Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Allison Jones reports that Ontario is working on a new round of COVID booster shots for the fall (while so many other jurisdictions have given up on any additional vaccinations). Laurie McGinley reports on the FDA's findings that vaccines for children under 5 are safe and effective. And Joseph Stiglitz and Lori Wallace offer a reminder that intellectual property barriers imposed at the behest of big pharma are still acting as barriers to vaccines and treatments for many of the people who need them the most. 

- Piya Chatto talks to Armine Yalnizyan about the challenges for central banks in dealing with inflation (as well as the people who stand to be harmed by overly severe responses). Richard Burgon makes the case for a one-time wealth tax to create a social emergency fund which would ensure nobody is left behind. And James Wilt points out how the cruel war against unhoused people is being used as an excuse to undermine transit for everybody.  

- Aishwarya Dudha reports on the need for the Regina Food Bank to respond to food insecurity among children. And Zak Vescera reports on the glaring shortfall Saskatoon's public school division is facing in trying to support high-needs students with inadequate funding.   

- Kunuk Inutiq discusses how Nunavut is seeing its resources (and the associated profits) flow south while its population remains in poverty and precarity. 

- Finally, Dean Blundell and Marie Snyder each take a look at the growing awareness of the Klondike Papers and the diversion of public money toward Plymouth Brethren-associated businesses. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Andrew Nikiforuk writes about the even greater urgency to get to COVID zero as more dangerous strains of the virus spread in Canada. And Adam Miller reports on growing recommendations that we wear more effective masks, including while outdoors. 

-Truc Nguyen reports on some of the ways to deal with the anxiety arising out of the pandemic, while Natalie Grover reports on research showing that the coronavirus itself leads to mental illness and brain disorders. And James Wilt points out the public health implications of people drinking more in the course of the pandemic.

- Sarah Jaffe discusses the problem of burnout generally - including by recognizing that it's an inevitable outcome of economic and social systems designed to impose as many costs as possible on individuals for the benefit of businesses. Meghan Bell calls out the attempt by Bell (and so many politicians) to turn mental health into a single-day distraction while standing in the way of the support people need at all times. And Ray Fisman and Michael Luca point out how the effort to squeeze concessions out of workers - rather than providing a stable and secure livelihood - is ultimately a damaging one for employers.

- But in case anybody thought there was hope for consensus on a change in course, Tom Scocca writes that the Trump years have offered an appalling test of how much suffering the U.S. is prepared to inflict on people. And Mindy Isser discusses the need to ensure that organizing efforts include people who have been willing to support the likes of Donald Trump.

- Finally, Nana Ama Sarfo makes the case to end Canada's current status as a haven to hide the beneficial ownership of corporations. And Canadians for Tax Fairness argues that we shouldn't let Pfizer use COVID-19 as an excuse to claim yet another round of tax concessions and corporate giveaways.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Liaquat Ahamed writes about the pattern of wealth concentrating in the absence of a countervailing force - and the need for a political response. Linda McQuaig discusses how the media largely ignores the eminently popular prospect of raising taxes on the people who have more wealth than they could possibly put to good use. And Ilya Bañares reports on the majority of Canadians who have a positive view of socialism - a number equal to those approving of capitalism.

- Meanwhile, Annie Lowrey writes that millennials who are already facing an economy rigged against them stand to bear the brunt of the next recession when it hits. And Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood and Zaee Deshpande discuss the importance of including social equity as an integral element of a just transition toward clean energy.

- Larry Elliott recognizes that personal changes will fall far short of turning the tide when it comes to our climate crisis. And Robinson Meyer notes that there's no way to reverse foreseeable damage such as the destruction of the Amazon rain forest once we've gone too far.

- Finally, as Manitoba considers its options for a new provincial government, James Wilt examines the damage wrought by Brian Pallister since he took power.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Dean Baker responds to attempts to paint inequality as an inevitable result of market forces by pointing out the choices being how our markets are structured. And Jonathan Tepper discusses how the concentration of wealth and power has created giant corporate monopolies which are antithetical to market competition and innovation.

- Richard Reeves points out the need for growing inequality to be addressed by sufficient worker bargaining power to boost wages. Julia Wong and Kaylen Small report on the acts of solidarity by workers across Canada in response to the Trudeau government's choice to force CUPW to give up an effective and effectively-managed strike. The Canadian Press reports on the similarities between the effort to respond to GM's abandonment of Oshawa and the wider issues facing Canada's labour movement. And L. Ian MacDonald points out that our reaction to the Oshawa closure speaks volumes about our view of the significance and meaning of the national interest in managing economic development.

