Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner discuss how even crucial advances like vaccines are under threat due to the ruthlessly persistent anti-science message being used to excuse continuing disregard for human health. And Jonathan Watts reports on new research showing that we're reaching dangerous climate tipping points faster than previously predicted as the cumulative impact of multiple factors alters our living environment beyond recognition. 

- Umair Haque discusses why we're continuing to stoke an addiction to fossil fuels even as we're experiencing the direct effects of a climate breakdown. But Dharna Noor reports on the prominent role of dirty energy money in fighting against any prospect that corporations could even be permitted to consider environmental or social factors in making decisions.

- Meanwhile, in advance of the COP28 climate conference, leaders from around the world have agreed to statements on the importance of an equitable green transition and a financial architecture which properly accounts for climate costs and risks. But it remains to be seen whether that theoretical recognition will be translated into any action - or whether oil barons will be allowed to dictate the terms of engagement yet again. 

- Matthew Taylor reports on new research showing that most people will be just as well off if we recognize that fossil fuel assets will eventually be stranded - meaning that those fighting to ensure they're exploited are doing so solely for the benefit of their already-wealthy cronies. 

- Kartikay Mehrotra and A.C. Thompson expose how lobbyists from the trucking industry have kept pedestrians and cyclists at increased risk by fighting regulations to mandate the use of side guards - with the assistance of regulators who stifled a recommendation that they be required. 

- Ellis Simani and Robert Faturechi report on the convenient timing that's seen executives and insiders clean up in trading U.S. biotech and health care stocks. 

- Finally, Iglika Ivanova and Jim Stanford discuss how British Columbia (and other jurisdictions) can better protect gig workers from corporations whose sole business plan is to evade worker protections and rights. 

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Peter Beaumont reports on the World Health Organization's warning that the premature lifting of COVID-19 restrictions does nothing but put people at unnecessary risk, while a group of experts is pressing the UK's government not to throw caution to the wind by eliminating public health measures. David Fisman and Ashleigh Tuite study the increased virulence of the Delta variant and its implications for public health, while Kevin Griffin talks to Sarah Otto about her concerns as to the dangers of eliminating protections in British Columbia. Lauren Pelley and Michelle Meiklejohn report on the arrival and spread of the Lambda variant in Canada. 

- Iglika Ivanova discusses the need to address the uneven effects of the pandemic, including its disproportionate effect on service workers and members of racialized communities. 

- Audrey Carleton writes about the emerging research into humans' ability to survive temperatures which are only being experienced as a result of climate breakdown. And Ran Boydell discusses the reality that many buildings haven't been designed or constructed to withstand the climate they'll actually face. 

- Jason Allen writes about the immense cost of unconstrained urban sprawl, and Calgary's success in ensuring that the city as a whole doesn't subsidize that cost to put money in developers' pockets. 

- Finally, Keith Stewart calls out the UCP's anti-environment inquisition as an affront to democratic debate. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Noah Ivers writes that people need to take the first COVID-19 vaccine available in support of everybody's health, rather than assuming that consumerist philosophy applies to vaccinations. Arthur White-Crummey reports on new modelling showing how Saskatchewan is at grave risk of seeing our infection and intensive care rates spiral out of control before mass vaccinations are possible. And Murray Mandryk points out the folly of gambling with people's health and lives in the face of new and more dangerous variants.

- Andrew Jackson highlights how right-wing actors are trying to use the remote threat of inflation to undermine any discussion about meeting people's needs in providing relief and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. And Armine Yalnizyan notes that the care economy needs to be central to our recovery plans, while Iglika Ivanova and Lynell Anderson comment on the need to go beyond B.C.'s first steps in making child care available to everybody.

- Liz Walker and Shanice Regis-Wilkins discuss how organizing workers is more important than ever when they're facing new risks to health and welfare in the workplace. And Daniel Karasik talks to activists about building mass resistance to government neglect of human needs.

