Friday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Amy Peng et al. examine the profound positive impact of mask mandates in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario. And Sheena Cruickshank warns about the avoidable harm we can expect as so many respond to the political and social signals to abandon all precautions in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. 

- Luis Guanter et al. document an immense methane leak from a single well blowout in Kazakhstan. Michael Barnard offers a reminder that the definition of a carbon capture and storage "success story" is the release of 25 times more carbon pollution than is captured.

- Zoe Yunker reports on the federal government's choice to scrap pipe supply and testing requirements for a particularly treacherous stretch of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Fatima Syed discusses how the Ford government has suppressed a study which shows how the climate crisis endangers numerous facets of life in Ontario. And Raidin Blue and Betsy Again study (PDF) how bottlenecks in labour and material supplies are among the obstacles to making buildings more energy-efficient - making clear that the price of subsidizing dirty energy expansion is to divert the resources needed to transition to a cleaner economy. 

- Matthew Kurtz examines the problems with making educational institutions beholden to capital investments.

- Finally, Erika Shaker writes that trans children deserve far better than to be used as pawns in the right's culture wars. Rob Reiner discusses how hostility toward diversity is behind the willingness of U.S. religious nationalists to support Donald Trump. And Laura Woodward reports on the appalling demand by a Saskatoon church to shut down support services for homeless people - and how it's being echoed in Sask Party policy. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Claire Pomeroy writes that the establishment's refusal to stop the transmission of COVID-19 has created a desperate need to account for the widespread disability it's causing. But Brody Langager reports that in Saskatchewan, a non-profit's website is instead serving as the closest patients have to a central source of information as the Moe government continues not to care about public health.

- Carol Hughes makes the case for a windfall tax on grocery profits which have been extracted by self-serving oligarchs under the false cover of claimed inflation. And D.T. Cochrane notes that the Competition Bureau's recent report only strengthens the argument.

- Sheila Block and Grace-Edward Galabuzi highlight how shifts in Ontario's workforce have exacerbated racial inequalities.

- Erika Shaker calls out the dog-whistle of "parental choice" as an excuse to reinforce inequalities of privilege and power. And Noah Fry warns that Blaine Higgs is using a bland public image to divert attention from an anti-social agenda no less extreme than that of Danielle Smith.

- Finally, Luke Savage discusses how Toronto's election of Olivia Chow as mayor provided a needed rebuke to the austerian corporate forces which had previously dominated the city.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Pratyush Dayal reports on the COVID outbreak which has infected every single resident of a Regina care home. And Dan Scheuerman reports on the effect the drug poisoning crisis is having on people's health generally by further straining already-limited health care resources. 

- Don Pittis writes about the shock treatment being administered to the economy through interest rates hikes - and the explicit goal of suppressing wages so they don't catch up to locked-in increases in prices and profits. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson points out that Alberta is both Canada's wealthiest province and the one with the most hunger - confirming again that mere GDP numbers don't translate into reasonable standards of living when the spoils of development are funneled to the privileged few. 

- Ben Sichel discusses the need to build organizing unions rather than mere service providers to members. And Eric Blanc interviews Harper McNamara, Sam Smith, and Atulya Dora-Laskey about the factors which enabled them to organize the first successful organizing drive at Chioptle - including workers' desire to have a say in working conditions which are otherwise set by management detached from the realities of the workplace. 

- Erika Shaker discusses what Canada should learn from the U.S.' partial forgiveness of excessive student debt. 

- Finally, Tracey Ferrier discusses the International Cleanup Conference's recognition that chemicals are already affecting food supplies (and stand to do so all the more based on a climate breakdown). And Dorothy Woodend interviews George Monbiot about his book Regenesis and the importance of ensuring that our methods of food production don't destroy the soil and natural environment necessary for our survival.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jason Gale reports on new research showing how COVID-19 can cause impacts on the brain for a period of years (with no apparent end in sight). And Saima May Sidik discusses the long-lasting cardiovascular problems which may also follow from an infection. But Sean Boynton reports that the choice to "let 'er rip" is resulting in even the acute measures of hospitalizations and deaths being higher than in the previous two years of the pandemic - while Isaac Callan and Colin D'Mello expose how the Ford PCs (presumably not alone among their right-wing cousins) were more interested in slashing costs and services than ensuring people had the tools to deal with COVID.

- Meanwhile, Brady Bouchard warns that family physicians won't be able to paper over the destruction of other elements of the health care system for long. And Jeremy Simes reports on the plight of one Regina patient wrestling with the possibility of seeking an MRI at his own expense, while CKOM reports on the Moe government's explicit choice to start diverting surgical patients to Alberta based on their ability to pay for their own travel. 

