Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Nicholas Kristof rightly characterizes the Trump/Musk demolition of US foreign aid as reflecting the world's wealthiest and most powerful men attacking the world's poorest children. And David Dayen points out the childishness of the thinking of the financiers gathered at the Milken Global Conference on Iran and other serious issues. 

- Ross Macfarlane discusses how to end silence on the urgency and importance of addressing the climate crisis. And Chris Rapley rightly argues that we should treat our living environment with no less respect than astronauts - who would never think to voluntary pollute or destroy the life support systems they rely on. 

- Jan Rosenow examines how Spain's shift to renewable energy has given it some of the lowest power prices in Europe. And Allan Olingo reports on the shift toward electric vehicles in Ethiopia and other African countries as the combination of improved EVs and fossil fuel shortages makes a transition inevitable.

- Finally, James Hannay points out that the forces seeking to let corporate-friendly market forces dictate the availability and affordability of food are no more beneficial for agricultural producers than for consumers. And Gustova Indart discusses some of the advantages of publicly-operated grocery stores as a means of meeting people's needs.  

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Cathy Young and Cas Mudde each discuss how the Trump regime's "national security strategy" is based on pushing cronyism and bigotry over democracy and security - and seeking to impose that same prioritization on every country it can. 

- Meanwhile, Emmett MacFarlane writes that Trump has found an eager fellow traveler in Danielle Smith as she wields the notwithstanding clause at every opportunity to attack minority rights. And Saima Desai reports on the growing movement of unions and trans advocates fighting back against Scott Moe's discrimination against trans youth.

- Max Abelson et al. offer a detailed look at the documented connections between Jeffrey Epstein and numerous corporate and financial bigwigs. And Pema Levy discusses how Republicans are trying to give dark money even more power to manipulate American elections, while Phil Weiser and Javier Mabry note that it's possible to fight back through citizen intiatives at the state level. 

- Natasha Bulowski reports on Mark Carney's latest plan to hand power to the corporate class by allowing it to embed employees in the federal government, while Adrienne Tanner discusses how Carney has made a cynic out of her (and many more) in handing over climate policy to the fossil fuel sector. And Emma Arkell reports on Quebec's legislative attacks on the labour movement. 

- Rhoda Feng reviews Tim Wu's The Age of Extraction as a needed reminder of the rent-seeking business model behind the our tech overlords. And Judd Legum writes about the casino-fication of news as the next frontier of converting flows of information into profit centres. 

- Finally, James Hardwick writes about the reality of Canada's housing bubble - and the desperate need for large-scale social and not-for-profit housing to improve anything.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- ABC News reports on the risk that the Delta COVID-19 variant can be spread through "fleeting" exposure rather than prolonged proximity. Daniel Boffey reports on the push to speed up vaccination rates in Europe in response. And Attila Somfalvi and Alexandra Lukash report that Israel is reinstating its mask mandate after realizing how much more danger the Delta variant poses. 

- Seth Klein wonders whether Jonathan Wilkinson will ever parallel the role of C.D. Howe in assembling the full force of Canada's economic capacity to serve a vital end in the fight against climate breakdown - though the more likely result for appears to be the Libs continuing to echo the "phony war" prior to full mobilization. John Woodside reports on the PBO's conclusions that the federal government is far from having any realistic plan to reach Canada's existing emission reduction commitments. And Michelle Gamage writes about the importance taking into account the climate disaster of forest emissions in assessing what needs to be done. 

- Tom Parkin examines how Justin Trudeau has chosen to delay any legislation against conversion therapy for political purposes. 

- Bianca Mugyenyi discusses the need to organize to transform Canada's foreign policy into a force for human rights and environmental protection. 

- Penelope Mason reports on the call by a top IMF official for the richest people in Latin America to pay far more in taxes to fund equitable development.  

- Finally, Naomi Klein interviews Doreen Manuel and Kanahus Manuel about the deliberate choice to steal Indigenous children from their families and communities as part of a colonial land grab. And Brendan Kennedy and Alex Boyd talk to Indigenous leaders in Saskatchewan about the children's gravesites yet to be discovered. 

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Alisha Haridasani Gupta discusses how the anti-mask movement has developed from a culture of toxic masculinity. And Umair Haque points out the economic and cultural factors that have resulted in the U.S. and the UK standing out among wealthy countries in their woeful response to the coronavirus pandemic.

- Meanwhile, Rosie Collington writes that COVID-19 has provided yet another example of the dangers of relying on the private sector to provide public goods and services, as the countries which have responded directly have fared far better. And Jade Guthrie questions why food banks which were set up as temporary relief decades ago are being leaned on more and more heavily to make up for the failure of governments to ensure a minimal standard of living for citizens.

- Gillian Slade reports on the fierce pushback against the Kenney UCP's plans to shift the costs of non-urgent medication to hospital patients. But David Climenhaga worries that the UCP's gross mismanagement of so many other issues (including COVID-19) is making it difficult for the erosion of universal health care to get the attention it deserves.

- Brian Callaci discusses how management-imposed technology has made life more difficult for workers both by replacing them directly, and by putting them under constant surveillance and stress.

- Finally, Bianca Mugyenyi writes that it's long past time for Canada to reconsider a foreign policy based on the interests of U.S. capital at the expense of human rights. And Rachel Aiello reports that the Trudeau Libs are once again putting off even the most basic of services for First Nations in Canada by delaying their promise to ensure safe water supplies.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Aditya Chakrabortty describes the Grenfell Tower fire as nothing less than social murder of the UK's poor:

Austerity is at the heart of the Grenfell story. Think of the firefighters, who have seen stations closed and colleagues laid off by May, when she was home secretary. Consider the nurses treating the dying and the maimed, who will be on lower pay now than they were in 2009.

Most of all, remember this: the cuts made since 2010 were the poor picking up the tab for the venality of rich bankers. The two are jammed up next to each other in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the richest and most unequal patches of land in the world. Just minutes away from Grenfell, you can find a house for sale at £30m (albeit “in need of full modernisation”). The residents of the investment-starved Tower died last week did so partly because of the greed of their neighbours.

