Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Doug Saunders writes that Europe's devastating new wave of COVID - like those elsewhere - can be traced directly to politicians pandering to antivaxxers rather than making responsible decisions to protect public health. Yushi Nomura et al. study the retention of antibodies after full vaccination - finding that women are far more likely to see a precipitous dropoff after a few months. And Carolyn Johnson and Andre Picard each discuss the benefits of new treatments, while recognizing that they're not a substitute for preventing viral spread. 

- Matthew Barker writes that a basic income would work wonders in ensuring people are able to secure a home. And Rachel Tribe discusses the problem with substituting restrictive food aid for the ability to buy what people need. 

- Steve Randall discusses a new study showing that Canada loses billions of dollars to tax abuse every year. Ben Steverman highlights how just one of Donald Trump's giveaways to the rich has led to a precipitous drop in revenue from the U.S.' estate tax. And Clay Cockrell notes that claiming unfathomable wealth doesn't actually serve to make the uber-rich happy or fulfilled. 

- Sally McManus writes that Australia doesn't have a shortage of workers, but of jobs worth working. And Nelson Lichtenstein discusses the U.S.' slow-motion general strike as a means of securing improved wages and working conditions. 

- Robert Reich laments the U.S.' obsession with deficits as a mechanism to shut down discussion of improvements to people's well-being (while recognizing the role he and the Clinton administration played in framing policy choices that way). 

- Finally, Hannah Richardson reports on Samantha Price's recognition that instead of treating "woke" as an insult to younger people, parents and teachers should recognize that what's being held up for criticism is the laudable decision to build a more caring world. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Harry Leslie Smith reiterates his determination to make sure that new generations don't face the poverty and deprivation that marked his childhood. And Beverly Gologorsky discusses the rise of extreme poverty in the U.S. and its lasting effects on its victims:

In the psyche, poverty begets fear, anxiety, tension, and worry, constant worry. In the soul, poverty, which feels like the loss of you know not what, is always there like a cold fist to remind you that tomorrow will be the same as today. Such effects are not outgrown like a child’s dress but linger for a lifetime in a country where the severest kinds of poverty are again on the rise (and was just scathingly denounced by the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights), where each tax bill, each favor to the 1 percent, passes a kind of life sentence on the poor. And that is the definition of hopelessness.

Americans who barely made it through the recent recession now find themselves in conditions (in supposed good times) that seem to be worsening. In poor neighborhoods and rural areas, even when people listen to the pundits of cable TV chatter on about economic inequality, the words bleed together, because without the means to make real change, the present is forever. At best, such discussions feel like a teardrop in an ocean of words. Among professionals, pundits, and academics barely hidden contempt for those defined as lower or working class often tinges such discussions.
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During the past few decades, however, with huge sums being poured into this country’s never-ending wars, unions weakening or collapsing, wages being pushed down, and workers losing jobs, then homes, so much of that safety net is gone. If Donald Trump and his crew of millionaires and billionaires continue with their evisceration of the rest of the safety net, then food stamps, welfare aid directed at children’s health, and women’s reproductive rights, among other things, will disappear as well. Add to that the utter disregard the Trump administration has shown for people of color and its special mean-spiritedness toward immigrants, whether Mexican or Muslim—and for growing numbers of non-millionaires and non-billionaires the future is already starting to look like the worst, not the best, of times. 

- Janet McFarland writes that executive pay has been skyrocketing even as the public's concern about inequality has grown in recent years. And Prem Sikka discusses how just a decade after the most recent financial meltdown, regulators have resumed catering to corporate interests rather than protecting the public from them.

- Mike De Souza looks at the details of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain environmental violations, featuring internal calculation errors, faulty equipment and a failure to report to regulators. And Bill McKibben notes that the fossil fuel industry is being recognized as a particularly irresponsible actor even in the corporate world.

- Finally, Doug Saunders offers a reminder that contrary to the fearmongering by right-wing demagogues, there's no rational basis to treat the presence of immigrants of any type or background as a problem.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Benjamin Austin, Edward Glaeser and Lawrence Summers make the case for economic policy focused on reducing regional disparities. And Chad Shearer and Isha Shah highlight how inclusion is a necessary element of sustainable economic development:

(B)etter performance on one measure [out of growth, prosperity and inclusion] is associated with better performance on the other two measures in all three time periods. Gains in one category, like growth, are typically accompanied by gains in others, like prosperity and inclusion, and vice versa. For example, Table 1 shows that over the one year from 2015 to 2016, each one-unit increase in metro areas’ composite growth score was associated with a nearly half-unit increase in composite prosperity scores, on average. This relationship is moderately strong: growth scores explain about one-quarter of the variance in prosperity scores. The magnitude and strength of this relationship is relatively consistent over each of the time periods.

Growth and prosperity’s relationship to inclusion, however, grows larger and stronger with time. Table 1 shows that over the one-year period, each one-unit increase in metro areas’ composite growth score was associated with less than a quarter-unit increase in their composite inclusion scores. This relationship is tenuous: composite growth scores explain just 8.9 percent of the variance in their inclusion scores over a year. But the magnitude and strength of this relationship are greater over the five-year period and even greater over 10 years. Prosperity and inclusion, similarly, show little relationship over a one-year period, but exhibit an even stronger relationship over 10 years than prosperity and growth.
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(P)rogress on inclusion seems to stand out even despite the unevenness noted above. Of the 38 metro areas that achieved above-average performance on growth from 2006 to 2016, 28 also achieved above-average performance on inclusion. Twenty-five (25) of the 38 also performed above average on prosperity. Of the 45 metro areas that achieved above-average performance on prosperity during that period, 32 also achieved above-average performance on inclusion. Twenty-five (25) of the 45 also performed above average on growth.

This admittedly wonkish analysis thus points to a simple insight that should guide regional economic development efforts: although it may be elusive from year to year, in the long run, inclusion may provide the key to true economic success.

- Meanwhile, Naomi Jagoda and Niv Elis write that the Trump Republicans have realized they can't claim with a straight face that their tax scam helped anybody other than the wealthiest Americans.

