Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Umair Haque is rightly frustrated that we haven't learned and applied obvious lessons about how to fight COVID after two years, while also warning against any assumptions that the Omicron variant will go easy on us. Ian Bogost writes about the realization that due in large part to reckless government choices, we may never make it to a post-COVID future. But Nesrine Malik pushes us to keep fighting to limit the damage we do to the people around us. And CBC News interviews David Fisman about the role of improved masking in stopping the spread of a more contagious variant. 

- Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon talks to Colin Furness about the need to finally acknowledge - and act on - the reality that ventilation systems need to be upgraded to respond to an airborne pathogen. And Kathryn May reports that the federal government has delayed plans to push public employees back into common office spaces. 

- Matt Stoller discusses how the factors causing the U.S.' supply chain disruptions include warped corporate incentives which make it profitable for some companies to cause a cargo traffic jam.

- Paul Mason writes that the fall of Boris Johnson is the result of a toxic party ideology which is incapable of acting in the public interest.

- Brandon Doucet argues that it's long past time for Canadians to have truly universal health care, including public coverage for prescription drugs and dental care. And Alex Hemingway writes that fiscal responsibility means making positive investments in people's health and well-being - not imposing punitive austerity. 

- Finally, Patricia Callahan, James Bandler, Justin Elliott, Doris Burke and Jeff Ernsthausen trace how wealth concentrated in the Scripps, Mellon and Mars families in the early 20th century has turned into a twelve-figure pile of assets steered away from any tax responsibilities.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Robert Booth and Heather Stewart report on Boris Johnson's insistence on lifting COVID-19 protections even as case counts rise in the UK. And Annette Dittert discusses how Johnson's government has relied on being able to dispense with concepts such as the rule of law and objective reality whenever it suits their purposes (and without pushback from compliant media).

- Michelle Ghoussoub reports on the rise of climate anxiety in B.C. as extreme weather becomes an everyday reality.

- David Hasemyer reports on the intersection between climate breakdown and fossil fuel infrastructure, as a major Alaska pipeline is on the verge of collapsing and spilling due to melting permafrost. CBC News reports on British Columbia's inability to keep up with the spread of wildfires. 

- Meanwhile, Patrick Brethour writes about the obvious flaws in Scott Moe's demand to receive credit for doing less than the bare minimum to regulate carbon emissions. And D.C. Fraser rightly argues that there's no value in trying to claim future credits based on past actions.

- Finally, Justin Rowlatt reports on a new study discussing the need to make healthy food more readily available compared to junk food alternatives. And Joyce Nelson writes about the movement pushing for meaningful regulation of toxic plastic products in the face of the usual anti-social lobbying from the oil industry. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Bartley Kives discusses the Pallister PC's failure to respond to warnings about a new COVID wave (which of course reflects a pattern among conservative provincial governments). Julia Wong exposes the Kenney UPC's utter failure to organize the contact tracing needed to avoid additional waves in Alberta. 

- Meanwhile, Damien Gayle reports that the UK is looking at reversing its plans to relax public health restrictions based on the dangers of new variants - even as Luke Savage notes that its conservative elites too were perfectly happy to sacrifice large numbers of lives for their own convenience. 

- David Climenhaga writes that the the mass gravesite revealed at the Kamloops Indian Residential School is the latest evidence of the crimes against humanity at the heart of Canada's policy toward Indigenous peoples, while Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond reminds us that it represents just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the disappearance of Indigenous children. The Canadian Press reports on FSIN's call for immediate steps to investigate undocumented deaths and burials at Saskatchewan residential school sites. And CBC News reports on Cowessess First Nation's plans to use radar to begin the work. 

- Finally, Duncan Cameron discusses the need to work on constant organizing to counter the forces of corporate control - particularly among people now disaffected from political and activist involvement. And the Economist discusses Thomas Piketty's work examining the striking drift in education levels between political orientations over the past half century. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jonathan Aldred highlights how COVID-19 has laid bare the folly of a neoliberal economic structure which encourages insecurity, fragility and illusions of control over the unforeseen. And Merran Smith and Michel Letellier discuss how a rebuilding program centred on clean energy will be superior to pouring money into the status quo from an economic perspective and well as an environmental one.

- Meanwhile, Cathal Kelly argues that it's foolish to prioritize the resumption of professional sports at a time when so much of our ability to engage with the world remains at risk due to an ongoing pandemic.

 - Dustin Godfrey reports on the decisions of two of TransMountain's insurers to wash their hands of involvement in pipeline construction. And the Energy Mix notes that Shell is joining other oil giants in writing down assets which aren't likely to be extracted, while Carl Meyer reports that liquid natural gas terminal operators are likewise recognizing they're relying on dubious bets about fossil fuel consumption.  