To judge by the nods and winks since the election, May’s government is preparing for the beginning of the end of austerity. I’ll believe it when I see teaching assistants getting a pay rise or benefits for the working-age poor going up. In any case, it will be too late to undo the damage already done. In their book, The Violence of Austerity, the academics Vickie Cooper and David Whyte collect the evidence. Together with their co-authors, they record how the disability assessment process in England is “associated” with an extra 590 suicides. How cuts to local government funding mean that Liverpool council no longer has a single dedicated health and safety officer. How austerity has meant more people dying sooner.

Spending cuts, deregulation, outsourcing: between them they have turned a state supposedly there to protect and support citizens into a machine to make money for the rich while punishing the poor. It’s never described like that, of course. Class warfare is passed off as book-keeping. Accountability is tossed aside for “commercial confidentiality”, while profiteering is dressed up as economic dynamism. One courtesy we should pay the victims of Grenfell is to drop the glossy-brochure euphemisms. Let’s get clear what happened to them: an act of social murder, straight out of Victorian times.

- Larry Elliott reports on the Resolution Foundation's research showing that higher property values are severely exacerbating inequality in the UK. And Kate Wilson examines the realities facing Vancouver's renter class - with even full-time professionals facing the threat of imminent homelessness as housing becomes less and less affordable.

- Which goes a long way toward explaining why large numbers of B.C. voters are now eager to see Christy Clark accept her expected defeat.

- Meanwhile, Alex Hemingway offers advance warning of the anti-social hysteria which is sure to accompany a new NDP government. And Simon Wren-Lewis discusses how austerity can't be justified in honest terms.

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood studies the fossil fuel dependency of Canada compared to its international peers, noting in particular that there's plenty of room for developed countries to reduce their dependency while maintaining a high standard of living.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron discusses how the Trudeau Libs' foreign policy is virtually indistinguishable from the Harper Cons'.

Leadership 2017 Links

This and that from the NDP's leadership campaign.

- Among the coverage of the first leadership debate which I hadn't linked before, Karl Nerenberg offers both a ranking and a review. And Yves Engler asks why the first debate largely avoided foreign policy issues - though there's still plenty of campaign left in which to address them.

- Jeremy Nuttall reports on Guy Caron's plan to build the NDP's economic credibility. Althia Raj writes about Sid Ryan's possible candidacy. Dr. Dawg comments on the (overwrought) controversy surrounding Niki Ashton's reference to a Beyoncé lyric, while Jonathon Naylor rightly highlights Ashton's progressive platform and activist focus. And Cheri DiNovo is optimistic that the NDP's new leadership will provide the democratic socialist alternative Canada needs.

- Charlie Angus writes about the importance of a government willing and able to stand up for workers.

- Finally, Alex Boutilier offers a reminder as to the surprising prelude to the current leadership campaign. And Dru Oja Jay discusses the importance of also looking for opportunities to build future leaders for Canada's progressive movement - and ensuring that the NDP is the party which embodies their values.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ed Broadbent, Michal Hay and Emilie Nicolas theorize that Canada's left is on the rise. Matt Karp takes a look at the policy preferences of younger American voters, including a strong willingness to fund far better social programs than are currently available. And N+1 responds to the rise of Bernie Sanders and his progressive movement by offering its take on what a left-wing foreign policy might look like in the years to come.

- Eugene King points out the shaky reasoning behind any claim that new pipelines will meaningfully affect either the price or viability of Canadian oil. Adrian Morrow reports that Ontario looks to be a prime example as to how we're already far short of meeting any reasonable greenhouse gas emissions target - meaning that more action to increase emissions is entirely counterproductive. And Marc Lee makes the same point by comparing the effects of new pipelines to Canada's Paris climate change commitments:

(A)nnual lifecycle emissions for each of the pipelines would be greater than all of BC’s annual GHG emissions, and are equivalent to a sizeable share of Canada’s emissions (11% in the case of Enbridge; 13% in the case of Kinder-Morgan; and 24% in the case of Energy East).

This highlights a major flaw in the Paris Agreement, bold as it is. That Agreement is based on countries committing to reduce the carbon emissions within their borders, but not the carbon extracted and exported for someone else to burn. We need a different type of international framework to constrain global supplies of fossil fuels: to divvy up shares of a carbon budget for use in transition, then leaving the rest in the ground, forever.

- Anna Mehler Paperny discusses the challenge facing lower-income Canadians in trying to find housing. And Joshua Tapper highlights the relationship between poverty and poor health, while arguing there's plenty we can do to make sure that a lack of money doesn't translate into sickness.

- Geoff Leo reports on the latest damage being done to Saskatchewan communities by the Wall government's P3 obsession, as Regina is looking at having to take over an underfunded school construction project without the province bearing any of the cost of the structure it imposed.

- Finally, David Miranda writes that the corporate-driven impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil has everything to do with facilitating corruption rather than fighting it.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mike Barber highlights how Canada's federal election campaign was dominated by messages pushed from the top down rather than citizens' concerns. Erna Paris recognizes that we can't afford to be complacent about the place of outright bigotry in shaping voters' decisions. And Christopher Flavelle writes that the ensuing election result represents a major test for progressives to see whether an ambivalent Liberal government can be pushed toward positive change:

If Canadians accept a few new tax breaks for the middle class, vague pledges on climate change and some symbolic shifts — letting in more Syrian refugees, perhaps, and dropping the previous government’s efforts to ban niqabs in citizenship ceremonies — as the fulfillment of the Liberals’ promise of change, then the complaint that Harper was holding the country back will look hollow.

If, however, the Liberals feel compelled by public opinion to tackle, early on, the more controversial issues they ran on — achieving a meaningful price on carbon, rolling back Harper’s tough-on-crime policies, reforming drug and prostitution laws, changing the way members of Parliament are elected — then the argument that Canada is a progressive country at heart, long thwarted by a prime minister who wasn’t, will acquire some meaning.

The country’s big problems haven’t been solved. We’re about to see how much Liberals, and Canadians in general, want to try.