- The Chicago Sun-Times examines the disastrous results of privatized custodial work in public schools. And the Canadian Press reports on the Parliamentary Budget Office's conclusion that the Trudeau Libs' capital-focused infrastructure scheme is already delivering far less than promised.

- Michelle Chen discusses how co-operatives are more productive than corporations designed solely to exploit workers and consumers in the name of shareholders.

- Finally, Doug Saunders rightly argues that the only speech crisis on campuses is the disproportionate attention being paid to people laughably claiming that their already-privileged positions should be granted even more deference.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- David Brady, Ryan Finnigan and Sabine Hubgen challenge the claim that there's any relationship between single motherhood and poverty. And Doug Saunders writes that there's an opening for progressive movements to take back the theme of family values which obviously bear no relationship to the policy cruelty of the right:

As the Brown University historian Robert O. Self found in his chronicle of this period, conservatives "energized by the legalization of abortion, the demands of feminists, the expansion of welfare, rising crime rates, and the increasing visibility of homosexuality, cast the nuclear family as in crisis and its defense as their patriotic duty … they sought to protect idealized families from moral harm."

It was politically very successful. Yet it was built on a flawed premise. Poverty, inequality, crime and dependence are linked to family breakdown. But family-values conservatives got it backward: Broken families are not the cause of social and economic deprivation; they're an effect. Those dreaded big-state policies hadn't undermined the family; they'd protected it.

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Stable and successful two-parent families tend to flourish where there's strong promotion of birth control and robust sex education, where child-care resources exist so that parents don't have to choose between work or children, where housing and social-assistance policies allow couples to have stable long-term tenure, where laws and social practices allow couples outside the traditional sphere of the heterosexual nuclear family to enter the security of marriage.

Beneath all that controversial liberal language of shifting identities and diversity and competing rights, you'll find the secret to family stability and, therefore, to upward mobility. If candidates are careful with that language, the next few years could see the return of the family-values left.

- Speaking of which, Renee Feltz reports on the lobbying by Koch-backed groups to undermine any movement toward paid sick leave in the U.S. - because for the plebes, the only acceptable response to illness is to suck it up and go to work anyway. 

- Kate McInturff reminds us why the continued gender pay gap is everybody's problem.

- David Pugliese points out that the Libs' agreement to sell military helicopters to Rodrigo Duterte was made with full knowledge that human rights abuses would result. And Tom Parkin puts the helicopter sale to the Philippines in context with Justin Trudeau's general failure to match words about human rights with meaningful action.

- Finally, Terry Dance Bennink, Maria Dobrinskaya and Antony Hodgson make the case for a proportional electoral system in British Columbia.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Michael Harris argues that it's long past time for the Trudeau Libs to start living up to their oft-repeated promise of real change - rather than merely slapping a friendlier face on the same old regressive Con policies.

- Tom Parkin notes that Canada's working class has been left out of the Libs' economic plans. And as an example of the spread of precarity, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the increased Food Bank use by Toronto residents of working age and with advanced education.

- Matt O'Brien points out that a massive success in exposing financial-sector fraud isn't about to deter the Republicans from wanting to trash Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and any other form of regulation.

- Andre Picard argues that Saskatchewan should be declaring HIV/AIDS to be a provincial public health emergency. But instead, the primary focus of the province's health system seems to be on slashing workers rather than caring for anybody. And on that front, the Leader-Post makes the case that we need a real debate as to whether we should raise enough revenue to keep our health care system on its feet - rather than simply having the Saskatchewan Party decree that cuts are the only option.

- Doug Saunders highlights new research showing that schools with a higher proportion of immigrant populations have significantly less bullying (along with other superior outcomes).

- Finally, Eric Stoner interviews George Lakey about Scandinavia's path toward durable egalitarian policy - and the prospect of other countries following the same course.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andrew Jackson discusses the challenge of ensuring that stable jobs are available in Canada:

Good jobs are a central mechanism in the creation of shared prosperity.

What matters for workers is not just being able to find any job but also security of employment, level of pay, working conditions, and the opportunity to develop talents and capacities.

Unfortunately, as has been documented in many studies, the long-term trend in Canada has been towards a much more polarized jobs market in which there has been a disproportionate increase in low pay, precarious jobs, and a concentration of income growth among higher-paid professionals and managers, especially the top 1%.
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Many lower wage workers live in families with decent overall incomes, and income from wages is boosted by government programs such as child benefits and unemployment insurance. Still, the numbers show that a  significant minority of Canadians work in jobs which are insecure, and a surprisingly high proportion work in jobs which are low paid or very modestly paid. Indeed, the proportion of low paid workers in Canada, defined as earning less than two-thirds of the median wage, is, at 21.8%, the third highest in the industrialized world, according to the OECD.

Raising wages for lower-paid workers will require boosting minimum wages to at least $15 per hour and widening access to union representation, especially for workers in private sector sales and service jobs. These measures are critical to any realistic strategy to “grow the middle-class.”

- Anna Louie Sussman points out that stagnant wages even in the face of U.S. job growth can largely be traced to a lack of demand for additional labour. Richard Dobbs and Anu Madgavkar write about the UK's backsliding standard of living between generations. And Jim Stanford outlines a possible progressive response to the combination of stagnation and upward redistribution that's come to be treated as our economic norm.

- Andrew Mitrovica argues that a breakdown in trust arising out of the Iraq war paved the way to spread the politics of violence in the U.S. and the Middle East alike. Robert Reich emphasizes the need for Hillary Clinton to recognize the justified spread of anti-establishment sentiment while making the case against the bigoted form on offer from Donald Trump and the Republicans. And Doug Saunders reminds us that the most important problems facing the U.S. are wholly lacking from the Republicans' message.

- Steven Chase examines the connection between the arms industry and think tanks which are regularly put forward as commenters on military purchasing.

- Finally, Tom Parkin discusses how electoral reform can be expected to change the face of Canadian elections - and how a status quo which is easiest for party strategists isn't what's best for the public.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- John Quiggin examines - and refutes - a few key complaints about fairer taxes on the wealthy. But Kathryn May reports that the Cons are eager to use public resources to investigate and punish public servants who have exposed the problems with the Canada Revenue Agency, rather than lifting a finger to actually bring in needed revenue.

- The Canadian Labour Congress makes the case to expand the Canada Pension Plan to ensure a secure retirement for all Canadian workers. And James Fitz-Morris reports that the Saskatchewan Party's constant obstruction doesn't look like it will stand in the way of an enhanced CPP.

- Kevin Page, Pat Martin and Bob Plamondon argue that we need Parliament to reassert control over the use of public money. And the Star-Phoenix rightly questions the fact that the Sask Party continues to withhold the information needed to assess big-money P3 projects, while hiding behind the consultants who make their money off the industry.

- Jim Bronskill reports on the Libs' noises about a long-overdue review of federal access to information legislation - though of course there's a massive difference between making promises and following through. And on that front, Tom Parkin highlights a few of the promises which are already being left in the rear-view mirror - with a common theme that the Libs' claims to progressive values have been quickly abandoned.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes that while the words may have changed, the theme of racial prejudice is still far too widespread.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon explains how higher taxes on the wealthy can be no less a boon for the economy than for the goal of social equality:

In fact, empirical analysis shows that while the relationship between higher taxes and economic growth is complex, there is no proof that raising taxes on the wealthy will lead to slower economic growth.  In fact, in many countries, including Canada, higher growth rates in the post-Second World War era have been associated with much higher marginal tax rates.
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Between 1940 and 1980, the top marginal income tax rate in Canada was much higher, at well over 70 per cent. Despite these high rates, Canada's economy prospered. In other words, with a proposed new tax bracket in Canada of a mere 33 per cent, we are still far from reaching past levels, and even further away from levels that would be detrimental to tax revenues or even growth. We could increase it even higher with no repercussions on growth or even job creation, and the benefits of a less unequal wealth concentration could even have a positive effect on the economy.
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(H)ow can we explain higher taxes on the rich and higher growth? It seems counterintuitive. Yet, it isn't, for two reasons. First, higher taxes on the top one per cent reduce income inequality. Many studies show that a more even (or less uneven) distribution of wealth and income contributes to higher spending and growth.

In the case of Canada, the higher tax rate for high-income earners is compensated by lower taxes on the middle class, who then will have more money to spend. Since the top one per cent save a higher proportion of their income, raising taxes for them won't affect their consumption, just their savings.

Second, by collecting more tax revenues, governments can spend more, and there is a definite and proven correlation between higher government spending and higher economic growth, despite all the non-Keynesian naysayers. The data is clear on this.

- Juliette Jowit discusses the pathetic pace being made on the path toward gender pay equity. And Maureen Conway points out the need for both public policy and labour relations decisions oriented toward improved long-term outcomes - particularly given the glaring failure of short-term thinking over the past few decades.

- The Associated Press reports that a particularly egregious example of employer abuses is resulting in rare but well-deserved jail time for the perpetrator.
 
- Charles Mandel discusses John Brennan's observation that climate change is already (and will increasingly become) a major source of political instability, while David Roberts offers a useful analogy to gravity in assessing its effects. And Geoff Stiles offers a proposal as to how Canada can go from being a laggard to a leader at the Paris climate change conference.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes about the importance of integration in order to combat extremism of all kinds. Tabatha Southey reminds us that hatred and ignorance between ethnic and religious groups only tend to reinforce each other. And John Cartwright notes that there's a particular need to speak out against bigotry in the wake of an election campaign where multiple parties including the deposed government deliberately stoked it for their political advantage.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Les Leopold takes a look at the underpinnings of Bernie Sanders' unexpectedly strong run for the Democratic presidential nomination. And Sean McElwee discusses the type of politics U.S. voters are rightly motivated to change, as big donors have been successful in dictating policy to both major parties.

- The Edmonton Journal comments on the unfairness of first-past-the-post electoral politics both in allocating power across a political system, and in determining regional representation within it.

- Murray Mandryk calls out the Wall government for its contempt for public money when it comes to handing over billions of dollars to P3 operators.

- Finally, Stuart Trew offers his take on the meaning of Canada's federal election. And Doug Saunders offers his take as to how the Libs are likely to exercise authority through new "delivery units" - which serves as a warning as to the need to identify and advocate to non-traditional power structures:

Members of Mr. Trudeau’s staff say they are drawing on a set of ideas that emerged in Britain more than a decade ago under Tony Blair’s prime ministership and applied in a different version in Ontario under the Dalton McGuinty government, with results that pleased insiders but have left a questionable legacy. (It is no coincidence that Mr. Trudeau’s two top aides, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, were products of the top-level machinery of that Ontario government.)

It is a system which, in its most complete form, uses high-level “delivery units” to push key goals across the entire public service, sometimes bypassing the hierarchy of cabinets, departments and administrations, putting multiple government departments under the watchful eye (and sometimes forceful hand) of new organizations that report straight to the prime minister and impose their own goals and measures on the workings of government.

Their plans are likely to disappoint officials hoping to see a return to the sort of cabinet-driven government of the Lester B. Pearson years, where powerful ministers were given the autonomy and trust to shape their departments and legacies on their own. It is also likely to disappoint those who wish for a complete turn away from the top-down, prime minister-centred approach of Stephen Harper. 
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(T)he delivery approach has its skeptics. They include Prof. Savoie, who sees them as yet another level of complication for public servants who already have far too many layers of oversight.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- John Thornhill talks to Mariana Mazzucato about the importance of public investment in fostering economic growth - along with the need for the public to benefit as a result:

As Mazzucato explains it, the traditional way of framing the debate about wealth creation is to picture the private sector as a magnificent lion caged by the public sector. Remove the bars, and the lion roams and roars. In fact, she argues, private sector companies are rarely lions; far more often they are kittens. Managers tend to be more concerned with cutting costs, buying back their shares and maximising their share prices (and stock options) than they are in investing in research and development and boosting long-term growth.