- Mitchell Beer writes that while the Libs insist on trying to have it both ways, we face a stark choice between responsible environmental policy and ongoing handouts to the fossil fuel sector. And in case there was any doubt which side to choose, Oliver Milman reports on the latest revelations as to how oil and gas companies suppressed their own knowledge about the harm done by air pollution in order to avoid regulation which would have protected public health, while Andrew MacLeod discusses the cleanup costs foisted on the public after oil and gas companies have skimmed of their profits then abandoned their environmental responsibilities. 

- Finally, Chauncey Devega discusses how the right's culture war messaging - most recently in the form of complaints about "cancel culture" - serves primarily as an excuse to try to negate the equal rights of minority groups in order to exclude them from democratic decision-making.

Friday Evening Links

 Assorted content to end your week.

- Alex Hemingway examines how a wealth tax could raise substantially more money than assumed by the PBO. And Caterina Lindman writes about the benefits of a basic income guarantee funded by progressive taxes.

- Stefan Nikola discusses how shortened work weeks are at long last - if still gradually - becoming more common. And Kaitlyn Matulewicz and Iglika Ivanova highlight how paid sick leave can help to close the gender gap (among other important benefits).

- Simon Enoch weighs in on the Saskatchewan Party's belated recognition that obsessing over balanced budgets is foolhardy in the midst of a health crisis. And Trish Hennessy offers a few reasons for hope as a path out of the coronavirus pandemic comes into sight.

- But lest there be any doubt about the consequences of relaxing public health measures too soon, Kate Kelland reports on research showing that the B.1.1.7 variant is more deadly as well as more susceptible to transmission - which makes it alarming that Regina is seeing that variant become the dominant strain of COVID-19, with dozens of cases confirmed and even more presumed. And James Keller and Ivan Semeniuk report on Jason Kenney's preposterous plan to prioritize social conservatives' vaccine choice over effective distribution to as many people as possible.

- Finally, Yvonne Hii and Henny Yeung discuss how COVID-19 has only confirmed the importance ensuring parents have access to child care.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Iglika Ivanova examines who has lost jobs to COVID-19, and who needs public support to be able to return to the workforce. Tara Deschamps reports on an RBC study showing women's participation in the workforce has been set back three decades by the coronavirus pandemic and the male-focused policy response. And the Economist makes the case that school reopening is at the top of the priority list in determining what interactions should be allowed and funded.

- Kathryn Blaze Baum reports on the Libs' failure to enforce rules which would have protected migrant workers from COVID-19.

- Larry Summers and Anna Stansbury write about the importance of empowering workers to bargain collectively for better than they can force employers to offer by themselves. William Harris discusses the value of building working-class cultural institutions beyond labour and tenants' unions. And David Frayne argues that the disruption to an already-problematic status quo should lead us to rethink the insistence that only people with traditional paid employment be treated as worthy of public support.

- John Ibbitson discusses how the Trudeau Libs resolutely refuse to learn any lessons from scandals borne out of an overarching sense of entitlement. And Yves Engler notes that the real problem with the WE scandal is the development of tourist volunteerism intended to bolster the status quo as a substitute for grassroots organizing to actually pursue change.

- Finally, Gil McGowan discusses the growing authoritarian tendencies of right-wing politicians - and need for citizens to force a reversal of that pattern both at the ballot box and in their communities.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Mark Smolinski writes that wearing a mask to limit the spread of COVID-19 is best characterized as a sign of mutual respect. (But sadly, that goes a long way toward explaining the anti-mask movement among adherents to political movements built on exclusion and dehumanization of others.) And John Michael McGrath argues that Ontario should be moving toward a rule requiring masks, rather than resting on its laurels in having merely flattened the curve.

- Iglika Ivanova examines how different types of workers have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic in British Columbia - with people already facing precarious work situations suffering the most. And Bruce Arthur comments on how migrant farm workers in Ontario have been left to bear the risks of COVID-19 with no support from the employers or governments who have chosen to put them in danger.

- Nick Falvo examines the stingy social policies in Canada and other English-speaking countries - including a pitiful ratio of 15 units of affordable housing being lost in Canada between 2011 and 2016 period for every subsidized unit created.