- Don Pittis discusses how workers shouldn't see an eventual drop in inflation as much of a win if it means their real income has been eroded by a combination of corporate-driven price increases and artificially suppressed wages. And Greg Jericho highlights how wages are falling far short of keeping up with theoretical labour demand in Australia. 

- Owen Jones writes about a rare but welcome step in unionizing a London nightclub - offering an example for all kinds of workers in precarious service jobs.  

- Finally, Erika Shaker offers a primer on student debt in Canada - and the value of removing the limitations faced by young workers as they complete their education with massive debt burdens. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- In the absence of any leadership from governments, a group of experts has put together a "Canadian Shield" strategy (PDF) to rein in the spread of COVID-19 - featuring the seemingly indisputable ideas that the starting point needs to be controlling and ultimately reducing viral spread while supporting the people affected.  

- David Carrigg reports that British Columbia has finally decided (without fanfare) to limit the operation of industrial work sites which create massive outbreak risks.

- Jeeves Wijesuriya discusses how COVID conspiracy theories affect the health care workers risking their health and well-being to try to keep people alive through a pandemic, while Andrea Wu and Tu Thanh Ha highlight how the health care system may be swamped as a result of irresponsible actions over the holidays. Alexandra Robbins rightly questions why decisions about the school system include little regard for the teachers who keep it running. 

- Sonia Sidha discusses the rise of UK Conservative cabinet ministers who are treated as being too antisocial and incompetent to fail - a phenomenon which is all too familiar in Canada as well. 

- Finally, as part of the CCPA's latest issue of Our Schools/Our Selves, Erika Shaker argues (PDF, see p. 3) that we need to build back kinder. And Kenan Malik is hopeful that we're relearning important lessons about the importance of collective action - which Madhukar Pai notes is a precondition to reversing the concentration of wealth and power.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Donald Gutstein examines the crucial difference between advancing toward a zero-carbon economy, and incentivizing further fossil fuel development through misleading terms such as "low-emission". And Arthur White-Crummey reports on Nic Rivers' response to the Saskatchewan Party's attempt to self-assess climate policy while avoiding any recognition of the province's emissions which contribute to a global climate breakdown.

- Meanwhile, Bob Weber points out the reality that the high oil prices relied on for past booms are almost certainly a thing of the past.

- Duncan Cameron highlights how Jason Kenney is relying on an authoritarian playbook in his quest for power in Alberta. PressProgress reports on a new analysis showing the widespread use of bots to influence the election in Kenney's favour. CBC reports on the voting fraud used to place Kenney in his current position as UPC leader. And David Climenhaga wonders how a party seemingly swimming in money and resources could have failed as badly as the UPC has in reviewing and vetting candidates.

- Finally, Erika Shaker discusses the importance of strength in numbers to challenge Doug Ford's attacks on education, while David Bush examines the role of the labour movement in fighting back against Ford. And Jon Henley reports on the success of Operation Libero in countering right-wing populism in Switzerland.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Linda McQuaig writes that Canada's federal government should look at buying the soon-to-be-vacated GM plant in Oshawa to begin production of electric vehicles. But Nav Persaud notes that even when the Trudeau Libs make promises about using government power and resources for the public good, they ultimately end up going along with the wishes of the corporate sector.

- E. Tammy Kim writes that instead of relying on corporations to address housing shortages, cities should ensure the actors who cause and profit from rising rents are taxed to cover the cost.

- Ivana Kottasova reports on a new study showing how the global environment can't handle the damage caused by the U.S.' increase in fossil fuel production and consumption. And Fatima Syed reports on Doug Ford's extension of anti-government dogma to the treatment of endangered species in Ontario.

- Meanwhile, Erika Shaker examines the predictable effects of Ford's plan to undermine student newspapers and organizations as part of a more general attack on post-secondary education, while Nora Loreto points out that it particularly stands to weaken students' voices in the general public. And Martin Regg Cohn views the false promise of tuition cuts as following in the PCs' buck-a-beer tradition of counterproductive, faux-populist policies.

- Claire Clancy reports on recent findings of Alberta's Elections Commissioner concluding that Rebel Media and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation have broken election laws. And Elizabeth Thompson reports that a single guilty plea and small fine looks like it may close the door on any public knowledge of SNC Lavalin's system of illegal federal political donations to the Libs and Cons.

