare resources lying around to provide free accommodations to cabinet ministers whenever they see fit to stop by? And wouldn't cabinet ministers themselves be expected to notice the problem with accepting that type of gift before somebody else identifies it?

Ultimately, Pinehouse looks only to be a particularly vivid example of the Saskatchewan Party's governing mindset in both its service of industry over people, and its contempt for accountability. And everybody rightly looking at Pinehouse and asking how its administration can be left in place should be asking the same about the province.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Josh Bornstein writes that in Australia like elsewhere, the combination of increasing corporate profits, stagnant wages and resulting inequality can be traced to the reduced bargaining power of workers. Jim Stanford notes that New Zealand offers an example as to how to reverse the pattern.And Robert Reich highlights why we shouldn't accept the crocodile tears of the uber-rich seeking to shape any response to growing inequality to protect their own disproportionate concentration of wealth:

If Dimon and the others were serious about helping most American workers – whose real wages have been going nowhere for decades and job security is dwindling – they could use their outsized political influence to push for laws requiring CEOs to consider all their stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Rather than make it harder for workers to unionize, they could fight to make it easier, and to give workers larger voice in management decisions and a greater share of the profits.

Rather than reflexively seek tax cuts, they could push to raise taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans like themselves, so there’d be more school funding to prepare American kids for the jobs of the future.

They could seek a higher minimum wage, a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, universal healthcare, and other measures to make left-behind Americans more secure.
...
(A)s heads of institutions with the greatest influence over American politics, they also have a duty to the common good and are uniquely positioned to advance it.

For 40 years, CEOs of America’s largest corporations and Wall Street banks have abdicated this responsibility.

We are now living with the consequences. Jamie Dimon and the Business Roundtable can see those consequences as well as anyone.

Rather than announce token jobs programs, they’d be better served seeking to increase the economic and political power of left-behind Americans – many of whom will otherwise continue to vote for demagogues who only make them feel powerful.

- Meanwhile, Joe Demanuelle-Hall highlights the beginning of strike action to force Amazon to treat workers with a modicum of respect and dignity.

- PressProgress reports on the Libs' school meal program which features precisely zero funding.

- In a reminder as to how discriminatory policy seldom survives contact with any system designed to ensure fairness, Nicholas Keung reports on the Federal Court's determination that the Harper Cons' attempt to negate the rights of refugees by labeling specific countries of origin as "safe" is unconstitutional. And Patrick White reports on a judgment awarding tens of millions of dollars in damages against Correctional Service Canada for using solitary confinement to warehouse prisoners with mental health needs.

- Riki Ott and Jack Siddoway point out that while fossil fuel flacks try to pretend there have been major advances to limit the risk associated with offshore drilling and ocean transportation of oil products, the reality is that there's been substantially no improvement in the response to oil spills since the Exxon Valdez disaster. And Laura Parker writes about the need for a coordinated international response to the growing plastic waste crisis.

- Finally, Sean Holman discusses the need for massive improvements in the flow of information between governments and citizens - both to ensure that we know what our leaders are doing, and to require them to listen to the will of the public.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Nathan Robinson discusses how the language of "meritocracy" is used to entrench structural inequality:

The inequality goes so much deeper than that, though. It’s not just donations that put the wealthy ahead. Children of the top 1% (and the top 5%, and the top 20%) have spent their entire lives accumulating advantages over their counterparts at the bottom. Even in first grade the differences can be stark: compare the learning environment at one of Detroit’s crumbling public elementary schools to that at a private elementary school that costs tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are high schools, such as Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, that have billion-dollar endowments. Around the country, the level of education you receive depend on how much money your parents have.

Even if we equalized public school funding, and abolished private schools, some children would be far more equal than others. Two and a half million children in the United States go through homelessness every year in this country. The chaotic living situation that comes with poverty makes it much, much harder to succeed. This means that even those who go through Singer’s “front door” have not “gotten in on their own”. They’ve gotten in partly because they’ve had the good fortune to have a home life conducive to their success.

People often speak about “equality of opportunity” as the American aspiration. But having anything close to equal opportunity would require a radical re-engineering of society from top to bottom. As long as there are large wealth inequalities, there will be colossal differences in the opportunities that children have. No matter what admissions criteria are set, wealthy children will have the advantage. If admissions officers focus on test scores, parents will pay for extra tutoring and test prep courses. If officers focus instead on “holistic” qualities, pare. It’s simple: wealth always confers greater capacity to give your children the edge over other people’s children. If we wanted anything resembling a “meritocracy”, we would probably have to start by instituting full egalitarian communism.
...
There’s something perverse about the whole competitive college system. But we can imagine a different world. If everyone was guaranteed free, high-quality public university education, and a public school education matched the quality of a private school education, there wouldn’t be anything to compete for.