- Meagan Day writes about the increasingly-recognized connections between race, class and police violence. Elizabeth Renzetti discusses how Indigenous women are all too often hurt rather than helped when they seek assistance from law enforcement, while Kim Beaudin and Justin Piché note that the continued mass incarceration of Indigenous people is an insurmountable obstacle to reconcilation. And David Bell reports on the violence used by Calgary's police against a man who was sleeping peacefully until their arrival.

- Finally, Nora Loreto discusses how Canada too easily avoids answering for its own structural racism by pointing to the U.S.' failings.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Fiona Harvey writes that as we rebuild after the coronavirus pandemic, there's no reason to pretend that prosperity requires continued reliance on greenhouse gas emissions. David Roberts examines how a coherent climate plan is finally emerging in the U.S. And Max Fawcett writes that the pipeline posturing that has represented one of the primary talking points of Canadian petropoliticians will soon be obsolete no matter how desperately they try to cling to fossil fuels.

- Emily Holden reports on the dirty fossil fuel money behind the U.S. protests against public health orders. And Jeff Gray exposes how Doug Ford is using the pandemic as a pretext to offer giveaways to his developer donors without public consultation or review.

- George Monbiot highlights how the privatization of health and long-term care is at the root of the UK's coronavirus catastrophe. And Aaron Wherry writes that it's about time to include long-term care in our public health care system where it should have been all along, while John Michael McGrath opines that Ontario can no longer hide from the consequences of decades of austerity and deregulation.

- Patty Winsa examines the types of workers hit hardest by COVID-19, while Alex Ballingall focuses on the particular challenges facing care workers with insecure immigration status. Matthew Boesler and Reade Pickert note that even people who have retained their jobs have often been confronted with pay cuts and deteriorating working conditions. And Iglika Ivanova and Kendra Strauss examine who stands to benefit from the availability of sick leave (and by implication, who's being forced to work even while sick in its absence).

- Finally, Sharon Lindores reports on the favourable Canadian response to international discussion of a four-day work week.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Adam Tooze writes that the coronavirus pandemic has offered a reminder that the economy (particularly defined in terms of shareholders' interests) can't be given priority over human survival and well-being.

- John Daley discusses three possible options in responding to the coronavirus - and makes the case for a "stop then restart" plan. And Yishan Wong and Lauren Pelley and Adam Miller highlight the need to at least ensure universal testing and tracking, rather than hoping for uninformed choices to control the virus' spread.

- Omar Mosleh highlights how the pandemic is proving particularly devastating for people already living with severe financial and environmental stressors. John Stapleton reminds us that support for the poor is a matter of life and death - and even more so in the midst of a public health crisis. And Manny Fernandez examines the plight of Americans trying to survive as a lockdown and loss of income is stacked on top of existing poverty and deprivation.

- Shawn Vulliez makes the case to suspend the payment of rent while the crisis is in effect, while Iglika Ivanova offers some suggestions as to what needs to follow the first wave of federal announcements. And Johnna Montgomerie writes about the debt emergency which will need to be addressed. 

- Finally, both Don Pittis and Jamelle Bouie write that the pandemic should be reminding us of the importance of effective government. But Scott Schmidt warns that we need to be prepared to push back against Jason Kenney and other reactionary leaders trying to impose further austerity. And Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Annie Karni expose how the Trump administration is trying to impose anti-social Republican policies while the public is distracted.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Iglika Ivanova discusses how British Columbia can move toward eliminating poverty in its next budget.

- Patrick Maze points out the need for Saskatchewan's education system to be able to rely on stable and sufficient funding. But Alex MacPherson notes that Scott Moe has refused to benefit people even when there's federal money available to provide such basic necessities as public transportation.

- Kelvin Gawley reports on the massive public benefits from the NDP's comprehensive and universal pharmacare plan (in contrast to the Libs' watered-down attempt at corporate appeasement). 

- The Star's editorial board calls out Doug Ford's bait-and-switch which will result in funding being pulled away from the children with autism who most need it.

- Finally, Christo Aivalis reminds us of Tommy Douglas' genuine socialism - and the continued importance of holding and conveying strong social values even when they're not seen as politicall convenient:

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Sam Pizzigati discusses the predictable social consequences of allowing inequality to grow:

What sort of unintended consequences [result from increased inequality]? The British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have some compelling answers in their powerful new book, The Inner Level.

