Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- A.R. Moxon discusses our role in observing and shaping the world around us with the help of the analogy of a submarine whose occupants choose not to surface when it's obvious we can't survive the loss of oxygen. And Jen Kostuchuk, Erik Steiner and Sean Lyons discuss the need for adults generally - and decision-makers in particular - to start paying attention to the concern children have for our planet's future. And Ariel Wittenberg reports on the dirty energy industry's lobbying to prevent any regulation which would protect workers from having to suffer through dangerously hot conditions.

- Luke O'Brien highlights how the U.S.' surveillance state has always been built for the purpose of targeting and controlling left-wing actors. Prem Sikka discusses how money wields power in the UK, turning facially neutral laws into a means to exacerbate inequalities. And Robert Reich writes that neoliberalism is far past salvaging or rehabilitating as an organizing economic principle.  

- Phoebe Weston reports on new research into the wide variety and dangerous quantity of harmful chemicals seeping into the UK's rivers.

- Finally, David Olive writes that along with the patriotic push to buy domestically, Canadians should be doing everything we can to avoid buying from the country trying to take us over.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Emily Atkin writes about the importance of continuing to highlight the dangers of climate change even if - and indeed because - our political class refuses to fully engage with it. And Nature weighs in on the folly of planning to overshoot our planetary limits and trying to pull back only after the fact, while Discover points out that "deep warming" will continue to undermine habitability even if we're later able to zero out carbon emissions. 

- Arielle Samuelson discusses how Hurricane Milton became far more severe as a result of a warmed Gulf of Mexico. And Victoria Gill and Helen Briggs report on a jarring 73% drop in global wildlife populations over just the last half-century. 

- Michael Bachelard reports on the absolute fiction of Australia's largest source of carbon offsets. George Monbiot warns that UK Labour's plan to pour tens of billions of dollars into carbon capture and storage (while pleading poverty when it comes to anything that could actually help people) will inevitably turn into a similar fiasco in the making. And Jody MacPherson reports on a plea from Alberta's municipalities for the UCP to stop handing out money to oil companies while simultaneously relieving them of any responsibility for the costs of environmental degradation and cleanup. 

- Chris Hedges interviews Monbiot about the history and impact of neoliberalism as a means of undermining democracy:

- Ken Shirriff examines the continued concentration of wealth in the U.S., while Darren Major reports on the similar escalation of inequality in Canada. And David Olive discusses how workplace abuse is the norm in a society which treats workers as disposable commodities rather than people deserving of consideration and respect.

- Finally, Dale Smith calls out Danielle Smith's pitiful attempt to treat systemic denial and dehumanization of trans youth as being for their own good. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thom Hartmann discusses how conservative policies and rhetoric both kill people even looking only at  homicides and suicides. Cory Doctorow points out how the conservative impetus to exacerbate inequality has resulted in the housing crisis - including through new means for the wealthy to take homes away from workers. And Jessica Wildfire highlights the inherent unsustainability of any attempt to use wealth or privilege to vanish from a society which is in the midst of breaking down under the logic of extractive capitalism. 

- Meanwhile, Gaye Taylor takes note of the steps Canadian cities are taking to try to reduce the foreseeable number of heat-related deaths which we can expect in the midst of a fossil-fueled climate breakdown. And Annie Nova writes about the immense financial cost of climate change for the people being born today. 

- David Olive writes that there's no valid objection to the Libs' plans to modestly increase the tax inclusion rate on capital gains, while Max Fawcett rightly argues that if anything Canada should be doing far more to ensure the rich pay their fair share. 

- Norm Farrell discusses the propensity of megaprojects to take on a life of their own which results in our missing out on more efficient and effective alternatives. 

- Kim Siever challenges the claim that business owners are entitled to a disproportionate share of profits based on their being the only parties taking on risk. And David Moscrop interviews Alex Hemingway about the far superior results of worker-owned firms by numerous standards - including the job security and resilience which are normally treated as the main reason for serving the interests of capital. 

- Finally, Jared Wesley discusses how the UCP is a threat to democracy - though it's worth noting that every justified criticism represents an element of the playbook of right-wing parties across the continent. 

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Emma Beddington rightly questions the determination of the powers that be to pretend that COVID-19 never happened - though her attempt to treat an ongoing pandemic as merely a past issue is itself misplaced. Megan Ford discusses long COVID's especially damaging impact on nurses. And C. Raina McIntyre et al. offer a reminder of the role masks play in reducing spread (despite a renewed wave of spin to the contrary). 

- The Guardian calls out the latest attempt by the UK Cons to declare a policy of perpetual booms for capital owners and doom for workers. And Baher Kamal comments on the desperate need to ensure the wealthy around the world pay their fair share as inequality continues to worsen. 

