Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman offer another look (PDF) at the growth of income and wealth inequality in the U.S. Andrew Jackson and Toby Sanger examine (PDF) the case for an annual net wealth tax to reduce its severity in Canada. And Carl Meyer reports on the appetite among most Canadians to finally make meaningful progress against inequality, racism and climate change. 

- But Bruce Livesey offers a reminder that a capitalist society is antithetical to democratic governance - particularly as inequality becomes more extreme. 

- Jordan Leichniz notes that we've seen our own version of the white supremacist movement which has taken so much power in the U.S. Umair Haque comments on the alarming desire among so many Americans to bring about a failed state, rather than a functioning one which includes minorities as proportional partners. And Gwynne Dyer notes that the rest of the world will have reason to be wary of the U.S. based on the likelihood of Trumpism evolving into new forms.

- Daniel Tencer highlights how soaring housing prices reflect a disconnect between theoretical asset values and the real economy. And Roberta Bell reports on the Saskatchewan shelters which have been forced to reduce capacity even as the COVID-19 pandemic creates a far greater need for their services.

- Finally, Graham Thomson writes about Jason Kenney's choice to prioritize politics over science in neglecting the spread of COVID-19. And Bruce Arthur points out the alarmed response of Ontario's medical community to the Ford government's decision to facilitate the further spread of the coronavirus.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Matt Bruenig examines who is living in poverty in the U.S. - and how policy choices result in many people who can't feasibly earn wages being stuck below the poverty line:

(C)hildren, elderly, disabled people, and students make up around 70 percent of the poor. If you add in carers and those already fully employed, the number goes to around 90 percent. There is room to activate some of these folks into the labor market, especially carers through the provision of child care and paid leave benefits. But for the most part, the poor are people who cannot and should not work.
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(B)enefits already do a lot to hold down poverty. The official poverty rate in 2016 was 12.8 percent. Without benefits, it would have been 21 percent.

If we want to build on that kind of success, what we need to do is expand the coverage of the welfare state as well as the generosity of its benefits. Every child should get a modest monthly stipend paid to their parents. Minimum benefit levels for old-age and disability pensions should be increased. Students should get a living grant. Carers should get paid leave and caretaker allowances. Unemployed people should get higher benefits, and some minimum level of benefits should be available to new labor market entrants who have not yet secured a job. It is through these kinds of reforms that serious poverty reduction will ultimately be made.

Until we come to terms with the fact that market income distributions inherently leave out a massive swath of society, our system will continue to fail its poor people. Markets are not designed to get income to where it is needed. It is up to society to construct programs to do that.

- Michael Sisak and Emily Schmall report on a prime example of the U.S.' continued disaster capitalism, as FEMA has been selling off disaster trailers at cut-rate prices even as it's been scrambling to providing housing in responseto this summer's spate of hurricanes. And Josh Boak discusses how the Trump administration is pushing corporate tax giveaways in the face of abundant evidence they'll serve only to further enrich those who already have the most.

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines the state of NAFTA negotiations and concludes that there's no realistic prospect of reaching a meaningfully progressive agreement.

- Stephanie Taylor reports on the high rates of opioid poisoning in Regina and Saskatoon.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey reports on institutional racism and bigotry within CSIS and the RCMP which is both preventing them from addressing real threats, and resulting in the rendition and torture of innocent people based on their race and religion.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- In the wake of the Panama Papers, Don Pittis writes that tax shelters serve only to ensure that the wealthy don't pay their fair share for a functional society - meaning that everybody who can't afford to engage in financial shenanigans is left to pick up the slack. Neil Macdonald discusses the different rules purchased by the few who can afford them. And Ben Chu highlights why we need to crack down on tax avoidance to do anything about burgeoning wealth inequality, and Daniel Leblanc reports that the NDP is leading the charge to do just that.

- But Bruce Livesey documents the lobbying pressure on the part of the wealthy which stands in our way. And ThinkPol points out that the Panama free trade deal pushed by both the Cons and the Libs has only privileged tax evaders over the public.

- Robert MacDermid offers a few suggestions to reduce the impact of wealth on political financing - though it's worth noting that election and party funding represents only a small portion of the influence of the corporate elite on our political system. And the Pacific Gazette notes that an independent MLA has introduced legislation to bring British Columbia's political financing rules up to par.

- Ainslie Cruickshank discusses the need to remedy health inequality in Canada.

- Finally, Noah Zon argues that we need our anti-poverty programs - and notably the Canada Child Benefit - to keep up with the cost of living. And Anita Khanna calls for a push to finally end child poverty in Canada for good.

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.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Bruce Livesey discusses Tony Blair's role in corporatizing social democracy. And Stephen Elliott-Buckley writes that there's little reason to listen to the policy prescriptions of a financial elite class which is conspicuously ensuring that its future bears no resemblance to that of the general population.

- Jane Taber interviews Donald Savoie about the importance of our public service - and the decline it's seen in recent years:

What happened?

It was wrong to think that we could make the public sector look like the private sector. Well, frankly, it started with Margaret Thatcher. She arrived in 1980 and she said, ‘I don’t want bureaucrats to tell me what I ought to do to do in terms of policy. We won a majority mandate so we will define policy. What I want the bureaucracy to be good at is to be good managers.’ Mandarins are not known to be good managers. So when Thatcher arrived and said, ‘I want you to become better managers,’ she drew a blank. They didn’t have any ideas about management. So, she said, ‘Right, I am going to go to the private sector.’ So, she got a lot of private sector advisors in as did Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney. We didn’t realize that the private sector plays by its own rules and businesses are good at what they do but they don’t have to deal with 12 officers of Parliament, they don’t have to deal with the [media]. The private sector remedy did not work. It demoralized the public sector.

Why should we care?

Show me a weak country and I will show you a country with a weak public service. Every country needs a referee and the referee has to be the public service. No country can operate without a referee. You take the public service out of Canadian society and you will have chaos.

- pogge discusses what looks to be a glaring loophole in Canada's Access to Information Act - as a recent decision has determined that a government institution can delay an initial reply indefinitely without recourse. Meanwhile, Pat Martin is leading the charge to fix a few additional problems with our access-to-information legislation. And Newfoundland and Labrador are conducting a thorough review of their legislation - albeit only after the government rammed through highly dubious changes which made the system far more opaque than it was before.

- Alison contrasts the Cons' cringeworthy partisan ads against Elections Canada's entirely unobjectionable messages about voting which the Cons want to ban.

- Finally, Thomas Ponniah discusses the founding and first steps of the Tommy Douglas Institute.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- The Star offers an editorial on the continued increase in wage inequality in Canada, highlighting the complete lack of any connection between accomplishment and executive compensation:

(T)he country’s economic performance has changed dramatically. In 2007, when Mackenzie began, the Canadian economy was growing by leaps and bounds, leading some economists to predict that the business cycle could only improve.

Then the 2008 recession hit. Today, the economy is limping along; a growing proportion of the population needs two or three low-wage jobs to survive; and families are cutting back on everything from groceries to heating costs.

Yet there is no sign of restraint at the top. The 100 highest-paid chief executives took home between $3.9 million and $49.5 million in total compensation, for an average of $7.96 million, in 2012 (the latest year for which Mackenzie could get figures). The average Canadian earned $46,634.

“Five years after a global recession knocked the wind out of Canada’s labour market, throwing tens of thousands of workers onto the unemployment line and sidelining a generation of young workers, the compensation of Canada’s CEO elite continues to sail along,” Mackenzie said. What’s more, he added, “there is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance.”

- Meanwhile, Matthew Hutson discusses the dangers of believing that wealth and social status result solely from inherent personal superiority - as well as the efforts of right-wing politicians to cultivate exactly that belief. Paul Krugman notes that the only way to pretend inequality isn't a serious issue is to mangle income data beyond all recognition. And Bruce Livesey eviscerates Thomas Watson's attempt to claim that all corporate fraud and abuse are the fault of the people victimized by a predatory financial system.

- Owen Jones muses about the prospect of more effective left-wing populism to counter the corporatist message:

It was starting to look like the Tories were going to get away with all this, building a Little England, seething with bile and fear, of booming profits and crashing living standards. Labour appeared to have decided: “Sod this for a game of soldiers, providing a semblance of opposition is way too much hassle, let’s have a lie-in until May 2015.” But then Ed Miliband realised that the populism of the Right could only be confronted with populism from the Left.

Every time Labour indulges in bashing immigrants and unemployed people, it just allows the Tories to set the terms of debate, driving issues up the national agenda that ensure the Right thrives. Labour will never win at being trusted to kick foreigners or poor people most, and should file for moral bankruptcy if it did. Similarly, the Tories cannot win on the “cost of living crisis”, as it’s been christened, and realised they have to change the subject, and quickly.

So 2014 has to be the year when left-wing populism flourishes. That means learning from the Right: simple messages that are repeated ad infinitum, hammered into the electorate’s skulls, constantly forcing opponents on to the defensive. Why are we, the taxpayer, subsidising the poverty wages of the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s, to the tune of tens of billions of pounds each year? Instead, let’s have a deficit-reducing living wage, which would inject a healthy dose of demand into the economy and, according to one economist, create 58,000 jobs. Why are landlords allowed to fleece the taxpayer with rents that need topping up with state benefits when we should both control rents and give councils the power to build homes, bringing down the social security bill, creating skilled jobs and sorting out the housing crisis?

- And finally, Dylan Matthews interviews Benjamin Radcliff about the link between a more robust government and happier citizens - with a particular focus on decommodification as a precondition to greater well-being.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Stephany Griffith-Jones points out the lack of any coherent argument against a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions - and the public support when political parties actually raise it for debate:

Major financial sectors such as the United States, Hong Kong and South Korea already have FTTs which together raise tens of billions in revenue annually without causing economic damage. In the UK we have the very successful stamp duty, an FTT on share transactions that raises more than £3bn a year, of which 40% is paid by foreign-based investors and banks. It too rightly taxes all those trading UK shares, wherever they are based. This is the same principle on which the European FTT will be based.

Fortunately, the European commission is clearly supportive of the proposal, as is the European parliament. Eleven European countries, representing 66% of European GDP, remain committed to implementing the tax.

It is encouraging that in coalition talks between the German SPD and CDU, they achieved clear consensus on the FTT. This is not surprising, as in Germany 82% of citizens, according to Euro-barometer, support a European FTT. In France this figure reaches 72%, and the EU average is 64%. Let's hope politicians elsewhere will listen to their voters and fully implement the tax soon.

- Brian Topp draws a connection (as I've done before) between the caucus fraud scandal of the Grant Devine PCs and the Harper Cons' Senate abuses. And Haroon Siddiqui finds a disturbing number of similarities between Harper and Rob Ford in their common demonization of anybody who would question their laughable claims to infallibility.

- Meanwhile, Chantal Hebert sees the Cons' convention as a missed opportunity to propose and push a national Senate referendum.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey writes that the NSA's surveillance has little to do with security, and almost everything to do with the pursuit of economic advantage:

During the Cold War, signals intelligence agencies focused mostly on the Soviet Union and its satellites and allies. But with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, these agencies needed a new raison d’etre. In my 1998 Financial Post piece, I detailed how these agencies were now focusing on economic targets, such as spying on countries to glean information that would give them an advantage in trade talks, or allow multinationals to garner business deals to the detriment of their foreign competitors. “We were all looking at other ways of earning our living other than military and political intelligence,” Mike Frost, a former CSE operative who spent 18 years with the agency, told me when I was researching the Post story. “It was just a given we would be looking at economic things. We thought there was nothing wrong with this.”

For example, the CSE spied on South Korea while Canada was attempting to sell $6 billion worth of CANDU nuclear reactors to that country (presumably to ensure the deal went through). And it spied on Mexico during the 1992-93 NAFTA talks, again to garner advantages in those discussions.

In the current scandal over the NSA, it’s clear that the real intention of the agency’s spying on America’s so-called allies like Germany, Brazil, France and Spain, is solely for economic purposes. After all, these are not countries that are hotbeds of Islamic or al Qaeda terrorism that would justify this level of espionage.
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Today, intelligence agencies can pretend that all of their spying is to hunt down “terrorists” in our midst. In reality, their entire function is to further the interests of capital, even if it means trampling our privacy and civil rights in the process.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Bruce Livesey discusses how offshoring undermines government - and how it happens with the approval of those same governments claiming we can't afford to provide for citizens:

Today, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) claims that offshore banks globally hide some (US) $5-trillion to (US) $7-trillion from tax authorities, or about 8 per cent of the world's assets under management. Moreover, an estimated (US) $11.5-trillion is being stashed in offshore accounts worldwide for one reason or another.

Now governments talk about the so-called "tax gap" -- the difference between what they could collect and do collect -- caused by the use of offshore havens. In the U.K., this estimate ranges from £50 billion to £100-billion annually. Of that, about £20-billion sits in offshore tax havens. Meanwhile, though, the CRA refuses to make an estimate of the tax gap in Canada, but it's safe to say if they did they would find it's in the many tens of billions.

The offshore tax haven issue speaks to one of the Great Lies currently promulgated by conservative, liberal and even social democratic governments: which is that governments are broke. And hence they must lay off civil servants, impose cuts and wage restraints on the public sector. And it is why governments are desperately trying to avoid the issue: after all, they've all encouraged tax evasion and avoidance by offering corporations and the wealthy lower and lower taxes and greater tax breaks over the years. Now they are reaping what they have sown.

- And Pat Atkinson recognizes the need for tax revenue to fund the social priorities we care about most.

- Meanwhile, Frances Russell suggests that rather than buying into austerity-based cautionary tales about Greece today, we should look its past as an example of an informed citizenry able to look out for its own best interests.

- Steve Horn writes about the tactics normally used by corporate spinners to try to undermine citizens' movements. Mark Taliano focuses on the psychological manipulation techniques preferred by the Harper Cons and other opponents of social goods in Canada. And Simon Enoch highlights the City of Regina's Orwellian shift in language - as at the first hint of democratic participation, any reference to the "water" aspect of wastewater treatment has apparently been declared unfit for discussion.

- Finally, those types of messages go a long way toward explaining Henry Blodget's simple depiction of U.S. inequality in four charts - pairing unprecedented profits flowing to the top with an utter lack of opportunity for the many.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous content to start your week.

- Ian Welsh reminds us of the golden rule that should govern politics and everyday interactions alike:

To paraphrase many of the greatest religious and moral leaders, there is only one law: imagine you are in someone else’s shoes, then treat them as you would wish to be treated.

Or, put another way, act towards everyone as if you loved them.

The vast majority of political and economic commentary on this blog is commentary derived from those postulates. Note that they are postulates, they are judgments about how you should live. I can make a very strong argument that the more a society acts like this, the more everyone is happy, including the rich and powerful, but that’s not why you should act that way, as powerful arguments can be made for selfish and destructive self-interest. You should act that way because it’s the right thing to do, and you know it is, deep in your gut.
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In this we come back to the maxim “if you aren’t good, just act good”. Character and personality are built up in part by habit. Kindness, generosity, love, are habits as much as anything else. Your mind is great at justifying whatever you do. Do evil and it will justify it, do good and it will justify that, and over time you will become a better person inside your head, inside your soul.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Livesey recognizes that well-placed outrage can serve a positive purpose as well:

There is nothing wrong about being optimistic and hopeful, of course. Yet I contend we are in a time when we need to see people on the left express more anger and less willingness to compromise. For 30 years, unions, social democrats, liberals and other progressives have caved into the right and the corporate sector in the hopes that by giving them something they will leave social programs, labour laws and other progressive institutions alone. And it never works. There is no such thing as enough for the right-wing. They see this willingness to compromise as a sign of weakness and they take advantage of it and demand more takeaways. And bit by bit we have seen our social safety net fray and the power of capital grow to the point it is now pretty much free to do whatever it pleases.
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The reality is, we are living in angry times. And we need leaders on the left who reflect and act on that anger. We have to recognize who are enemy is and articulate not the politics of appeasement, but the politics of class struggle and combat. Workers and the middle class and small businesses owners have been at the receiving end of a class war launched by the corporate sector more than 30 years ago – and have been losing that war. It’s time to get angry and demand that the next NDP leader lose his or her shit over all the terrible things capital is doing to wreck our economy, our planet and standard of living.

Messages of hope and optimism are great, but at some point people need to get really pissed off.

- Jeff calls for leaders and members of all parties to recognize and encourage the potential Jack Laytons in their midst:

Given the low esteem we hold politicians in the country, the public outpouring of emotion we've seen this week has been impressive. Much of it has to do with Jack's positive and dynamic force of personality, but I think it's larger than that. I think it's the people embracing the idea that Jack has come to represent, in spirit if not always perfectly in practice: a different, more positive, cooperative type of politics. It's the citizenry sending a message that there is a better way.

I think the way forward is multifold. Politicians of all stripes should heed this message, and reconsider their ways. But I think the bigger challenge is for our citizens, and it's two-fold. First, recognize that there are more Jacks out there, and in every party. Seek them out and support them as they try to work in a system designed to stifle them; too many good people give up on public life, but we need them too much. Help them persevere. Second, be the change you want to see. Get involved, up to and including running yourself, in promoting the ideal of public service you would like to see.

It's easy to lament the state of modern political discourse, but it's also a cop-out. We get the kind of politics we demand; if we don't demand change ... if we don't make it change, we'll never get it.

- Finally, I'm curious as to how much of increase in inmate voting is a direct result of more (and less marginalized) people getting incarcerated due to the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies. But it's well worth hoping that the habit spreads as a counterweight to the Cons' efforts to cut offenders off from society.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Following up on yesterday's post, the Hill Times reports that even the first set of cuts from the Harper Cons' majority looks to have a serious effect on our federal government's ability to function for itself rather than relying on self-interested corporations to make decisions:

The 46 axed positions were occupied by term employees with the Adaptation Impact Research Section, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, the Climate Chemistry Measurements and Research and Climate Data and Analysis teams. Most of them are located in Toronto, Ont. though some are in Victoria, B.C.

The Public Works cuts will affect the real property services division, and Auditing Services Canada. Eighty-one per cent of these jobs are located in the National Capital Region, said Mr. Gordon.

The work performed by Audit Services Canada will be contracted out to a private firm.

Mr. Gordon said he is at a loss to understand how the government thinks these cuts (which will save the government a reported $172.2-million over three years) will actually result in long-term savings.

He said that the government already contracts out 95 per cent of its work, such as construction or consulting, and that now those who oversee the contracts are being cut.

"They need expertise within government so that they understand what they need. You don't go to a company and say 'We want you to do this kind of work' without writing up a whole proposal and having people who understand precisely what it is you need," said Mr. Gordon.

- Meanwhile, Derek DeCloet notes that it isn't just government that's figuring to get much less efficient thanks to the Harper Cons. Instead, even the much-vaunted oil and gas sector may itself be facing a massive gap between the perception of growth and the reality that it's serving more as a money magnet than an actual source of production - with the Cons' corporate tax slashing only serving to exacerbate the problem.

- While pointing out that nobody but the peaceful protesters against Stephen Harper should be taking any pride in the Cons' G8/G20 fiasco, Gerald Caplan also laments the fact that a few violent acts managed to largely suppress their message.

- On the bright side, Charles Dobson nicely summarizes the best way to get citizens involved in our political system. And I'll add that while social media offers some additional ways to connect people, the importance of face-to-face interaction is likely no less great now than it has been in the past.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey ponders what we can expect as more and more people are left out of the gains from an increasingly inequitable economic system:

how can one suggest that capitalism is terminally ill? Especially since people have been predicting its demise since Adam Smith’s day.

I am not suggesting it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

What I am saying is that evidence is mounting that capitalism is failing the vast majority of people. It is failing to provide working people with jobs, a decent standard of living, security and stability. The Great Recession grinds on with job growth either anemic or even falling, wages are declining, personal and government debts are climbing, food and gasoline prices are soaring, and the income gap continues to worsen. With the exception of a handful of countries, Europe is an economic disaster zone, the US economy is flailing, and Japan’s economy is in deep trouble. The middle classes and unionized working classes are going the way of the dodo. And governments are about to make matters worse by imposing austerity measures and laying off millions of public servants around the world.
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Even if the forces of socialism fail to re-emerge, capitalism is facing a period of unrelenting instability. As larger portions of the world’s population are driven into penury, you will see greater social unrest, more violence, more social problems, more despair. And that’s entirely because too many desperate people, unable to make ends meet, unable to find jobs, will turn to increasingly desperate measures – either via protests and acts of rebellion, or entering the underground economy of organized crime – in order to seek alternatives to the current order.

In the past, when capitalists have faced rebellion, they have either embraced fascistic parties and authoritarian measures to launch crack downs, or they’ve made concessions – allowed wages to rise and workers to garner more rights. But in an era of globalization and free trade, the ability of capital to give workers higher wages is limited. And cracking down on dissent and becoming more authoritarian, has its limits too, as Syria and Egypt and Libya demonstrate.

Capitalism might not be overthrown, but it will likely be facing a period where its very foundations are undermined because it continues to exclude too many people from the opportunities they want and deserve.