“As soon as I started looking at these issues, I started realising how much language matters. If you just talk about the state as a facilitator, as a de-risker, as an incentiviser, as a fixer of market failures, it ends up structuring what you do,” she says. But the state plays a far more creative role, she insists, in terms of declaring grand missions (the US ambition to go to the moon, or the German goal of creating nuclear-free energy), and investing in the early-stage development of many industries, including semiconductors, the internet and fracking. “You always require the state to roar.”
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There is a similar challenge with green technologies: how to create “systems of innovation” that provide a clear, publicly mandated direction and incentivise private-sector companies to jump on board. Mazzucato believes that Steve Jobs’ famous injunction to budding entrepreneurs — “Stay hungry, stay foolish” — should apply to the public sector, too. Why is failure worn as a badge of honour in Silicon Valley but viewed as a source of shame in government?

“We are living in a depressing era in which we no longer have courage. We no longer think governments should have missions. But the market never chooses anything. IT wasn’t chosen by the market. Biotech wasn’t chosen by the market. Nanotech wasn’t chosen by the market. So why should green technology be chosen by the market? It comes back to the austerity craziness that we’re in today where governments are not allowed to dream; and green is a dream.”

- Monia Mazigh slams Stephen Harper for his tiresome fearmongering. And Doug Saunders writes that governments more thoughtful than the Cons are realizing that the main risk lies in people looking for a set of beliefs as an excuse to put destructive tendencies into action - not in people who hold a particular set of beliefs to begin with.

- Amy Dempsey reports on the John Howard Society's findings as to how Ontario's justice system is doing nothing but harm by looking to punish people for mental health problems. And Bill Graveland reports on Kathleen Ganley's recognition that access to justice generally is a serious problem in Alberta (as it is elsewhere).

- Finally, Andre Picard argues that a strong civil service is necessary to building a healthy society. And Ryan Meili offers his take on what we've lost as a result of a decade of the Cons' government by wilful ignorance:

(I)n order to guide policy in ways that will improve our lives the most –that improvement being best measured by improvements in our health and wellbeing – we need to understand what is happening in a wide variety of fields. We need to be gathering new data, interpreting that information, and communicating its implications to decision-makers and the public.

In the last ten years decisions have instead been made to keep Canadians ignorant of the reality of our circumstances. The most obvious and egregious of these has been the cancellation of the long-form census, which has left a glaring gap in our ability to collect the data needed to make smart decisions. Even if a future government should reinstate a proper census, there has already been an irreplaceable loss of essential knowledge.

Dozens of agencies that interpret data and perform original research have been eliminated or deeply cut. These have been in varied fields, including women’s health, Aboriginal health, environmental surveillance and many more, prompting protests from the typically politically reticent scientific community, including the grim Death of Evidence funeral march on parliament, and the birth of organizations like Evidence for Democracy dedicated to highlighting how important scientific information is if citizens are to make well-informed decisions.
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Along with the decrease in information being gathered or analyzed have come deliberate barriers to communicating what we do know. From muzzling of government scientists to deep cuts to the CBC, the story of science and knowledge is being increasingly silenced. The strategy is simple, and sinister: if there is no data, there is no way to be held accountable. If people don’t see the way in which decisions being made are worsening the quality of their lives, they can be convinced to continue to vote in favour of policies that hurt them.

The war on knowledge is a war on the health of Canadians. We need a government that will embrace the information age and use evidence to improve our lives. We need a government that has the health of Canadians as its greatest priority. Ten years in, it’s clear that that government is not Stephen Harper’s.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Murray Dobbin writes that Canadians should indeed see the federal election as a choice between security and risk - with the Cons' failing economic policies representing a risk we can't afford to keep taking:

(N)ot only is Harper vulnerable on his own limited anti-terror grounds, he is extremely vulnerable when it comes to the kind of security that actually affects millions of Canadians. When it comes to economic and social security, the vast majority of Canadians haven't been this insecure since the Great Depression.

It's not as if we don't know the numbers -- 60 per cent of Canadians just two weeks away from financial crisis if they lose their job; record high personal indebtedness; real wages virtually flat for the past 25 years; a terrible work-life balance situation for most working people (and getting worse); labour standard protections that now exist only on paper; the second highest percentage of low-paying jobs in the OECD; young people forced into working for nothing on phony apprenticeships; levels of economic (both income and wealth) inequality not seen since 1928. Throw in the diminishing "social wage" (Medicare, education, home care, child care, etc.) and the situation is truly grim.
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Most of these insecurity statistics are rooted either directly or indirectly in 25 years of deliberate government policy designed by and for corporations. Governments have gradually jettisoned their responsibility for economic security, slowly but surely handing this critical feature of every Canadian's life over to the "market" for determination. Economic policy has been surgically excised from government responsibility to citizens and is now in the singular category of "facilitating investment" -- a euphemism for clearing the way for corporations to engage in whatever activity enhances their bottom line.

From corporate rights agreements (which constitutionalize corporate power) to the decades old "independence" of the Bank of Canada (independent of democracy); from irresponsibly low corporate income tax rates to punitively low social assistance; from Employment Insurance that only 30 per cent ever qualify for to taxes grossly skewed in favour of the wealthy and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that has bestowed citizenship status on the most powerful and ruthless economic entities on the planet, Canadian governments have abandoned their citizens to the vagaries of an increasingly unregulated capitalism. This is not even a complete list, but it demonstrates just how corporate globalization and its promoters like Stephen Harper have created the greatest insecurity for Canadians virtually in living memory.

- And Lana Payne highlights the absurdity of the Cons trying to pitch themselves as having anything to say about avoiding future downturns while refusing to accept any responsibility for the recession we're actually in.

- Meanwhile, Edmund Phelps suggests that Western economies in general are suffering from a narrowed perspective in which innovation is seen as important or valuable only if it creates or contributes to corporate machinery.

