Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Sonya Angell examines the connection between extreme weather events caused by the climate breakdown and adverse health effects, while noting that there's a need for far more attention to the health effects of the climate crisis. And Anelyse Weiler and Susanna Klassen make the case for improved heat protection for farm workers. 

- You Xiaoying discusses how China has been able to set up a clean energy system in Antarctica - even as petropoliticans continue to pretend they're not feasible even in ideal environments. Claire Brown discusses how tech giants are falling far short of their climate commitments even without accounting for the fact that they're dedicating immense amounts of processing power to the extraction and burning of dirty fuels. And Barry Saxifrage warns that Canada is falling behind in the transition to electric vehicles due to a series of policy retreats, while Natasha Bulowski discusses the health costs of those choices. 

- Elizabeth Warren highlights why the rich and powerful are trying to stop Zohran Mamdani's to win election by prioritizing the many rather than the few. And Austin Jefferson discusses new polling showing that Mamdani's policy plans are wildly popular. 

- Meanwhile, Adrienne Tanner calls out the Canadian right's irrational hatred of bike lanes and other elements of a liveable community. And Euan Thomson report on the Calgary Police Service's continued insistence on scraping personal images from social media using facial recognition software as part of its public surveillance. 

- Finally, Rebecca Solnit writes that systemic misogyny and violence against women go far beyond the the Epstein files, making it dangerous to treat the most prominent examples as an aberration. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jeff Spross discusses the effectiveness of a wealth tax both in generating revenue, and in reducing inequality. David Leonhardt notes that a wealth tax will actually boost the economy by putting to use assets which are otherwise idle (if not being used for outright counterproductive purposes). And Jonathan Ruga and Scott Young write that they and many other wealthy people recognize the need for higher taxes on those who can most afford to pay them.

- Bob Weber reports on Clean Energy Canada's study showing how clean energy projects to create far more future employment than fossil fuels. And Sandy Garossino's must-read report examines the utter lack of a basis in fact for Jason Kenney's conspiracy theories about environmental activism.

- Meanwhile, Drew Anderson takes the closest look we've yet been offered at the UCP's rigged leadership race - and the inclusion of high-ranking provincial and federal politicians in Kenney's scheme.

- Ed Broadbent writes that in an election where many parties are seeking to divide based on race and region, the NDP is leading the way in running a slate of candidates which reflects the full diversity of Canada. And Pamela Palmater points out the importance of recognizing and countering the interrelationship between individual and systemic racism.

- Finally, Garima Talwar Kapoor and Elizabeth McIsaac compare the tax tinkering on offer from the Libs and Cons, but ultimately recognize that both promises serve mostly to shovel money to relatively well-off families while neglecting the people who most need help.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Paul Krugman writes that complaints by the U.S.' wealthiest few about Elizabeth Warren reflect their insistence that extreme wealth be coupled with absolute and unquestioned power:

The point is that many of the superrich aren’t satisfied with living like kings, which they will continue to do no matter who wins next year’s election. They also expect to be treated like kings, lionized as job creators and heroes of prosperity, and consider any criticism an unforgivable act of lèse-majesté.

And for such people, the prospect of a Warren presidency is a nightmarish threat — not to their wallets, but to their egos. They can try to brush off someone like Bernie Sanders as a rabble-rouser. But when Warren criticizes malefactors of great wealth and proposes reining in their excesses, her evident policy sophistication — has any previous candidate managed to turn wonkiness into a form of charisma? — makes her critique much harder to dismiss.

If Warren is the nominee, then, a significant number of tycoons will indeed go for Trump; better to put democracy at risk than to countenance a challenge to their imperial self-esteem.

- John Michael McGrath discusses how a combination of arbitrary privatization and governmental heel-dragging has resulted in it taking far more time and trouble than necessary to build public infrastructure. Bryan Eneas reports on the Regina schools which are far over capacity due to the Saskatchewan Party's poor planning and underfunding.

- Thomas Walkom puts the Libs' costly tax tinkering in perspective by comparing it to the puny sums on offer for major social priorities. And Jonathon Gatehouse notes that Andrew Scheer's bombast against foreign aid is as inaccurate as it is dehumanizing.

- Finally, Owen Jones writes that we shouldn't be fooled by calls for both-sides "civility" as a response to organized violence and hatred by the right.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Emily Stewart reports on Elizabeth Warren's message about the need to end corruption and corporatism in order to make U.S. politics work for people. Martin Wolf writes that a rigged economic system is undermining the prospect of viable democracy. And Andrew MacLeod examines where Canada's federal parties stand when it comes to tax fairness.

- Jennifer Wells makes the case for the federal government to buy GM's Oshawa plant as a hub for the development of electric vehicles in Canada. And the Guardian's editorial board offers its support to the spread of worker-owned industries as a means of sharing wealth and power.

- Oliver Milman reports on the growing desire for strong climate action in the U.S., with two thirds of the public demanding a policy response to our climate breakdown. Ben Ehrenreich discusses how public activism is vital in building the action needed to counter entrenched interests in business and government, while Geoff Dembicki wonders whether we'll see Canada's political parties match leading Democratic presidential contenders in calling out the oil industry as a villain. And Bill McKibben points out the significance of large pools of capital concluding they're not prepared to fund the continued degradation of our living environment.

- Meanwhile, Max Fawcett highlights how Jason Kenney is trying to amplify the most toxic of petro-politics.

- Finally, Fair Vote Canada has released the results of a new poll showing a strong majority of Canadians in favour of a proportional electoral system.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Ian Welsh discusses the reality as to how economic decisions are made - and how we've allowed corporate control to remain in place even after it's failed even on its own terms:

All systems have to do only one thing: whatever is required to keep the system in power.

That’s all they have to do. Whether or not human welfare is advanced or not; whether or not we care about animals or nature is irrelevant to the raw calculus of power and staying in power, until it effect staying in power.

If the hoi polloi can be kept from revolting or demanding (remember demands are based on “or else,” they are not requests) well then, the powerful will not do anything that does not increase their power or money. They will only care about human welfare outside of their own group if they feel they must, or if, as happens occasionally, they see their group as being something other than the elite group.

Right now elites don’t care about other humans enough to reshape the money and political systems (the same thing, ultimately) to prioritize human welfare, avoid a great-die-off, or stop climate change. This is clear. It is not arguable, it is a fact, based simply on their actions.
...
...Capitalism requires both outside management and an insistence on market discipline. It is most important that market discipline be on the large actors, not the small ones, because the large ones set the terms of the market and make most of the allocative decision. When you offer people too cheap loans, they will take them, but you are the one offering them: you are the one in the wrong.

Price signals must encourage doing the right thing. When those with market power either misbehave or mis-allocate money, they must lose their power to do so.

- And Rebecca Leber reports on Elizabeth Warren's recognition that we can't avert a climate breakdown while allowing the fossil fuel sector to pretend that large emitting industries and energy sources aren't the bulk of the problem.

- Cat Hobbs examines (PDF) the value of public ownership and democratic decision-making in ensuring that everybody has climate-friendly housing. And Bridgette Watson offers a reminder of the importance of stable housing in allowing people to recover from addictions.

- Julia Lurie examines how Purdue Pharma developed an astroturf "movement" to increase the sale of addictive pain medication.

- Finally, Tom Sigurdson highlights how a strong organized labour movement helps all workers.

Wednesday Morning Links

This and that for your mid-week reading.

- Noah Smith writes about the unfairness and inaccuracy in blaming people for finding themselves in poverty. And Sarah Kaine and Emmanuel Josserand call out the business sector's concerted efforts to normalize and spread systematic wage theft.

- Joelle Gergis points out that our climate is deteriorating at a rate which is alarming even to the scientists who have been monitoring it for decades. Geoff Dembicki discusses how Alberta can transition away from a dirty energy economy while ensuring plenty of work is available for people now stuck relying on fossil fuel extraction for work. And CBC News reports on British Columbia's plan to replace its entire bus fleet with electric vehicles.