- David Olive rightly questions why the oil patch would think for a second that it can bank massive windfall profits at consumers' expense, then turn around and demand that every available public dollar be handed over as a subsidy for carbon capture schemes. Anupriya Dasgupta discusses how the PR industry has transferred its tobacco playbook into manufacturing equally destructive anti-science propaganda on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. And Caroline Orr Bueno highlights the role of Russian state media as the primary foreign state sponsor of the #FluTruxKlan (which was of course a joint operation with the oil industry). 

- Meanwhile, Andrew Rawnsley notes that an obsession with extending dirty energy production is leaving the UK and other countries far behind international peers in building an economy for the future. 

- Finally, Umair Haque discusses the psychological effects of life in an age of avoidable extinction. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Star's editorial board weighs in on the reality that wishful thinking isn't a substitute for responsible public health measures as another COVID wave builds up, while the Globe and Mail rightly criticizes the politicians acting like the pandemic is over as the carnage reaches new peaks. Jillian Horton writes that governments have used the language of individual empowerment to leave us powerless. And Nancy Hansen and Shannon Sampert highlight how the irresponsible elimination of protections and accommodations is leaving disabled people behind. 

- Jeremy Appel writes about the need to take profit motives out of long-term care in Alberta (and elsewhere). 

- Deborah de Lange discusses the need to stop pouring money into fossil fuels, including through the gigantic carbon capture and storage subsidies being demanded by Canada's corporate establishment. Graham Redfearn calls out the blatant and false astroturf campaign aimed at extending the lifespan of combustion engines rather than transitioning to electric alternatives. And Justine Calma reports that instead of acquiescing in that type of fossil-driven policy, the Biden administration is invoking emergency legislation to facilitate the development and manufacture of battery technology. 

- David Olive rightly contrasts the proven and efficient renewable energy already available to us against the long-term, high-cost delay tactic of demanding we keep using fossil fuels until nonexistent small modular nuclear reactors magically become viable. 

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute highlights Ed Broadbent's comments on how Canada has long neglected economic, social and cultural rights. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Olive rightly questions why big pharma has been gifted intellectual property monopolies and multi-billion-dollar profit streams over COVID vaccines developed through publicly-funded research. Ivan Semeniuk and Kelly Grant write about the push to speed up the delivery of second vaccine doses in areas facing the spread of the Delta variant.

- Martin Lukacs exposes the choice of Seumus O'Regan and his Department of Natural Resources to act as oil lobbyists within government, including by trying to interfere with scientific decision-making on environmental issues.

- PressProgress reports on the Winnipeg Police Department's alliance with - and publicity work for - a secretive and insular religious sect. 

- Melissa Mancini reports that Ontario is once again promising improvements in living conditions for residents of long-term care homes while doing absolutely nothing to enforce the rules which would require it. 

- Alanna Smith highlights how the UCP's criticism of "red tape" hasn't prevented it from imposing punitive restrictions on harm reduction initiatives. And David Climenhaga points out that the same party that bleats constantly about "ethical oil" is going far out of its way to ensure Saudi Arabia can enrich itself off of Alberta agriculture.

- Finally, Luke Savage writes that we should be treating space exploration as a matter of humanity's common interest, not a source of amusement and profit-seeking for the world's wealthiest people.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Richard Cannings comments on the need for governments to collect a fair share of revenue from wealthy individuals and corporations. And Erin Weir argues that Canada's federal government shouldn't subsidize Jason Kenney's corporate tax giveaway with abatements on federal taxes.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman discusses the damage being done by the U.S.' plutocrats who are happily accepting the destruction of their country's social and economic infrastructure in exchange for short-term tax handouts.

- Jennifer Szalai reviews Christopher Leonard's Kochland, including a look at how the Koch brothers have manipulated governments and employees alike to wring out every possible dollar with no regard for any community interests. And David Olive notes that a reckoning is coming for the pharmaceutical corporations which have created North America's opioid crisis - while also observing that government acquiescence has played a role in an issue which hasn't similarly taken hold elsewhere. 

- Karl Nerenberg discusses the role Canada's successful but incomplete public health care system is playing in elections on both sides of the border. And A Montgomery et al study the consequences of widespread burnout among health care workers facing increasing demands and decreasing resources to fund them.

- Finally, Mary O'Hara writes about the connections between poverty and mental health - and the need for public policy which properly invests in ameliorating both. 

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Robyn Allan reports that the Trudeau Libs' set of Trans Mountain giveaways to the oil sector now includes billions to oil companies. And Sharmini Peries talks to Dimitri Lascaris about the Libs' willingness to enable SNC Lavalin's corruption, while Martin Patriquin notes the similarities between the latest corporate corruption and the Libs' sponsorship scandal. 