- Doug Saunders reminds us that if we want to see responsible budgeting, we're best off electing a party which is actually committed to keeping government functional. But I'll note that shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of the needless austerity which all too often forms part of budget-balancing exercises across the spectrum - and on that front, Sarah Miller emphasizes that B.C.'s nominally balanced budget is doing plenty of harm by cutting into needed public services.

- Mark MacKinnon weighs in on the Cons' imposition of second-class citizenship by taking the vote away from 1.4 million Canadians.

- Finally, Doug Cuthand calls out the Cons' treatment of First Nations as being disposable.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dana Nuccitelli discusses new research into the real costs of fossil fuels which aren't reflected in the sticker price for a dirty energy economy:

A new paper published in Climatic Change estimates that when we account for the pollution costs associated with our energy sources, gasoline costs an extra $3.80 per gallon, diesel an additional $4.80 per gallon, coal a further 24 cents per kilowatt-hour, and natural gas another 11 cents per kilowatt-hour that we don’t see in our fuel or energy bills.

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Shindell estimates carbon pollution costs us $32 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted in climate damages, and another $45 in additional climate-health impacts like malnutrition that aren’t normally accounted for.

But Shindell also estimates that carbon emissions are relatively cheap compared to other fossil fuel air pollutants. For example, sulfur dioxide costs $42,000 per ton, and nitrous oxides $67,000 per ton! However, less of these other pollutants are released into the atmosphere during modern fossil fuel combustion.
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The key conclusion from Shindell’s study is that fossil fuels only seem cheap because their market prices don’t reflect their true costs. In reality they are remarkably expensive for society, but taxpayers pick up most of those costs via climate damages and other health effects. Those who argue that we need to continue relying on fossil fuels – like former popular science writer Matt Ridley – just aren’t accounting for the costs of pollution.

- Meanwhile, Katie Valentine reports that Costa Rica has managed to generate all of its electricity through renewable sources in 2015 - and that even as it's still in the process of converting to clean power sources. But then, Justin Mikulka observes that the real effects of our energy choices bear no resemblance at all to the spin we're fed by dirty energy producers.

- The Canadian Bar Association, the Economist and Murray Dobbin all weigh in against the gross abuses of power which the Cons want to pass into law through bill C-51. And Scott Vrooman argues that we should be especially worried that so few Canadians actually know what's in the terror bill being rammed through Parliament.

- And in a related point based on the "lawful activity" standard already pointed out by Craig Forcese, Len McCluskey highlights the need for unions and activists to be able to break bad laws in defending their rights. Ralph Surette points out that we should expect to see even more activism in response to extreme measures aimed at suppressing opposition and dissent, while Elizabeth Renzetti comments on the importance of the power of protest. And Doug Saunders notes that the Cons' supposed commitment to the rule of law is rather selectively aimed at protecting the powerful from the public interest.

- Finally, Lana Payne duly slams the Cons for fanning the flames of intolerance. And Jeffrey Simpson wonders if the dog whistles which represent the Cons' sole message at the moment will be worn out by the time Canadians go to the polls.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Doug Saunders observes that Syriza's strong election victory may signal a sea change as to whether austerity is inevitable, while Adnan Al-Daini notes that the financial sector can no longer take for granted that its profits will be placed above the interests of actual people. Which means that Joe Oliver may get even more lonely lecturing Canada's provinces that the economic beatings will continue until morale improves.

- Speaking of whom, Canadians for Tax Fairness highlights how Oliver has long known that the Cons' income splitting plans represent nothing more than a giveaway to the high-income families who need it the least. And Barret Weber writes that it's long past time for Alberta to fund its public services through a progressive tax system, rather than regressive taxes and unstable resource royalties.

- David Cay Johnston highlights how the U.S. is still seeing growing profits and declining personal incomes. And Cole Moreton likewise notes that the UK's elections should see plenty of discussion about a growing wealth gap and continuing poverty. 

- David Suzuki writes that free trade agreements are increasingly resulting in Canada trading away any ability to protect its environment. And Glenn Kessley destroys the myth that free trade agreements bear any relationship to jobs even under the faith-based theory intended to promote them.

- Finally, Nancy MacDonald writes about the festering prejudice against First Nations in Winnipeg in particular. But Max FineDay is right to point out that Canada's shameful legacy of racism continues to affect systemic relationships far beyond the boundaries of any one city:

Being so deeply immersed in both Native and non-Native communities I knew from a young age that these two worlds did not fit together. I remember some of my friends telling me that their parents didn’t want me over at their home for fear I might come back and rob it later. This prejudice was normal growing up nêhiyaw in Saskatoon. I don’t bring these issues up because they defined my childhood – they didn’t – and they certainly don’t define me today. But these are the types of stories that you will hear from Native people, if you take the time to listen.

If you asked a Native person, whether in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Caledonia, or Halifax, if there is a tension between Native and Canadian communities, few would hesitate to say yes. Our story, the story of Canada, is one of both mistreatment and indifference. That mistreatment and indifference have lead to Native peoples being on the negative side of almost every statistical category. No one relishes the fact that there’s still racism in our communities, but ignoring it as we like to do isn’t making anything better.
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Maclean’s is right that Winnipeg has a race problem, but wrong to deflect the focus from the underlying, systemic issues that are almost always the cause of bad outcomes for Native peoples everywhere in Canada. The article reports that much of the violence we hear about is perpetrated by Native people against other Natives without further analysis into the systemic inequalities that affect Native peoples in every part of society. That’s what Canadians need to hear.

More than individual acts of prejudice or of violence, they need to hear about the systemic inequalities that they themselves never see. Individual acts of racism, violence, and intolerance are powerful, yes, but systemic racism is what maintains Canada’s ongoing settler colonialism (which depends on dispossessing Native people of their land and sovereignty).

In an article dealing almost exclusively with racism directed toward Native people, the only mention of colonialism was a quote from the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations that put colonialism in the past tense. There was only one sentence about treaties. Maclean’s understands that racism is taking place, and that it is destructive, but it has very little understanding of why.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Doug Saunders interviews Thomas Piketty about the need for checks on the undue accumulation of capital, and the readily available means of achieving that end:

To solve the problem of rising inequality, you propose small worldwide taxes on capital transfers and on wealth, and prohibitive taxes on extreme incomes and inheritance. But such taxes are not popular today, and there is little sign they will catch on. Does this make you pessimistic?

