Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Neil Irwin examines one of the key ideas underlying the U.S. Democrats' economic plans, being that workers need to have meaningful choices rather than being trapped by a limited and slanted set of available employers and work structures:

Labor market monopsony is the idea that when there isn’t enough competition among businesses, it is bad news for workers. When an industry includes only a few big companies, they don’t have to compete with one another as hard to attract employees — and so end up paying their workers less than they would if there were true competition. It’s the flip side of how monopoly power lets companies charge higher prices to consumers.
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The talk of monopsony is part of a shift in the policy tools that many left-of-center economic thinkers see as most promising for addressing the economic challenges of poor and middle-class Americans. Rather than focusing on policies that amount to redistribution — tax rates, the social welfare system — they are looking at how the rules of the economic game shape people’s outcomes.

Some use a term for this set of policies coined by the Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker: predistribution policy. This is policy that shapes how the market works in the first place, as opposed to redistribution policy, which assumes a free market will generate growth and then uses taxes and spending to give a lift to the economy’s losers.

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Besides the monopsony research, the Obama White House has focused on evidence that inequality is fueled by a shift away from labor unions and by corporate consolidation within industries.

Elsewhere, the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank in New York, has explored the interplay between the outsize growth of the financial industry and pay for top corporate executives and the slow growth in the typical worker’s wages. And last week, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth issued recommended strategies for the next administration, which included ensuring that the minimum wage covers workers who depend on tips, and making sure that modern supply chains do not inhibit the creation of good jobs.

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Many of the policies under discussion — a higher minimum wage, or tougher antitrust enforcement — have long been supported by liberal economists and politicians. What has changed is that they are being emphasized as a first-order set of priorities, and as part of a unified body of work.

- Emma Teitel discusses new research showing that the gap in opportunity between generations can't be explained by differences in work ethic - as in fact, millenials are more willing than their baby-boomer predecessors to put work first. And Angella MacEwen comments on a joint effort to propose a more fair system of employment leave for today's workers.

- Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the structure of the Ontario basic income pilot project proposed by Hugh Segal. And Roderick Benns highlights the indicators which will signal the success of the concept.

- Mainstreet Research finds that a strong majority of Saskatchewan respondents want to see major changes to the province's political financing rules. And the Canadian Press reports that the Saskatchewan NDP is working to make those changes a reality despite the foot-dragging of a Wall government determined to keep the out-of-province donation taps flowing.

- Finally, Brett Dolter examines how Brad Wall's white paper is anything but a credible climate change plan - as it relies on little but cherry-picked assumptions and bluster to paper over a commitment to fighting against progress. And Bruce Johnstone writes that there's no reason to take Wall's posturing toward the federal government seriously. 

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Bruce Johnstone notes that rather than further attacking public services which have already been under siege throughout his stay in office, Brad Wall and his government should be looking to question Saskatchewan's inexplicable giveaways to businesses:

Well, if Doherty is looking for some “low-hanging fruit” to make our tax system more “competitive, simple and fair,” he might want to start plucking a few of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on subsidies, exemptions and tax breaks for rural Saskatchewan, especially the farm sector.
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According to the 2016-17 budget, the rationale for tax exemptions or tax expenditures for certain sectors, like manufacturing, farming and small business, is to allow governments to “attain some of their social and economic goals by reducing the taxes paid by certain taxpayers.”

But provincial auditor Judy Ferguson couldn’t find any justification for the fuel tax exemption. Her 2016 report says the government “has not clearly defined, in a measurable way, its fuel tax exemptions for farmers and primary producers.” And the fuel tax program is getting more expensive; since 2010, the cost has increased by $22.5 million, she said.
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When the provincial government or its third-party agencies, like health districts, start cutting funding to emergency shelters, laying off nurses, closing down community correctional facilities, shutting down northern educational programs, reducing subsidies to low-income families and people with disabilities, then it’s time to take a long, hard look at the revenue side of the ledger.

Like Doherty said, everything should be on the table.

- Sujata Dey highlights the difference between trade and plutocracy, while noting that the agreements sold as promoting the former are almost entirely oriented toward entrenching the latter. Daniel Gros points out that we're all worse off as a result of blind faith in big business, while even Lawrence Summers is recognizing the reality that the combination of economic stagnation and inequality is unsustainable. And Maude Barlow and José Bové discuss the damage the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement would do to the public interest.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on the needed push for decent work in Ontario - while noting that businesses are predictably trying to avoid offering anything of the sort. And Hannah Finnie notes that the millenial generation is seeing bleak employment prospects as its reward for pursuing unprecedented levels of education - but points out that a renewed union movement is vital to ensuring security for new workers.

- Finally, Michael Vonn warns that CSIS is assuming all the powers of a secret police force - which we should see as antithetical to government by and of the people.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford writes about the obvious problems with globalization as it's currently structured - and the need to meaningfully take into account the public interest before anybody other than the investor class can be expected to participate in the process:

The reality is that hundreds of millions of people across the developed world (and in many developing countries, too) have been hurt by globalization as presently practised: whereby mobile private companies decide what to produce and where, and every jurisdiction can only bow down to business in hopes of capturing a slice of scarce investment and jobs.

We must remember that the economic theory underpinning free trade assumes that all resources (including all workers) will be productively employed, that trade flows will be balanced and mutually beneficial, and that the efficiency gains from trade will be shared throughout society. In the quantitative economic models routinely trotted out to “sell” each new trade deal, these assumptions are embodied in mathematical equations imposing full employment, balanced trade and the existence of a “representative household” (portraying each country as one big family, happily sharing all its wealth). None of these assumptions has any connection to reality; they are all imposed for the mathematical (and ideological) convenience of the economists.

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Going to those devastated communities, the fodder for Brexit and Mr. Trump, and telling them they aren’t really unemployed, and are in fact better off than they think they are, will hardly turn the tide of this debate. If we want to avoid the isolationism, xenophobia and worse that Mr. Trump and his ilk portend, we must start by recognizing that there is indeed a downside to free trade.

Acknowledging that modern free trade produces losers as well as winners allows us to start developing and implementing policies to moderate those downsides – and purposely share the upsides. This means actively managing trade flows, limiting beggar-thy-neighbour trade surpluses, supporting incomes for all workers, ensuring sensible and fair exchange rates, and actively fostering domestic investment in desirable, trade-intensive industries.

All this implies a much bigger role for government in managing globalization than free-traders imagine. But it would be an infinitely more effective response to the gathering backlash, than trying to convince suffering people that they have nothing to complain about.

- Owen Jones highlights the need for Labour (like other progressive parties) to offer a voice to the working class - particularly given the dangers of allowing real insecurity to provide an opening for false populists. And Chris Kahn identifies a contrast in views about avoiding taxes as a key fault line between the likes of Donald Trump and the people whose votes could bring them to power.

- Richard Kozul-Wright weighs in on the problems with an economy built to enrich executives and shareholders at the expense of society at large. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh discusses the importance of workers' rights in the face of employer efforts to make employees' lives more precarious. 

- Brendan Haley points out that Nova Scotia's knee-jerk resistance to a federal carbon price was utterly misguided. Bruce Johnstone informs Brad Wall that a climate obstructionist has no credibility when it comes to criticizing any attempt to solve a global problem. Andrew Coyne observes that the Libs' actual announcement was a modest one. And Toby Sanger offers plenty of suggestions as to how to address any complaints about the effect of a carbon price.

- Finally, Cory Doctorow writes that the Libs' supposed consultation on security policy has turned into little more than a sales pitch for total surveillance. And Alison Crawford notes that a roundtable on the community effects of security policy has been left behind even as the state has become more intrusive over the past couple of years.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andre Picard writes about the widespread poverty faced by indigenous children in Canada - and the obvious need for political action to set things right:

The focus of the [CCPA's] report, rightly, is on the children among the more than 1.4 million people in Canada who identify as indigenous, about 4 per cent of the population. Half of that total are “registered Indians,” 30 per cent are Métis, 15 per cent are non-status Indians and 4 per cent are Inuit. More than half of indigenous people live in urban centres.

These figures are a lot to digest, but they should, nonetheless, be the object of much reflection for our politicians and policy makers.

They are, among other things, an eloquent illustration of the fact that Canadian society is stratified by class, by race and by income, a direct challenge to our comfy belief that we are an egalitarian, socially progressive and colour-blind country.

What we look like and where we came from have an inarguable impact on our opportunities, our income and our health. So does where we live.

- Meanwhile, the Star highlights the desperate need for more affordable housing in Ontario (as in many other places). And Bruce Johnstone notes that the Wall government is going out of its way to hide deliberate choices to raise basic utility costs.

- Angella MacEwen reminds us of the wide range of workers who earn less than a reasonable minimum wage.

- Ivan Semeniuk reports on the dangerous air pollution emanating from the tar sands even beyond their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. And Judith Lavoie takes a look at the price the public has to pay in dealing with abandoned mine sites.

- Finally, Maxwell Cameron comments on the widespread perception that the B.C. Liberal government is thoroughly corrupted. And Desmond Cole writes that the replacement of Rob Ford with John Tory hasn't changed Toronto's basic focus on favouring the wealthy at the expense of everybody else.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Murray Dobbin argues that the Trudeau Libs' response (or lack thereof) to wealthy tax cheats will tell us what we most need to know about their plans for Canada.

- Meanwhile, Tonda MacCharles reports on Justin Trudeau's plans to abandon Canada's longstanding commitment (however neglected in practice) to providing a fair level of foreign aid. And Tom Boggioni exposes the U.S.' use of foreign aid threats to try to keep cancer medicine unaffordable in Colombia.

- Sarah Neville points out how workplace power imbalances can create an environment ripe for sexual harassment and other forms of employee abuse. And David Graeber theorizes that part of the current gap can be explained by the proliferation of what he describes as "bullshit jobs".

- Benjamin Radcliff examines the relationship between political systems and happiness economics, and finds that social democracy is the system most conducive to well-being:

The policies most conducive to human wellbeing turn out to be essentially the same ones that Einstein himself originally suggested: those associated with social democracy. In reviewing the research in 2014, Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, a political scientist at Rutgers University-Camden in New Jersey, found that ‘societies led by leftist or liberal governments (also referred to as welfare states)’ have the highest levels of life satisfaction, controlling for other factors. Looking across countries, the more generous and universalistic the welfare state, the greater the level of human happiness, net of other factors.
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If commodification is so harmful to humans, while the greater market system itself contributes so much to human society, the obvious solution is to maintain the essential features of the market while introducing public policies that serve to ‘decommodify’ workers and their families. Simply put, a society is decommodified to the extent that individuals can maintain something like a middle-class existence if they are unable to successfully sell their labour power as a commodity due to illness, old-age, disability, the need to care for a family member, the desire to improve one’s position through further education, or simply the inability to find (good) jobs when times are hard. The greater the level of decommodification, the easier it is for more people to survive without winning in the labour market.