- Open Canada offers a noteworthy list of foreign policy hopes for the new federal government. And Mike Blanchfield observes that even Stephen Harper's seeming ideological allies in Germany are joining other countries in relief that the Cons are no longer around to obstruct climate change talks and other international actions.

- Peter Henderson reports on the potentially alarming effects the TPP's copyright rules could have on Canadians.

- Melissa Dahl discusses the dangerous effects of excessive work - including its tendency to make people perform worse at the tasks they're overdoing.

- Finally, Delphine Nakache and Leanne Dixon-Perera examine the lives of Canada's temporary foreign workers, with particular emphasis on the dangers of abuse when workers know their legal stay in Canada is limited. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Joseph Heath discusses how the Volkswagen emission cheating scandal fits into a particular type of corporate culture:

(W)hen the Deepwater Horizon tragedy occurred, or now the VW scandal, it was hardly surprising to people who follow these things. Certain industries essentially harbour and reproducing deviant subcultures. This is one of the reasons that much of the best work on white collar crime has been inspired by, and draws upon, work in juvenile delinquency. Whereas delinquents tend to exist in subcultures that reproduce deviant attitudes toward authority, many corporations reproduce subcultures that promote organized resistance to regulation.

This is a well-known feature of the automobile industry, and apparently this is what was happening at VW as well. One executive, speaking anonymously, blamed “the company’s isolation, its clannish board and a deep-rooted hostility to environmental regulations among its engineers. “
...
What can be said about this? Perhaps a few lessons: First, it serves as a helpful reminder that white collar crime remains a very serious social problem, one that attracts far too little public concern. This is partly because of an almost entirely supine business press – it remains that case that while the “news” section of newspapers focuses very heavily on criticizing the government, the “business” section almost never criticizes business, and does almost no investigative reporting or muckracking. (Notice that while political scandals are almost always uncovered by political reporters, the VW story was not broken by an “automotive” reporter.) Second, it is important to be aware that these criminogenic business subcultures, once developed, can be extremely difficult to eliminate. Thus it is a very important responsibility of management to set the right tone, to keep a careful eye on the corporate culture, and to take hard line when things start to get out of hand. Finally, there are many people who, for reasons of political ideology, are strongly critical of environmental law, health and safety regulation, financial regulation, the FDA, etc. These political ideologies are often appealed to by corporate criminals, as a way of legitimating their law-breaking activities. It seems to me, therefore, that those who express an ideological hostility to regulation bear a special responsibility for ensuring that their views are not misused in this way. This can be achieved, in part, by emphasizing the very significant difference between claiming that a law should be repealed and claiming that a law need not be obeyed.

- And on the subject of cultures where lawbreaking is seen as normal if not outright desirable, Andrew Nikiforuk reminds us of the multiple scandals surrounding Bruce Carson - involving both illegal lobbying and publicly-funded shilling for the oil industry.

- Meanwhile, Joseph Stiglitz sees the Trans-Pacific Partnership as nothing more than a means of entrenching corporate abuses into law around the globe. But Michael Harris notes that plenty of voters and activist groups will be fighting that choice in Canada. 

- Edward Keenan makes clear that the Cons' campaign of discrimination is intended to foment hatred against Muslims in general, while Sean Fine reports that the Cons' target voters are taking up the invitation to do violence against fellow Canadians. And Paula Simons highlights the arrogance involved in claiming to tell women what they may and may not wear.

- Finally, Haroon Siddiqui discusses the domestic damage being done by the Cons' politically-obsessed foreign policy.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Richard Nisbett comments on the situational determinants of behaviour which are far too often mistaken for merit or accomplishment. Libby Kane points out how increasing inequality and the predictable social segregation which follows makes it harder for the lucky few to see the deprivation that develops around them. And Peter Georgescu makes the case for the corporate elite to work on fighting inequality in its own interest.

- Meanwhile, David Kirp rightly notes that the best way to provide support to people living in poverty is to ask what they need, rather than scolding them or imposing one-size-fits-all decrees from on high. And Solomon Greene and Marjory Austin Turner observe that in housing in particular, there's a desperate need for more choices which may include a combination of direct investment in improving high-poverty neighbourhoods, and encouraging housing mobility.

- Susanna Kelley exposes the extreme measures the Cons are taking to harass journalists who dare to try to cover their campaign, including requiring searches by RCMP dogs. And Elizabeth Thompson writes that the Cons are trying to gag every single person who makes it through their process of exclusion to attend one of Stephen Harper's events.

- David Climenhaga discusses the dangers of the Cons' all-bluster, no-sense foreign policy. And Christopher Hume calls out the Cons' neglect of Canada's cities.

- Finally, John Robson offers an example of a small-C conservative who has reached the point of being unable to put up with the Harper Cons any longer. And Lana Payne describes how Stephen Harper's legacy will look to those of us who value a functional democracy.

[Edit: fixed typo, wording.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robert Reich offers a long-form look at the relationship between inequality and policies designed to extract riches for the wealthy at everybody else's expense:

The underlying problem, then, is not that most Americans are “worth” less in the market than they had been, or that they have been living beyond their means. Nor is it that they lack enough education to be sufficiently productive. The more basic problem is that the market itself has become tilted ever more in the direction of moneyed interests that have exerted disproportionate influence over it, while average workers have steadily lost bargaining power—both economic and political—to receive as large a portion of the economy’s gains as they commanded in the first three decades after World War II. As a result, their means have not kept up with what the economy could otherwise provide them. To attribute this to the impersonal workings of the “free market” is to disregard the power of large corporations and the financial sector, which have received a steadily larger share of economic gains as a result of that power. As their gains have continued to accumulate, so has their power to accumulate even more.
...
The answer to this conundrum is not found in economics. It is found in politics. The changes in the organization of the economy have been reinforcing and cumulative: As more of the nation’s income flows to large corporations and Wall Street and to those whose earnings and wealth derive directly from them, the greater is their political influence over the rules of the market, which in turn enlarges their share of total income. The more dependent politicians become on their financial favors, the greater is the willingness of such politicians and their appointees to reorganize the market to the benefit of these moneyed interests. The weaker unions and other traditional sources of countervailing power become economically, the less able they are to exert political influence over the rules of the market, which causes the playing field to tilt even further against average workers and the poor.