- Nick French similarly writes that an expensive and exclusive university system serves mostly to create social immobility. Jamiles Lartey points out that there are plenty of legal mechanisms used to give children from rich families unfair advantages beyond the illegal ones exposed this week. Patti Bacchus focuses in on the problems with exclusive private schools in particular. Matt Kwong contrasts the right's trumped-up complaints about affirmative action against the actual factors which prevent fair access to post-secondary education. And Clare Lombardo notes that it's particularly pernicious that accessibility standards for students with disabilities are being illegally exploited for cash.

- Franklin Foer discusses the broader battle - and lack of success - against political and economic systems based on corruption. And Charlie Angus points out how the SNC-Lavalin scandal pulls back the curtain on Ottawa's similarly compromised power culture, while David Pugliese reports on the illegal outing of an attempt to find out about defence industry abuses as an example of the steps governments willingly take to undermine reporting of corporate wrongdoing.

- Finally, Matthew Taylor, Arthur Neslen and Libby Brooks report on the massive climate strikes taking place today involving students from around the globe. Matt Ford notes that an emerging generation is rightly seeing the threat of impending climate breakdown as its motivating cause. And Abraham Gutman writes that a people-driven Green New Deal may be the source of hope needed to end multiple forms of despair - including the addictions crisis created by the pharmaceutical industry.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Joel French discusses the need for Alberta to implement a more thorough and progressive tax system in order to ensure it has the revenue to support its residents. 

- Meagan Day highlights how Bernie Sanders' new labour bill would empower workers and enhance workplace democracy:

The bipartisan neoliberal attack on unions, which began in earnest in the 1970s, has been enormously effective in undermining the power of the United States labor movement. As a result, the percentage of US workers who currently belong to a union is about 10 percent, down from its peak of nearly 28 percent in 1970.

Again this problem is fundamentally political, stemming from the balance of power in our society and not from a natural or inevitable economic process. The solution, too, has to be political — and it’s in that spirit that Bernie Sanders has introduced a new bill called the Workplace Democracy Act, which aims to clear obstacles to the labor movement’s growth, and ultimately increase collective worker control over the economy. The chances of such a bill passing in a GOP-controlled legislature (or even in a Democrat-controlled legislature; a weaker bill was opposed by moderate Democrats during the Obama administration) are basically nil, but Sanders’s bill is a strong political move anyway. It signals an uncompromising commitment to unions and invites other politicians to support an ambitious vision of a revitalized movement for worker power — or oppose that vision at their own risk.

The Workplace Democracy Act makes three crucial interventions. First, it would overturn a provision in the 1947 Taft-Hartley law that replaced card check — a system where employers have to recognize a union if more than 50 percent of employees in a particular bargaining unit say they want one — with an elaborate secret-ballot election process overseen by the National Labor Relations Board...A national card check system would allow workers to unionize by simple majority, avoiding the messy electioneering process that’s tilted in favor of employers, who inevitably have more resources.

Second, Sanders’s bill would repeal so-called “right to work.” Also a legacy of the Taft-Hartley Act, right to work prevents unions from negotiating contracts with employers that require all employees to join or pay a bargaining fee to the union...

Third, according to some reports, Sanders will seek to increase financial penalties on employers who fire workers for union organizing, a practice that is illegal but ubiquitous, due in part to the lack of consequences. The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that “one-in-five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign.” The share of union drives that saw illegal firings of workplace activists rose steadily from the the mid-seventies to the mid-2000s. The paper’s authors note that employers “are unlikely to fire workers randomly, or simply for expressing pro-union views. Employers maximize the return to illegal firing by focusing on union activists.” The result is a climate of fear and a chilling effect on union activism, especially organic leadership among the rank-and-file, who are the least likely to take risks regarding their job security. Corporations are not currently forced to pay penalties when they’re caught retaliating against labor activists — all they need to do is make up lost income, which is not sufficient to distance them from the practice.

- Paul Barrett writes that contrary to the trumped-up complaints of the bigoted right, the only real threat to free speech on campus is the precarious work environment which prevents far too many part-time instructions from speaking up. And PressProgress notes that right-wing astroturf operations are still flouting Canada's income tax laws by pretending not to be involved in political activity.

- Finally, Robert Bea notes that Canada's environmental assessment process has approved BP to conduct offshore drilling based on the same assertions which were rejected by Australia. And Rob Antle reports on Husky's attempt to suppress information about a near-miss incident off of the coast of Newfoundland.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Simon Enoch offers his take on Saskatchewan's latest budget - including what little the Saskatchewan Party has learned, and how much it's still getting wrong:

(W)hile the 2018 budget is more measured in that it doesn’t replicate a 2017 budget that saw cuts and tax increases land disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor while simultaneously lavishing multiple tax breaks on corporations, it certainly doesn’t do the more vulnerable in our province any favours. The province is suspending the Saskatchewan Rental Housing Supplement (SRHS), which will force the poorest in the province to devote even more of their meagre earnings towards rent. This continues the government’s myopic focus on wrenching cost-savings from programs explicitly designed to support the poorest in the province. While the government did increase education spending by $30 million, it restores little more than half of the $54 million that was cut last year. School boards will be forced to find even more “efficiencies” in the classroom, even as student enrolment expands.  As we have seen in the past, these “efficiencies” seem to fall disproportionately on special needs supports and programs.

If there is a small sliver of a silver-lining in this budget, perhaps it’s the government’s growing recognition that austerity during a downturn is bad economic policy. It’s better to allow positive economic growth fight your deficits than deep cuts that can jeopardize positive economic growth, a point the CCPA Saskatchewan Office has been at pains to make over the past few years. After two years of negative economic growth, the economic assumptions in the 2018 budget are betting that a return to positive economic growth will do much of the heavy lifting of fighting the deficit. While this is welcome, it further throws into question the wisdom of the 2017 budget cuts and the government’s embrace of austerity, all evidence to the contrary.

- Bruno Caprettini, Fabio Schmidt-Fischbach and Hans-Joachim Voth study the connection between U.S. welfare spending and a willingness to volunteer support for World War II efforts - signalling the reciprocity of expectations between governments and citizens.

- Mike De Souza reports that Justin Trudeau was warned by the civil service that it was pushing the Trans Mountain expansion too quickly and without adequate consultation. And Gary Mason points out how Trudeau's bungling of the issue could cost him support among all kinds of voters no matter what ultimately happens with the pipeline proposal.

- Tom Korski exposes the Libs' commissioning and placement of state-sponsored "news". And Alex Boutilier reports on what may be the most appalling suppression of actual government records yet, as Library and Archives Canada wants to wait eighty years to respond to a single access-to-information request.

- Finally, Lana Payne offers a warning about the spread of anti-social, right-wing populism across much of Canada.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The Canadian Press reports on new research showing how wealth shocks at any level of income or wealth are associated with a higher risk of mortality:

Middle-aged Americans who experienced a sudden, large economic blow were more likely to die during the following years than those who didn't. The heightened danger of death after a devastating loss, which researchers called a "wealth shock," crossed socio-economic lines, affecting people no matter how much money they had to start.

The analysis of nearly 9,000 people's experiences underscores well-known connections between money and well-being, with prior studies linking lower incomes and rising income inequality with more chronic disease and shorter life expectancy.
...
About 1 in 4 people in the study had a wealth shock, which researchers defined as a loss of 75 per cent or more in net worth over two years. The average loss was about $100,000.

That could include a drop in the value of investments or realized losses like a home foreclosure. Some shocks happened during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Others happened before or after. No matter what was going on in the greater U.S. economy, a wealth shock still increased the chance of dying.

- And on a related note, Richard Florida points out that Americans are much more anxious and dissatisfied than they were just under a decade ago.

- Sarah Anderson discusses the cumulative dangers of poverty and climate change in causing the spread of pest-borne diseases. And Canada Without Poverty examines the stresses of surviving on a low income - including the lack of access to basic dental care which many Canadians take for granted.

- Meanwhile, Chris Dillow highlights the danger of relying on a single indicator of inequality which may mask the breadth and depth of poverty.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board writes that Canada's access-to-information system is serving as a barrier to accountability, rather than a mechanism to facilitate oversight.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne offers her take on the need for Canada to catch up to the rest of the developed world in providing social supports:

Canada is sitting at a dismal 17 per cent, down at the bottom of the pack with Ireland, Israel, and Latvia. No bragging rights here.

