Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Andrea Germanos follows up on the IMF's realization that handing free money and power to corporations does nothing for the economy as it affects people's lives. And Susie Cagle examines the role of tech money - like other massive accumulations of wealth - in exacerbating inequalities in both wealth and political influence.

- Jeffrey Sachs points out that Bernie Sanders' economic policy prescriptions are exactly what the U.S. in particular needs in order to offer a more secure life for the population as a whole:

The United States unleashed the power of CEOs to enrich themselves with mega-salaries, weakened trade unions and gave massive tax breaks to the super-rich. Sanders’s policies would go after all of these unconscionable moves, bringing the United States back into line with the rest of the high-income world. He would, in short, end the age of impunity in which the rich and the powerful get their way, while the rest suffer. Sanders’s policies include higher taxes on the rich, strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage, supporting families, providing free tuition at public universities and cracking down on financial crimes.

There is nothing magical or utopian about Sanders’s recommendations. He is advocating policies of decency long ago adopted by other prosperous high-income countries. Our own neighbor, Canada, is a case in point. Canada has lower-cost health care, a life expectancy two years higher than in the United States, much lower college tuition, far lower poverty rates and, not surprisingly, more happiness (ranking sixth in the world in life satisfaction, behind Scandinavia and well ahead of the United States, which is 12th). 

Mainstream economists long ago lost the melody line. Their models are oriented to the status quo and underemphasize the benefits of public investment. They take America’s bloated health-care costs as a given, not as the result of the influence of the U.S. private health lobby. They treat low growth as natural (“secular stagnation”) rather than as the result of chronic underinvestment. They have come to accept cruelly rising income inequality and rampant impunity for financial crimes. Sanders knows better, based on worldwide experience, an abiding sense of decency and a strong and accurate vision for a brighter economic future.

- Meanwhile, Robert Skidelsky discusses the futility of trying to boost a stalled economy solely through monetary policy when direct public spending figures to accomplish far more.

- Lawrence Mishel and Jessica Schieder chart the connection between union organization and income equality.

- Finally, Elizabeth Thompson reports on the federal government's lack of a clue as to how many temporary foreign workers are actually in Canada. And it's particularly worth contrasting that lax attitude toward workers brought in at the behest of employers against the detention of immigration detainees.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Bruce Anderson worries that the Cons might think they face no restriction on their ability to get away with dirty tricks. But Noah Richler suggests that the best way to fight back against the Cons' disdain for democratic debate is to treat them as a joke. And Dr. Dawg and deBeauxos start with an apt one.

- But Jeffrey Sachs reminds us that we shouldn't use justified cynicism over our current government to make the right's case to eliminate the concept of public service altogether.

- And Livio Di Matteo notes that if it weren't for the Cons' reckless tax-slashing, we'd never have faced the federal deficits which are now being used as an excuse to attack social funding.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone slams the Cons' refusal to let farmers decide the fate of the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board.

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your weekend.

- Jeffrey Sachs muses that the Occupy movement may just be the beginning of a sea change in American politics:

Both parties have joined in crippling the government in response to the demands of their wealthy campaign contributors, who above all else insist on keeping low tax rates on capital gains, top incomes, estates and corporate profits. Corporate taxes as a share of national income are at the lowest levels in recent history. Rich households take home the greatest share of income since the Great Depression. Twice before in American history, powerful corporate interests dominated Washington and brought America to a state of unacceptable inequality, instability and corruption. Both times a social and political movement arose to restore democracy and shared prosperity.

The first age of inequality was the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, an era quite like today, when both political parties served the interests of the corporate robber barons. The progressive movement arose after the financial crisis of 1893. In the following decades Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson came to power, and the movement pushed through a remarkable era of reform: trust busting, federal income taxation, fair labor standards, the direct election of senators and women’s suffrage.

The second gilded age was the Roaring Twenties. The pro-business administrations of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover once again opened up the floodgates of corruption and financial excess, this time culminating in the Great Depression. And once again the pendulum swung. F.D.R.’s New Deal marked the start of several decades of reduced income inequality, strong trade unions, steep top tax rates and strict financial regulation. After 1981, Reagan began to dismantle each of these core features of the New Deal.

