Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Brian Beutler comments on the Trump regime's absolute lack of distinction between war and politics, and what that means for any hope of a peaceful transition to reflect electoral choices. And Robert Reich discusses the absurdity of the U.S. launching increasingly destructive wars without having the slightest clue what their endgame is in any of them. 

- Dave Levitan writes about the dangers of allowing people to gamble on choices and outcomes in war. 

- Meanwhile, Alexander de Croo points out that development is no less an exercise of hard power than military action - while providing a much-needed prospect of positive outcomes. 

- Surya Sakhar-Suot writes about the myriad benefits of remote work - and the concurrent folly of imposing return-to-office mandates. 

- Finally, Ben Steverman discusses how the rise of 19th-century billionaire robber barons is being reflected in the emergence of the trillionaires of the near term. And Hugh Gusterson writes about the elite gifts and manipulations that tied together Jeffrey Epstein's network of influence and control. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Labour Day reading.

- Jared Bernstein comments on the prospect of a labour revival which can boost the prospects of unionized and non-unionized workers alike. And Thomas Walkom makes the case for closer identification between the NDP and Canada's labour movement:

Labour needs a political party because unions, on their own, are a declining force. Only 29 per cent of the Canadian workforce is unionized. The number continues to fall.

This has happened because the economy, once characterized by large manufacturing plants, is now dominated by smaller service firms that, under current labour laws, are more difficult to unionize.

The decline of well-paying union jobs is one of the key factors behind the rise in income inequality that politicians routinely fret about.

Yet to reverse this trend would require a total rethinking of employment and labour laws, most of which were designed in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Among other things, the laws must be amended to eliminate the loophole that allows so many employers to pretend their workers are independent contractors who do not qualify for benefits or statutory protection.

As well, labour relations laws would have to be changed to allow unions organizing, say, fast-food franchise outlets, to take on the ultimate employer.

These are just a couple of examples. The point is that, if unions are to survive, labour laws must be rethought.

That in turn requires a political party willing to do the rethinking.

- And CBC reports that Ontario's NDP looks to be taking that advice by looking to facilitate both certification and collective bargaining - though there's still more to be done in examining the broader trends affecting unionization rates.

- Mark Dearn discusses how the CETA figures to undermine democratic governance in Canada and Europe alike. And the CP reports on Justin Trudeau's attempt to stifle discussion of the actual terms of corporate control agreements by indiscriminately bashing anybody who raises reasonable questions about business-oriented trade deals.

- Michael Winship points out how profiteering around the EpiPen the fits into a wider pattern of pharmaceutical price gouging and other anti-social behaviour.

- Finally, Lyndal Rowlands writes that developed countries have a strong stake in working toward meeting global development goals - and suggests it's long past time that we started acting like it.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Jennifer Ditchburn reports that the Harper Cons are making ample progress in their goal of removing Canada from any list of socially-developed welfare states, as Canada has dropped from being the world's leader in the UN's Human Development Index to a position outside the top 10 countries by that measure.

- Peter Penashue's resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal will open up plenty of lines of discussion - as well as an opportunity to flip a seat into opposition hands. But let's ask another question arising out of his stepping down from Cabinet: will anybody notice he's gone?

- Carol Goar expands on the futility of trying to apply business principles to government management (with help from Donald Savoie):

To Savoie, this anecdote encapsulated what has happened to Canada’s public service over the past 30 years: front-line workers have been sacrificed to make way for offices full of paper-pushers, managers, supervisors and evaluators. “It is ill-conceived, costly and misguided.”

The bottom-line doctrine took hold under prime minister Brian Mulroney, who decided the public sector should operate with the same market discipline as private enterprise. His four successors have adhered to it slavishly.

It has never worked and it never will, Savoie says.

The first problem is that the public sector is not in the business of making money. In the absence of profit-loss statement, it has no way of measuring how well it is doing. So it fabricates yardsticks and backs them up with reams of reports showing how efficient, effective and indispensable it is.

The second problem is that government is incapable of “creative destruction,” the process by which industry gets rid of outmoded products and develops new ones. Bureaucrats don’t have the power to pull the plug and politicians seldom do it for fear of offending vested interests. “The problem is not that government is spending more on new things, but that it spends massively on old things.”

...

The remedy is obvious, Savoie says with the same clear-sightedness that once scandalized his boss. Figure out what a government department is supposed to do, then fit the employment level to the workload.

- David Climenhaga proposes that the Alberta NDP make a concerted effort to become the province's "city party".

- Finally, Scott Feschuk nicely summarizes the effect of the unaccountable Senate - and the futility of trying to defend it:

Having existed for more than a century, the Senate has produced a number of memorable achievements, such as having existed for more than a century. Also, there was one day that a plucky young upstart openly defied the two-nap minimum. He was subjected to a thorough harrumphing.

Being a senator sounds like a pretty sweet gig. You get an office, a staff and an annual salary of $132,000. You are also entitled to collect up to $22,000 a year in living expenses if a) your primary residence is more than 100 km from Parliament Hill, or b) you feel like it.


Are there any downsides? Not a ton. Sure, you become: a drain on the federal treasury; an object of national mockery, stereotype and derision; and a feckless member of a legislative chamber that Liberal and Conservative prime ministers alike have sullied and undermined over decades by treating it as a repository for cronies, bagmen and talentless, self-promoting partisans.

But on the other hand: Taco Tuesdays!

Alas, now that Canadians have been made aware of the existence of the Senate, a lot of them want to abolish it—simply because it’s a wasteful appendage that costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year and provides no tangible or intangible benefits to any human.
...
The bottom line is that even though our senators are beleaguered, they have the opportunity to be viewed by Canadians with a more sympathetic eye—if only they can draw attention away from every aspect of their job, everything they do and all that their institution has come to represent.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- If there's any good news in the Cons' constant attacks on labour, it's the growing recognition that workers need to fight back with no less a concerted effort than they're facing from a hostile government. And the possibility that the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada might tie itself into the wider labour movement looks like a huge step on that front.

- Craig McInnes follows up on Canada's drop in global Human Development Index rankings and points out the link to increasing inequality:

With echoes of Occupy Vancouver, Canada's ranking in this year's United Nations Human Development Index was knocked down by a statistical portrait of an unjust society.

For a country that prides itself as a land of equal opportunity, that's a bit hard to take.
...
For most of the 1990s, we held bragging rights to the top spot in the annual rankings based on access to education, long and healthy lives and livable incomes.

For the past decade we've slipped a bit, with oil-rich Norway dominating first place and Canada floating around the top 10. That slippage doesn't mean much since the top countries are tightly bunched together, especially compared with those farther down the list.

Canada is ranked sixth this year, up two spots from last year. But we tumble seven notches when our base rating is adjusted for inequality - that is, how well-off Canadians are doing compared with those at the bottom of the pile. We drop even farther - to 20th, when our ranking is adjusted for gender inequality.

- Erik Loomis highlights an all-too-typical example as to the real effects of free trade agreements:

With free trade agreements, we recreate Gilded Age labor and environmental conditions in the developing world. We have simply exported all the negatives of the Industrial Revolution. We were promised cheap goods and information economy. They were promised jobs. Instead, we are mired in an economic slump without a foreseeable end and a failed information economy while they live in endemic poverty and suffer environmental poisoning.

- Finally, the NDP's closing argument in the Saskatchewan election campaign nicely sums up what's at stake: