Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Catherine Albright et al. study how the wide transmission of COVID-19 - due in no small part to the "let 'er rip" mindset of far too many governments - has facilitated the development of new variants which escape existing immunity and treatments. And Fisher Phillips summarizes new, permanent California regulations for COVID-19 safety - which are far from ideal in relaxing standards and imposing costs on workers, but at least reflect the recognition that the dangers require ongoing remedial steps.

- Danielle Martin, Edward Greenspon and Geogina Black write about the need for every Canadian to have access to primary health care (even as provincial governments make nothing but excuses for letting access erode). 

- Ricardo Tranjan calls out the landlords who have chosen to inflate the cost of a home - and the governments who have chosen to enable them to do so. The Canadian Press reports on new data showing that upwards of 30% of homes are now owned by investors rather than residents in some Canadian provinces, signaling how a necessity of life is becoming increasingly commodified and put out of reach of the working class. And Rebecca Zandbergen interviews Juha Kaakinen about Finland's success in meeting the right to housing while simultaneously saving money by funding the construction of housing directly, rather than counting on developer-based bank shots as the only means of increasing supply. 

- Philippe Van Parijs writes about Pranab Bardhan's A World of Insecurity, and particularly its recognition that a secure basic income would work wonders in mitigating that insecurity which has given rise to the forces of fascism and hate. 

- Finally, David Moscrop discusses the connection between dwindling trust in public institutions and future well-being, and the understandable concern that power is increasingly being used to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everybody else. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your election day reading.

- Jagmeet Singh makes his case for Canadians to vote for what we believe in. Don Martin discusses how Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer have hurt their own causes as well as each others' by focusing on negative messages. And Nora Loreto discusses the need for traditional political parties to reinvent themselves to speak to and for people rather than merely reciting focus-tested talking points at them.

- Herman Rosenfeld discusses how free public transit is an essential element of any effective Green New Deal. And Angela Carter, Truzaar Dordi and Yonatan Strauch write that the federal election represents a crossroads for Canada's energy future (save for the incumbent trying to go in all directions at once).

- Katherine Scott examines what the federal parties have on offer to fight against poverty. Karl Nerenberg assesses their respective plans to address inequality. And the Tyee offers election readers on issues including pharmacare and dental care and electoral reform,

- Finally, Nav Persaud and Danielle Martin write about the cruel experiment being performed on Canadians who can't afford necessary medications - and the need for a universal pharmacare system to make sure nobody faces that predicament.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Anushka Asthana, Jessica Elgot and Rowena Mason report on Jeremy Corbyn's path as Labour leader - which include genuinely moving the UK's political centre of gravity to the left while improving his party's electoral prospects in the process.

- Andrew Boozary and Danielle Martin write that the U.S.' health care debate should lead us to discuss how to improve Canada's universal health care - including by adding pharmacare into our public system.

- Christina Gray discusses how an increased minimum wage helps the working poor in particular.

- Chris Arsenault reports on newly-revealed details showing how insiders have long known B.C.'s Site C dam was an expensive failure - even while trying to push to spend billions more on it. And Jessica Glenzain compares the treatment of the public to the corporate sector in Michigan, where Nestle offers up a pittance to bottle publicly-owned water while Flint residents pay exorbitant prices for an unsafe supply.

- Finally, Michael Harris takes note of the fact that Ralph Goodale and the Libs seem to have no more conscience when it comes to the fruits of torture than the Harper Cons.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Danny Dorling wonders whether we've finally reached the point of shifting toward greater income equality, while noting the uncertainty in trying to assess pay ratios.

- Kevin Carmichael discusses how homeownership is getting pushed further and further out of the reach of young Canadian workers. And Edgardo Sepulveda writes that rent too is becoming less and less manageable for lower-income households.

- Roderick Benns talks to Danielle Martin about the role a basic income can play in ensuring everybody is able to live a decent life. And Andrew Taylor interviews Rutger Bregman about the possibility of a 15-hour work week to ensure people have time for what's truly valuable:

Bregman's notion of a shorter work week is not designed to provide more time to sit on the couch massaging the remote control.

"When I talk about the 15-hour work week, I'm talking about doing less paid work that we don't really care about so that we can do more things that are actually valuable," he said. "Whether it's volunteer work or caring for our kids or elderly. We need to update our idea of what work is."

He said shortening the work week, in tandem with implementing a universal basic income, would offer people the freedom to decide what to do with their life while providing a level of financial security.

Bregman said working fewer hours would reduce stress and workplace accidents. He also said countries with shorter working weeks had less income inequality and greater gender equality.

- Finally, Brent Patterson calls out the Libs' silence on prescription drug affordability as NAFTA negotiations threaten the public's access to needed medications.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Danielle Martin highlights how investments in ending poverty including a basic income can improve health outcomes among other key social indicators:

Far more than consumption of medical care, income is the strongest predictor of health. Canadians are more likely to die at an earlier age and suffer more illnesses if they are in a low income bracket, regardless of age, sex, race, and place of residence.

There are at least two ways in which income is related to health. First, income allows people to purchase the things that are necessary to survive and thrive, such as nutritious food and safe shelter. Second, income affects health indirectly, through its effect on social participation and the ability to control life circumstances. Put another way, the biggest disease that needs to be cured in Canada is the disease of poverty, and part of the cure is to implement a big idea: A Basic Income Guarantee for all Canadians.