Ultimately, the trend toward widening inequality in America, as elsewhere, can be reversed only if the vast majority, whose incomes have stagnated and whose wealth has failed to increase, join together to demand fundamental change. The most important political competition over the next decades will not be between the right and left, or between Republicans and Democrats. It will be between a majority of Americans who have been losing ground, and an economic elite that refuses to recognize or respond to its growing distress.

- Meanwhile, Katrina vanden Heuvel worries that the Trans-Pacific Partnership only stands to further entrench corporate domination over democratic politics. David Dayen observes that the Obama administration's arguments for the TPP are entirely recycled from broken promises surrounding NAFTA. And Dave Johnson observes that unenforceable token mentions of labour and environmental issues can't come close to making it worth handing further power to business.

- Julia Smith notes that the Cons have utterly abandoned any principles in their foreign policy as they chase profits through arms sales and human rights abuses.

- Don Curren writes that economists think Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz is being too optimistic in presuming Canada's economy will improve in the absence of any evidence. Which naturally means the Cons are spending every available opportunity trying to badger Poloz into declaring that all is rainbows and ice cream.

- Finally, Chris Hannay interviews Joseph Heath about the messaging challenge facing Canadian progressives. And Geoff Dembicki reports that there's plenty of work to be done in rallying young voters behind the best possible alternative.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson link inequality and climate change as massive problems which are generated by political choices (and thus amenable to correction through the political system):

Rising inequality is no more natural than global warming. And just as with global warming, our biggest fear should be that it becomes increasingly self-reinforcing — not because of some “natural” economic process, but because economic power begets political power, which can be used to further increase economic advantage. Look around, and the evidence that this is a real threat abounds. To cite just one example of many, the Koch brothers network, led by businessmen who are committed libertarians opposed to any effort to reduce inequality, are planning to spend almost $1 billion in next year’s election.

In other words, read beneath the headline of Leonhardt’s article and you have an argument for greater alarm about the toxic relationship between rising inequality and the dysfunction of the federal government — a message exactly opposite of the one that the inequality deniers want to hear.

- Frances Woolley writes that tax-free savings accounts - and particular the expanded version which the Cons are planning to push soon - represent both a deliberate choice to exacerbate inequality, and one of the most devastating attacks yet on Canada's federal revenue system:

RRSPs leave a legacy of tax revenue to future governments. Increasing TFSA contribution limits does just the opposite – it creates an investment vehicle that is ripe for abuse, whether by generating super-normal returns, or by sheltering income in a TFSA while claiming government benefits. At the same time, it deprives future governments of the opportunity to tax investment income.
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There’s a saying in policy circles: “the costs are the benefits.” For some, the revenue foregone by expanding TFSAs is a cost. For others, it’s a benefit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on the record as believing in small government. One sure-fire way to shrink governments is to deprive them of revenue. Doubling the TFSA limit will do that. Not now, and not in a year from now. But in 10, 20, or 30 years’ time, the doubling of the TFSA limit will gradually erode the ability of Canadian governments to raise revenue, redistribute income, and pay for public services.

- But then, individual savings likely aren't the best means of ensuring retirement security in any event, as David MacDonald finds that a retirement system based on mutual funds diverts massive amounts of savings toward financial sector compared to the alternative of effective pension plans. 

- Michal Rozworski notes that while Canada's wage picture isn't quite as bad as the U.S.' over the past two decades, it's most certainly nothing to celebrate - particularly since any gains were tied up almost entirely in since-deflated oil prices.

- Finally, Haroon Siddiqui laments the Cons' wilful stupidity in dealing with the Middle East. And Paul Adams calls out the tantrum-based foreign policy which includes pulling funding from friendly service providers for having the nerve to question John Baird.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Aaron Wherry reviews what the last week has told us about the functioning (or absence thereof) of our House of Commons - and points out that the most important problem is one which hasn't yet surfaced in headlines or memes:

(T)he most important sentence delivered last week about the state of our Parliament might’ve been found not on any screen, speaker or widely read page, but on page four of the Parliamentary Budget Office’s quarterly expenditure review: “The Government has refused to release data that is necessary for the PBO to determine whether the recent spending cuts are sustainable.”

That much didn’t inspire even a single question last week (though there was one question about a different refusal to provide the PBO with information). Maybe because this is such old news. But minding the collection and expenditure of public funds is arguably the primary reason we have a Parliament: the idea from which our Parliament began to grow in the 13th century. That we have a profound problem in this regard is hardly news. But to dismiss that concern is merely to dismiss 700 years of progress.

- And lest there's any doubt, the Cons are once again taking a stand against their ever having to answer for anything - this time, by opposing the NDP's simple motion to require the government to provide merely relevant answers in question period.

- Meanwhile, Michael Harris notes that recent days have also offered a continuation of some familiar and dangerous patterns when it comes to the Harper Cons' foreign policy choices:

The prime minister long ago used up any “benefit of the doubt” account he might once have had on foreign affairs. His analysis a decade ago would have had Canada front and centre in the last Iraq debacle — which anyone who takes a second to think about it knows set the stage for this latest ISIS fiasco.

The old thesis is back. One can bomb one’s way to peace in the Middle East without telling the folks back home what’s going on. You know, like Viet Nam. Only undemocratic war mongers believe that. And for that matter, only war mongers celebrate the beginning of the First World War, the way Harper did.
...
Harper has done this much for the country. He has shown us that even in an age as shallow as this one, marketing has it limits. Harper’s UN speech was in the same category as the contest to name his new cat. If he thinks that talking peace and motherhood will allow him to send Canadians to fight and die in Iraq without debate, if he thinks he can foist weeping losers on the public in important positions, if he thinks he can replace inconvenient facts with made-up versions, he has forgotten it is no longer 2006.