- Meanwhile, Alden Wicker notes that removing water from products as packaged and sold could go a long way toward eliminating unnecessary waste.

- Finally, in an observation which echoes into Canada's federal election campaign, Bhaskar Sunkara discusses the difference between the ambitious plans of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the "no we can't" group of Democratic presidential candidates.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellanous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Dayen interviews Elizabeth Warren about the role of government in ensuring that the needs of people take precedence over the power of corporations. And Press Progress duly challenges the claim that corporate directors are overworked in putting in five to seven hours a week to carry out their duties, while Marco Chown Oved and Robert Cribb report on the tens of billions of dollars in taxes left unpaid by Canada's largest businesses.

- Michael Kwet examines how retailers track customers' movement without permission or accountability, while David Beer discusses the importance of regulating who's able to analyze personal information online.

- PressProgress examines a few of the realities Brian Pallister is hoping to sweep under the rug with a snap election call - including his slashing of rental assistance programs. Arthur White-Crummey reports on the Saskatchewan Party's elimination of support for utility costs in favour of blather about self-sufficiency. Jinny Sims calls out the B.C. Libs' billion dollars in land sales which papered over the cost of tax cuts at the expense of sorely-needed common property. And the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report (PDF) on the Trudeau Libs' housing policy finds that it's served only to shuffle around even lower amounts of money than were available under the unabashedly-austerian Harper Cons.

- Julia Knope reports on a Toronto rally seeking full labour rights and fair immigration opportunities for migrant workers. And David Climenhaga discusses how Alberta's Kenney Conservatives are seeking to set workers up for further exploitation while avoiding answering for their plans until after the federal election.

- Finally, Alex Ballingall reports that the United National Human Rights Office has joined the voices demanding more serious evaluation of the genocide against Indigenous people identified in the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Nick Hanauer discusses the futility of "educationism" which treats schools as the only factor in social outcomes without recognizing the importance of inequality and precarity in restricting opportunities for far too many children. And PressProgress points out that Brian Pallister's Manitoba PCs - in keeping with right-wing dogma - are determined to make matters worse for people already getting by with low incomes.

- Michael Spratt writes that Doug Ford's cuts to Legal Aid will end up costing more than they save (in addition to undermining outcomes in Ontario's justice system). Cory Coleman reports on the long-term damage being done by the Saskatchewan Party's failure to maintain the province's health facilities.

- David Climenhaga highlights how Canada's right has decided to pattern itself after Donald Trump in full, including by exhibiting an utter aversion to facts and proclivity for gaslighting. And PressProgress calls out Brad Wall (among other prominent Cons) for eagerly pushing climate denialism.

- Robert Reich argues that Elizabeth Warren's plan to revive the concept of industrial policy in the public interest offers a needed alternative to the corporatist view that the economy exists solely to serve the already-rich:

Smartness and openness go together. An open, explicit industrial policy becomes a national competitive strategy. A hidden industrial policy becomes a haven for political payoffs – a form of corporate welfare.

Which may be why big business in America killed off industrial policy in the 1980s. Such talk threatened to expose how much public money big business was raking in without doing anything in return.
...
Warren proposes enlarging federal research and development, and targeting it on leading technologies. These R&D investments would be “spread across every region of the country, not focused on only a few coastal cities”. The products that emerge would be built by American workers.

Her Green Manufacturing Plan proposes allocating $150bn annually for the next decade to renewable, green, American-made energy products, along with a dramatic expansion of worker training to ensure Americans have the skills for the anticipated new jobs.

It’s a national investment in our future. “Over the next decade, the expected market for clean energy technology in emerging economies alone is $23tn,” she explains.

It would also be good for the world. She calls for a Green Marshall plan, “dedicated to selling American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy technology abroad and a $100bn commitment to assisting countries to purchase and deploy this technology.”

As Trump erects tariff walls and rolls back federal efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Elizabeth Warren is promoting a positive economic nationalism designed both to advance America’s workers and respond to one of the most profound crises confronting the world.