- Finally, Trish Hennessy discusses some trends to watch for - and positive change to pursue - in the year ahead.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Matt Taylor discusses how the U.S.' Supreme Court has stacked the deck against workers by allowing employers to evade all types of collective action, while the Economic Policy Institute points out that a majority of workers are required to sign away their ability to seek class action remedies against illegal actions. And Elizabeth Tippett reports on the use of distorted time-keeping technology to systematically require workers to put in extra time without pay.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford comments on the importance of using the government's role in the economy to raise the bar for worker rights and employment standards:

Australia’s government sector is by far the largest single part of Australia’s economy.  The report documents the enormous fiscal dimensions of the economic footprint of government:

• Total expenditures of over $660 billion per year, equal to 36 percent of Australia’s GDP.
• Total “consumption” spending (that is, expenditures on current production of public goods and services) of over $330 billion per year (18.5 percent of GDP), and investment spending (on longer-lived capital projects) of over $85 billion (another 5 percent of GDP).
• Direct public sector employment of close to 2 million workers, with millions more jobs indirectly dependent on government injections of spending power into the economy.
• Fiscal and policy support for public and community service provision by arms-length non-profit agencies, worth at least another 4 percent of GDP.
• Goods and services procured from private-sector suppliers equivalent to around 10 percent of GDP (or about $175 billion per year).

This economic footprint, if wielded consistently to achieve higher wages and better jobs, could have a powerful impact on labour market outcomes.  Moreover, through a “demonstration effect,” improved wages and labour standards would “spill over” into better practices in businesses and sectors that have no direct connection to government spending at all. 

It is ironic that Treasurers always pray for stronger wage growth in every budget they prepare, because strong wages are essential to healthy government revenues and stronger economic growth.  But governments don’t pursue obvious opportunities to help achieve that growth, by tying their own expenditure programs to stronger wages and better working conditions.

- Erika Shaker argues that an increased reliance on fund-raising rather than public revenue is only exacerbating differences between wealthier and poorer schools. And Jen St. Denis reports on hundreds of millions of dollars of takes owed which are going unpaid in the real estate sector in Toronto and Vancouver.

- Catherine Griwkowsky interviews Siobhan Vipond about the importance of child care in narrowing the pay equity gap between men and women.

- Finally, Raymond Saint-Germain and Art Eggleton highlight the need for improved social supports and evidence-based criminal justice policy to reverse a sharp increase in the number of women incarcerated in Canada.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Jesse Winter is the latest reporter to tell the stories of a few minimum-wage workers who will see a raise as a result of improved employment standards. And Erika Shaker points out that a substantial minimum-wage increase is a long-overdue response to outdated statutory standards and stagnant wage levels, not a meaningful imposition on employers:

(W)hat’s truly surprising is that so many businesses didn’t seem to see it coming, even after a two-year $15 minimum wage campaign in Ontario. After all, increases have been studied, debated and implemented in several American states, Britain, and Australia (to name a few), not to mention Alberta. All this strikes me as something that might be considered “market research” or simply “planning ahead” for a business concerned with its bottom line.

So while this is certainly a significant change, Ontario businesses had time to rethink their decision to pursue a low-wage business plan in the broader socio-economic and political context (the Changing Workplaces Review was initiated back in February 2015 “to consider issues brought about in part by the growth of precarious employment”), seven months to adjust to being compliant with the legislation (if the mere desire to treat their workers well wasn’t strong enough), and another year before $15/hr kicks in.
...
The increase to the minimum wage shouldn’t be seen as a shock, but rather a long-fought-for correction…which suggests that those businesses arguing loudest had perhaps become too comfortable counting on an outdated business model whose profit margins depended on low-wage employees. The much-publicized decision by a few (“rogue”, according to Head Office) Tim Hortons franchises to find ways to gouge their workers betrays a somewhat Dickensian nostalgia for a time when the highest costs of doing business were borne by the worker — not the cutting-edge, forward-looking business acumen that we’re often told tax breaks will encourage.

- Lydia Dobson criticizes Ontario employers whose reaction to an improved minimum wage is to steal employees' tips. And Heidi Shierholz, David Cooper, Julia Wolfe, and Ben Zipperer document the billions of dollars workers stand to lose from Donald Trump's plan to let U.S. employers do exactly that.

- Matt Bruenig points out the problems with fetishizing small businesses, rather than focusing on the importance of workers' protections and needs regardless of the size of their employer.

- The Star's editorial board argues that Google and Facebook should be required to pay a fair share of taxes proportional to the corporate revenue they accumulate from their Canadian operations.