The more unequal a society, the pair write, “the more people feel anxiety about status and how they are seen and judged.” And not just poor people, but people at every economic level.

Some respond by losing all self-confidence. Social gatherings “become an ordeal to be avoided.” The more they withdraw, the more they “suffer higher levels of anxiety and depression.”

“Others react quite differently to the greater ego threat of invidious social comparisons,” observe Wilkinson and Pickett. “Instead of being modest about achievements and abilities, they flaunt them.”

Narcissism becomes endemic in highly unequal societies, and the issues of dominance and subordination that become so much more intense in unequal societies also exacerbate other mental illnesses and personality disorders.

Maybe worst of all, greater inequality undermines the “social relationships and involvement in community life” that researchers have “shown repeatedly” to determine health and happiness.
“By making class and status divisions more powerful,” sum up Wilkinson and Pickett, rising inequality “leads to a decline in community life, a reduction in social mobility, an increase in residential segregation, and fewer inter-class marriages.”

Unintended consequences.

So let’s by all means debate the unintended consequences of bold egalitarian reform proposals. But let’s not stop there. Let’s make sure the debate on these proposals also addresses the unintended consequences of letting our our lives continue to become ever more unequal.

- Stephen Kidd notes that narrowly-targeted social programs ultimately serve the interests of the wealthy who avoid funding more effective solutions, rather than the people who are forced to rely on a threadbare safety net.

- Jim Stanford points to the D-J Composites lockout - and the Newfoundland government's utter neglect of the workers affected - as a prime example of how political power is all too often used to favour wage-suppressing employers over workers. And Iglika Ivanova and Mark Thompson offer their suggestions to update labour and employment law to address new forms of exploitation.

- And on the bright side, Terry Pedwell reports on the pay equity arbitration decision won by rural and suburban postal carriers.

- Finally, Tom Parkin writes that the Ontario Court of Appeal's decision allowing Doug Ford to drastically interfere in Toronto's municipal elections should serve as a signal of the importance of political organizing.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jon Stone reports on Jeremy Corbyn's message to progressive parties that voters have had enough of being told there is no alternative to austerity and corporatism:

On a visit to the Netherlands on Thursday the Labour leader said socialists and social democrats risked looking like another part of the establishment by “supporting a failed economic system rigged for the wealthy”.

He warned that “fake populists and migrant-baiters of the far-right” would benefit from the demise of the centre-left, which had in the past “delivered enormous advances for working people” but was now losing ground.
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“In election after election, voters have shown they simply don’t believe many of these parties offer real change. After a decade of austerity following the bankers’ crisis, years of stagnating living standards and rising insecurity, working class communities in particular are simply not prepared to accept more of the same,” Mr Corbyn said at an event organised by the Dutch Labour Party in the Hague.

“My message for our European sister parties is simple: reject austerity or face rejection by voters. If our parties look like just another part of the establishment, supporting a failed economic system rigged for the wealthy and the corporate elite, they will be rejected – and the fake populists and migrant-baiters of the far right will fill the gap.”

- Noah Smith offers a reminder of the crucial role unions have played in giving workers a voice in the community at large as well as in the workplace. And Leo Gerard discusses how billionaires are pushing to undermine the U.S.' public-sector unions by recruiting or hiring stand-ins to encourage people to contribute nothing to their collective bargaining mechanisms. 

- Travis Lupick writes about new research showing that mental health care for homeless people produces few lasting outcomes unless it's paired with housing. And Seth Klein and Iglika Ivanova offer their recommendations to make housing more available and affordable in general - including both better protections against landlord abuses, and more direct public investment in providing homes for the people who need them.

- Finally, Brent Patterson compares the severe punishments being threatened against activists with the laughable excuses for any consequences to Kinder Morgan for deliberately preventing fish from spawning and otherwise harming the environment in the name of pipelines. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

-Tom Parkin laments the timidity of the Libs' budget, while recognizing the opportunities it creates for the NDP:

Over $7 billion in infrastructure investment, the cornerstone of the Liberals 2015 election appeal, was cut and pushed past the next election — despite the sorry state of our social housing, transit, roads and schools.