- The Center for Public Integrity examines the connection between the Republicans' tax giveaways to the rich, and payment for services rendered by major donors. And David Dayen points out how Donald Trump is continuing to attack the poor by making it easier for payday lenders to prey on the financially vulnerable.

- The CCPA's report card highlights how the Saskatchewan Party is failing families in need of accessible child care. And in case there was any doubt what we're losing as a result, Jenny Peng and Tessa Vikander examine the benefits for families from British Columbia's new provincial child care plan.

- Finally, Jay Pitter interviews Mirlo Liendo about the lasting effects of childhood poverty and precarity. And David Olive discusses how a basic income produces economic as well as social benefits.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Gary Younge discusses how regardless of the outcome of the U.S.' midterm elections, democracy is on the defensive against a Republican attack on voting rights. Janet Reitman goes into detail about the consequences of the U.S.' law enforcement system failing to do anything about the dangerous buildup of violent white nationalism. And Tabatha Southey rightly points out the lack of any reason to hand a platform to a demagogue, while also offering some suggestions as to how any debate including Steve Bannon should have gone.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman comments that it's impossible to square support for the Republicans with either a clean conscience or any grounding in reality.

- The CCPA's latest Monitor examines the relationship between finance and the citizenry - including Michal Rozworski's piece on the connection between Canada's urban housing crisis and its increasing personal debt. And Al Jazeera interviews Leilani Farha about the global effects of treating housing as a means to accumulate wealth rather than a human right.

- Murray Mandryk writes that whatever plausibility the Saskatchewan Party has tried to claim for its Global Transportation Hub plans is going up on smoke as it appears more and more likely that the only private-sector participants had to be gifted land and services to go along.

- Finally, Michael Mann comments on the connection between climate breakdown and the increasingly extreme weather seen this summer. And David Olive writes that Doug Ford and other climate change denialists and obstructionists are positioning themselves firmly on the wrong side of history.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Melissa Benn discusses how private schools entrench a class divide within a generation - and argues that they should be eliminated in favour of an inclusive education system:

(W)e urgently need to renew the conversation about the private-public divide, and move beyond the superficial, profoundly apolitical debates of recent years. These have chiefly been characterised by the rolling out of the same information again and again, almost as if the private schools were not human creations but unchallengeable phenomena like the weather or religious deities. Over and over we are told: private schools achieve higher results; their graduates vacuum up the majority of places at the best universities; they take all the top jobs; they dominate the top of society. There is, as a result, a continual stirring up (with the liberal help of a few capital letters) of resentment, envy and panic – “Private pupils are SIX TIMES more likely to get A* grades at GCSEs than those at state schools”; “A third of private pupils score 3 A* grades at A-level compared to one in TEN at state schools” – finely seasoned with a good dollop of hopelessness: “The awful truth: to get ahead you need a private education.”
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If we are to move the conversation on, then, we need to be clear that the success of private education is not replicable precisely because it offers the already socially and economically privileged superior resources and opportunities that inevitably augment their confidence and capabilities in every sphere. Private day schools now cost, on average, £14,500 a year – more than the annual disposable income of the average English family. Boarding is a great deal more costly. The annual fees of a top private school such as Westminster, which sends more students to Oxbridge than any other school in the country, are around £35,000 a year for boarders. Compare this with the average per-pupil spend in a state secondary school of between £4,000 and £6,000 a year. But the difference is not only in simple resources, for the spread of pupils at many state schools will include those from deprived or struggling families, compounding the pressures on their education and those who teach them, while a private school is in general recruiting from the already affluent, literate and enterprising. Thus, we need to publicly acknowledge that the success of private education is far less to do with character building or autonomous governance than the powerful alchemy of several kinds of advantage.

Now, more than ever, there is a strong moral and political argument in support of integration. At a time of growing divides and damaging inequality, we urgently need public institutions that bring the nation together, not further separate and divide us. For many in the UK, the idea of a unified education system to which all subscribe is too great a leap of the imagination, too daring a proposition – and yet the benefits of a common schooling could be immense.

Finland teaches us not only that state education will never be considered truly first-rate until we give all our children the same high-quality schooling, but also that a country that educates its children together has a better chance of being at ease with itself than one that segregates different parts of the population from an early age.

- And the BBC reports on Scotland's new policy making sanitary products available for free to students in order to remove one obvious drain on students' limited resources.

- Karri Munn-Venn makes the case for a federal budget which focuses on people's well-being, not merely GDP and profits. Gideon Resnick reports on Bernie Sanders' proposal to tax large employers who rely on social benefits to make up for their failure to pay a living wage. And David Olive offers a reminder of the tangible benefits of minimum wage increases.