- But as dirty energy becomes ever less practical based on any fair evaluation, Emily Atkin writes about the cynical efforts of the sector (which has regularly imposed the burden of environmental destruction on minority communities) to associate clean energy with racism.

- Robert Sweeny writes about the Parliamentary Budget Office's most recent findings indicating that racial and economic inequality are worse than ever. Nimalan Yoganathan discusses how Jagmeet Singh's punishment for exposing actual racism in Parliament signals how racial inequality remains entrenched in our political system. And Sajmun Sachdev highlights how Singh's treatment mirrors the plight of many who have been told to apologize for calling out racism.

- Finally, Naomi Lakritz warns about the dangers of returning to the austerity and corporatism of Ralph Klein's Alberta. And Laurie Macfarlane discusses Boris Johnson's anti-democratic plan to put rebuilding in the hands of private developers interested in nothing but further building their own obscene wealth.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Josh Eidelson writes about the fleecing of American labour in general over the past five decades, while E. Tammy Kim discusses the systematic exploitation of workers in the U.S.' nursing homes in particular. And Robyn Urback writes that the Ford government is only repeating its failed response to long-term care homes in addressing the recent spread of COVID-19 among farm workers.

- Carolyn Kormann writes about the unprecedented ecological disasters surfacing throughout the Arctic region. And Sandra Laville and Niamh McIntyre report on the regular sewage dumps by the UK's privatized water operators.

- Robert Pollin makes the case for a Green New Deal which would see the fossil fuel sector nationalized to make way for a transition to renewable energy. And Adam Radwanski notes that a focus on vehicle electrification would at least help Canada catch up to Europe's progress while providing needed direction to our coronavirus recovery efforts. But William F. Lamb, Giulio Mattioli, Sebastian Levi and J. Timmons Roberts study the discourses of delay which have been used for decades to prevent us from pursuing cleaner options.

- Graham Thomson writes about the lack of any meaningful direction in Jason Kenney's excuse for a COVID-19 recovery plan. Mitchell Anderson highlights how Kenney - like Donald Trump - is operating from a place of cultivated antagonism that bears no resemblance to the economic realities facing any responsible government. And George Monbiot writes that while Trump and Boris Johnson aren't exactly repeating the playbook of 1930s fascists, there's no less reason to fear where they plan to take their countries.

- Finally, Seth Borenstein reports on new research showing how kindness (rather than competition) is the basis for the function of human society.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Taylor Scallon discusses how GDP numbers fail to capture the precarious circumstances facing far too many Canadians. Kerri Breen reports on Ipsos' polling showing a majority of Canadians seeing the political system as being rigged in favour of a privileged few. But in case anybody assumed those types of concerns would serve the interests of the populist right, Owen Jones points out how Boris Johnson's plan to push bigotry in response to self-inflicted austerity looks to be failing miserably.

- Karl Smith writes that U.S. Republicans have essentially abandoned any willingness to discuss stimulus in the face of any economic downturn, even as perpetually more evidence shows the long-term harms caused by short-term economic pain.

- Evgeny Morozov discusses how MIT's willing association with Jeffrey Epstein (in order to take his money and launder his reputation) reflects the moral bankruptcy within the tech sector.

- Margot Young examines how the Libs' housing policy falls far short of both the party's own rhetoric and the needs of Canadian residents. And Josh Rubin points out the lack of rental construction even as soaring rents reflect an obvious need.

- Finally, Emily Eaton and Nick Day study how Saskatchewan's education system perpetuates the power of the oil industry.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Noah Smith comments that while we shouldn't necessarily try to adjust GDP for other necessary elements of individual and social well-being, we should avoid treating it as a catch-all measure in assessing policy choices:

GDP does have plenty of flaws, even as an economic indicator. First of all, it leaves out a lot of things that represent real value. When your dad washes the dishes, that represents value creation -- if the dishwashing took place in a restaurant, it would be compensated monetarily, but since it happens for free at home, it gets ignored. GDP also ignores the value of leisure -- if you pay $10 to see a movie in a theater, it gets counted in GDP, but if you have an equal amount of fun hanging out with your friends, that value isn't counted.

Beyond these deficiencies, there’s the broader fact that economic value isn’t the only kind of value. Japanese people, for instance, are on average poorer than Americans in purely material terms, but the very low crime, efficient urban design, and clean streets and buildings has real value that isn't counted in economic statistics. The U.S. and Canada, meanwhile, have an abundance of natural beauty and open space that adds little to GDP, while many European and Asian countries enjoy advantages in health and life expectancy that are also uncounted. These are the kind of things that Bhutan and New Zealand are trying to account for, some of which are also included in the United Nations’ Human Development Index. GDP also doesn’t account for inequality or other issues of distribution.