And just two days after the Liberals implied they would support a national pharmacare plan, Finance Minister Bill Morneau ruled it out, saying the Liberals would only create a piecemeal drug scheme. The U-turn probably pleased Big Pharma. After all, pharmacare lowers drug prices by using its universal, single-buyer model to squeeze better prices from drug companies.

Across all fronts, the Liberals took timid steps, failing to use their power to help Canadians stretch their paycheques right when interest rates are about to take a bigger bite from the economy. And that timid approach makes it harder to keep growth going.

For NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh it’s a big opportunity. Singh’s NDP has consistently advocated childcare, pharmacare and public infrastructure — and the NDP governments in BC and Alberta are now getting the job done. That bolder approach will now contrast sharply with that of the Liberals — who continue to serve-up a watery gruel to voters who thought they’d ordered a hearty stew.

- Thomas Walkom calls out the Libs' immediate backtracking on the prospect of pharmacare, while Andy Blatchford reports on the justified call for Bill Morneau to avoid making decisions about the issue when the firm bearing his name makes substantial profits from a patchwork system of drug coverage. And Trevor Hancock offers an upstream look at the causes of - and solutions to - the opioid crisis.

- Erica Johnson has reported on Bell Canada's false "guarantees" and pressure on salespeople to mislead customers.

- Finally, John McDonnell and Hilary Wainwright discuss UK Labour's plan for a new form of economics built around administration by and for the public. Fred Harris and Alan Curtis comment on the U.S.' unfulfilled promise of racial and economic equality. And Iglika Ivanova reminds us that we have a choice as to the effect of new technology on workers and inequality.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Harriet Agerholm comments on the connection between income inequality and a growing life expectancy gap between the rich and the rest of us.

- May Bulman notes that after a generation of austerity, children of public sector workers are increasingly living in poverty in the UK. Miles Brignall reports on the UK's latest example of workers seeing their pensions sucked dry by the financial sector. And Bryce Covert writes about the stagnation of wages in economies where workers have perpetually options due to corporate concentration and monopolization. 

- Toby Sanger discusses the need to start ensuring that multinational digital empires start paying their fair share. And Iglika Ivanova and Alex Hemingway offer a reminder of how British Columbia's tax system (like so many others) became less fair by design under a corporate-controlled government, while Hemingway counters the Fraser Institute's inevitable griping that never is too soon to start sharing any economic development beyond the privileged few.

- Ian Hussey rightly points out that the era of easy windfall profits from the oil sands is over. And Linda McQuaig writes that climate change marches on no matter how far behind we fall in responding politically.

- Finally, Ryan Cooper makes the case for the complete abolishment of student loan debt.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Rupert Neate reports on a new study showing that the world's 1,500-odd billionaires between them control over $6 trillion in wealth.

- Stuart Trew sets out Canada's choice between corporate-oriented trade deals such as the CETA, or sustainable and fairly-distributed economic development. And Laurie Monsebraaten writes about the need for political action to rein in inequality among minority groups.

- Kate Aronoff discusses how U.S. Democrats are wasting an essential opportunity to respond to climate change. And Martin Lukacs highlights how the oil industry gets sweetheart deals which result in it pay far less royalties in Canada than nearly anywhere else, while Carl Meyer exposes how the Libs have pushed any discussion of fossil fuel subsidies behind closed doors.

- The Conference Board of Canada examines the massive return on an investment in child care - with each dollar funded leading to six in social and economic benefits. And Iglika Ivanova offers a step-by-step plan toward a universal child care system in B.C., while pointing out how Quebec's system has dramatically improved labour force participation for women with children.

- Finally, Chris Vanderbreekel reports on Jagmeet Singh's plan to provide federal funding to revive the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Per Molander examines new research on the sources of inequality which concludes that massive gaps in wealth and income inevitably arise purely out of chance rather than any individual merit:

Differences in income or assets that are based on differences in capabilities or effort are widely considered to be legitimate, but it is easy to verify that all observed differences cannot be explained in this way. In its 2016 report on the global distribution of wealth, Oxfam International reported that the richest 62 persons in the world own as much as the poorer half of the world’s population, about 3.5 billion people. Clearly, one person cannot be 100 million times as productive as another healthy and reasonably well-educated person. After all, a day and night comprises only 24 hours for all of us, rich or poor.