- And Mark Kennedy reports that truth and reconciliation aren't anywhere on Harper's agenda at home either - as he's refusing to meet with the chair of the commission he himself appointed to examine Canada's shameful legacy of residential schools.

- Finally, Tom Sullivan discusses how P3s are failing to live up to their promise of a free lunch around the developed world. And Jim Holmes notes that a combination of vanishing funding, false assumptions and broken promises is turning Regina's wastewater P3 into a bad deal as well.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Frank Vibert writes that our democratic system includes more than just electoral politics, while recognizing that we all too often neglect the distinct role of regulatory bodies:

When one looks more closely at regulation and the interdependencies between systems the more apparent it becomes that regulation now needs to be viewed as a basic means of coordination in modern democratic societies. For example it corrects for the inadequacies of the law in dealing with evidence from the natural and social sciences – an area where lawyers, judges and juries have special difficulties. Far from demotivating people to act responsibly, regulation provides society with a basic means of addressing a key weakness that all democratic societies face. The weakness is that people have conflicting motivations that impair their willingness to observe  the underlying norms of behavior that are necessary for all systems to work. For example markets depend on honesty and trust in contracting. Market incentives may motivate people towards making false representations. At the same time the efforts of democratic societies to socialize norms through education also yield very imperfect results. Regulators step in to underpin norms and to educate.

The most important sense in which regulation is basic to modern societies is that it provides an adjustment mechanism, smoothing and facilitating the constantly changing mix between the different systems in a democratic society. Thus, if governments look towards markets to fund and manage services that were previously within government, such a move will be accompanied by regulatory structures in order to minimize the ‘creative destruction’ associated with markets. Conversely, if governments look to intervene in markets, as in the case of Obamacare, they will also accompany such moves with a regulatory structure in order to try to ensure that the end users benefit from the new insurance arrangements. Regulation has unique properties as an adjustment mechanism and is of fundamental importance in modern democratic systems both for functional and normative reasons.
...
(R)egulation addresses what has been termed ‘adaptive bias’ in systems. The term means that there is a tendency for social institutions to be backward looking and to favor the status quo. For example the law is famously rooted in citing precedent. The horizon of politicians is forward looking to an extent – but only as far as the next election. The market is forward looking, but it often projects past relationships and conveys its information in the form of prices – prices that contain a mixture of signals and noise. Regulators are engaged in forecasting and horizon scanning for professional reasons. They convey their information in policy relevant terms. For example an outbreak of an internationally disseminated infection such as swine fever or avian flu will likely be reflected in market prices. But public policy will pay more attention to the indicators of morbidity and mortality estimated by health sector professionals.

- Ted Strickland highlights the need to focus on poverty and inequality in our political choices - and to facilitate collective action in the process:

The excuse we hear too often from political leaders who don’t talk about poverty is that budgets are too tight and you can only do so much.  But there is a reason budgets are tight—we have cut taxes!  If we had a progressive tax system that was anywhere near the levels it was before Ronald Reagan became President, we would have the resources we need.

This is one area where I think we can do a much better job—talking about the link between tax policy, decreasing revenues, and cuts in programs that people need to have a fair shot at the American Dream.

We also have to do a better job talking about work and shared prosperity.  It’s un-American, frankly, that you can work and work and work and not get out of poverty.  And I think something that is sometimes missing from progressive consciousness—and something that certainly benefited my family—is an awareness of the importance of organized labor.  We became as egalitarian as we did as a nation because working people gained power and influence by banding together and bargaining for better wages and benefits and safety conditions.  And as economic disparities have increased over these last few decades, the influence of organized labor has decreased.

So whether it’s the same paradigm or not, we’ve got to find some way for people to act collectively in their self-interest.  And that’s a challenge that I think is facing organized labor but also all of us who care about giving everyone a fair shot and a fair chance.

- Patrick Wintour points out UK Labour's proposal for a minimum wage set at a reasonable percentage of the country's median hourly earnings - which on the upside would mean a significant increase for now, but on the downside could give employers an incentive to further suppress wages across the board. Meanwhile, in the category of policy changes with a far less ambiguous effect, Corey Robin discusses the Republicans' moves to encourage wage theft by employers.

- John Quiggin takes a look at Delaware's role as one of the globe's most notorious corporate tax havens.

- Finally, Michael Harris sees the Cons' highly selective sanctions as further evidence that they'll put oil interests above any sense of morality given the choice.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Costas Lapavitsas discusses the disproportionate hold finance has over the global economy:

Financialisation represents a historic and deep-seated transformation of mature capitalism. Big businesses have become "financialised" as they have ample profits to finance investment, rely less on banks for loans and play financial games with available funds. Big banks, in turn, have become more distant from big businesses, turning to profits from trading in open financial markets and from lending to households. Households have become "financialised" too, as public provision in housing, education, health, pensions and other vital areas has been partly replaced by private provision, access to which is mediated by the financial system. Not surprisingly, households have accumulated a tremendous volume of financial assets and liabilities over the past four decades.
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Financialised capitalism is, thus, a deeply unequal system, prone to bubbles and crises – none greater than that of 2007-09. What can be done about it? The most important point in this respect is that financialisation does not represent an advance for humanity, and very little of it ought to be preserved. Financial markets are, for instance, able to mobilise advanced technology employing some of the best-trained physicists in the world to rebalance prices across the globe in milliseconds. This "progress" allows financiers to earn vast profits; but where is the commensurate benefit to society from committing such expensive resources to these tasks?

Financialisation ought to be reversed. Yet such an entrenched system will never be reversed by regulation alone. Its reversal also requires the creation of public banking that would operate with a new spirit of public service. It also needs effective controls to be applied to private banking as well as to international flows of capital. Not least, it requires new methods of meeting the financial requirements of households, as well as of small and medium enterprises. There is an urgent need for communal and associational ways to provide housing, education, health and other basic goods and services for working people, breaking the hold of finance on everyday life.

 - Hugh Mackenzie takes a look at the latest figures on CEO compensation - showing that Canada's wealthiest executives will make more by 1:11 today than the average worker will all year. And that represents yet another move toward increased concentration of income and wealth - as last year's figure is included in Trish Hennessy's review of 2013.