- And finally, Mary Papenfuss reports on the Koch family's six-figure payout to Paul Ryan (and other donations which represent a small portion of the Republicans' tax giveaway) as a prime example of the corruption inherent in politics dominated by big money.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ben Steverman examines the unfairness of the U.S.' tax system - which, like Canada's, offers gratuitous giveaways to wealthy investors which force workers to pay more:

Politicians have intentionally set tax rates on wages much higher than those on long-term investment returns. The U.S. has a progressive tax system in the sense that well-paid workers sacrifice much more than poor workers on their “ordinary income.” But Americans with so-called unearned income—qualified dividends and long-term capital gains—get a break. A billionaire investor can pay about the same marginal rate as a $40,000-a-year worker, a fact Warren Buffett has famously lamented.
 ...
There’s a big flaw, though, in the argument that lower taxes on the rich stimulate longer-term investment, and thus jobs, famously labeled as “trickle-down economics.” While tax rates might affect the timing of some investor decisions in the medium term, it’s much harder to see how they affect long-term behavior. No matter the tax rate, investors ultimately look for opportunities to get richer.

“There is little empirical evidence showing that taxing investors less stimulates savings and growth,” said Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Supply-side economists disagree, and can point to tax cuts in the 1980s that seemed to spur the U.S. and U.K. economies. But there’s little evidence of a relationship between economic growth and investment taxes over the long term.

- Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman connect (PDF) the wealth hidden away in tax havens to its national sources - and then to develop a more accurate estimate of top-end wealth which has been siphoned off. And the Equality Trust offers a set of policy proposals for Labour to reduce inequality in the UK - with both regional imbalances and social ownership among the key economic priorities.

- Meanwhile, Brent Patterson examines how the oil industry - with the assistance of Lib insiders - is trying to limit public regulation of pipelines through NAFTA.

- Kevin Quigley notes that while a trial of the conductor involved in the Lac-Mégantic rail explosion will offer some testing of the causes of the disaster, more important systemic issues are going unaddressed in the absence of a broader inquiry.

- Finally, Don Pittis examines the social benefits of post-secondary education which are being lost in an effort to extract money from students. And Erika Shaker points out that Statistics Canada is making it more difficult to compare tuition across provinces.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne writes that austerity bears much of the blame for the Grenfell Tower inferno - as well as for the increased dangers facing all but the wealthiest of people:

Grenfell Tower was not an accident. It is what happens when austerity becomes entrenched government ideology.

Grenfell Tower is the tragic consequence of an economic system that no longer works for most people, but instead fuels inequality and greed.

Grenfell Tower is the tragic consequence of government indifference and arrogance and, yes, even contempt for those struggling to make ends meet every single day, working multiple jobs and still unable to move up the so-called mobility ladder.

It has nothing to do with how hard they work, because for the most part they work too much and too hard, and yet the system is stacked against them. And then governments, acting on behalf of the few rather than the many, make those circumstances worse. They push a university or college education out of reach. They slash and burn and cut back on all the programs that allow people to have a chance at a better life. And they do it while slashing taxes for the rich and global corporations.

And then they cave to the lobbies that complain that health and safety regulations are red tape.

- And Oolong argues that austerity is best viewed as today's form of human sacrifice in the name of a false religion.

- Erika Shaker examines the spread of precarious work in Ontario's education sector (as well as in the broader economy).

- Nora Loreto points out how Canada's big banks are raking in billions in profits while slashing jobs - and wonders why reporting on one of those facts seldom mentions the other. And Tom Murphy discusses how multinational corporations are lobbying to sneak implicit approval for tax evasion into the UN's sustainable development goals.

- Meanwhile, Noah Smith observes that decades of corporate giveaways have been rewarded with a decline in business investment in the U.S.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom highlights how Justin Trudeau is following in Stephen Harper's footsteps by expanding an unaccountable security state at the expense of Canadians' privacy. Jeremy Nuttall points out how the Libs have broken their promises on access to information. And Kelly McParland writes that broken promises and sudden reversals represent the main theme of Trudeau's stay in power.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Alex Hemingway reviews the evidence on two-tiered medicine from around the developed world, and concludes that a constitutional attack on universal health care would only result in our paying more for less.

- Marc Lee takes a look at the national climate change framework released last week and finds it to fall short in both its insufficient goals, and a lack of a clear plan to achieve them. 

- Erika Shaker examines the difficulties families face as a result of unavailable and unaffordable child care. 

- Martin Regg Cohn nicely highlights the two-faced Ontario PCs, who are denouncing social conservatism publicly while proclaiming it to be a top priority behind closed doors. And both Michael Den Tandt and Michael Harris point out that the NDP is nicely positioned to fill the federal vacuum created by a combination of disappointing corporatist Libs and ineffective Cons.