The creation of a social safety net (the much-maligned ‘welfare state’) is essential to decommodifying people. It assures that those unable to find work will be provided with a minimum income, coupled in its most expansive form with other programmes that limit the extent to which one’s wellbeing is dependent on income – such as ‘family allowances’ (ie child support payments provided by the public), subsidised daycare and housing, and the availability of healthcare as a social right, ie as something (like police protection) that one receives because one is a citizen, not because one can pay for it.

Labour unions also play a vital role in helping decommodify people, by providing a degree of protection to workers against the arbitrary whims of employers; the higher wages and benefits of unionised workers tend to raise the wage floor for all. Finally, labour market regulations can cover all employees, even those not in labour unions. These protections, in some countries, protect all workers, assure them paid vacation and sick days, maintain high levels of workplace safety, and might even (as in codetermination schemes) provide workers with a say in how the business is managed. All this serves to not only reduce insecurity and other forms of stress, but helps contribute to an environment in which workers feel that they are treated with the dignity and respect all persons deserve.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone observes that the Saskatchewan Party's corporatist economic philosophy - like that of so many other right-wing governments - is failing miserably even on its own terms.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Star-Phoenix calls for Saskatchewan's election campaign to focus on the future rather than the past. And Paul Orlowski reminds us of the continued callous corporatism that's in store if Brad Wall holds on to power.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Johnstone points out that the Saskatchewan Party's spin on the past bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality. And Geoff Leo fact-checks Wall's attempts to avoid responsibility for his government's Global Transportation Hub land scandal.

- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives offers up its alternative federal budget aimed at both reducing poverty and generating development. And in one hopeful (if only preliminary) step, the Libs appear willing to consider strengthening Canada Post by looking at banking and other services, rather than treating stagnation and privatization as the only options.

- Danyaal Raza and Ryan Meili discuss the economic and health costs of expecting people to work while sick (or requiring them to forfeit pay if they can't).

- Finally, Tabatha Southey rightfully challenges the idea that activism is something to be criticized rather than applauded - and its roots in the belief that there are few if any social problems left to be ameliorated:

In part, the rejection of activism as a concept stems from a belief that a sufficient amount of change has already been made. It has to stop. We’ve literally done enough as a society – not-society can stop asking for stuff now.

It’s a way of thinking that emerges when people frame the righting of great historic wrongs (letting the other half of the population vote, not literally owning people) as concessions that one group has personally made, as largesse bestowed in some sort of ongoing negotiation for which there must be quid pro quo.

That’s just not how this better-society thing works, people. Yes, it’s not illegal to be gay any more. That doesn’t mean straight people get to demand more seasons of Everyone Loves Raymond and free Dockers when next everyone’s back at the bargaining table.

The constant disparaging of activism – the casual acceptance of the idea that the more dedicated a person is to a subject, the less they are worth listening to on that subject – has been fashionable for a while now.

The plethora of “Taxpayers for …” and “Concerned Citizens Against …” groups is a reaction to that trend. These people are “concerned,” about an issue, you see, having apparently rejected “Peeved” and “Indignant” as descriptors. We are to understand that while, yes, these groups are campaigning to bring about political or societal change through vigorous action, the difference is they’re right.

All of this is how we come to the less-than-clarion call to arms, “I am not an activist.”

Well, lady, take out another bus shelter, when you’re ready to say you are.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Bill McKibben offers his take on the news that the entire northern hemisphere has reached two degrees Celsius above its normal temperature level, including the increased urgency it creates in reining in climate change. And Bruce Johnstone writes about Brad Wall's losing battle to keep promoting the unfettered and unpriced pollution of our atmosphere.

- Matthew Desmond comments on the connection between unaffordable housing and the other stressors resulting from poverty and inequality:

Poor families are stuck. Because they are already at the bottom of the market, they can’t get cheaper housing unless they uproot their lives, quit their jobs and leave the city. Those with eviction records are pushed into substandard private housing in high-crime neighborhoods because many landlords and public housing authorities turn them away. When poor families finally find a new place to rent, they often start off owing their landlord because they simply can’t pay the first and last month’s rent and a security deposit.

When tenants are behind, protections designed to keep housing safe and decent dissolve. Tenants in arrears tempt eviction if they report housing problems. It’s not that low-income renters don’t know their rights. They know that exercising those rights could cost them. So many go on paying most of what they have to live with lead paint, exposed wires and broken plumbing. Saving and stability become wishes, and some days children go hungry because the rent eats first.

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A universal housing voucher program would fundamentally change the face of poverty in the United States. Evictions would plummet, and so would the other social problems they cause, like family and community instability, homelessness, job loss and depression. Suicides attributed to evictions and foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010. A universal housing voucher program would help reverse this disturbing trend.