Indeed, Canada doesn’t even reach the OECD average of 21 per cent. It was a surprising finding for many who follow such things.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been though considering what’s been happening in Canada for the past 20 years or so and the dominant narrative that Canada just can’t afford to build a stronger social safety net. And yet based on the size of our economy (our GDP) which really should define our ability to pay, Canada has lots of room to develop a stronger social fabric, including universal childcare.

Of course, that means having an adult conversation about taxes and fair taxation and climbing back from the decades long race-to-the-bottom started by the United States.

In the last 25 years, Canada has reduced taxes by the tens and tens of billions, especially to corporations. At the same time, it has introduced a smorgasbord of tax breaks to the wealthy. We don’t have an affordability problem, we have a revenue problem.

And in the narrow box that public policy and budget discussions have occurred in pushing for increased social spending has become an uphill battle. Those who pushed for a different and more equal kind of Canada were ridiculed by the right and Conservatives who for too long controlled the public policy debate ensuring that cuts to social spending became inevitable and indeed the goal.

But the conversation is shifting.

The conversation now in many circles, even banking circles, is focused on growing the economy by reducing inequality. How do we do that when Canadian household spending has maxed out? Social supports and higher wages.

- CBC News reports on the findings of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault confirming the Harper Cons' muzzling of federal scientists on climate change among other issues. And the Star recounts the difficulties its reporters have had trying to access public documents.

- James Wilt discusses the importance of supply-side policy as part of a transition away from dirty energy, while Brett Dolter highlights the Saskatchewan Party's refusal to deal with the demand side.

- Finally, Cam Fuller offers an apt review of the Sask Party's treatment of the film industry. And Alex MacPherson reports on Scott Moe's personal bankruptcy - which looks to have represented ideal preparation for the leadership of a party bent on pushing the province in the same direction.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Elizabeth Piper reports on Jeremy Corbyn's much-needed declaration that under a Labour government, the financial sector will serve the public rather than the other way around. And George Monbiot comments on the role the left needs to play in reversing the accumulation of wealth and power:

(O)nce you have money and property, you can use it to accumulate more money and property, taking an ever greater share of society’s wealth, through the harvesting of economic rent. By economic rent I mean charging people over the odds to use a non-reproducible resource over which you exercise exclusive control. Think, for example, of the ridiculous price we pay in the UK for train tickets, because the train companies have us over a barrel.

By this means, through no enterprise of their own, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This process has no natural limits. Eventually, as we’ve seen in the past, the very rich can capture almost the entire production of society.

At this point, the debt, destitution and unemployment that results can cause economic collapse: the Great Depression is a good example.

This predicament is not a perversity of the system. It is an innate characteristic. It is bound to work this way, unless there is a political movement capable of breaking the vicious circle of wealth accumulation.
...
The right will never break the power of patrimonial wealth, because the right exists to defend it. But the left, when it remembers what it’s for, exists to confront it.

During the 1940s, when the left was arguably at the peak of its power in mainstream politics, the top rate of income tax in the US rose to 94%, and in the UK to 98%. Economists today look back on these rates and describe them as irrational. They argue that the Laffer Curve suggests that governments raise no further revenue above a rate of about 70%. But this is to miss the point. The point of these taxes was not just to raise revenue, but to break the power of patrimonial capital, and the vicious circle of wealth accumulation and inequality.

- Meanwhile, Frances Ryan discusses how the UK's punitive system for social benefit recipients is doing nothing but adding gratuitous stress for people already struggling to get by.

- Mike de Souza reports on the National Energy Board's attempt to weed out staff for providing accurate information to the media. And Barry Saxifrage examines how continued expansion of the tar sands is utterly incompatible with any serious attempt to meet Canada's already-unambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets, while Marc Jaccard calls out Justin Trudeau's Orwellian attempt to claim we can only cut carbon pollution by increasing it.

- Finally, Daniel Leblanc reports on the parting message of retiring Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault - and particularly the reality that access to information isn't getting any better under the Libs than it was under the Cons. And de Souza notes that the Harper Cons' habit of muzzling federal scientists remains standard operating procedure under Trudeau.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andrew Sheng discusses the role of oversimplified assumptions about economic development in exacerbating wealth and income inequality:

The American era has been very comfortable with the timeless, universal model of the free market. Inconvenient problems such as inequality are market failures, which the state can take care of, ignoring the reality of political capture and vested interests. Free market economics suited the privileged elite because “everyone can get rich, we can always redistribute later”. But once the elite got rich, few paid serious attention to redistribution.