I believe in the power of ideas, I believe in the power of books, but you have to give them time. Books have a very long-term impact, and it’s never a deterministic impact – you can never say “this book has had this particular impact on policy.” It’s much more complex.

The kind of policy conclusions I derive in the book are already in the public debate. For instance, we have this talk about tax havens. Five years ago, people were saying that nothing would ever happen; Swiss banks would keep their accounts secret and would never accept having automatic transmission of information. And then suddenly there were U.S. sanctions against Swiss banks and things began to change. I think these general moves will continue.

- Kayle Hatt takes a look at the spin behind Tim Hudak's slash-and-burn plan for Ontario - as well as what the province stands to lose through the wanton destruction of public services. And Esther Epp-Tiessen explains why we should see a contribution to the social good in the form of taxes as part of our duty to each other.

- Which means Victor Adebowale and Henry Kippin are right to comment on the need for people to feel they have some say in how our public services are set up - rather than being stuck with a corporate model (italics removed):

[Citizens'] notions of public good appear increasingly out of step with reforms being made to our current public service model. The highest proportion of those surveyed see public services as ‘important to the whole community’ (33%), and ‘available for everyone to use’ (33%) – somewhat at odds with a dominant narrative that has focused on targeting, cuts and, at the extreme, ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ welfare recipients. No major party talks any more in terms of universal entitlements or the ‘same services for everyone’ – partly because of public finances, but also because a batch of studies tell us postcode lottery is already a reality.
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 It is not enough for future actors in public service markets to prove delivery competence, financial integrity and an appetite for risk. Private profit and producer interest has clearly been pursued over public purpose in some cases, and this must change – again, a relationship with two sides.

- Meanwhile, the Mowat Centre offers a proposal for corporate tax reform - featuring a far greater focus on rents and windfall profits rather than normal rates of return on investments.

- Finally, Mike de Souza reports on how the public interest is being left out of the National Energy Board's considerations in enforcing the rules governing pipelines.

On status quo proposals

Shorter Doug Saunders:

I'm suspicious of the role of mere members in shaping party policy. And also of the role rogue MPs might play in shaping decision-making. In fact, what we need is a completely centralized system of government where the prime minister can implement his preferred policies on a whim without giving a damn what party members or MPs think. If only we could hope for such a distant ideal...

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Peter Gillespie discusses the problems with tax cheats (and the overseas tax havens which encourage them):

Multinational corporations and banking and financial institutions routinely use tax havens to lower or eliminate their tax obligations, avoid regulation, and shield themselves from liability. Tax havens host more than two million “international business corporations,” often little more than shell companies with a postal address. The British Virgin Islands, with a population of 30,000, hosts an estimated 460,000 business corporations. One modest building in the Cayman Islands is home to more that 18,000 of these entities.

Last December, media reports in the United Kingdom revealed that Google, Amazon and Starbucks were paying little or no taxes to the national treasury despite earning billions in profits in the British market. During a parliamentary investigation, officials from the three companies admitted they were shifting profits out of Britain into lower tax jurisdictions. Amazon collects its U.K. sales in Luxembourg. Google collects its sales in Ireland and through a complicated scheme sends its earnings to the tax haven of Bermuda via the Netherlands.
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(T)hese opaque and secretive jurisdictions are causing serious harm, especially in the era of austerity and the attendant erosion of social support programs worldwide. The reports from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists are shining a light into the murkiest spaces within the global economy. We should all be grateful.

- Doug Saunders writes that Canada has developed largely thanks to the full integration of immigrant workers - and argues that the same opportunity, not only temporary worker status, should be available for new arrivals today. And Heather Mallick discusses the hollowing-out of Canada's work force:

Stephen Harper’s long-term plan for Canada includes not just the Thatcherite destruction of unions but a clear-out of government workers and a lowering of all wages. The man keeps winning elections because he trusts that voters won’t make the connection and take it personally.

Indeed wages drop slowly, not instantly, and they’re hard to track. But CBC.ca welcomes news tips from the public. Here’s my story, one man wrote, and journalists recognized that the story of one man was in fact the story of many. And that’s when Canada got angry.

Eventually, outsourcing will ravage Canadian office workers. Their loss will become our loss, and that’s what we still don’t grasp. We know about specific bank IT complaints, and teachers’ strikes, but we don’t see the big picture.
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Government workers inspect our food, issue our passports and clean our hospital rooms. As they are laid off, replaced with outsourced low-paid foreign workers or not replaced at all, our quality of life sinks like a stone. What is true for government workers is also true for the private sector. We need Canadian bank workers to be paid fairly, too.

- But fortunately, the corporatist effort to take more and more away from mere workers isn't without some organized opposition - as John Bonnar reports on the work of the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights.

- Carol Goar discusses a few examples of single statistics being used as talking points even when they're carefully selected to obscure the real picture.

- And finally, Michael Harris muses that the Harper Cons may have run out of gas:

(W)ith a rejuvenated opposition capturing the public’s eye — one party through a policy-driven convention taking dead aim at this government, and the other by selecting a new leader who might just bring the kids back into politics — Stephen Harper suddenly looks old.

He looks old flying to the funeral of a woman who defended apartheid and whose death sent thousands of her own countrymen into the street partying. He looks old fronting for a corporate elite who can’t buy enough advertising to portray their greed as swashbuckling philanthropy, putting us all to work. He looks old welcoming Chinese panda bears to Canada while cold-shouldering native kids who walked through an eternity of winter to be heard on the lawns of Parliament.

Old is bad enough. Then there is ancient. That’s the place where Stephen Harper has arrived on the environment. This is a file you just can’t lie your way through, no matter how many spinners do your bidding. The polar ice caps are disappearing and Canada opts out of Kyoto. There is a reason that anyone in this PM’s environment portfolio ends up with more wrinkles than an Agatha Christie plot.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Saturday reading.

- Hamida Ghafour writes about the effect of tax avoidance by the world's wealthy on the lives of the rest of the population - particularly when coupled with austerity pushed based on a lack of revenue:

The OECD is a fierce defender of free-market capitalism. But Saint-Amans says politicians are realizing that rules set up in the 1920s need reform because allowing corporations and the very rich to hang on to huge amounts of wealth is bad for the economy.

“When you have a political crisis, I am sad to say it, you have political support and political heat,” he says in an interview from OECD headquarters in Paris. “European countries are turning to corporations and saying, ‘You don’t want us to become bankrupt. Please, pay your taxes and let’s make the changes together, otherwise we collapse. And if we collapse so will you.’”

Last year, several G20 finance ministers asked him for a report on how big companies move vast profits around the globe to avoid being taxed. Saint-Amans will release the report on Feb. 12.

“I didn’t anticipate it would happen so fast,” he says. “The fiscal crisis has turned into a budget crisis. . . . The ministers from G20 cannot explain to their people that they should pay more tax but big, profitable companies will not pay more.”

- Doug Saunders notes that Canada's foreign policy has taken a colonial turn in Africa as the Cons work to promote resource interests rather than humanitarian issues.

- Paul Wells rightly argues that the Cons' attempts to silence Kevin Page only prove he's done his job properly. But that doesn't mean that, say, Canada's unemployed should be satisfied with being declared "bad guys" as a badge of honour when there's an opportunity to challenge the government that's attacking them.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Schmidt reports that the Cons are likewise slamming the conclusions of their own sodium working group, and instead insisting that Canadians shouldn't bother caring how much of a health risk is found in their food.

- Finally, the New Union Project offers an update on the merger between CEP and CAW.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Don Lenihan responds to Allan Gregg's recent critique of Canadian politics, featuring this on the connection that ought to exist between ideology and policy:

First, the fact that a policy is based on ideological conviction does not mean it is opposed to reason. According to Gregg, “to follow a course based on dogma or ideology, it becomes necessary to remove science and reason.” I disagree. As I wrote a few weeks ago, each of us has only a limited knowledge of the society around us. An ideology is a system of beliefs about the world that provides us with a bigger picture by giving us a story about our society as a whole. This story helps us interpret our experience and develop political views.

The story may be a left- or right-leaning one; and it will certainly generate convictions. But it doesn’t follow that these are either blind or irrational, even though they are often inconclusive. Take the right-wing view that robust social programs create dependency. While not everyone believes this, lots of very reasonable people do and lots of good policies have been based on it.

The lesson is that ideology can be — and often is — a legitimate source of policy. 

- Meanwhile, the Cons' push to make policy based on the least information possible continues abroad, with the sudden move to cut all ties with Iran serving as the latest example. Brian Stewart tries to explain why they might "embrace surprise and bafflement" as their foreign policy cornerstones, while Andrew Coyne points out a conspicuous lack of a reasonable explanation so far and Doug Saunders notes that the effect is to utterly negate Canada's ability to influence Iran from here on in.

- But let's acknowledge that the Cons are at least consistent in their efforts to suppress information: having imposed total communication control over all the levers of government under their direct influence, they're now trying to make sure supposedly independent institutions like the Auditor General are equally unable to communicate anything but Con-approved talking points.

- Finally, Alexander Stille writes about the connection between wealth inequality (particularly when it comes to inheritances) and economic stagnation - featuring an explanation as to why the status-seeking wealthy may see their interests served by tough times for society at large:

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, also believes that low growth and inequality are interconnected, but he believes that the causal arrow moves in the opposite direction. As he put it in a recent interview, "I think it's inequality that's causing low growth." In his new book The Price of Inequality, he writes that, "Politics have shaped the market, and shaped it in ways that advantage the top at the expense of the rest." Rent-seeking, the ability of entrenched elites to allocate resources to themselves and smother opportunity for others, invariably leads to a less competitive market and lower growth.
...

But, according to Ilyana Kuziemko, an economist at Princeton University, there is also evidence that low growth does indeed increase inequality. Public-opinion data and experimental research indicate that people (or at least Americans) become less favorable to income redistribution during economic hard times. Gallup polls, for example, show support in the US for reducing inequality falling from 68% to 57% during the current recession, despite all of the public rhetoric — and evidence — that the top 1% of income earners have captured almost all of the gains from economic growth in recent years.

Curiously, hard times may actually trigger among the economy's losers a psychological mechanism known as "last-place aversion." Experimental economists have found that subjects asked to play distribution games become much less generous toward those below them when they are in second-to-last place. They would rather distribute money to those above them on the totem pole than help those at the bottom to surpass them.

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Thus, a slow-growth/high-inequality economy may become a self-perpetuating cycle.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Doug Saunders discusses how corporate cash hoarding is limiting any economic recovery - and what we can do about it:

(T)his should be a great time for companies to invest: low prices, low interest rates, cheaper labour costs. A sensible company would build up cash during boom times – when investments are more expensive – and spend it during recessions, when consumer demand is weak and capital is cheap.
Yet this is the precise opposite of what actually happens. Companies look at the low consumer demand and become terrified, failing to recognize their own role in creating it.

This has become a public issue. There are some very important reasons why we need investment and spending now – and why chopping down the cash mountains should come before filling in the debt pits.

Unemployment is threatening to cripple an entire generation in many countries. The worldwide food crisis has returned, for no good reason; with more investment, the world could produce more than enough food. There are serious housing shortages in most Western countries. The drive to reduce carbon emissions has stalled, due to a shortage of investment in nuclear and alternative-energy power sources.

If the economy doesn’t start moving, there is something else we could do: start taxing those cash reserves – especially those held overseas. If we make hoarding expensive, companies will find it more desirable to use earnings to increase market share, improve products through research or expand into new markets.

- Sarah Schmidt reports on the Cons' choice to prioritize an unregulated junk food industry over the advice of health experts on trans-fat monitoring.