- Meanwhile, Maya Bhullar talks to Hazel Corcoran the role workers' co-operatives can play in building a diverse economy with shared benefits.

- Finally, the New York Times' editorial board examines how harm reduction strategies are reducing the number of opioid-related deaths at the state level.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Olive offers his take on what a basic income should look like - and is optimistic that Ontario's ongoing experiment should hit the mark:

A UBI would be pointless in the absence of existing supports. In the Ontario pilot projects, the payout for a single person will be $1,689 per month. That’s still short of living costs. Average Toronto rent for a two-bedroom apartment ($1,450 per month) and a Metropass ($134 per month) leaves just $116 per month for food, clothing, prescriptions and other costs.

The model devised by Segal, a longtime advocate of UBI, is a sound and cautious one. Its payout is not that much higher than current welfare support under Ontario Works, whose payouts equal about 45 per cent of the Low Income Measure.

But the Segal payout, combined with existing welfare, is enough to lift recipients above the poverty line, ensuring substantial income for workers in precarious jobs and for those in the unpaid workforce. The latter includes tens of thousands of volunteers, whose social contribution is of immense value but doesn’t show up in GDP stats.

A well-designed UBI equates to freedom. Freedom from exploitative employers. Freedom to launch a small business or develop an invention despite a lack of employment income. Liberation from the “poverty trap,” where taking a paying job means surrendering welfare and other benefits. And freedom to escape an abusive partner relied upon for room and board.
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We’re coming back to UBI now because the “social contract” between employers and workers lies in ruins. The decline of unions has consigned powerless workers to exploitative workplaces. And the tax system has been perverted to liberate the wealthiest 1 per cent from paying their fair share.

Income inequality is a widespread crisis. How we handle it will be a defining factor in shaping the 21st century.

- Meanwhile, Emily Mathieu notes that rising rents and other costs are driving the working poor away from Toronto. And Dennis Raphael discusses the importance of political choices in ensuring physical and mental health.

- Angus Deaton discusses how extreme inequality leads to unstable and unrepresentative governance. Peter Waldman highlights the importance of in ensuring that any jobs provide both stability and a reasonable standard of living - as political spin about auto industry jobs in the southern U.S. states has led to little but exploitation in the face of minimal unionization and corporate-owned governments. And Harold Meyerson calls out the corporate media's bias against a fair minimum wage (among other basic protections for workers).

- Daniel Tencer writes that the next stage of trade negotiations with China is likely to include demands that Chinese employers be able to import workers on their own terms, while seeking to eliminate any talk of human rights or national security. 

- Finally, David Rider examines the Ontario Libs' secrecy around their Hydro One selloff - which includes hiding information about who has been involved in the privatization and at what cost. And we should expect similar secrecy - and reason for suspicion - if Bill Morneau follows through on the federal Libs' continued musings about privatizing airports and other public assets.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- David Olive talks to Robert Reich about his work fighting inequality:

There are certain irrefutable facts besides water always running downhill. There is no arguing, for instance, that the U.S. era Reich describes as the “Great Prosperity” — the three-decade span between the late 1940s and the late 1970s — was characterized by high rates of taxation on the wealthy; heavy government investment in the people; and the peak level of unionization in America’s private-sector workforce.

That was the era of high and rising household income in Canada and the U.S., and of heavy state investment in public education that yielded the world’s smartest workforces. It was the era of government investment in the Interstate and Trans-Canada highway systems that boosted economic productivity. It was the era in which more than one-third of private-sector workers belonged to a union.

And it was during that era that America’s burgeoning middle class made the U.S. a superpower, and raised Canada into the ranks of the world’s most affluent countries.
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Especially in Canada, with a Medicare system more comprehensive even than Obamacare, rocket science is not required to restore a fairer distribution of our collective wealth. Raise taxes on the rich. Use the money to invest in people — their health, education and essential services. And stop thwarting the efforts of those workers who seek to organize their workplaces.

“It’s just common sense,” says Reich of simply taking the steps required to bring back the Golden Prosperity years. He leans forward, a look of weariness and mild frustration crossing his face. “Isn’t it?”

- Aditya Chakrabortty discusses the meaning of austerian economics designed to inflate bubbles for the rich at the expense of the poor. Genevieve Lajoie reports that Quebeckers are strongly opposed to the provincial austerity being protested by the province's workers. And Melissa Healy highlights new research showing that inequality on both the individual and the social level is linked to less charitable giving by the wealthy.