- Finally, Jim Bronskill reports on a directive allowing Canada's military to collect and use information about Canadians with minimal controls or oversight.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Eoin Higgins discusses a new report by Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal on a U.S. political system which is even more corporatist than ever under the Trump administration.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Petz reports on Boots Riley's recent talk in Winnipeg - including his emphasis on the need for direct activism alongside work within partisan politics. And Martin Regg Cohn offers a reminder to the Ford PCs that there's more to democracy than a government acting without accountability between elections.

- Tim Dickinson reports on new research showing that the U.S.' subsidies for fossil fuels exceed even its bloated defence budget. And the Canadian Press reports on Enbridge's multi-billion dollar quarterly profits, while Emma McIntosh takes note of the Alberta municipalities facing fiscal ruin due to deadbeat resource extractors.

- Morgan Lawrie highlights the need for wildlife corridors to give animals some hope of finding a suitable habitat as our climate breaks down.

- Michael Coteau makes the case for a right to repair as a means of both saving consumers money, and reducing avoidable waste and environmental destruction.

- Finally, Philippe Fournier points out how Canada's Parliament would look under current voting intentions if the Libs had followed through on their promise of electoral reform.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Shawn Gude comments on the choice Democratic primary voters will have between candidates seeking to regulate the economic system as it stands, and those pushing to fundamentally changing it. Ian Welsh points out the importance of supporting candidates such as Bernie Sanders with a genuine commitment to the more progressive policies on offer from many corners.

- John Horgan discusses the backlash against the extreme concentration of wealth amidst increased precarity in the U.S., while Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley report on new polling again showing strong support for higher tax rates on the extremely wealthy. And Jordan Weissmann highlights how Elizabeth Warren's child care plan would boost both the economy generally, and the cause of shared and equitable development in particular.

- Larry Elliott reports on a new study showing how austerity has devastated families in the UK. And James Sillars notes that the result is a country set to reach record levels of child poverty even before it shoots itself in the foot through an attempt to distance itself from the world.

- Mat Hope exposes the disinformation campaigns used jointly by big tobacco and the oil lobby to attack any action to promote public health where it might affect short-term profits. And the Canadian Press reports on the CRTC's findings of misleading and aggressive sales tactics by the telecoms who are already overcharging Canadian customers.

- Finally, the CP also reports on new research showing that Canadian governments need to do far more to try to reduce the harm resulting from alcohol abuse - rather than promoting that harm through deregulation and downward pressure on prices as so many right-wing governments have chosen to do in the name of populist appeal.

New column day

Here (via PressReader), on the U.S.' long-overdue conversation about progressive taxes on extreme incomes and wealth - and the need for Canada to follow suit.

For further reading...
- Matthew Yglesias has offered useful background on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' high-end income tax proposal, Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax proposal, Bernie Sanders' estate tax plan, and the strong public support for the ideas. And Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman respond (PDF) to critics of wealth taxes generally, while Noah Smith compares the options.
- Lawrence Martin discusses the U.S.' newfound interest in ensuring the rich pay their fair share. Farhad Manjoo questions whether the level of wealth and inequality inherent in billionaire status can ever be justified.
- Paul Krugman comments on Howard Schultz' laughable attempt to manufacture a populist presidential campaign out of explicit class war on behalf of the uber-rich.
- Finally, Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison offer a reminder of how wealth and privilege tend to be self-perpetuating. And Meagan Day points out how massive inheritances are particularly unjustifiable when far too many people face severely limited opportunities.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Doreen Nicoll makes the case to reinstate the basic income plan eliminated by Doug Ford in Ontario. Danielle Kurtz examines a few of the ideas being proposed by U.S. Democrats in the lead up to the 2020 presidential campaign (including their own basic income model), while Steven Vogel comments on Elizabeth Warren's arguments to reduce inequality at the predistribution phase. And Brian Dew proposes a "people's dividend" drawn from the growing concentration of unneeded corporate cash. 