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A national affordable housing program would be an anti-poverty effort, human capital investment, community improvement plan and public health initiative all rolled into one. It would especially benefit mothers and children, the face of today’s eviction epidemic.

- But William Greider notes that instead, the U.S. seems set to give away hundreds of billions in revenue through a corporate tax amnesty - even though exactly the same scheme produced none of the promised economic development when tried in 2004.

- Chico Harlan examines Louisiana's example of how right-wing politics in their purest form - including top-heavy tax cuts, corporate giveaways, resource dependency and selloffs and patches intended to avoid any political consequences in the short term - can affect people once somebody recognizes the need to start paying the bills.

- Finally, David Watkins points out how private security firms are pitching their lack of responsibility to comply with constitutional rights as a feature.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Robert Atkinson discusses the need for corporate tax policy to encourage economic development rather than profit-taking and share inflation. And Jim Hightower notes that it's an anti-democratic corporate mindset that led to the poisoning of Flint.

- Stephen Tapp offers some noteworthy ideas to ensure the public can meaningfully discuss our federal government's fiscal choices.

- Steven Chase finds that a majority of the public would prefer that Canada prioritize human rights over profits in deciding whether or not to supply military equipment to Saudi Arabia. But in case anybody was under the illusion that the Libs were going to pay attention to either public opinion or their own promises, Robert Fife reports on their plans to extend and exacerbate Canada's combat operations in the Middle East.

- The Star rightly calls for an end to the Cons' legacy of secrecy. But there too, there's little reason to think the Libs are offering anything more than show and symbolism.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone comments on the Saskatchewan Party's dishonesty when it comes to the state of Saskatchewan's economy and fiscal picture. And the provincial auditor's view that a big-money giveaway to land developers was "not a normal transaction" looks to reflect just one more set of shady choices.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Carolyn Shimmin discusses the connection between inequality and social ills, while Sarah Khapton reports on new research showing part of the biological explanation.

- Rachelle Younglai documents the growing number of people living with low incomes in Canada. And John Falzon points out that anybody who values the concept of an economy based on new ideas should be eager to ensure people have the necessary social supports to be able to work on developing them.

- John Nichols comments on the many U.S. politicians who seem determined to play the role of Dickens villains in denigrating even the idea of relieving the challenging facing the poor. Scott Santens notes that Dickens' work anticipates many of the lessons we're learning in studies of the relationship between the wealthy and inequality. And Bruce Johnstone highlights how the Saskatchewan Party is not only trumpeting counterproductive austerity among other regressive principles at the provincial level, but trying to push it across the country as well. 

- Alex Himelfarb's keynote address to the Parkland Institute's most recent conference on the decline of the collective and the possibilities for progressive change is well worth a view:



- Finally, Murray Dobbin has some ideas as to how the Libs can develop a more progressive tax system, including by ensuring that wealth isn't transferred offshore or left to accumulate in corporate coffers.

New column day

Here, on how the Libs' first major budgetary choice has been to continue the Cons' dangerous pattern of chipping away at the federal government's fiscal capacity.

For further reading...
-  Scott Clark and Peter DeVries have previously summarized the Cons' destructive revenue cuts and overall fiscal mismanagement. And Bruce Johnstone and Andrew Potter are among those who have pointed to the long-term elimination of fiscal capacity as a major part of the Cons' legacy.
- Meanwhile, the headline about the Libs' misnamed "middle class" tax shuffle features a $1.2 billion price tag due to the Libs' lumping in a reduction in the limit on tax-free savings accounts. But since the Libs planned (PDF) to make that TFSA change anyway, the real cost of barging ahead with the shift is the full $1.7 billion gap in income taxes.
- And finally, David MacDonald's alternative suggestions as to what the Libs could have done with any added revenue from the 1% are again worth a read.

New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's mid-year fiscal update shows it hasn't learned a thing about managing a boom-and-bust resource economy - and how it may take Saskatchewan's electorate to fix the underlying problem.

For further reading...
- The mid-year update discussed in the column is here (PDF). And the increase in unemployment of more than half - from 3.5% to 5.6% - can be found in the difference between Statistics Canada's numbers for October 2014 (which the Wall government crowed about here) here and the ones from October 2015 mentioned in the province's most recent monthly economic indicators report.
- CBC reports on the update and the related deficit, while Bruce Johnstone reports on the latest economic forecasts (including updated housing numbers). And Simon Falush discusses on the factors behind the global drop in oil prices which figure to last for some time to come.
- Finally, the Leader-Post's editorial board offers its own view about the missed opportunity to set up a heritage fund - even after the Wall government supposedly planned to develop one.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Andrew Jackson discusses a few of the choices the Trudeau Libs need to get right in order to actually set Canada on a more progressive fiscal path:

Progressives who worry about growing income inequality will note two key features of the new government's tax plans. First, the plan is not quite as redistributive as it looks at first sight since it  leaves out below-average income workers. Second, the net effect is not to expand the federal income tax base.

True, the Liberal platform talks of examining some loopholes, such as the favourable taxation of stock options, but it rejected major revenue-raising measures – including higher corporate taxes or higher income taxes on anybody except the top 1%. This leaves little fiscal room to fund needed social programs such as child care or pharmacare.
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The key problem facing the new government is that its three major short-term promises – child benefits, income tax cuts and infrastructure investment  – effectively use up all of the fiscal resources it has at hand, including temporary deficits.