A third problem with GDP is that it’s not much more than a snapshot of the present. It represents the amount of economic value that’s produced this year, rather than the amount that can be produced sustainably during the coming decades or centuries. Chopping down rainforests, draining aquifers, exhausting topsoil and burning fossil-fuel that contributes to climate change all raise GDP, but don’t necessarily make humanity better off in the long run.
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Instead of trying to update GDP to include sustainability, health, education, happiness, equality, leisure, and safety, leaders should monitor these things independently. Fortunately, there is every indication that most of them do this already.
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So instead of trying to fix GDP, it's better to simply remember its limitations. It is not the one economic number to rule them all, but simply one of a broad set of indicators of a society’s success.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Simms highlights the damage done by neoclassicals economics built around unduly narrow standards for success together with grossly implausible assumptions about the relationship between people and corporate actors.

- Jeffrey Sachs writes that first-past-the-post voting systems represent one of the most important common denominators in the rise to power of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. And James Butler examines how Johnson looks to be handing unprecedented amounts of power to lobbyists looking to enrich their clients at the expense of the public.

- Dale Marshall rightly argues that Canada can't pass the buck when it comes to reining in greenhouse gas emissions. And Michael Segalov points out the need for governments to make public transit a more practical option if we want people to shift away from higher-emitting forms of transportation.

- Finally, Chuka Ejeckam argues that after decades of draconian drug policy which has placed disproportionate burdens on racial minorities, Canada's decriminalization process has been designed to ensure that the gains from a newly legal market are concentrated in already-privileged groups.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Kate Lyons points out the health effects of our climate breakdown, including childhood deaths and the stunting of growth. Pheobe Weston reports on research showing that new heat waves are pushing temperatures past what the human body can handle. And Matthew Yglesias notes that even in the absence of the destruction of our planet's climate, we'd have reason to move away from fossil fuels due to their other harms to health and well-being:

Like suppose climate change actually was just a Chinese myth.

The fact that the energy sector status quo kills tens of thousands of people per year through a totally separate mechanism seems like a big problem.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 1, 2019

- Linda McQuaig offers a reminder that the foreign influence we should be concerned about is the money behind big oil (which is throwing its weight around as the federal election approaches). And Barry Saxifrage reports that we're still increasing the burning of fossil fuels, even as the resulting dangers are clear and alternatives have been developed.

- Meanwhile, Avi Lewis highlights why a Green New Deal is entirely practical and achievable if we put our minds to it. And Damian Carrington notes that according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, just a small fraction of the money now used to subsidize dirty fuel could fully fund a transition to clean energy.

- Will Davies discusses the alliance of rentiers behind Boris Johnson's assumption of power in the UK - and its plans to exploit Brexit at the expense of the public. 

- Finally, Tanya Talaga asks what it will take for Canada to finally and fully end the longstanding water crisis in Indigenous communities.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- CBC News highlights how cost-of-living issues look to play a key role in Canada's federal election. And Jerry-Lynn Scofield points out that current asset valuations and economic assumptions are based on an entirely unsustainable combination of public, private and corporate debt loads.

- Adam Ramsay calls attention to Boris Johnson's government of lobbyists looking to ensure Brexit serves the interests of their wealthy clients. Christian Paas-Lang examines the well-connected donors serving up maximum contributions to both the Libs and Cons. And David Dayen discusses the need for progressive parties to highlight the corruption at the core of gross imbalances of wealth and power.

- Meanwhile, Douglas Belkin reports that the schemes rich Americans are using to game the education financing system include assigning guardianship of children to less wealthy relatives to position them to access financial aid.

- Douglas Todd reports on the employer-driven importation of temporary foreign workers in order to suppress wages and working standards. And PressProgress exposes the federal government's active promotion of pay as low as $3 per hour in the agri-food sector as part of an attempt to woo particularly exploitative employers.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix and Leader-Post editorial boards discuss the importance of fighting poverty in order to prevent crime.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alastair Campbell discusses how the latest group of right-wing demagogues has progressed from being post-truth to being post-shame.

- IMFBlog examines how the perpetual slashing of corporate tax rates has eliminated needed public revenue - particularly in lower-income countries - without producing any desirable outcomes.

- Tim Ross writes about the need for a renewed commitment to co-op housing to ensure stable and safe homes are available for everybody.

- Jim Bronskill reports on Nathalie Provost's resignation from the Libs' federal firearms advisory committee which had proven to be just for show. Nora Loreto points out that we can readily afford to eliminate student debt if we care to do so, rather than seeking to burden young people with long-term liabilities to further enrich the wealthy. And Max FineDay points out that the genuine hope for reconciliation among young people in Canada needs to be supported by the political will to ensure Indigenous people are no longer facing systemic disadvantages.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail's editorial board warns that we can expect the Libs to approach this year's election season with scare tactics to try to paper over their failings in government.