- Finally, Dave Seglins and Rachel Houlihan report on Dennis Molinaro's discovery of a secret 1951 Canadian cabinet memo authorizing RCMP spying against "subversives" in perpetuity. (And judging from the federal government's response complaining that disclosure would affect ongoing operations, there's reason to suspect that it's still being applied.)

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew applaud Wallonia's principled stance against the CETA. And Joseph Stiglitz discusses the need to set up social and economic systems which actually serve the public good, rather than favouring corporate interests:

Where the trade agreements failed, it was not because the US was outsmarted by its trading partners; it was because the US trade agenda was shaped by corporate interests. America’s companies have done well, and it is the Republicans who have blocked efforts to ensure that Americans made worse off by trade agreements would share the benefits. 

Thus, many Americans feel buffeted by forces outside their control, leading to outcomes that are distinctly unfair. Long-standing assumptions – that America is a land of opportunity and that each generation will be better off than the last – have been called into question. The global financial crisis may have represented a turning point for many voters: their government saved the rich bankers who had brought the US to the brink of ruin, while seemingly doing almost nothing for the millions of ordinary Americans who lost their jobs and homes. The system not only produced unfair results, but seemed rigged to do so. 

...

There are two messages US political elites should be hearing. The simplistic neo-liberal market-fundamentalist theories that have shaped so much economic policy during the last four decades are badly misleading, with GDP growth coming at the price of soaring inequality. Trickle-down economics hasn’t and won’t work. Markets don’t exist in a vacuum. The Thatcher-Reagan “revolution,” which rewrote the rules and restructured markets for the benefit of those at the top, succeeded all too well in increasing inequality, but utterly failed in its mission to increase growth. 

This leads to the second message: we need to rewrite the rules of the economy once again, this time to ensure that ordinary citizens benefit. Politicians in the US and elsewhere who ignore this lesson will be held accountable. Change entails risk. But the Trump phenomenon – and more than a few similar political developments in Europe – has revealed the far greater risks entailed by failing to heed this message: societies divided, democracies undermined, and economies weakened.

- Jesse Brown rightly questions whether Canada is living up to its self-image as a progressive example for the world, while Cindy Blackstock notes that continued discrimination against First Nations children is just one crucial area where a change in government hasn't led to improvement in substance.

- Leilani Farha discusses the need to start seeing housing in terms of human rights rather than market commodities. Elisheva Passarello describes how transitional housing allowed her to move from poverty and homelessness toward improvement in all facets of her life. Beatrice Britneff reports on a new study  showing that we could end homelessness in Canada in a decade. And Rachel Zeineker notes that at least in Yellowknife, the public is well aware that homelessness ranks ahead of everything else a problem demanding immediate attention and resources.

- Erika Shaker makes the case for zero tuition (while countering some of the usual spin which has resulted in the cost of education being borne increasingly by students without the means to pay it).

- Finally, Stewart Prest discusses the "yellow dog effect" as an important argument against first-past-the-post politics.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Bjarke Skærlund Risager interviews David Harvey about the history and effect of neoliberalism:

I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labor.

In many respects the project was a counterrevolutionary project...
...
(F)or globalization to work you had to reduce tariffs and empower finance capital, because finance capital is the most mobile form of capital. So finance capital and things like floating currencies became critical to curbing labor.

At the same time, ideological projects to privatize and deregulate created unemployment. So, unemployment at home and offshoring taking the jobs abroad, and a third component: technological change, deindustrialization through automation and robotization. That was the strategy to squash labor.

It was an ideological assault but also an economic assault. To me this is what neoliberalism was about: it was that political project, and I think the bourgeoisie or the corporate capitalist class put it into motion bit by bit.

- Ian Johnston discusses how the privatization of health care in the UK is leading to far worse health outcomes, including decreased overall access to public services and worsening inequality as serious health problems are ignored in favour of delivering less important services to cherry-picked patients. 

- Larry Buhl highlights the disproportionate effect of environmental damage among minority populations - and the policy choices being made to facilitate that harm. (And needless to say, the Wall government's choice to wave through new pipelines without even considering their environmental impacts looks to fall under that category.) But that discriminatory effect also opens the door to dealing with environmental destruction through existing human rights mechanisms - and John Vidal reports on the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines' move to address the effects of climate change.

- Finally, Nathan Robinson comments on the futility of trying to pitch a "stay the course" message to the public which has been sacrificed in the name of the corporate class. And Erika Shaker discusses the need to offer solutions to citizens' underlying complains, lest voters otherwise settle for punishing scapegoats instead.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Caroline Plante reports on Quebec's scourge of medical extra-billing and user fees (as identified by its own Auditor General). And Aaron Derfel notes that the federal government has done nothing to apply the Canada Health Act to rein in the practice.

- Erika Shaker highlights how federal funding for post-secondary education serves mostly to provide further advantages for students who already have the most.

- The Star makes the case for the Communications Security Establishment to answer for breaches of Canadians' privacy. And Kaveh Waddell discusses how big data in the hands of the corporate sector can lead to systematic discrimination against poor communities, while Dennis Howlett challenges KPMG's claim that confidentiality entitles tax cheats to avoid exposure.

- Susan Delacourt offers a few suggestions as to how Justin Trudeau could usefully use some political capital - with a particular focus on reversing the Cons' attacks on the political system. And Kelly McParland notes that the Cons themselves may be continuing down the path of artificial barriers against experience and competence with internal leadership term limits.

- Finally, Trish Kahle discusses the shared interest of the labour and environmental movements in a sustainable economy.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Karl Nerenberg weighs in on the Libs' choice to direct billions of dollars toward higher-income individuals, rather than working to help Canadians who need it:

The Liberals are now in power, and have just brought in a tax change that will give the most generous benefit to an elite, wealthy group.

You can call six-figure earners middle class if you like, but that would be stretching the definition. They are certainly not middle income. They are near the top. And they are definitely not the most in need.

A few, such as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and the now third party NDP, have called the Liberals on this choice.

The CCPA has even proposed alternatives. One is to use a tax credit, which can be more precisely targeted, rather than a tax cut for the middle bracket.

So far, its odd and unfair fiscal choice has not had much political impact on the honeymooning Trudeau government.

There is still time, however.

Let's see what happens around tax time when Canadians start to pay closer attention to how much they, and others, actually do or do not get from this much-touted middle class tax cut.

- CBC reports on Statistics Canada's latest figures showing the continued rise of personal debt compared to Canadian incomes. And Erika Shaker highlights the juggling act facing parents trying to bear the cost of child care.

- Chris Hedges writes that our exploitative economic system is effectively built on a foundation of human sacrifice.

- Denise Leduc criticizes the exclusion and marginalization of people with intellectual disabilities from the workplace. And Robert Scott counters the spin that reasonable wages are a barrier to a successful manufacturing industry.

- Finally, Neil MacDonald rightly comments that the appropriate response to terrorism is not to grant its perpetrators the fear they seek - but that it will take a concerted effort to avoid succumbing to it.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Jim Buchanan comments on the mountain of inequality looming over all of our political choices. Laurie Posner interviews Paul Gorski about the need for a vocabulary which accurately portrays inequality as the result of social conditions rather than merit or culture. And Robert Reich notes that if anybody can accurately be classified as having done nothing to earn a living, it's the idle rich:

In reality, a large and growing share of the nation’s poor work full time — sometimes sixty or more hours a week – yet still don’t earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

It’s also commonly believed, especially among Republicans, that the rich deserve their wealth because they work harder than others.

In reality, a large and growing portion of the super-rich have never broken a sweat. Their wealth has been handed to them.
...
The ranks of the working poor are growing because wages at the bottom have  dropped, adjusted for inflation. With increasing numbers of Americans taking low-paying jobs in retail sales, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, childcare, elder care, and other personal services, the pay of the bottom fifth is falling closer to the minimum wage.
...
Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996 pushed the poor off welfare and into work. Meanwhile, the Earned Income Tax Credit, a wage subsidy, has emerged as the nation’s largest anti-poverty program. Here, too, having a job is a prerequisite.

The new work requirements haven’t reduced the number or percentage of Americans in poverty. They’ve just moved poor people from being unemployed and impoverished to being employed and impoverished.
...
At the same time, the ranks of the non-working rich have been swelling. America’s legendary “self-made” men and women are fast being replaced by wealthy heirs.

Six of today’s ten wealthiest Americans are heirs to prominent fortunes. The Walmart heirs alone have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined.

Americans who became enormously wealthy over the last three decades are now busily transferring that wealth to their children and grand children.

The nation is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth in history. A study from the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy projects a total of $59 trillion passed down to heirs between 2007 and 2061.

As the French economist Thomas Piketty reminds us, this is the kind of dynastic wealth that’s kept Europe’s aristocracy going for centuries. It’s about to become the major source of income for a new American aristocracy.

- Meanwhile, Erika Shaker eviscerates the CCCE's demand that post-secondary education be made less accessible - ensuring that the mountain will grow all the more.

- Paul Krugman discusses the dangers of evaluating policies solely in terms of sales pitches rather than actual outcomes. Toby Sanger notes that far too many provinces continue to push austerity which has approximately zero chance of success on any terms other than the former. And Tyler Clarke calls out the Saskatchewan Party's big lie about "balanced" budgets which are anything but.

- David Pugliese exposes Jason Kenney's habit of lying in the interest of selling perpetual war, then pretending somebody else is responsible for his own falsehoods. But fortunately, Nanos finds that the Canadian public isn't interested in buying the Cons' appeal to fear.

- The National Post examines just a few of the more glaring flaws in the Cons' terror bill. Alex Neve asks the Cons to listen to the public's concerns about C-51 (implausible though that may seem). Stuart Trew observes that the few amendments allowed to the bill reflect the orders of the Cons' central command rather than taking into account a word of any committee review, while Craig Forcese highlights what we can learn about the Cons' intention from the committee process. And Andrew Mitrovica offers another look at the gross lack of oversight at CSIS.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Erika Shaker points out how condescending attitudes toward public benefits are both making it unduly difficult to develop new programs which would benefit everybody, and threatening existing social safety net. Sean McElwee writes that inequality only figures to grow as an issue as the wealthy try to disassociate themselves from everybody else. And Scott Santens discusses how the U.S.' social benefits are needlessly costly and difficult to access because they're designed more to exclude than to include:

As citizens, we are doing everything we can. Some of us are even tragically dying in our attempts to struggle on, while over 10,000 others have already grown too tired of the struggle to even continue living. As long as wages continue to not rise, and as long as jobs continue to be eliminated due to advances in technology, we have nowhere else to turn but our own safety nets. It is for this reason, it will only become ever more increasingly important for us to look with open eyes and minds at our system of public assistance and how it functions for all of us, poor and rich alike.

If so many of us are already driving on our spare tires, and we recognize the road ahead is only going to get bumpier and more dangerous, then we must together make sure that we either make it quick and painless for us all to get right back on the road when we need assistance, or finally guarantee that no matter what, there will always be another spare tire for all of us.

- Angella MacEwen debates Ben Eisen about the importance of public child care. Ron Waller takes a closer look at the numbers behind Quebec's universal daycare program to show how it produces strong progressive outcomes.

- Justine Hunter reports on how B.C. workers are suffering from the combination of underregulation which caused a sawmill explosion, and a compensation system which is punishing them for being injured. And lest there be any doubt, that's exactly the type of corporatist policy Brad Wall is looking to smuggle into Saskatchewan in the guise of "harmonizing" standards. (Though of course there's still far too much reason for concern about worker safety here even before that process plays out.)

- Finally, Kjell Anderson commits some sociology in exploring how individuals come to be "radicalized". Michael Harris and Glenn Greenwald both weigh in on the Cons' immediate inclination to respond to last week's shootings with an all-out assault on civil rights. And Chris Selley asks that we at least stop short of trying to exile Canadians, while Michael Spratt and Chelsea Moore modestly suggest that policing thoughts might not be the best idea either.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Erika Shaker rightly questions why government policy toward business is based on a level of permissiveness which we'd recognize as utter madness in dealing with a child:

Sure, all parents make mistakes, and all kids have meltdowns (some of which might have, admittedly, been handled better).

But it seems to me that even the worst examples of permissive parenting pale in comparison to the way politicians and pundits coddle, make excuses, and encourage double standards for questionable (even deplorable) behaviour from corporations and their representatives.

And perhaps it’s the post-holiday sugar-and-excessive-consumerism hangover talking, but I’m tired of being held hostage by self-indulgent, narcissistic tyrants, whose endless “gimmes” and “I want that…or elses” seem so utterly pervasive that I feel as though I’m trapped at a Toys “R” Us outlet sale (whereupon, after my third coffee, I discover the washrooms are out of order).

These days it seems the capitulation-impulse is so hair-trigger that often the actual demands (“Cut your salaries in half or I’m running away to Indiana where they just approved Right-to-Work!”) aren’t even necessary. It’s the anticipation of the demands—or fear of the consequences to be suffered if the unvoiced demands aren’t met—that results in a smorgasbord of pre-emptive tax-cut-esque goodies in an attempt to avoid the surely inevitable breath-holding tantrum. (Or reneging on job commitments—am I right, U.S. Steel?)
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It’s the steadfast refusal to acknowledge that bad behaviour should have consequences; that corporations are required to negotiate fairly and should not expect governments—like doting helicopter parents—to constantly remove all obstacles in the path of profit; that ultimately by allowing rules to be bent or broken with near-impunity we are setting very dangerous precedents and ensuring that the cycle of toddler-like consequence-free behaviour will continue.