- Robin McKie writes about another global climate summit being held in the face of warnings that we may have already reached a point of no return as we try to avoid outright climate breakdown. Bob Weber reports on new research showing that Canada's cities are woefully unprepared for the future projected to result from climate change. And Amy Harder comments on the wilful ignorance and disinformation at the core of the only position opposed to a massive effort to change course.

- Simon Little reports on the apparent connection between fracking and earthquake activity in Fort St. John, B.C.

- Finally, James Wilt analyzes how far too much of Canada's media is dedicated to serving the ruling class rather than the public interest.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne's column for the Labour Day weekend comment on the role unions play in pushing for advancements for everybody.

- Paul Krugman offers a reminder that a focus on GDP alone as a measure of economic development misses the issue of inequality. And Simon Kuper discusses how the wealthiest people have looted their own countries in order to further distance themselves from the rest of society, while Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka study the consequences of elite-driven globalization in undermining fair revenue systems and the social programs they fund.

- Neil Schoenherr reviews Gerrit De Geest's new book on how marketing has contributed to rent-seeking by the few at the expense of the many. And James Wilt argues that instead of focusing on consumer behaviour, we should be working on developing models of production and consumption that are less destructive:

There is nothing inherently wrong with the consumption of energy and materials. The problem is that consumption is largely undemocratic, exploitative, and unsustainable: all realities that can be dramatically altered.

We know that many socially destructive sectors consume a vast chunk of resources. For example, the U.S. military is the institution which consumes the greatest amount of oil in the world. At last count, over half of the energy used in Canada was consumed by the industrial sector – the likes of mines, factories, and fossil fuel extraction. A 2011 study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives concluded that the top one per cent of income earners in B.C. emitted almost six times the amount of carbon pollution as residents in the bottom 10 per cent.

And corporations have created a status quo of obscene food waste, planned obsolescence, and entrenched fossil fuel interests that obstruct a rapid transition to low-carbon communities.
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We must abandon the language and sentiment of overconsumption and organize our cities and towns through unions, co-ops, community centres, and activist organizations – with a primary focus on improving conditions and services in low-income communities of colour.
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The so-called problem of consumption is a convenient distraction from the hard work that needs to be done to overhaul the exploitative and destructive systems that currently concentrate a vast majority of the wealth and power in the hands of the very few. Such greed won’t dissipate by individual moralizing or using fewer plastic bags.

It’ll take radical collective action – and an impassioned desire for all of us to be able to consume more of the things that are sustainable, just, and fulfilling.

- Finally, David Climenhaga notes that the obsession with the rule of law trumpeted by pipeline pushers against protesters has disappeared now that the Federal Court of Appeal has held that approvals handed out without meaningful consultation are themselves illegal.

Tuesday Morning LInks

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Wilt examines how Canada lets the corporate sector get away with paying far less than a fair price for our natural resources. And Marc Lee points out the massive subsidies British Columbia has handed to the natural gas industry in particular. 

- Christo Aivalis discusses the need to put public ownership on the table to ensure the availability of necessary services in the face of both business collapses and warped market incentives:

(I)n a recent announcement, Greyhound Canada has decided to end its passenger bus lines west of Ontario, leaving over 400 people unemployed, and numerous communities without access to reliable public transit. The company discontinued the lines because they are unprofitable. This follows the Saskatchewan Party’s dismantling last year of the Saskatchewan Transport Company [sic], which was founded a crown corporation dedicated to delivering public transit regardless of profitability.

The crux of the matter, however, goes beyond the Greyhound news. Indeed, this episode shows that, when it comes to essential services, Canadians cannot depend on the private sector to provide them. This issue along with many others has re-ignited the debate around the role of public ownership in a democratic society. A society in which private capital is predominate cannot be just and democratic. The only solution is to assert democratic priorities over the organization of the economy.
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...If we are to build a just society, we require a just economy. And while that must include better social programs financed through redistributive taxation, the democratic socialist project is not encompassed by social programs alone; it must concern itself with the democratization of the economy. And while this shouldn’t be done solely through state ownership—worker, community, and consumer cooperatives all being viable mechanisms here—public control will nonetheless be a central plank. In that spirit, let’s make 2019 the year in which the left re-asserts economic democracy as the cornerstone for a better Canada.

- Robson Fletcher takes a look at the composition of the minimum-wage workforce in Alberta. And Katharine Murphy reports on Australia Labour's plan to ensure that temporary workers aren't paid less than the permanent employees they so often replace.

- Richard Florida offers a reminder that it's people already living in poverty who will bear the most severe effects of climate change. And Justine Calma discusses the lives already being lost to extreme heat in New York City.

- Finally, Paula Cocozza writes about the unreasonable expectation of perfection being placed on young adults. And John Lancaster comments on the contrast between the unrealistic assumptions and expectations underlying far too much economic theory, and the reality of the human condition.