We can eliminate income poverty by ensuring that no one in Canada has an income below what’s needed to achieve a basic standard of living. If we did so, we’d see a considerable improvement in the health of Canadians. The Basic Income Guarantee goes by various names (such as the guaranteed annual income, the negative income tax, and the basic income), and there are different ways to design it. The version I like best works like this: if your income from all sources falls below a certain level, you get topped up to a level sufficient to meet basic needs. That’s it. A true Basic Income Guarantee would ensure that everyone in Canada has an income above the “poverty line.”

The Basic Income Guarantee can’t and mustn’t replace all social programs. We still need good public education, publicly financed health care, quality affordable child care, affordable housing, and reliable unemployment insurance. But it would eliminate the need for the kinds of income support programs that invade people’s lives and limit their choices.

- And Robin Boadway and Roderick Benns similarly argue that a basic income should be included in our set of fundamental needs in setting labour policy - though we shouldn't pretend it's a complete solution to the problems facing workers either. 

- Joseph Stiglitz discusses how workers stand to lose out from Donald Trump's combination of trickle-down and crank economics. And Alan Blinder and Alan Krueger note that Trump's preference for corporate deal-making is likely to ensure that the most important work in building and maintaining necessary but unglamourous infrastructure doesn't get done.

- The Star rightly points out that we shouldn't use prison as a solution to individuals' mental health problems.

- Tamara Khandaker writes that the Libs' idea of reexamining the already-appalling civil rights abuses in Bill C-51 seems to be to push an even more intrusive and unaccountable surveillance state.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg observes that Justin Trudeau may be creating far larger risks for himself by passing up a clear opportunity for electoral reform, rather than working with the consensus in favour of a proportional electoral system. And PressProgress muses as to what an electoral reform survey would look like if it were designed to be as slanted as the Libs', only in the opposite direction.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Robert Reich calls out four fundamental lies used to push corporatist policies. But perhaps more interesting is the truth which no amount of concentrated wealth seems to be able to suppress:

But the more interesting thing here is the memo’s concession of a hurdle AFP faces: That people support the idea of “taking care of those in need and avoiding harm to the weak.” That this is seen as a messaging problem is telling.
...
As it happens, the AFP memo is right. Majorities of Americans do see the economy as rigged for the wealthy and don’t believe everyone has an equal shot at getting ahead. Majorities support a minimum wage hike. Though polling is admittedly mixed on the proper role of “government,” polls have shown majority support for the idea of policies that tax the wealthy to fund programs for the poor, and more Americans think government programs for the poor help rather than hurt. During the 2012 election — which the AFP memo cites as a teachable moment — polling showed strong support for preserving the safety net.

- Meanwhile, Duncan Cameron kicks off Rabble's UP! series with a look at the history of Canada's labour movement. But Tyler Cowen points out that Canada may be on a "super-unequal" trajectory - meaning that there's ample work to be done in shaping a country that looks for ways to serve anybody beyond the wealthy few. And Linda McQuaig also weighs in on the disproportionate growth of concentrated wealth:

Even Republican President Theodore Roosevelt argued in 1906 that the U.S. should place "a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of those swollen fortunes which it is certainly of no benefit to this country to perpetuate."

The slashing of those high tax rates in recent decades has contributed greatly, Piketty notes, to today's return to inequality.

Piketty also dispels the notion that today's fortunes are the result of talent, noting that 60 to 70 per cent of them are due to inherited wealth, and that we're on track to return to a world -- like late 19th-century Europe -- dominated by inherited wealth.

Stephen Harper is no doubt hoping we'll be distracted by sports, and by reports we're doing about as well as middle-class Americans, who've been crushed by the brutal, ongoing, Wall-Street-induced recession.

Meanwhile, an immensely rich and powerful class right here in Canada is quietly amassing ever greater wealth and power to hand down to their heirs, who will be still richer and more powerful. But, go Habs, go! Why would we care? 

- Joseph Heath writes about the apples-to-oranges comparison between defined-benefit pensions like the CPP which offer retirement security to all workers included in their scope, and the Cons' preferred message that retirees can expect not a dime more than they can buy through an individual annuity.

- And Danielle Martin, while pointing out that there's reason for pride in Canada's universal health care system, also highlights the room for improvement in our health policy:

I see three big ideas out there that could raise the bar for the health of Canadians in the next decade.

The first is to improve access to prescription medications. Public insurance, either provincial or national, should cover the 20 most effective medications for chronic disease for every single Canadian. If we purchased those 20 drugs in bulk for the whole country and bargained effectively on the price we pay, we could put this program in place without spending a single penny more of public money than we already spend.

The second big idea flows from a campaign called Choosing Wisely. It taps into the reality that today’s health care consumers are increasingly well prepared to have conversations about the risks of tests and treatments. Too many Canadians are harmed every year by inappropriate, wasteful and often harmful tests and prescriptions. Radiologists agree, for example, that 30 per cent of CT scans are unnecessary, and these scans involve radiation. And do we really need to be taking 80 per cent more drugs than we did 10 years ago? It’s time to challenge the belief that more is always better when it comes to health care, and start a conversation between patients and health care providers that is more honest about what good research tells us are the risks and benefits of our interventions.

Third, we need to acknowledge that health is about more than just health care. Rather than spending more and more at the repair shop, we need to attack the causes of ill health. Income is the most important predictor of health: the poorer you are, the more likely you are to have negative health outcomes. The Guaranteed Annual Income, a simple and powerful concept that is supported both by local and international evidence, could dramatically improve the health of all Canadians by reducing poverty.

- Finally, Don Lenihan discusses the stark distinction between academic and political commentary. But it's well worth using his analysis as a starting point to discuss how political can be made less war-like, and more open to actual discussion of public policy choices.