- Meanwhile, the CLC highlights the temporary foreign worker program as a prime example of that tendency to grease the skids toward higher profits. Mitchell Anderson contrasts Norway's strategy of saving resource wealth for the benefit of its citizens against Alberta's willingness to pile up debt to hand money to oil barons. And Alex Andreou discusses the broken promises underlying trickle-down economics:

If one subscribes to the charitable view that neoliberal philosophy was simply naive or misguided in thinking that "trickle down" would work infinitely, then evidence that it doesn't, should be cause for concern. It is a fundamental building block of supply-side economic theory – the tool of choice these past few decades for those in charge to make adjustments. The realisation that governments have been pulling at economic levers which, for some time, have been attached to nothing, should be a wake-up call to the deepest sleepers.
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It is not so much that the supply-side principle "if you build it, they will come" is no longer true. It is more that we appear to have passed a tipping point, where so much wealth has been concentrated at the top, they no longer need bother to "build" anything. In short, it has become more economically efficient to buy countries' economic policy than to create value in order to sell it on. If one can control government to favour the richest, while raising barriers for new entrants, thus increasing their share of the pie exponentially, what is the incentive to grow the pie?
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We have come to measure, to an increasing extent, individuals' success by their wealth, spending power and other assorted trappings. We do the same with the economic success of governments; measure it by an aggregated data set that fails to take into account wealth distribution, educational achievement, innovation, or even the welfare and health of the population they claim to represent. We must shift this perspective. It will be the hardest, simplest thing we have ever had to do as a species.

- Justin Ling offers his ideas to reform Canada's political system in response to Kevin Page's previous op-ed. But I'd argue that Ling's second and third points can be readily improved: I'd rather see the reinstatement of general funding for parties than Ling's proposed support only for specific activities, and would think it's possible to be far more ambitious about the expansion of information and privacy laws to include both government (including ministers' offices) and political parties alike.

- Finally, the WoodGreen Community Services' skewering of celebrity culture is well worth a look (and a share):

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Lynn Stuart Parramore discusses the epidemic of wage theft by U.S. employers:

Americans like to think that a fair day’s work brings a fair day’s pay. Cheating workers of their wages may seem like a problem of 19th-century sweatshops. But it’s back and taking a terrible toll. We’re talking billions of dollars in wages; millions of workers affected each year. A gigantic heist is being perpetrated against working people: they’re getting screwed on overtime, denied their tips, shortchanged on benefits, defrauded on payroll, and handed paychecks that bounce like rubber balls. A conservative estimate of unpaid overtime alone shows that it costs workers at least $19 billion per year.
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The sheer scope of the problem is jaw-dropping, sweeping across key industries and inflicting massive damage on individuals and society as a whole. In 2009, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a ground-breaking study, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” which found that in America, an honest day’s work is frequently rewarded with theft and abuse. A survey of over 4,000 workers in Chicago, L.A. and New York found that minimum and overtime violations were rife, and any attempt to complain or organize was swiftly met with punishment. Among the revelations:

• 26 percent of low-wage workers got paid less than the minimum wage.

• 76 percent of workers toiling over 40 hours were denied overtime.

• Workers lose an average of $2,634 a year due to these and other workplace violations.

- But of course, it’s easier for employers to get away with violating workers’ rights in the absence of any alternative. And the erosion of public assistance surely figures into that equation:

For the record, the Rae government established a single welfare rate of $663 a month in 1993 — the high water mark. He then froze social assistance rates in both 1994 and 1995, the first two-year freeze since 1973. Mike Harris cut rates by 21.6 per cent, establishing a single rate of $520 a month and let it stay there until Dalton McGuinty took over eight years later. That low $520 single rate, if adjusted for inflation, would now be $617 a month but the current rates stands at just $606 a month.

For the last 20 years, social assistance has eroded to the point that it would take a 56-per-cent rate increase to bring the single rate back to where it was in 1993.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman discusses how the 1% has managed to keep dominating policy debates even when its demands have consistently produced disastrous results. And Miles Corak points out that Canada’s Standing Committee on Finance is examining some useful suggestions to address income inequality - though it’s unlikely that study will produce many results in light of the anti-social majority wielded by the Cons.

- Finally, Simon Enoch and Erika Shaker write that the labour movement’s fight for safer workplaces is far from over.