- Joshua Rapp Learn points out a few of the ways in which climate change is getting very personal for Atlantic Canada. And Naomi Klein discusses what's being lost in the French government's crackdown on any public activism around the Paris climate conference:

The people facing the worst impacts of climate change have virtually no voice in western debates about whether to do anything serious to prevent catastrophic global warming. Huge climate summits like the one coming up in Paris are rare exceptions. For just two weeks every few years, the voices of the people who are getting hit first and worst get a little bit of space to be heard at the place where fateful decisions are made. That’s why Pacific islanders and Inuit hunters and low-income people of colour from places like New Orleans travel for thousands of miles to attend. The expense is enormous, in both dollars and carbon, but being at the summit is a precious chance to speak about climate change in moral terms and to put a human face to this unfolding catastrophe.

The next thing to understand is that even in these rare moments, frontline voices do not have enough of a platform in the official climate meetings, in which the microphone is dominated by governments and large, well-funded green groups. The voices of ordinary people are primarily heard in grassroots gatherings parallel to the summit, as well as in marches and protests, which in turn attract media coverage. Now the French government has decided to take away the loudest of these megaphones...
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When governments and corporations knowingly fail to act to prevent catastrophic warming, that is an act of violence. It is a violence so large, so global and inflicted against so many temporalities simultaneously (ancient cultures, present lives, future potential) that there is not yet a word capable of containing its monstrousness. And using acts of violence to silence the voices of those who are most vulnerable to climate violence is yet more violence.

In explaining why forthcoming football matches would go on as scheduled, France’s secretary of state for sport said: “Life must go on.” Indeed it must. That’s why I joined the climate justice movement. Because when governments and corporations fail to act in a way that reflects the value of all of life on Earth, they must be protested.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk weighs in on the fragility of our sources of groundwater. And Mike De Souza reports on a stop-work order resulting from a toxic leak from a TransCanada pipeline.

- Finally, Geoffrey Rafe Hall is the latest to comment on the NDP's campaign and what comes next.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kevin Carmichael compares the federal parties' promises to help parents and concludes the NDP's child care plan to hold far more social and economic benefit, while Natascia Lypny likewise finds that parents are more interested in actual affordable child-care spaces than tax baubles. CTV reports on the NDP's promise to extend parental leave under EI as an added help to new parents. And David MacDonald offers five reasons why we need to ensure better opportunities for indigenous families and children.

- Nathan Liewicki reports on the Council of Canadians' town hall on protecting health care in Saskatchewan. But when this is the contractor being brought in by the Wall government as an alternative to public control over our health care system, there's obviously plenty of work to be done.

- David Olive notes the futility of trying to equate corporate tax giveaways with economic development. And Guillaume Hebert responds to the spin from some corporatist opponents of pharmacare.  

- Bill Tieleman discusses what the Cons mean in making reference to "old stock" Canadians, while Murray Mandryk reminds us of the history of exclusionary politics in Canada. Shannon Gormley comments on the need to act reasonably and fairly toward the refugees who need our help, rather than accepting the Cons' presumption of guilt. And the Star notes that the Cons' current scrambling to feign compassion for refugees is the result of their longstanding failure on that front while in government.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert warns that the Cons' desire to arbitrarily ban the niqab might represent the first step toward regular use of the notwithstanding clause to undermine the Charter. And Sean Fine exposes how the Cons ignored the advice of the civil service and went out of their way to require mandatory discrimination against women who wear niqabs. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Following his resounding win to become Labour's leader, Jeremy Corbyn describes the proper role of government as a vehicle for shared benefits:

We understand aspiration and we understand that it is only collectively that our aspirations can be realised.

Everybody aspires to an affordable home, a secure job, better living standards, reliable healthcare and a decent pension. My generation took those things for granted and so should future generations.
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For the Conservatives, the deficit is just an excuse to railroad through the same old Tory agenda: driving down wages, cutting taxes for the wealthiest, allowing house prices to spiral out of reach, selling off our national assets and attacking trade unions. You can’t cut your way to prosperity, you have to build it: investing in modern infrastructure, investing in people and their skills, harnessing innovative ideas and new ways of working to tackle climate change to protect our environment and our future.

Our job is to show that the economy and our society can be made to work for everyone. That means ensuring we stand up against injustice wherever we find it and we fight for a fairer and more democratic future that meets the needs of all.

- Meanwhile, David Olive writes that the Cons' longstanding economic promises and boasts have proven to be completely illusory. Josh Bivens points out how hundreds of billions of dollars have been funnelled into U.S. corporate coffers based solely on the declining share of income going to workers. And Greg Grandin notes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other new trade agreements are designed to further push wealth to the few who already have the most at the expense of the vast majority of citizens.

- Scott Santens comments on the inescapable reality of technological unemployment. Sarah Jaffe questions the theory that workers are better off operating under the expectation that their employment will reflect the principle of "do what you love". And Deirdre Fulton examines yet more evidence as to how workers in general are far better off where unions are strong.