The tax cut proposals in the US prove this. All indicators are that the rich will benefit from them more than the poor. The hope is that the rich will invest and the middle class will spend, while welfare and health care for the needy are cut.

Politics drives economic theory, which legitimises the status quo. Recognising inequality is therefore not difficult. The real question is: what can we really do to reduce inequality?

- The OECD offers an overview of its efforts to measure social capital. And Frank Huyler discusses how institutional breakdowns including regulatory capture by the pharmaceutical industry have played the main part in causing the U.S.' opioid crisis.

- Thomas Walkom writes that Justin Trudeau's agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership confirms that he's primarily interested in appealing to the corporate class. And Andrew Mitrovica discusses how Trudeau's silence makes him complicit in Donald Trump's bigotry.

- David Roberts reports on Colorado's example of renewable energy outclassing fossil fuels as a cheaper and cleaner means of generating power.

- Finally, Stanley Tromp offers some suggestions to modernize British Columbia's access-to-information system (which also bear review elsewhere).

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Matt Bruenig writes that the concentration of wealth and power which is largely being attributed to crony capitalism is a natural byproduct of laissez-faire economics as well:

An economy that distributes the national income based solely on the marginal productivity of each unit of capital and labor is an economy that will still feature massive levels of inequality and poverty. This is so for three reasons:

1. Around half of the population neither works nor owns a considerable amount of capital. Their true factor income is around $0.
2. There are considerable productivity differences between different kinds of jobs, and so wage differences would also remain very high even in the absence of rent.
3. Capital is distributed extremely unevenly and so capital payments would remain very unequal even without rents.

No amount of increasing competition, trimming intellectual property rights, or lowering barriers to entry would solve these problems. More specifically, eradicating rent-seeking would not solve these problems because these problems are not caused by rents. Instead, we need a big welfare state to fix problem one, strong (“rent-seeking”) labor organizations to fix problem two, and the redistribution and socialization of capital to fix problem three.

- Ed Pilkington explores the widespread poverty already present in the U.S. And Heather Keller and Leah Gramlich discuss the massive costs of malnutrition beyond its direct impacts on health care.

- PressProgress exposes how the Harper Cons suppressed the federal government's own research into the connection between mental health issues and terrorism in order to demonize minorities instead.

- Vito Pelici reports on the decrease in public information about Ontario's power system due to privatization. And Beatrice Britneff notes that the Trudeau Libs don't seem to have much interest in appointing a replacement for Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault as her retirement looms in two weeks.

- Finally, Seth Klein, Shannon Daub and Alex Hemingway offer their suggestions to shape British Columbia's referendum on electoral reform.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Steve Burgess points out that we shouldn't be the least bit surprise by the latest news of politically-connected billionaires managing to tilt the tax system in their favour. Ed Broadbent calls for a much-needed end to tax policy that favours the wealthy in efforts to avoid contributing to the public good. And Tom Parkin suggests that Murray Rankin's bill to better regulate international cash flows would offer an important starting point.

- Andy Beckett tells the story of UK Labour's left, and how it has managed to outlast multiple strains of neoliberal leadership to earn a promising opportunity to win power. And Jessica Elgot reports on John McDonnell's call for billions of pounds to be redirected from corporate giveaways to public purposes.

- The Standard discusses how the latest incarnation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership isn't a meaningful improvement over the previous versions.

- Alex MacPherson reports on the utter lack of any analysis or consultation before the Wall government decided to trash the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

- Finally, Geoff Leo reports on the Saskatchewan Party's disappearing e-mails and other efforts to hide what they've done while in office. And Bill Waiser writes that there's plenty more to be discovered and concerned about in the Wall government's avoidance of accountability.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy studies the large-scale use of offshore tax avoidance in the corporate sector, just in time for the Paradise Papers to reveal another set of tax avoidance loopholes being kept open for the benefit of Justin Trudeau's insiders. And Matthew Klein proposes that governments take non-voting equity stakes of corporations up front, rather than having to try to navigate a myriad of tax avoidance techniques to ensure a business pays its fair share.