- Peter Jones criticizes the Cons' narrow-minded foreign policy:

A predictable world order where things like trade and security play out according to rules (admittedly something observed more in the breach in many parts of the world) is a world in which smaller countries have a better chance of advancing their interests. This is quiet, patient, painstaking work that rarely generates headlines. Progress is incremental and measured in years. It is less emotionally satisfying to some than yelling at the world from the rooftops. But it makes a contribution, over time, to creating a world that serves Canada’s interests.

The Conservatives have stood this on its head. In making foreign policy a reflection of their domestic approach to governance – finding wedge issues with which to detach segments of the population and play to their fears and angers – the Conservatives have given us a bitter, small-minded foreign policy. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the promotion of gay rights internationally, but most of the Conservative approach is centred on angry assertions of simplistic moral absolutes that play well to certain domestic constituencies, but contribute nothing to the world or to unifying Canadians behind a positive vision of their place in it.
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Ironically, all of this undercuts what the Conservatives should recognize as an overriding foreign policy objective: good relations with the United States. For example, President Barack Obama’s administration currently has a tough job trying to both find a nuclear deal with Iran and promote compromise between Israelis and Palestinians. Both issues are key to avoiding wars in the Middle East in the next decade. The administration needs friends and allies who will quietly roll up their sleeves and help look for answers. What it gets from Canada is bluster and intransigence...

- Finally, Paul Bernal's observations about privilege are well worth a read:

When I read about Boris’s speech, and when I think about all the patronising, elitist, offensive stuff that this government and pretty much every government I can remember have said, it makes me angry. Things like accusing poor people of not knowing how to budget, how to cook, how to feed their kids, how to make good decisions, or of being lazy, stupid etc. Suggestions from ministers that they could easily live on the amounts people get in benefits. Suggestions that people don’t try hard enough to get jobs. Suggestions that they don’t work hard enough. They all make me angry – and they make it clear to me that most of those speaking don’t know how privileged they are – and what the consequences of that privilege are.

For me, there are a few things that I try to remember. The first is the most obvious – that I’m deeply privileged and deeply lucky. The second is that I still don’t know quite how privileged and lucky I am – because so much of the privilege is hidden and built into the system, so much that those who are privileged can’t see it...

There’s an old saying: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. There’s a degree to which it’s true, and it certainly seems that the current lot of powerful people are thoroughly irresponsible. I’d like to add another – though it’s deeply wishful thinking. With great privilege should come great humility. Those of us who are privileged – like me, and like Boris – should be able to find that humility. To know that we really don’t know what it’s like to live without our privilege. We can try to imagine – but we’ll never really succeed. And we should know that we’ll never really succeed – and be far, far more willing to listen properly to those who do know it. Most of all, though, we should know when not to talk as though we had all the answers. We should know when to shut up.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Bill Tieleman tears into James Moore for his callous disregard for child hunger, while PressProgress reminds us that plenty of the Cons' policy choices reflect Moore's complete lack of concern for his neighbours' children. And Polly Toynbee looks in detail at the UK Cons' attempts to turn support for needy children into a perceived political weakness rather than a matter of basic empathy and compassion:

The dirty war has begun; the early signs are that this will be the most poisonous, socially damaging election campaign for many a long year. Corrosive malice will be poured over anyone on any benefit. The Conservatives are convinced they are laying a killer trap by branding Labour as "the welfare party".
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The language used by Zahawi captures a swelling theme of the election – dividing the "taxpayer" from the "benefit taker" – with this: "Many couples take the decision to delay having a third or fourth child until they are sure they can afford it." The comments that followed were heavily anti-child: "If you can't afford kids why expect the state to keep them?" and "It's a parent's responsibility to provide, not the government". There lies the great dividing line: why should the state support children at all?

As the Child Poverty Action Group eloquently argues, benefits for children not only spread the cost of living between richer and poorer, but also smooth the bumps in everyone's life cycle. When children are born costs are highest and earnings meagre, but later many will earn more, pay more tax and get less out. The banal moral truth is that children are the future, paying for the care of the childless. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says this government's legacy will be a steep rise in child poverty by 2015: a monumental £12bn benefit cut is in George Osborne's post-2015 plan.
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Cameron bets the screw can be turned twice as hard, as Osborne enters the election with huge cuts to meet his impossible deficit targets. Labour has no intention of matching his plan. The only way to avoid the Tory "trap" is to tell the truth of where incomes are heading, how child poverty is soaring. Rachel Reeves lays out her policy for the first time in January. Ed Miliband has already said he'd shrink the housing benefit bill by building homes, and the dole with guaranteed jobs for the unemployed and a living wage to ease the cost of tax credits. Labour can never out-nasty the Tories, so nice is the only way to be.

- Elizabeth Benzetti highlights the absurdity of wealthy and privileged scions of the right like Conrad Black and Rob Ford putting on a "woe is us!" routine while calling for life to be worse for mere ordinary citizens. And Andrew Coyne similarly laments the infantilism and lack of principle which form the basis of the right in Canada - though he's too quick to try to distance that impulse from conservative politics.

- Anna Mehler Paperny reports on the state of minimum wage laws in Canada - with not a single jurisdiction providing for the minimum wage above the poverty line. Andrew Jackson takes a look at the composition of Canada's workforce and notes that a majority of workers may have trouble reaching what would generally be seen as a middle class lifestyle. And the Globe and Mail rightly slams Jim Flaherty for positioning himself as the primary obstacle barring the way to a sufficient Canada Pension Plan.

- David McLaren comments on the Cons' decision to restore a colonial philosophy to Canada's foreign policy. And John Baird's spin on the Cons' international priorities is accurate only to the extent that their sole concern is with profits rather than jobs.

- Finally, Sandra Azocar and Noel Somerville take a look at Alberta's experience to make the case against for-profit seniors care:

The inconvenient reality is that, because of acute staff shortages, seniors are not being fed properly and medications are not being administered properly.

The magnitude of the current staffing problem has been well documented in a recent study done by the Parkland Institute. This study, entitled From Bad to Worse — Residential Elder Care in Alberta, demonstrates the deterioration that has occurred in Alberta from 1999 to 2009.

The Parkland study quantifies the differences in care provided in public, not-for-profit and private for-profit facilities. The hours of care per patient in not-for-profit facilities was 83 per cent of that provided in publicly operated facilities. The hours of care per patient in private for-profit facilities was only 71 per cent of that provided in the publicly operated facilities.
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(T)he availability of long-term care beds in Alberta, relative to the age 75-plus population, has slipped by 20 per cent and is now the second lowest of any Canadian province. This decline is on top of the 40 per cent cut in long-term care beds per capita that occurred in the 1990s. Further, over the study period, the number of assisted living beds which provide much lower level of care, has grown by 187 per cent.

All of these realities suggest that the government is pursuing a continuing care strategy that serves to divest itself of responsibility for providing care to seniors. When it comes to expanding seniors care in this province, this government has opted to give massive public handouts primarily to corporations seeking to profit from the health needs of seniors.

Ironically, Premier Alison Redford won the Tory leadership race in large part by claiming to be devoted to our public health-care system. Yet this government continues its ideologically driven efforts to shift costs and responsibility from the government to individual health care users and to promote increased private-sector participation. Sadly, this is why we are now more than ever hearing heartbreaking stories from seniors and their families that attest to the shabby state of elderly care in our province.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Stuart Trew fleshes out the Cons' new(-ly explicit) Corporate Cronies Action Plan - and it goes even further in entrenching corporate control over policy than one might have expected at first glance:

- The makeup of the advisory panel that consulted with Trade Minister Fast skews the new Action Plan in favour energy- and water-intensive agricultural export sectors, multinational business represented by the CCCE, and the energy sector. There was no worker representation on the advisory committee. And the involvement of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is arguably more of a cover for Harper than a sign that Canada's trade policy is designed to help small- and medium-sized companies the most. The Action Plan says SMEs are the "backbone" of the Canadian economy and yet only 41,000 of 1.09 million companies are engaged in external trade. That is a very domestically oriented backbone.

- This corporate advisory committee will become, under the Action Plan, a permanent "advisory council" that "will include two standing subcommittees, one on emerging markets and the other on established markets. Comprising business and industry leaders, experts in international business and key representatives from the SME community, the subcommittees will bring together the voices of all businesses, big and small. They will provide strategic insight, advice and real-world perspectives on how to keep the market access plans relevant to Canadian business needs." Will the meetings be private, like Minister Flaherty's corporate summer retreats in Wakefield? The advisory council meetings were (see below).

- The government-business merger will work both ways. The Harper government will place "embedded Government of Canada personnel within key industry associations in order to gain better insight into sectoral needs and ensure these are reflected in services provided." Why spend money to hire a lobbyist in Ottawa when you can have the government spending the public's money to attending your meetings?

- Meanwhile, CBC reports that the Cons are breaking yet another promise to regulate oil-sector greenhouse gas emissions. And the most they've learned after constantly scrapping their promised timelines is not to bother offering any more commitments.

- David Climenhaga writes that Alison Redford's PCs are attacking precisely the voters who allowed them to hold onto power by imposing draconian wage freezes on public-sector workers. But I'm not sure it's fair to be surprised that an anti-social party is imposing anti-social policy - and indeed the more important lesson may be one about the dangers of settling for a "lesser of the evils" government which will gleefully turn against workers when it sees an opportunity to do so.

- The Star again laments Canada's utter failure to live up to its 1989 commitment to end child poverty, while Carol Goar similarly criticizes the right's attacks on unemployment benefits. And Tim Harford recognizes the case for a guaranteed annual income - which would go a long way toward ending poverty in general.

- Finally, Keith Reynolds discusses what happens when P3s and offshore tax avoidance intersect - with a B.C. hospital serving as a clear example:

Partnerships BC considers the taxes paid by the private P3 partner when it is deciding whether or not to choose the public-private partnership method of project development. Partnerships BC claims these private sector taxes as an advantage of P3s, but what happens if the project is moved to a tax haven and taxes paid decline dramatically?
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So how is B.C. reacting to this? What are they doing about the possibility the tax revenues they projected from P3s are disappearing into tax havens like Luxembourg? As it turns out, absolutely nothing. An earlier blog post found the Ministry of Finance in response to a Freedom of Information request asking about the impact of tax havens and P3s said "although a thorough search was conducted, no responsive records were located. Your file is now closed."

Partnerships BC provided 75 pages of material in response to the same request. None of it dealt with the tax impact to government if a project moved to a tax haven.

Now one more B.C. public-private partnership has seen its ownership move to Luxembourg. What is the cost to taxpayers? Nobody knows and the results from FOI requests suggest the government isn't looking.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- John Ibbitson reports that the Cons' obvious priorities have finally been made explicit: as far as they're concerned, the sole purpose of international diplomacy is to serve the corporate sector. And Ian Smillie documents how the Cons hijacked Canada's foreign aid program (while signalling that the same path is likely to be followed by the Cons' Australian Liberal allies).

- Meanwhile, CBC uncovers a offshore tax avoidance scheme perpetrated by one of the Cons' hand-picked tax advisers (and chair of the Royal Canadian Mint).

- Rhys Kesselman highlights the fact that contrary to the spin of the corporate sector, a more secure CPP will actually prove a huge boost for younger workers. And the OECD points out why Canada's retirement savings system is in desperate need of improvement:

(A)s (seniors') poverty rates were falling in many OECD countries between 2007 and 2010, in Canada they rose about two percentage points.

As well, the report notes that public (government) transfers to seniors in Canada account for less than 39 per cent of the gross income of Canadian seniors, compared with the OECD average of 59 per cent, meaning more Canadians depend on workplace pensions to bridge the gap.

Meanwhile, public spending on pensions in Canada represents 4.5 per cent of the country's economic output, compared with and OECD average of 7.8 per cent.