In a seminal paper on the drivers of inequality, Robert and Ricardo Fernholz have analysed the long-term distribution of wealth in an abstract growing market economy. They assume that the economy generates a surplus which is invested in a financial market. Even assuming that all individuals in this society are identical as far as capabilities, efforts, preferences, and initial assets are concerned, the distribution of assets will become increasingly skewed over time. In the long run, one household will own all the assets. The explanation for this is simple: small variations in return on assets will be magnified over time, because those who are lucky can afford to take somewhat higher risks and will be rewarded with even higher returns, and so on.

Simple as this mechanism may be, it has far-reaching consequences. Even in an imagined world of perfect equals, inequality will develop as a result of our innate tendency towards risk aversion – wealthy individuals can afford to take risks, whereas the less wealthy have to be more cautious. Equality is inherently unstable; even the slightest perturbation of a perfectly egalitarian equilibrium will cause it to degrade into a highly unequal society, where only the self-interest of the richer strata will set the limits.
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In real societies, individuals differ in both capabilities and efforts. But, because of the self-reinforcing effect of differences, the inequalities that we observe will be completely out of proportion with differences in effort or capabilities. Inequality is largely a market failure. This is what makes the case for redistribution.

- Meanwhile, Seth Klein, Iglika Ivanova and Andrew Leyland highlight the desperate need for a poverty reduction strategy in British Columbia.

- Lola Butcher discusses how a housing first strategy can more than pay for itself by reducing burdens on the health care system and other social programs. And Marc Lee points out that tax incentives and subsidies for landlords figure to be far less effective than direct investment in affordable housing.

- Timothy Sawa and Lisa Ellenwood report on the massive amounts of money wasted on high-priced prescription drugs. And to her credit, Jane Philpott is at least examining how to reduce the cost of inflated drug prices - though it remains to be seen when that will lead to actual policy changes.

- Finally, the CCPA's submission to the SaskForward consultation process examines the futility of austerity.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ben Tarnoff discusses the two winners - and the many losers - created by the spread of neoliberalism:

Neoliberalism can mean many things, including an economic program, a political project, and a phase of capitalism dating from the 1970s. At its root, however, neoliberalism is the idea that everything should be run as a business – that market metaphors, metrics, and practices should permeate all fields of human life.

No industry has played a larger role in evangelizing the neoliberal faith than Silicon Valley. Its entrepreneurs are constantly coming up with new ways to make more of our lives into markets. A couple of decades ago, staying in touch with friends wasn’t a source of economic value – now it’s the basis for a $350bn company. Our photo albums, dating preferences, porn habits, and most random and banal thoughts have all become profitable data sets, mined for advertising revenue. We are encouraged to see ourselves as pieces of human capital that must ceaselessly enhance our value – optimizing our feeds and profiles, hustling for follows and likes and swipes.
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Yet if Trump personifies neoliberal ideas, his victory also reflects a revolt against neoliberal policies. The uncaged capitalism fostered by neoliberalism has produced an era of spiraling inequality, stagnant wages, declining life expectancy, and an increasingly post-democratic political system that is more or less openly oligarchic. These things make people angry, and Trump used that anger to get himself elected.

The irony is that Trump will only intensify the crisis that put him in power. His cure for the social catastrophe of neoliberalism is a stronger strain of neoliberalism. Trump is like a lunatic doctor who, after a treatment has nearly killed his patient, decides to double the dose in the hopes of a better result.

Whether we survive depends on the political struggle ahead: not only in the streets and statehouses, but at the level of ideas. Defeating neoliberalism will require not just the creation of a movement, but the creation of a new common sense. At its heart must be the belief that democracy is a better way to organize society than markets – that some things are not for sale.