- Kristin Annable reports on one Manitoba patient's discovery that chemotherapy pumps used for her treatment are regularly left uninspected. 

- Amanda Vyce discusses how a national public pharmacare program may be the only way to ensure a fair deal for Canadians in light of extended monopolies over biologic medicines.

- Finally, Takashi Tsuji and Yasu Ota report on a further push through WTO structures to hand corporations the ability to keep crucial information secret regardless of any public interest. And Rodrigo Samayoa reminds us why corporations can't be allowed to throttle neutral access to the Internet:

For years, Big Telecom has been telling us that the internet requires greater flexibility to innovate and invest in the new 5G networks that will allow us to safely ride self-driving vehicles and use remote health-care apps.

We have heard this from Verizon, AT&T, Bell, Rogers and Ajit Pai, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. But none of that is surprising, is it?

Of course they want greater flexibility. Wouldn't they love to charge you extra to hook up your car to the 5G network or charge insurance companies more for remote health care?
...
If Canada is to remain at the forefront of innovation and freedom, we need a robust net neutrality framework that doesn't benefit those with deep pockets and vested interests. How could a streaming startup or non-profit news service compete with the likes of Netflix and Google News in a world where your access to broadband is determined by how much you can pay?

For that matter, what guarantees are there that broadband access to telehealth apps won't be determined by how much you can pay?

In the United States, evidence of throttling by ISPs is already evident, even when it comes to first responders. Just last year Verizon throttled the "unlimited" internet connection of a California fire department in the middle of a catastrophic wildfire.

Is that the flexibility we need for net neutrality?

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Trevor Tombe highlights how equalization actually works - and how the bleatings of Jason Kenney, Scott Moe and other demagogues would serve only to eliminate anything worthy of the name.

- Mary O'Hara rightly argues that child poverty in the UK and U.S. is an outrage demanding an immediate response - and the same holds true in Canada as well. Alexandra Zannis comments on the need to move from temporary holiday charity to a commitment to human dignity and public support throughout the year. And Al Wiebe writes about his experience of poverty during the holiday season.

- Elizabeth Warren makes the case for a government generic drug manufacturer to ensure that public health isn't at the mercy of corporate rent-seeking. And Mariana Mazzucato discusses the importance of mission-oriented governance, including recognition of the positive role governments can and should play in economic development.

- Meanwhile, Murray Mandryk points out the lack of even a basic maintenance plan at SaskPower as a painful example of a vital public service being neglected.

- Finally, Max FineDay writes that reconciliation is only possible if everybody works toward it - and that there's far too little indication that non-Indigenous Canadians are prepared to put in the effort.

New column day

Here, looking to the work of Elizabeth Warren and the Institute for Public Policy Research for options in making our economy more responsive to the needs of the public.

For further reading...
- Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act is here (PDF), and again was discussed by Matthew Yglesias here.
- The IPPR's report on Prosperity and Justice is here, or available in summary form here. [Update: And Chris Dillow offers a worthwhile review of it here.]
- Emma Sara Hughes and Tony Dundon make the case for a return of wage councils as another way to reduce inequality.
- Finally, Matt Bruenig points out how Sweden's widespread prosperity can be traced back to a substantial reduction in the 1%'s share of wealth ownership. And David Weil highlights the effects of employer monopsony on labour markets.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mike Konczal notes that a single-minded focus on shareholder wealth - exemplified by today's obsession with stock buybacks - has frozen workers out of any returns from economic development. And Anne Perkins writes about the outrageous gap between the pay of the luckiest CEOs and the rest of the workforce.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias discusses Elizabeth Warren's plan to reconnect businesses to the societies which enable them to make their money, both by mandating social purposes and by ensuring worker representation in decision-making.

- James Wilt examines the public returns on natural resource wealth in Alberta compared to other similar jurisdictions, and finds that Albertans are receiving a woefully insufficient price for oil sands extraction.

- Meanwhile, Crawford Kilian points out the need for massive investments to address climate change - both to do everything in our power to avoid an imminent "hothouse" scenario, and to adapt as best possible to the extent that effort fails.

- Finally, George Monbiot examines how jarring increases in obesity rates over the past few decades can be traced almost entirely to corporate manipulation of consumer habits.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Norman Farrell highlights how following the reversal of the HST transition, B.C. businesses haven't given up on their goal of making sure that only individuals pay consumption taxes.

- Jordan Press and Lee Berthiaume report on the lack of any recent effort to ensure that federal government buildings don't jeopardize health and safety - which fits all too well with areas such as federal and provincial pipeline regulation as examples of short-term cost savings virtually certain to produce long-term disasters.

- David Suzuki argues that it's time to press the Trudeau Libs toward action on climate change (based in no small part on the recognition that they'll never bother of their own volition).

- Sheldon Whitehouse and Elizabeth Warren comment on how big oil has rigged the U.S.' political system to prevent anybody from even asking questions about its longtime climate fraud, while Greg Russell points out that oil operators seem set to abandon their offshore wells and cleanup responsibilities. And David Climenhaga examines how Enron suckered the Alberta PCs into the laughably unfair power deal which the NDP is now trying to reverse.

- Finally, John Conway discusses the many dark clouds looming over Brad Wall's tenure as premier. And Murray Mandryk notes that the summer's events have called most of the Saskatchewan Party's core identity into question. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Elizabeth Warren reminds us (PDF) that previous trade agreements were packaged with the same promises of labour and environmental standards being used to sell the latest versions - and that there's been no enforcement whatsoever of the elements of the deals which were supposed to protect the public.

- Kriston Capps discusses the unfairness of New York's property tax system which makes it easy for the obscenely rich to avoid paying their fair share. And Jon Stone notes that even following an election in which the Conservatives won a majority, UK voters are more concerned with fighting inequality than pushing growth for the few.

- David Roberts rightly warns that we're much further down the road toward catastrophic climate change than most people are prepared to admit. And Terry Macalister reports that Shell in particular is planning based on the assumption that we won't make any progress in reining in global warming.

- But the good news is that clean alternative energy sources are becoming far more readily available, meaning that we only need the political will to change our current balance of power. And Richard Littlemore writes that we're not lacking for businesses willing to offer renewable energy alternatives.

- Finally, the National Post slams the Cons for once again rewriting the law - in this case governing access to information - to suit their own political purposes. And the Star calls out the Cons' baseless terror fearmongering.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Will McMartin highlights the fact that constant corporate tax slashing has done nothing other than hand ever-larger piles of money to businesses who have no idea what to do with it. But Josh Wingrove reports that Justin Trudeau is looking for excuses to keep up the handouts to the corporate sector.

- Joseph Stiglitz offers (PDF) a thorough review of our options in lessening corporate hegemony, while Elizabeth Warren and Rosa Delauro ask why citizens should accept trade agreements being written in secret by and for the corporate sector. And David Dayen lists some of the lies being told to try to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
 
- Meanwhile, James Fitz-Morris discusses the top-heavy giveaway arising out of the Cons' tax-free savings account scheme. And Stephen Tapp writes that an ill-advised balanced-budget law is aimed at a problem far less significant than the ones it will create.

- George Lakoff offers some messaging suggestions for progressives. And Luke Savage challenges the rhetoric of "aspiration" as a substitute for fairness:

The “aspirational middle class” is a soundbite engineered to be maximally inclusive and minimally concrete. It is Britain’s post-Thatcherite/New Labour analogue to “the American Dream” – that mythical journey of growth, personal prosperity, and self-creation which is theoretically open to all and practically open to few. The superficial elegance of this vision is that we all ostensibly have access to it, if we choose. The reality is that people belong to different classes, both social and economic, and aren’t more or less “aspirational” because of it (at least not in the commonly understood meaning of the word). Conceptualizing social disparities and economic structures in terms of personal aspiration is a convenient and very deliberate way of ignoring how these structures benefit some and constrain others. The built-in myth of self-sufficiency, in which the individual is always solely and completely responsible for her own outcome, also very deliberately neglects the inherently social nature of our lives: the schools which give us education, the libraries which give us books, the communities in which we are raised, the parents and others who give us care, the roads and transport networks on which we travel.
...
(I)t bears worth asking why we should privilege a particular kind of personal aspiration which mostly or wholly aspires to make and keep a small number of people extremely wealthy and which elevates the acquisition of personal wealth to the status of cardinal social value.