- Alex Boutilier discusses the need to bring Canada's access-to-information system into the 21st century. And Donovan Vincent reports on a renewed push for a restored long-form census which better allows Canadian governments and other organizations to have accurate information about the people they're supposed to be serving.

- Finally, Patti Tamara Lenard exposes the Cons' dismal record in dealing with refugees. And Dennis Gruending argues that the Cons will pay the price for their callous attempt to scapegoat the world's most vulnerable people.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Andrew Jackson weighs in on the need for our public policy to ensure a fair initial distribution of income and power in order to ensure that further redistribution is sustainable:

The issue of how to deal with rising inequality and the squeezed middle-class has recently moved to the centre of political debate, with the various parties proposing significant policy changes. International experience suggests that a more equal Canada will require major changes to a wide range of policy levers and not just to the tax and transfer system.

Work by the OECD and others shows that the rising income share of the affluent, especially that of the top 1%, has been mainly driven by rising incomes from the market. Senior executive salaries and bonuses as well as investment returns have grown much more rapidly than the wages of the middle-class and those at the bottom of the income spectrum.

Inequality is mainly an issue of a more unfair “pre-distribution” of income and wealth by the market, driven by such economic forces as globalization, technological change, the decline of union bargaining power and the growing proportion of low paid and insecure jobs.

That said, inequality of after-tax income has been compounded by a trend towards reduced re-distribution through the tax and transfer system. In most countries there has been a move to lower top income tax rates and reduced taxation of corporate profits, as well as cuts to income support programs such as unemployment insurance, welfare and public pensions.
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Rising inequality is politically self reinforcing to the degree that it increases the political weight of the rich as well the distance between the well-off and everyone else. Extreme inequality sets the stage for a “secession of the affluent” to gated communities and private elite universities and high quality privatized health care.

If market income inequality is allowed to inexorably rise, one can expect even more resistance by the well-off to redistributive policies. This suggests that more must also be done to equalize market incomes.

- Scott Santens responds to a laughable set of calculations from the Economist by pointing out how a basic income is entirely affordable. Paul Krugman comments on the disconnect between the privileged few who constantly call for flogging the poor as the answer to any policy question, and the people who are already facing insecurity far beyond what the elites would understand. And Brad Wassink discusses how we should recognize the value of taxes as a means of funding our social rights and responsibilities, while also pointing out that we've allowed our tax system to become unfair by giving in to calls for top-end and corporate giveaways:

In 2005, the total tax rate was an inverted U-shape, progressive from the bottom to the middle, but regressive thereafter. So much so, that the top one per cent paid a lower tax rate (30.5 per cent) than the bottom 10 per cent (30.7 per cent). As our tax code exacerbates income inequality, we fail in our responsibility to protect the rights of low-income Canadians to live in dignity.

Canadians get a good deal when we pay our taxes. By pooling our resources, we are able to purchase better and more efficient services than we ever could on our own. And the benefit most Canadians receive from public services exceeds the amount we contribute.

So where do we go from here?

First, we need to be less squeamish about discussing taxation. According to data from the OECD and the UN, countries that invest in public programs enjoy higher levels of well-being. This story is not always being told, but it needs to be emphasized.

Second, we need to engage our political representatives in this discussion. Their policies and actions are usually a response to what they hear while out canvassing or reading their mail. So when they promise us lower taxes, it's likely because it's what they think we want from them. They won't know any better until we tell them otherwise.

Third, we need to vote. Polls have shown that Canadians support progressive taxation, yet our tax code doesn't reflect this. This isn't hard to comprehend when we think about the fact that just 61 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot in 2011. Low voter turnout is yet another way in which we are not living up to our responsibilities to each other.

We each owe it to the rest of Canadians to contribute our time, our energy, our money, and our vote to contribute to the common good.

- Hassan Yussuff makes the case for the federal government to genuinely expand the universal Canada Pension Plan to ensure a secure living upon retirement. And Lana Payne makes abundantly clear that the Cons' last-minute trial balloon about allowing people with spare money to put it into the CPP without employer contributions falls far short of offering a real alternative.

- David Howell and Bill Mah report that Rachel Notley's NDP government is following through on its campaign promise to increase Alberta's minimum wage to $15, with a first step to be taken by this fall. And David Olive argues that Canadian workers need to make more use of holidays already provided to them by law.

- Finally, Alexander Knight offers a thorough review of the dangers of the Cons' terror legislation. Janel Johnson reports on the Canadian Bar Association's call for Canadians to protest and be heard before their ability to do so is taken away. And Andrew Mitrovica highlights the need for citizens to keep challenging the lack of justification for C-51 and the risks of abuse even as the Cons ram it through Parliament.