- Alex Tabarrok points out a new study showing the rapidly-diminishing returns on research within industries. And it's worth noting what that discovery means for our overall economic organization: first, we can expect better returns directing our efforts toward new fields rather than trying to prop up existing ones; and second, to the extent we've already harvested the low-hanging fruit in most current industries, we may need to focus our economic discussion more on distribution than growth.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Campion-Smith reports on PIPSC's success in negotiating a right for federally-employed scientists to share their research.

- Sherri Borden Colley reports on the difficulty social assistance recipients in Nova Scotia have making ends meet on insufficient benefits. And Iglika Ivanova writes that we should rely far less on private charity to meet basic needs, and instead use the collective power of government to ensure nobody is forced to live in poverty.

- Finally, John Whyte offers some suggestions to build a stronger participatory democracy in Saskatchewan.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Murray Dobbin highlights how our political and economic discussions are poorer for the dominance of neoliberalism:

That's it? That's the best the economics profession can come up with to explain Canadians' indebtedness catastrophe? It's all about human behaviour, written in stone, so I guess we might as well just sit back and observe the meltdown in the comfort of our economist's middle-class lifestyle.

But of course that's the very thing they should be examining -- people's determination to live the middle-class life style that our entire culture is based on and which the sophisticated marketing machine tells us we must have -- or we are losers. They need to explore this classic bait-and-switch: manipulate people to buy stuff and then suppress their incomes so they can't.

Carrick's article detailed just how serious the problem is -- repeating numbers that have been quoted numerous times: over 700,000 people would be financially stressed if interest rates rose by even a quarter of one per cent. One million would face that circumstance if they rose by one per cent. The Canadian Payroll Association regularly tracks people's financial stress and its recent survey revealed 48 per cent of people said "[i]t would be tough to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed even by a week. Almost one-quarter doubted they could come up with $2,000 for an emergency expense in the next month."

I'm sorry, but that's insane in a country that creates as much wealth as Canada does.
...

The fact is, those trapped within the context of neoliberal policies don't have a clue what to do.

But everyone knows it's going to get worse. The quality of jobs in Canada continues to fall with low-paid jobs making up an increasing proportion of the total (we are already second in the OECD), with those earning less than the average wage falling furthest behind. This is a continuation of a 12-year trend. Sixty-one per cent of Canadian workers have seen their wage gap increase. These are the conclusions of a recent CIBC report which also concluded that only 15 per cent of people aged 15-24 can be defined as genuinely "employed."

If economists and politicians (NDP -- please note) actually want to change this situation before it descends into full-on dystopia they must, as a UN report recently recommended, "jettison neoliberal ideology." That would include a long list of policies but let's just take one: "labour flexibility." Inequality, flat incomes, work-life imbalance and unsustainable debt can all to a large extent be traced to this deliberate government policy. Just reversing it would start a recovery. That means returning EI to an actual insurance program, reinstating the federal Canada Assistance Plan which provided strings-attached (read: humane rates) money to the provinces for social welfare, increase the minimum wage to living-wage levels, enforce and enhance labour standards and their enforcement, and make it easier, not harder, for unions to organize.

- Statistics Canada examines the gross increase in income inequality over the past three decades, as the bottom 50% of tax filers have seen their share of market income drop by over 28%.

- Iglika Ivanova offers some lessons to be learned from the CCPA's recent report on the cost of child care. And Pierre Fortin makes the case for a national child care policy, while recognizing the need for the provinces to lead the way.

- Meanwhile, Andrew MacLeod reports on the predictable results of B.C.'s privatization of health care administration - which wound up costing 50% more than the supposed price certainty found in the original contract.

- Finally, James Wilt points out that the Libs' climate change "framework" falls well short of meeting the already-inadequate targets they've adopted from the Harper Cons - and wonders whether Canada will end up having to pay for offsets rather than meeting the targets for itself.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne points out the significance of even central bankers like Mark Carney recognizing the desperate need to combat inequality. And Iglika Ivanova discusses how British Columbia's election-year surplus represents a wasted opportunity to start addressing the social problems which the Libs have been exacerbating for a decade and a half:

More than half of British Columbians surveyed in a recent poll reported they were living paycheque to paycheque, and household debt is at record highs. Unemployment is on the rise outside the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, where most job creation has been concentrated. Seniors who don’t own their own homes are living in fear of rent increases and renovictions. Over 100,000 British Columbians needed the help of food banks this year, up 3.4% from 2015. Child poverty remains stubbornly high with toxic effects on children’s health and well-being. And, our public schools are underfunded and lack the resources to properly support students with special needs.