- Finally, Dennis Raphael discusses how Canada's choice to shred its social safety net decades ago is producing harmful health outcomes today - and asks that we be pay more attention to the future effects of our actions.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bryce Covert weighs in on the IMF's latest study showing a connection between stronger trade unions and greater income equality:

While it can be hard to say for sure whether the decline in unionization is a direct cause of growing income inequality, they found that it is a “key contributor” to steep increases in income at the top, which holds true even after they controlled for other factors such as shifts in political power, labor market trends like the growing power of Wall Street and deindustrialization, and top marginal tax rates.

The authors also found that reductions in country’s minimum wages have increased inequality “considerably.”

Why would lower unionization rates have such an impact? The authors explain it in two different ways. Lower union density reduces workers’ bargaining power, which means corporate managers and shareholders stand to see higher returns if workers don’t have the power to ask for a bigger share. A lack of bargaining power may also mean that workers have less influence on corporate decisions, which could led to policies that better benefit top earners like higher executive pay. Unions also play a political role and can push parties to pass policies that would better redistribute income, but if they are weakened they don’t have the same influence.

- And Enda Curran and Simon Kennedy highlight how even governments which face little democratic opposition are responding somewhat to the public's demand to reduce inequality.

- But sadly, we're seeing little on that front in the places which can most afford it. On that front, CBC reports on the massive and growing problems of poverty and inequality in Toronto, while Sara Mojtehedzadeh surveys some much-needed solutions. And David Ottewell and Owen Bennett discuss the clear connection between cuts to housing programs, and rapidly increasing homelessness in the UK.

- Eric Reguly comments on the effect of monetary policy in exacerbating inequality - but while Reguly is right to note that we'd be far better off fighting recessions through helicopter drops than quantitative easing, it's the lack of the former which puts central banks in the position of having to use the tools at their disposal. And Andrew MacLeod looks at the kid-glove treatment of mortgage insurance providers in B.C. as just another example of the financial sector receiving a perpetual get-out-of-consequences-free card.

- Ben White reports on Elizabeth Warren's important challenge to the TPP and other corporate power agreements.

- And finally, Mark Hooghe, Sofie Marien, and Jennifer Oser argue that we shouldn't take hashtag activism and other online communications tools as a substitute for direct representation in decision-making, particularly since they may only perpetuate existing disparities in reach and power.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Joan Walsh discusses Elizabeth Warren's work on improving wages and enhancing the strength of workers in the U.S., while Jeremy Nuttall interviews Hassan Yussuff about the labour movement's work to elect a better government in Canada.

- Bob Hepburn argues that getting rid of the Harper Cons is a first step toward regaining some faith in our political system. And Scott Reid worries that Stephen Harper's cynical view of government in anybody's hands may have spread to Canada's electorate - though while there's plenty of work to be done in the longer term, the short-term Con message of "you shouldn't trust government!" would seem to be readily supplemented with "especially this one!".

- Speaking of which, Joanna Smith catches Chris Alexander interfering in a response to questions about the Cons' immigration mess. And the argument that it's too much work to actually track outcomes hardly speaks well to the Cons' supposed management skills.

- Toby Helm reports on Ed Miliband's plan to set up a Living Standards Index to measure well-being beyond GDP alone as part of a push to show that right-wing orthodoxy misses the impact of the economy on the vast majority of people. And Ron Lieber observes that gross inequality can be toxic for the people who grow up with extreme privilege.

- Finally, Guy Dauncey responds to Sarah Petrescu's series on poverty in Victoria by pointing out that we'll need some big ideas to eradicate it altogether - though I'd note that he may miss the most important one.