This shows up in the Liberal platform in the very modest amounts allocated to new spending on health care (which goes from just $400 million in year one to $1 billion in year four.) This is far from the amounts needed to offset the Harper government's pending cuts to transfers to the provinces, as the premiers will quickly point out when they meet with the new Prime Minister.

The Liberal platform also allocates very limited new funds to such “priorities” as educational and other programs for indigenous peoples, employment insurance reform, social housing programs, environmental programs, enhanced government regulatory capacity, and the list goes on. Short-term term deficits cannot sustain needed long-term public investments in all of these areas.

We can expect few surprises and some very welcome new policies from the Trudeau government in the next budget. But progressives will have to press hard for broader tax reform to expand the choices at hand.

- And Frances Woolley uses the example of pumpkin seeds to point out that rhetoric about "waste" is far too easily substituted for genuine value judgments about resource allocation.

- Bruce Johnstone summarizes the burgeoning disaster that is the Boundary Dam carbon capture project - featuring Brad Wall regularly misleading the province by substituting hoped-for outcomes for actual ones even as he tries to sell non-functional technology to other gullible buyers. And Murray Mandryk is skeptical as to whether Wall's coal cheerleading and climate inaction will accomplish anything at the upcoming Paris climate change conference.

- Mark Gollom writes that there's little time to waste in ensuring that Canada has a more fair electoral system in place for the next federal election. And Stuart Parker argues that we need to set a higher standard on that front than "anything but first-past-the-post".

- Finally, Renata D'Aliesio exposes the epidemic of suicide among Canadian veterans - along with the Cons' callous attempts to hide the problem while portraying themselves as defenders of the military.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Laurie Penny argues that Jeremy Corbyn's remarkable run to lead the Labour Party represents an important challenge to the theory that left-wing parties should avoid talking about principles in the name of winning power - particularly since the result hasn't been much success on either front.
- Trevor Pott discusses Canada's popular backlash against an unaccountable and security state, particularly when it's deployed primarily to silence dissenting political views.

- Bruce Johnstone writes that contempt for the law is par for the course from the Harper Cons. And Bruce Livesey reports on one of the Cons' latest batch of hand-chosen economic advisers - whose qualifications consist of lying about her past to take a position with a scandal-plagued energy company with a regular history of consumer and regulatory abuses.

- Murray Mandryk points out that the Cons' angry, old base - as epitomized by Earl Cowan - figures to be a hindrance rather than a help in trying to win over swing voters. But as Bruce Campion-Smith notes, the Cons may be counting more on limiting opposition voters' access to the polls than on actually earning support.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board chastises Kathleen Wynne for her ill-advised attacks on Tom Mulcair. And Dan Darrah examines Justin Trudeau's choice to complain about the NDP's progressive policies instead of presenting any meaningful plans of his own.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Anna Leventhal warns against the danger that even the best-intentioned of charity drives might be seen as replacing the need for social supports:

Now campaigns are ubiquitous, and range from book tours to pet surgeries to basic subsistence for marginalized people in crisis. But with crowdfunding increasingly called on to plug the holes left by funding cuts (consider that in 2014 Canadians pledged over $27 million to Kickstarter alone, and that from 2013 to 2014 the amount crowdfunded globally jumped from US$6.1 billion to US$16.2 billion), the stakes are getting higher and the trouble with putting this support to the free market is becoming clear.

Do we back campaigns based on the perceived worthiness or importance of the project? The neediness of the asker? How well we know the asker and how bad we're likely to feel if their project can't be realized? Is it OK that we're being given the right, and the responsibility, to make these kinds of calls? Should the artist with the most Facebook friends win? Should the person to get support for a disability be the one with the best Twitter game? Letting the invisible hand guide these decisions seems not only flawed but dangerous.
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Frustrated citizens who care about the community's well-being can skip the arduous process of engaging with the federal government and trying to convince it that First Nations communities are worth caring about, and just give directly to the cause. Such a move seems part resourceful community-mindedness and part Band-Aid-over-metastasized-cancer. As Chief Edwin Resky is quoted as saying on the campaign's page, “While we appreciate your intentions, at the same time we wonder what kind of country Canada is when safe access to essential services, when our right to clean drinking water, when access to basic economic opportunity, must depend on the kindness of strangers?”

- Meanwhile, Ryan Meili reminds us of the dangers posed by a growing income gap. PressProgress exposes a few of the most appalling right-wing excuses for the continued underpayment of women in the workplace, while Tom Boggioni tells the story of how Laura Browder's attempt to find work as a single mother (in the absence of reasonable social supports and child care options) led to her arrest.

- Steve Barnes discusses the Wellesley Institute's latest study on the connection between insufficient incomes and a lack of access to prescription drugs. 

- Mychalo Prystupa reports that First Nations are rightly concerned that Nexen's recent oil spill is just a small part of a larger pattern of environmental degradation. And Gemma Karstens-Smith notes that long after the English Bay oil spill was proclaimed to have been fully contained, evidence is surfacing of contamination in areas up to 12 kilometres from the site of the spill.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone asks what comes next now that Canada is facing a recession. And Konrad Yakabuski writes that the response to the latest downturn represents a rare point of contrast between Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott - as even the Cons' Australian cousins aren't so blinkered as to push through more cuts as the economy falters.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Brad Delong discusses the two strains of neoliberalism which dominate far too much political discussion - and the reason why the left-oriented version doesn't offer any plausible analysis of where we stand:

(Bill) Clintonian left-neoliberalism makes two twin arguments.

The first is addressed to the left: it is that market mechanisms–properly-regulated market mechanisms–are more likely than not a better road to social democratic ends than command-and-control mechanisms.

The second is addressed to the right: it is that social democracy is the only political system that can in the long run underpin a market economy that preserves a space for private property and private enterprise. Therefore the right had better shut up and try to make social democracy work, or else.

The true underlying problem with left-neoliberalism, I think, is that with the Brezhnevite stagnation of the Soviet Union the second claim addressed to the right was no longer convincing. Hence the right went into its dismantle-social-democracy mode. And once the right was committed to dismantling social democracy, the ability to construct and maintain the proper regulations needed to make market mechanisms tools to achieve social democratic ends fell apart as well.

- Andrew Jackson discusses how the need for equity between and within generations should lead us to make investments in what matters for future development, rather than doing nothing for anybody as demanded by the austerians:

There has been a great deal of recent media commentary on inter-generational unfairness, much of which misleadingly argues that affluent older Canadians are benefiting from current economic and social arrangements at the expense of youth.

Not to be misunderstood, young adults today are getting a raw deal when it comes to high levels of student debt, their immediate job market prospects compared to those of the baby boomers, and high housing prices.

The transition from education to stable and well-paid employment is much more prolonged and problematic than used to be the case due to the ongoing increase in insecure and low-paid jobs.

But that does not mean that all seniors and those who are about to enter their retirement years are flourishing. There are huge inequities within different generations that far outweigh inequities between generations.
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Again, inequity within generations is a more important issue than inequity between generations.

The inter-generational fairness theme is often used to justify public spending cuts to reduce the “debt burden” on future generations. This ignores Canada's very low level of public debt, and the fact that experts such as the Parliamentary Budget Officer see federal finances as sustainable, meaning that tax increases will not be required to fund future spending.

More importantly, this argument gets in the way of the public investments we need to make today to secure a better future for today's youth and future generations. We could and should be investing more in the education and skills of youth, in research and development, and in the measures needed to ensure environmental sustainability.

- Meanwhile, Brent Patterson laments the Harper Cons' willingness to leave an environmental disaster for future generations to clean up. And Thomas Walkom points out that Kathleen Wynne is following in the Cons' footsteps in trashing public wealth without any reasonable basis for doing so.

- Fred Joseph Ernst writes that the primary effect of C-51 is to legalize the "dirty tricks" against civilians which represent a regular feature of repressive states. And Andrew Mitrovica comments that even some of Stephen Harper's usual core supporters are rightly fighting back against that choice.

- Finally, Stephen Maher points out how the Cons' vote suppression tactics figure to cause serious problems for citizens seeking to vote this fall. And Bruce Johnstone makes the case to put first past the post behind us.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Canadians for Tax Fairness offers a checklist to allow us to determine whether the federal budget is aimed at improving matters for everybody, or only for the privileged few. And Andrew Jackson argues that the Cons' focus should be investment in jobs and sustainable development:

Business investment is likely to fall even further due to the resource slump and halted mega projects. This might be offset a bit by new investment in the hard-hit manufacturing sector and in high tech, though there is no sign of that in the most recent numbers.

In this context, the federal government should be doing everything in its power to boost a slowing economy and to help set the stage for a more durable, investment driven recovery.

Ottawa has been advised by the IMF and many prominent economists, from former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to former federal deputy minister of finance Scott Clark, that it can and should boost public investment, especially in mass transit and basic municipal infrastructure.

Since the economy is operating with a significant and growing slack, such spending would boost GDP by more than the actual increase in investment. The federal government itself has cited figures showing that the boost to infrastructure investment in the recession had a multiplier impact on the economy of 1.5, meaning that GDP rose by $1.50 for every $1 spent.

The case for public investment is even more compelling now that the Government of Canada can borrow long term at interest rates well below the rate of inflation to finance projects such as mass transit which demonstrably have a positive economic return in terms of boosting long-term productivity.

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There is also a need to focus our research and development efforts on industries which will transition us to much more environmentally sustainable economy, such as renewable energy, the construction of a national power grid to displace coal-fired power, and the promotion of much more energy efficient technologies throughout the economy.

The federal Budget will likely pay lip service to boosting investment through small additions to existing commitments. But the current government has given the real priority to costly tax cuts such as family income splitting and doubled TFSA contribution limits, leading them to cut spending on direct government programs to balance the books.

Lack of real attention to investment will leave our sluggish economy dangerously dependent upon growing household debt, and ill-prepared to face the economic and environmental challenges of tomorrow.

- But David Olive reminds us that the Cons are actively working to demolish the government's ability to serve as more than a conduit for corporate interests. And Seth Klein notes that the use of tax-free savings accounts to line the pockets of the wealth at the expense of the rest of us also serves as compelling evidence as to who's intended to benefit under the Harper Cons.

- Meanwhile, John Lorinc reports on the use of community benefits agreements to ensure that good jobs are available to the people who need them, offering an important reminder that role of government shouldn't be limited to handing out money without considering how to maximize its effect.

- Thomas Walkom calls out the Ontario Libs for trying to use a sideshow of beer sales to distract from the reckless selloff of Hydro One.

- Bruce Johnstone notes that the Cons' corporate giveaway of what's left of the Canadian Wheat Board is happening despite a glaring lack of answers to major questions, while Mia Rabson offers a eulogy for the CWB. And the National Farmers' Union points out that labeling what's left as "Canadian" is a matter of spin and wishful thinking.

- Finally, Doug Cuthand rightly slams the Cons for trying to blame First Nations men alone for Canada's shameful legacy of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Robert Ferdman reports on a Pew Research poll showing that wealthier Americans are downright resentful toward the poor - and think the people with the most difficult lives actually have it too easy:

(T)he prevalence of the view might reflect an inability to understand the plight of those who have no choice but to seek help from the government. A quarter of the country, after all, feels that the leading reason for inequality in America is that the poor don't work hard enough.

But as my colleague Christopher Ingraham pointed out last year, to say that the poor have it easy is to ignore how serious their struggle is in comparison to the rest of the population, and especially those with money to spare. The poor are much less likely to have health insurance, much more likely to be the victim of a crime. They don't get the same level of education or have the same food options. Inequality, as my colleague Matt O'Brien wrote, "starts in the crib," and it plays out even in what babies of different socioeconomic backgrounds are fed. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

- Meanwhile, Amitha Kalaichandran counters that homelessness (like other aspects of poverty and inequality) is anything but a choice. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on how poor neighbourhoods in Toronto rely on payday lenders, and how that only makes matters worse for people already trying to scrape by with very little.

- PressProgress highlights the stagnation of Canadian wages, while Andy Kiersz points out that Canadian household debt is not only higher than the U.S.' today, but also higher than the unsustainable levels that contributed to the 2008 economic meltdown. And Sherri Torjman argues (PDF) that the Cons' regressive income splitting scheme is the last thing Canadian families need at the moment.

- Andrew Jackson discusses the connection between increased reliance on information technology to perform skilled work, and the growing income and wealth gaps:

IT has eliminated middle skilled jobs, and new jobs are being created at the high and the low end of the education and skills spectrum. At the same time, IT development has resulted in huge “winner take all” rewards for a handful of individuals who have pioneered major new applications which have been widely adopted – think Google and Facebook. Compared to the giants of the industrial age, these companies have huge market capitalizations but relatively few workers, and only have to invest modestly in physical capital.

The theory of skill biased technological change tells us a lot but has significant problems as an overall explanatory framework for rising income and wealth inequality. As has been frequently noted, inequality still varies a great deal between advanced industrial countries using the same technologies because institutions, such as unions and labour laws as well as government social and tax policies, make an important difference.

And, as Thomas Piketty showed in his own 2014 best-seller, the ranks of the very rich go far beyond internet billionaires to include those who have inherited wealth, as well as the very well-paid CEOs of “old economy” enterprises who have ruthlessly used IT to cut costs. Technological change may explain why the less skilled are doing badly, but there is a bigger story behind the rise of the super wealthy compared to the merely highly educated.

That said, the authors of the Second Machine Age and their colleague David Autor at MIT make a convincing case that new technology has very much worked against those without very high levels of skills. They make the key point that the elimination of routine jobs by machines results in the relatively unskilled competing for the many lower level jobs which are non routine and cannot be readily automated, such as personal care support workers, hairdressers, cooks and chefs, janitors, security guards and so on. The relative weight of these low productivity, low skill, low pay positions in the job market is increasing, and their pay is flat or falling.
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The authors of The Second Machine Age discuss, but do not go so far as to advocate, a basic income for all citizens. But it will be hard to refute the moral and economic logic for spreading the bounty of technological progress to the many if the wealth of the very rich increases as rapidly as the power of the marvellous machines that are now at their service.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone laments the willingness of resource-obsessed governments to get us stuck in commodity price traps. Which makes for a needed counterpoint to Murray Mandryk's odd position that the point when we recognize we're trapped is no time to try to free ourselves.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rob Nixon's review of Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything nicely sums up why the book - and the fundamental clash it documents between corporate profit-seeking and the health of people and our planet - should be at the centre of our political conversation:

(N)eoliberalism — promotes a high-consumption, ­carbon-hungry system. Neoliberalism has encouraged mega-mergers, trade agreements hostile to environmental and labor regulations, and global hypermobility, enabling a corporation like Exxon to make, as McKibben has noted, “more money last year than any company in the history of money.” Their outsize power mangles the democratic process. Yet the carbon giants continue to reap $600 billion in annual subsidies from public coffers, not to speak of a greater subsidy: the right, in Klein’s words, to treat the atmosphere as a “waste dump.”

So much for the invisible hand. As the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson observed, when it comes to the environment, the invisible hand never picks up the check.

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In democracies driven by lobbyists, donors and plutocrats, the giant polluters are going to win while the rest of us, in various degrees of passivity and complicity, will watch the planet die. “Any attempt to rise to the climate challenge will be fruitless unless it is understood as part of a much broader battle of worldviews,” Klein writes. “Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.”

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To change economic norms and ethical perceptions in tandem is even more formidable than the technological battle to adapt to the heavy weather coming down the tubes. Yet “This Changes Everything” is, improbably, Klein’s most optimistic book. She braids together the science, psychology, geopolitics, economics, ethics and activism that shape the climate question. 