We wouldn’t celebrate the financial management skills of parents who ended the month with money in the bank after sending their children to bed hungry. A large government surplus is much the same, and it is unconscionable given the number of people in need in our province. BC’s surplus is a wasted opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children growing up in poverty, people on disability benefits who are forced to choose between a bus pass and groceries or frail seniors who can’t access home support services and end up in hospital instead.

Instead of tackling poverty and investing in education from early childhood onwards, the BC government has earmarked $1 billion of this year’s surplus to pay down the public debt faster, and another $400 million for the so-called ‘Prosperity Fund’ that was supposed to be filled with revenues from LNG, which haven’t materialized.
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Social infrastructure is the foundation upon which our economy is built. The research is clear: a healthy society is more productive, and a more-equal society is healthier and better educated. We need the talents, creativity and experience of all British Columbians to build the kind of province we all want to live in.

- Gary Bloch expands on his analysis as to how we'd all be better off in a society which eradicated poverty. And Dan Kopf points out new research showing that cash transfers to poor people tend to lead to far healthier lifestyles for the recipients - including a reduction in purchases of alcohol and tobacco products.

- Guy Dauncey offers a range of solutions to Canada's housing crisis. And Sam Cooper reports on Adam Ross' study of the widespread shell ownership of Vancouver real estate which is making it difficult to manage the housing market.

- Robin Whitaker makes the case for the Libs to keep their promise of electoral reform by delivering a system of proportional representation. Plenty of Star readers concur in the wake of Chantal Hebert's effort to spread blame elsewhere. And Andrew Coyne weighs in on the Libs' blatantly biased survey about electoral values.

- Finally, Cheryl Stadnichuk notes that Brad Wall's health care privatization is undermining universal access to care, while doing nothing to improve the province's cost picture due to the predictable loss of federal funding for pay-for-play services. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Ed Finn discusses how to fight for needed alternatives to neoliberalism in the face of seemingly daunting odds and structural barriers.

- Noah Smith points out how most economic analysis omits important social factors which ultimately matter far more to people than marginal GDP. And as a prime example, BBC reports on a new poll showing the UK's immense and growing class divide.

- Armine Yalnizyan responds to a spate of deficit hysteria by pointing out that Canada's public sector is entirely sustainable (particularly if the federal government uses its fiscal capacity for the public good).

- Iglika Ivanova discusses the growing number of people trapped below the poverty line while working in Vancouver. And Darlene O'Leary comments on the need for a national housing strategy as part of a Canada-wide effort to alleviate poverty.

- The Star-Phoenix reports on the billion-dollar annual costs of excluding indigenous citizens of Saskatchewan from full economic participation.

-  Finally, Sean McElwee and Ashley Jardina find that younger U.S. voters are rejecting racist rhetoric while favouring a more inclusive society.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Piketty writes that regardless of the end result, Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign may mark the start of a fundamental change in U.S. politics:

Sanders’ success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime.

Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.

- Richard Shillington studies the economic status of Canadian near-seniors and finds that very few people are prepared for retirement. And PressProgress points out that the result may be a reversal of Canada's past success in fighting seniors' poverty.

- Meanwhile, Iglika Ivanova reviews B.C.'s provincial budget and finds that it's falling far short of what's needed to rein in poverty and inequality.

- Amir Attaran reminds us of the money Canada's health system is wasting on artificially high prices for generic drugs.

- Matthew Behrens weighs in on the next steps for Canada's surveillance state (including C-51) and argues that we shouldn't settle for secret, after-the-fact parliamentary reviews of state disruptions.

- Finally, Maciej Gorecki examines the possibility that voter turnout trends may be driven more by social expectations and maturation than by individual habit-forming.