Canadian seniors depend on income from private pensions and other capital for about 42 per cent of their total.

"As private pensions are mainly concentrated among workers with higher earnings, the growing importance of private provision in the next decades may lead to higher income inequality among the elderly," the report warns.

"Those facing job insecurity and interrupted careers are also more exposed to the risk of poverty because of the lower amounts they can devote to retirement savings."

- Martin Regg Cohn takes a look at Ontario's economy after a decade of corporate tax slashing - and finds that as usual, the only effect of cutting taxes at the top has been to leave less for everybody else:

Rather than closing a productivity gap with our American competition, Ontario is lagging further behind.

Corporate taxes have been cut to record low levels, yet our companies are sitting on unprecedented stashes of so-called “lazy cash.”

Instead of displaying entrepreneurial zeal to boost exports, our business leaders evince timidity by failing to invest in needed equipment, R&D, software, patents and other productivity tools.
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Despite the Liberals transforming the tax system into “one of the most business-friendly” in the industrialized world, “businesses have not fully taken advantage of the many incentives that have been created to promote growth.”

Liberals like to claim that Ontario leads in attracting foreign investment, but that boast camouflages the lack of homegrown investment by our domestic businesses. Despite generous tax incentives, spending on machinery and equipment has declined in the past five years (on a per-worker basis, which hurts our productivity). Investment in information technology has nosed up, but at roughly half the American rate. During all this time, Canadian companies have bolstered their cash reserves.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron asks whether the Senate can serve any useful purpose within Canada's system of government. But while he's right to reject the options normally mooted to reform the upper chamber, I'm not sure the possibility that appointment by lot would be an improvement on the status quo (and all other proposed reforms short of abolition) reflects a defence of the Senate so much as the ultimate argument to get rid of it.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- To the extent corporatist voices are pushing increased private involvement in funding Canadian health care, their main argument generally involves the claim that private insurers will be more willing to fund expensive courses of treatment which might be rationed out of public plans. But Don Butler reports that at least one of the major private insurers is taking exactly the opposite view in describing the future of private prescription drug insurance:

Private drug plans that provide coverage to 19 million Canadians are not sustainable in their current form, according to an executive at Great West Life Assurance, one of Canada’s largest insurance companies.
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While the cost of “maintenance drugs” to control such things as blood pressure and cholesterol levels has risen by 58 per cent since 2005, Martinez said the biggest threat is the skyrocketing cost of new biologic and specialty drugs.
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Traditionally, employers have responded by raising premiums or copayments for employees. “But that’s not sustainable, either,” Martinez said in an interview. New management techniques are essential, she said.

For example, Great West Life has begun to use case management in cases involving high-cost drug claims, Martinez said. “If you are taking a very high-cost drug, we are going to appoint a case manager to your case who’s going to monitor your use of the drug and your physician’s prescribing of the drug.”
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Other conference participants said the best solution would be the creation of a government-run program of universal pharmacare that would cover all Canadians.

“Every developed country in the world with a universal health care system provides universal coverage for drugs, except Canada,” said Steve Morgan, associate director of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia.

Those countries all spend far less on prescription drugs than Canadians spend, and their citizens have better access to essential drugs than Canadians do, Morgan said.

- Haroon Siddiqui rightly approves of Barack Obama's work to eliminate the perpetual fear and panic pushed by Republicans over the past decade-plus, while contrasting it against Stephen Harper's fear-building in Canada.

- Frances Russell writes about the folly of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Finally, I'll second PLG's take on the lesson the NDP should draw about narrative from British Columbia's recent provincial election. But I'll expand on it slightly by pointing out the ultimate failure of a branding effort built around genuine comparative fiscal prudence.

After all, the B.C. NDP publicly pointed out the implausibility of Christy Clark's budget numbers and thus offered less than it could have as to the shape of an NDP government - presumably based on the theory that it would fit with a "responsible managers" message. But the choice looks to have been almost entirely forgotten through the course of the campaign - meaning that the Libs won by simultaneously scaremongering about deficits, and promising to maintain higher deficits and debt levels through their platform.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Steven Hoffman highlights the Cons' utter refusal to recognize that foreign aid - as defined by global treaties - doesn't mean the same thing as corporate giveaways:

Reports and commentary on Canada’s new foreign aid policy reveal the extent to which international development means different things to different people. Some see it as public charity, others as the way a country projects its values to the world. Still others, including International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, argue that it’s “a part of Canadian foreign policy” and the fulfilment of “a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”

These are all valid perspectives – international development can be any one or all of these things combined. But, unfortunately, official development assistance, to which we have made international commitments, can’t. This system, in effect since 1969, defines aid as official financial flows that are concessional in character and intended to promote the development and well-being of developing countries. Excluded are grants intended to advance donor countries’ interests, including admirable objectives such as economic growth or security from terrorism. Grants to private for-profit companies are also excluded because, by law, they primarily serve commercial objectives.

Donor countries such as Canada can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, despite skill or best intentions. Our government’s new foreign aid focus on private-sector partnerships and self-interest – which, in Mr. Fantino’s words, is for “Canadian values, Canadian business, the Canadian economy, benefits for Canada” – deserves reconsideration. It unwittingly represents a dramatic departure from the established global development system and brings Canada out of sync with the rest of the world.

- Which means Tim Harper may only be understating matters in arguing that the Cons are gutting Canadian foreign policy alone, rather than trying to attack basic international principles.

- pogge highlights a few more sad examples of the Cons' government by ill-fated improvisation, while Michael den Tandt reports on the most glaring example as the F-35 debacle is apparently wound down. And the Cons are still trying to cover up everything they do - with the latest example being their stonewalling against Kevin Page's request to see shipbuilding contracts in order to be able to assess them.

- But while Bob Hepburn may be right in his assessment of MPs when it comes to most of the Cons as being enemies of democracy, we should be careful not to tar all of our elected representatives with the same brush. After all, an unduly sweeping, "they all do it" message (in contrast to recognition where MPs represent their constituents properly) will only make it easier for the worst offenders to avoid answering for their wrongs.