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

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bill Moyers interviews Richard Wolff about inequality - featuring Wolff's observation that anybody trying to justify inequality as an inevitable byproduct of unregulated markets manages only to make those markets indefensible:

Bill Moyers: When you say that there's no economic argument that people should be kept at the-- should not share in the gains of economic growth, the response is, "Well, that's what the market bears."

Richard Wolff: Well, you know, in the history of economics, which is my profession, it's a standard play on words. Instead of talking about how the economy is shaped by the actions of consumers in one way, workers in another way, corporate executives in another way, we abstract from all of that and we create a myth or a mystique. It's called the market.

That way you're absolving everybody from responsibility. It isn't that you're doing this, making that decision in this way, it's rather this thing called the market that makes things happen. Well, every corporate executive I know, knows that half of his or her job is to tweak, manipulate, shift, and change the market.

No corporate executive takes the market as given. That may happen in the classroom, but not in the world of real business. That's what advertising is. You try to create the demand, if there isn't enough of it to make money without doing that. You change everything you can. So the reference to a market, I think, is an evasion.

It's an attempt to make abstract the real workings of the economy so nobody can question what this one or that one is doing. But let me take it another way. To say that it's the market is another way of saying, "It's our economic system that works that way." That is a very dangerous defense move to take.

Bill Moyers: Why?

Richard Wolff: Because it plays into the hands of those like me who are critical of the system. If indeed it isn't this one or that one, it isn't this company's strategy or that product's maneuver, but it is the market, the totality of the system, that is producing unconscionable results, multi-million-dollar apartments next door to abject poverty, then you're saying that the system is at fault for these results.

I agree with that. But I'm not sure that those who push this notion of "the market makes it happen," have thought through where the logic of that defense makes them very vulnerable to a much more profound critique than they will be comfortable with.

- Meanwhile, Lana Payne tears into Tim Hudak for his job-killing agenda and long-discredited policy prescriptions, while Alan Pyke discusses how corporate freebies have failed in Kansas. And David Olive singles out Hudak for well-justified scorn in his claim (contrary to all evidence) that another round of handouts to the corporate sector will help Ontario's economic prospects - though Olive is also right to note that there's significant room for greater long-term investment on all sides in the Ontario election.

- Upstream makes the case for a focus on youth homelessness as an area where public investment could radically improve lives. And the NDP is pushing (and petitioning) for a renewed federal role in funding social housing as a means of alleviating poverty.

- The Star takes a look at the Cons' cuts to refugee health care, and confirms the suspicion that the effect of withdrawing funding for needed services would be to inflate costs for the provinces who are left to deal with diseases left untreated for too long.

- Finally, Kady O'Malley points out that the NDP has received a substantial boost from former House of Commons law clerk Rob Walsh in its effort to stop the abuse of parliamentary resources to attack opposition parties. But it's hard to see the Cons being persuaded to change course given that Walsh's warning against "the use of House proceedings for any purpose whatsoever...to license parliamentary tyranny by a governing majority over the minority parties sitting in opposition if not also over outside third parties" would fit neatly as a mission statement for Stephen Harper and his minions.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Michael Harris offers a theory for the Cons' handling of the Clusterduff - from their willingness to pay him off to their subsequent decision to cut him loose:

Why were the CPC and the PM’s chief of staff willing to risk what would be an explosive scandal if the facts leaked out, as they did on May 14, 2013? The answer that seems most likely is this: To stop an audit into Senator Duffy trailing back into the 2011 election.

In the early innings of this story, Conservative strategists took the view that if the Duffy expenses were paid back, then there would be no further reason to “review” Duffy’s expenses.
...
If the audit could be stopped, it would cut off further embarrassment for a government that was beginning to smell of corruption. Scandals involving a handful of key Harper appointments — Bruce Carson, Arthur Porter, Dean del Mastro, Peter Penashue, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau — were beginning to take a toll.

The government also was labouring under the shadow of dirty tricks in the last election, from robocalls that had Elections Canada investigating 56 ridings where voter suppression had been alleged, to the use by the CPC in 14 Conservative campaigns of the U.S. firm Front Porch Strategies, an campaign organizing group with close ties to the Republican Party. The law is murky on whether it is legal for foreigners to campaign on the ground in a Canadian election, as Front Porch did in the campaigns of Julian Fantino and Rick Dykstra.

As the custodian of the party, Nigel Wright didn’t need to have the PM’s most important fundraiser adding to Tory problems — particularly since Duffy played such a key role in the 2011 election, campaigning for 17 Conservative candidates during the writ period and helping the Tories to their majority.

Could the party’s use of Duffy’s services during that election stand up to scrutiny? Was that the part of the story Nigel Wright’s payment was designed to bury? Is that why it was so important to change the channel? 

- Gloria Galloway reports on the Cons' choice to let polluters write a new set of laws to expose Canada's fisheries to destruction.

- David Olive makes the case for a substantially higher minimum wage to make low-wage employment less precarious. And Thandiwe Vela writes that younger workers are turning toward unions as a means of winning some say over their workplace.

- Finally, you'll find WinkProgress as a new addition to the U.S. blogroll to the right - but I'll highlight it here as well as being worth a look.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Olive writes that the dangerous effects of long-term unemployment (caused in no small part by gratuitous austerity) are just as much a problem in Canada as in the U.S.:

With our persistent high levels of long-term unemployment, Canada is at risk of creating a new permanent underclass. The world’s economic policymaking elite, Ottawa’s included, hasn’t grasped that its enslavement to the “austerity chic” of severe cutbacks in government’s contribution to the economy is retarding the recovery it claims to be promoting. It’s like watching a grainy newsreel of Herbert Hoover’s lectures on the paramount virtue of balanced budgets, while banks, farms and barber shops go bust and the jobless rate soars above 30 per cent.

Long-term unemployment is an affliction for more than a quarter million Canadians who have been out of work for longer than 27 weeks. A great many of these 250,000-plus Canadians have spouses, and children and elderly parents to care for. So the total number of Canadians suffering the hardship of long-term unemployment is far higher than a quarter-million people.
...
With a low debt-to-GDP ratio that is the envy of our G-7 peers, Canada can comfortably afford to rebuild the country and prevent the emergence of a new permanent economic underclass.

It needn’t be repeated that decisions on austerity and stimulus have consequences. Or perhaps it does, since by our silent assent to faddish government austerity we are accepting “unnecessary human misery,” not in some faraway land but in our very midst. 

- David Climenhaga traces Alberta's 2011 labour code rewrite directly to corporate influence. And while Bob Weber reports on the province finally laying charges related to an oil spill from the same year, he also notes that the PCs' first response was to try to suppress the truth:

The Greenpeace report outlines examples which it says demonstrates how officials were more concerned with protecting the image of a besieged industry than protecting the public.

It points out the board's own reviewers recommended on Sept. 13, 2011, that a public inquiry into the spill be held — a recommendation that was squelched by the board's chief operating officer three weeks later.

The environmental group also suggests that the board misrepresented air-quality data from the Little Buffalo school, quoting a board statement that "based on the current data, there is no evidence that the air quality poses risk of long-term health impact at this time."
...
Greenpeace also pointed out contradictions between the board's report and what Energy Minister Ken Hughes was told privately. While the board concluded "contaminated water was not migrating off site," a May 6, 2011, briefing note to Hughes said "there are some exceedances of hydrocarbons downstream from the wetlands."

Finally, Greenpeace quotes a May 31, 2011, briefing note to then-premier Ed Stelmach that the group says contradicts assurances given to the public: "Full restoration of the localized area is unlikely," the briefing note says.

- Meanwhile, Dave Sims points out that Saskatchewan's regulatory system is in rather rough shape too - with no information available as to what injuries and deaths have taken place at which rural and northern sites for employers with a head office in a city.

- Travis Lupick notes that Christy Clark's parting smash-and-grab of British Columbia includes the destruction of a pharmaceutical watchdog which ensured better prices and outcomes for the province's health care system (at the expense of allowing big pharma's marketing to go unquestioned).

- Finally, Erin Weir suggests that most Canadian provinces are arriving by consensus at a 12% floor for corporate tax rates.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Olive comments on the world food crisis, making the point that what we're lacking is some link between more-than-sufficient productive capacity and the nutritional needs of less wealthy people around the globe:

(A) permanently higher price for oil spurred successful innovation to reduce our reliance on petroleum products in realms outside of transportation and energy, along with a determined effort to find new sources of oil in increasingly remote places.

The global food crisis, by contrast, has not made us think differently about how we produce and use the fruit of the land. We have no national or global strategies for food-security or for nutrition. Speculators have not been reined in with limits on betting. And the powerful ethanol lobby hasn’t been shown the door, even though the production of ethanol consumes more energy than it returns as fuel.

And, conspicuously in the West, too much crop production goes into highly processed food drained of nutrients and fibre, accounting for a North American epidemic in obesity and diabetes.

- So naturally, your friendly neighbourhood wingnuts are focused on demolishing the few mechanisms left to ensure that mere workers have some say in the allocation of resources and the functioning of our economy.

- Michael Harris' latest column discusses how Canada's premiers are looking for the federal government to actually show some national leadership, rather than retreating as far as possible from the services most important to Canadians.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone sees the proposed Nexen takeover as a litmus test in the application of the "net benefit" standard for foreign takeovers. And Erin Weir notes that whatever benefit Alberta may receive from a head-office promise, Saskatchewan looks to do nothing but lose out if the sale is approved.