- Meanwhile, Karl Nerenberg writes that we should see Stephen Harper's gross failure to do anything about climate change as his greatest scandal. And Bob Weber reports that NAFTA's Commission on Environmental Cooperation is just the latest environmental watchdog to be put down by the Cons - highlighting both the ineffectiveness of trade agreements in serving any interests other than profit maximization, and Harper's own hostility toward the world around us.

- John Nichols sees the U.S. as a prime (and painful) example of what happens when politics are governed by money rather than by people. But Mary Hansen and Kayla Schultz note that on at least a few fronts, voters nonetheless voted against corporate money and power in the recent midterm elections.

- Of course, that positive takeaway depends on voters actually having the chance to express their views. And Bruce Johnstone writes that the Sask Party is determined to prevent both public opinion and empirical evidence from interfering with their drive to privatize liquor retailing.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg exposes the barbarism behind the Cons' treatment of refugees and other vulnerable immigrants. But we shouldn't pretend the problem of dehumanizing perceived outsiders is limited to that issue alone, as Tabatha Southey notes that the Cons are similarly bent on depriving sex workers of their humanity.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bruce Johnstone points out that one can't justify Stephen Harper's gross dereliction of duty in addressing greenhouse gas emissions based on any system of principles other than climate change denialism. And Tony Burman criticizes the Cons for burying their heads in the oil sands, while pointing out that we have plenty of work to do as citizens to replace them with leaders who actually contribute to the most important crisis facing humanity.

- Meanwhile, Jeremy Nuttall reports on the NDP's work to stop damaging the planet in the name of unfettered resource extraction - this time focusing on Nathan Cullen's bill to stop tankers from operating off British Columbia's north coast.

- Paul Krugman reminds us why concentrated top-end wealth doesn't actually result in improved lives even for the few who take a perpetually larger share of our resources:

If you feel that it’s bad for society to have people flaunting their relative wealth, you have in effect accepted the view that great wealth imposes negative externalities on the rest of the population — which is an argument for progressive taxation that goes beyond the maximization of revenue.

And one more thing: think about what this says about economic growth. We have an economy that has become considerably richer since 1980, but with a large share of the gains going to people with very high incomes — people for whom the marginal utility of a dollar’s worth of spending is not only low, but comes largely from status competition, which is a zero-sum game. So a lot of our economic growth has simply been wasted, doing nothing but accelerating the pace of the upper-income rat race.

- Neil Irwin chimes in on the sad reality that any economic growth in the U.S. is being skimmed off the top by the wealthiest 10% - meaning that the vast majority of workers and citizens don't have anything to gain from corporatist policies even if they did (contrary to all evidence) contribute to GDP growth. And Jennifer Erickson discusses the middle class squeeze which has seen costs rise even as incomes stagnate or fall.

- Finally, PressProgress exposes how the Harper Cons' belief in the magical effect of corporate tax slashing has proven utterly false in reality. And Truthout makes the case for finally repudiating trickle-down economics in favour of policies designed to improve citizens' lives, while Joe Gunn contrasts our options in reducing either poverty or tax rates.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Naomi Klein discusses how entrenched corporate control through trade and investment agreements will prevent us from making any real progress against climate change. And Cory Doctorow weighs in on the Cons' FIPA sellout of Canadian sovereignty, while highlighting the NDP's petition to stop it.

- Meanwhile, Les Whittington writes that CETA will severely limit Canada's ability to regulate banks - which, as Barry Ritholz observes, only sets us up for predictable financial abuse which will never be properly investigated or punished:

Political access and lobbying go part way toward explaining the absence of prosecutions and, therefore, the lack of convictions [for financial sector criminality]. To understand why there were no convictions of senior bankers, you need to understand a bit of criminal law in the U.S. The American form of jurisprudence requires a criminal indictment to bring someone to trial. No indictment, no trial, no conviction. Where bankers and their lawyers have been so successful is stopping prosecutions before they begin. You don’t get to the conviction part if prosecutors don’t bring indictments.

As we have repeatedly shown, Treasury Department officials, including former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, had convinced prosecutors in the Justice Department of the dangers of prosecuting banks and bankers for the economy. This showed up in the news coverage over the years, and is still going on. Just consider this recent Bloomberg News article with the headline “Criminal Charges Against Banks Risk Sparking Crisis.”

So what crimes could we imagine? How about fraudulent mortgage underwriting; robo-signing and foreclosure perjury; falsifying Libor rates; manipulating gold and other metal prices; money laundering for drug kingpins and terrorists; and participating in Ponzi schemes. This is hardly an all-inclusive list and I could certainly make it longer.

If only the list of attempted prosecutions was as long.

- Bruce Johnstone points out the limitations of a government which insists on its own impotence in cultivating genuine economic development. But unfortunately, the Leader-Post's editorial board undercuts a rare effort to build an alternative to total dependence on the corporate sector - in this case, when it comes to a municipal development agency.

- Katie Raso reminds us why we need to fight against for-profit health care which discriminates based on the ability to pay. And Mollie Reilly offers a galling example of what happens when that discrimination rears its ugly head.

- Finally, Andrew Cash highlights the fight against "pay-to-pay" rackets as an example of how public pressure can result in at least some policy changes.