- Eric Levitz argues that gross imbalances of wealth and influence within the U.S.' political system are more of a threat to a functional democracy than any outside intervention. And the Equality Trust weighs in on the need to encourage civic engagement by placing people on a more equal footing:

With the rungs on the ladder this far apart it is little wonder that social mobility is severely lacking according to the government’s own Social Mobility Commission. Citizenship is a two-way process; in order for people to engage in a positive way with the state, then the state must engage with its citizens in a positive way and protect and respect them. This vast material inequality is now beginning to seep through to matters of life and death with life expectancy levels stalling and infant mortality rates beginning to rise.

The fact that so much of the nation’s wealth is (and is very acutely perceived and felt to be) concentrated in London and the South-East also aggravates this sense of being left behind in other parts of the UK. This is also compounded by disparities in income and wealth between old and young, urban and rural, white and BME communities as well as between men and women – all of which are component parts of our overall economic and social inequality. The only way to overcome all these divisions between us is to actively plan to reduce them. We need the government to commit to a national mission of economic and social renewal based firmly on reducing the gap between rich and poor in the UK.

- Maggie Gillis reports that the simple step of opening up a school for community use can tap into a desire for social connection - making it all the more egregious that governments like that of Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party are trying to shut down or privatize the spaces which can be used for that purpose.

- Meanwhile, Paul Dechene discusses the poverty which remains as a blight on Saskatchewan even through what was supposed to have been a period of prosperity.

- Finally, Beatrice Britneff reports on the Libs' use of a proposed bill which hasn't even been passed yet to limit public access to information.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mike Savage and John Hills write about the respective takes on the sources of inequality provided by Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz. And Michael Spence discusses how economic development needs to be inclusive and based on trust in order to be sustainable:

First, as we concluded in our final report, non-inclusive growth patterns will always ultimately fail. Such patterns cannot produce the sustained high growth that is necessary for reducing poverty and fulfilling basic human aspirations for health, security, and the chance to contribute productively and creatively to society. They underutilize and misuse valuable human resources; and they often give rise to political or social turmoil, often marked by ideological or ethnic polarization, which then leads either to wide policy swings or to policy paralysis.

Our second broad conclusion was that sustained growth requires a coherent, adaptable strategy that is based on shared values and goals, trust, and some degree of consensus. Of course, achieving that is easier said than done.

Many developing countries have experienced extended periods of slow or no growth. In some cases, a country’s leaders are simply confused, and do not understand what needs to be done. In most cases, however, the ingredients of an effective “growth model” are well known, and the problem is a lack of political or social consensus about how to implement it.

Achieving a higher growth equilibrium is rarely a gradual or incremental transition. It requires a discontinuous leap in expectations and policies, and a fundamental shift in the political and social consensus. When these shifts occur, leadership plays a crucial role, by providing citizens with an alternative vision, based on common values, that all stakeholders can support. Such leadership can come from above, from below, or from a representative group. But as the persistence of low-growth equilibria in many countries shows, it often doesn’t come at all.

- Meanwhile, Owen Jones points out that UK Labour is taking much-needed steps to empower members and activists to push for meaningful social change.

- John Milloy laments the demonization of taxes as a barrier to the discussion of important policy choices - though it's questionable whether the public buys that rhetoric to the same extent as the political class. And Linda McQuaig comments on the problems with a tax system which is designed to further privilege people with the most wealth and connections.

- The CCPA and the PBO (PDF) have each offered new studies showing that Canada would save billions of dollars each year (while improving public health) with a national pharmacare program. And the Canadian Labour Congress calls for immediate action to implement a universal prescription drug plan.

- Finally, Jim Bronskill reports on Fred Vallance-Jones' audit of Canada's dysfunctional access to information system - which is only getting worse under the Libs.

New column day

Here, on the corporate sector's expectation that it will be able to write laws and set public policy for its own benefit - and the disturbing number of examples of it being allowed to do just that.

For further reading...
- Jenny Uechl reported on both the secret CAPP meetings which set British Columbia's climate policy in Calgary, and CAPP's view that there's nothing at all wrong with that process.
- Beatrice Britneff and Kyle Duggan report on Apotex' attempt to stifle any investigation by the Lobbying Commissioner into cash-for-access fund-raising.
- Ross Marowits reports on SNC-Lavalin's push not to have fraud or corruption prosecuted as such.
- While I didn't mention the example in the column, Saskatchewan readers should be familiar with the Wall government's suppression of information about the Global Transportation Hub scandal - followed by its document dump only once Brad Wall had a foot out the door.
- Finally, Sean Holman wrote about the importance of access to information at all levels of government. And for those interested, David Common is speaking tonight on access to information in Saskatchewan as part of Right to Know week.