- Don Morgan helpfully responds to criticism of his government's attacks on a hundred years of labour progress by saying that his own consultation paper means nothing whatsoever. Meanwhile, Erin Weir points out that Saskatchewan residents are facing real cost-of-living increases which the Sask Party has gone out of its way to avoid ameliorating.

- The Guardian highlights that the NDP is making inroads in Prince Edward Island, both in terms of general organization and a provincial leadership race.

- Finally, Gerald Caplan suggests that the Cons' environmental and military debacles are doing the NDP's work as an official opposition for it:

The first was the huge hole blown in their single most significant economic initiative – unwavering support for Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific. The second was the blow to their vaunted managerial efficiency that was to be demonstrated by a modernized Canadian military machine, central to the warrior culture the government wants to make a cherished Canadian value.

In each case, the week’s bad news happened to be the fourth in a series of bad stories that have begun to undermine these two major projects. Oil pipelines received the most coverage, all of it damning. Enbridge’s very public humiliation at the hands of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, for a serious pipeline rupture in Michigan in 2010, reminded Canadians that no fewer than three large oil spills had taken place in Alberta itself just the previous month. That in turn evoked unwelcome memories of last year’s massive spill near Peace River, Alta., which then led to reminders that besides the Michigan disaster, 2010 also saw an average of two pipeline failures every day in Alberta. No one, it seems, had remembered this distressing record – until now.

Suddenly, the existing political equation was turned on its head. Instead of the Harper-led attacks on opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline project as radicals, Canadian politicians and oil interests were now falling all over themselves to insist they put safety first. The villains had become, in the words of one American regulator, Enbridge’s “Keystone Kops.” And instead of Mr. Mulcair being characterized as the mindless arch-enemy of an ever-expanding energy sector, he seemed increasingly credible as a voice of elementary commonsense, as polls indicate.
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So the competent Harper economic managers cannot properly supply the armed forces they’ve tried so hard to elevate as a symbol of conservative Canada. And their signature economic policy cannot advance without a guarantee that some time, somewhere, Canada will continue to pay massive environmental costs for it. It seems the Conservatives are graciously doing a good deal of Mr. Mulcair’s work for him.

But I will caution that the Cons have offered plenty of examples of their own incompetence before which weren't enough to cause voters to turf them from office. And the NDP's real work likely lies in making sure that these types of stories stay at the forefront of Canadian political discussion, rather than allowing the Cons to deflect attention elsewhere.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Doug Saunders points out that we have a relatively simple choice between seeking to exact revenge on criminal offenders and actually reducing crime:

We know exactly why Norway has such lower recidivism numbers. Prisoners, being under constant observation, are very easy to study, and they’ve been studied like mad. Cambridge University criminologist Friedrich Lösel recently compared scores of studies in a dozen countries and found they reached almost identical conclusions.

He found that what causes prisoners to reoffend at lower rates, everywhere, is basic education, vocational and employability programs, anger management and therapy while behind bars (or, in Norway, no bars). On the other hand, things that cause prisoners to reoffend more after release include longer sentences, strict discipline, deterrent “shock incarceration” programs and regular sanctions (such as withdrawal of privileges).

In other words, we have a stark choice: We can punish people more, or we can reduce crime more. One cancels out the other. Sadly, though, it is a sense of anger and vengeance that motivates policy decisions in most countries these days.

- Gerald Caplan observes that there are indeed radical foreigners spending large amounts of money to silence Canadian voices when it comes to the oilsands by highlighting both the ownership interests and the propaganda factory funding of the Koch brothers.

- Tim Kiladze writes that economic bubbles tend to develop as a matter of herd behaviour even when participants have perfect information about what investments are really worth - making it all the more dangerous to have corporatist governments eager to play into the hype of indefinite, single-industry growth.

- John Moore nicely sums up how Quebec's protesting students are only seeking a fair shake compared to the system which allowed their parents an affordable education. But I'll particularly highlight his point as to how those quickest to demand sacrifices from young people (and others) are typically the most privileged themselves:

We hear a great deal these days about how we have to be reasonable about the times we live in. Corporate officers pulling in massive salaries and bonuses even as their companies lose money say average working men and women have to understand that the age of job security, pensions and even a middle-class wage are behind us. Have any of them offered to take the lead by surrendering even a fraction of their benefits? Are Federal Labour Minister Lisa Rait and Quebec Premier Jean Charest prepared to trim their gold-plated pensions to set an example to the students and workers they condescendingly lecture about the “new reality”?

Today’s youth face a grim future not of their own making. Is it any wonder that they’re angry about it? What they are asking for is what previous generations so eagerly gobbled up for themselves. If those generations now believe their entitlements were too generous, then, perhaps, in the spirit of sharing the burden, they might want to give some of them back.

 - Finally, while I don't agree with all of Chris Selley's take on the Quebec protests, he's at least right in pointing out that activism is a natural outcome when people have reason to doubt that democratic outcomes will reflect their concerns:

It is often said that if young people want to make a difference, they ought to vote. The hackneyed nature of the observation belies the gobsmacking truth of it – assuming, that is, that governments are actually capable and willing to give voters what they want. In the May 2011 federal election, for example, just 39% of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 cast a ballot. That likely represents something like two million unused votes. Add in 25-to-34-year-olds, who voted at a 45% clip, and you’re up to about four million votes, or roughly a quarter of the total ballots cast. Young people would not have to vote monolithically to increase their clout hugely. But if they voted predominantly left-wing, they might change the political and policy landscape at a stroke. Presumably tuition fees would then increase at a slower rate, if at all – again, assuming political parties actually respond to their supporters.

So, what are young Quebecers’ options in this regard? Well, Mr. Charest and his Liberals are the enemy, tired and perhaps more than a bit corrupt – we shall see what Justice France Charbonneau’s inquiry finds. There is the separatist Pauline Marois and her Parti Québécois, which backs the protesters. But then, 15 years ago, as education minister in Lucien Bouchard’s PQ government, she was the one proposing tuition hikes. You don’t have to be very cynical to suspect she’s being a bit cynical. François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, urges the students to compromise. Why not just spit in their faces?