Following our recent financial calamity, a third progressive era is likely to be in the making. This one should aim for three things. The first is a revival of crucial public services, especially education, training, public investment and environmental protection. The second is the end of a climate of impunity that encouraged nearly every Wall Street firm to commit financial fraud. The third is to re-establish the supremacy of people votes over dollar votes in Washington.

- It doesn't seem to have registered at all among political commentators. But the Cons' plans to unilaterally reallocate federal health dollars toward Alberta at the expense of other provinces look to make for a significant change for the worse in ensuring that services are available and comparable across Canada:

Under the 2004 accord negotiated by then-prime minister Paul Martin, the provinces were guaranteed that the federal contribution to medicare - known as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) - would rise annually by six per cent for a decade. This year, the provinces will receive $27 billion through the CHT.

Although the deal bought a measure of political peace with the provinces, not all were entirely pleased.

The agreement, which was agreed to by the former Klein government, pays Alberta approximately $558 per capita (nearly $2 billion in total) compared to a minimum $805 per person for every other province...

Alberta has been calling for equal treatment with the other provinces, and it appears that message has been received in Ottawa.

"The government of Canada is committed to moving to an equal per capital allocation of the CHT as of 2014-15," say the internal documents prepared for Penashue.

And at the same time, the Cons are denying any willingness to take into account either fiscal capacity or actual health care costs in doling out federal money. Which means that while Alberta stands to gain, there will be less money available to fund other provinces - and it's well worth keeping an eye on who ends up losing out.

- But don't bother complaining on Stephen Harper's public Facebook page, as you can count on any dissent being promptly disappeared.

- And finally, Thomas Walkom points out that the Ontario's Liberals haven't done anything to reverse the trend of privatized and less-efficient power generation; instead, their main contribution has been to make the entire process far less transparent to the citizens who will end up footing the bill.

Friday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- While all parties are at least claiming to be willing to keep boosting health care funding after 2014, the impending round of health-care negotiations with the provinces still offers a rare chance to shape and improve the system in the long run. And Jack Layton is rightly questioning what will happen if the Harper Cons are left in charge of that discussion:

Media in London say Mr. Holder’s campaign wrote to the London Healthcare Coalition, which is sponsoring the April 20 debate, to say they were "puzzled" as to why federal candidates would be asked to debate health care. "I'd think this is more an issue for Deb Matthews and the provincial candidates," the campaign reply said. "We're not attracted to see Ed debate on health care.”

When told about the refusal, Mr. Layton said it demonstrates the true face of the Conservative perspective on health care.

“They don’t believe it’s a federal issue. They want to leave it to the provinces, knowing that the provinces don’t have the resources that are necessary and privatization will become the only option,” he said.

That’s why Canadians cannot trust Mr. Harper to lead the national negotiations on the renewal of the health-care financing agreements that are set to expire in 2014, Mr. Layton said.

“If Stephen Harper ends up with a mandate, then attitudes like we’re getting from Mr. Holder’s staff person are what we’re going to see behind the scenes,” he said. “If Mr. Harper is in charge of the future of health care in our country, then Canadians should be very, very worried.”

- The broader picture behind the constant efforts to slash corporate taxes in Canada naturally features the similar campaign against public services and reasonable taxes around the world. And Michael Babad cites Jeffrey Sachs on how the push has been just as destructive elsewhere as here:

Jeffrey Sachs is the director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. (He’s also committed to fighting poverty and hunger, but he’s still a real live professor.) Here’s what he told the BBC only yesterday:

“Of course, all of our countries are caught in what you could call a kind of tax arms race or what could be called a race to the bottom in fact, which is that each country is trying to get the tax rate lower than the neighbours or the competitors. The result is that everybody is cutting corporate tax rates around the board.

“It is only causing fiscal crisis everywhere and it's a kind of negative sum game, meaning that when both sides do it, neither gains the advantage relative to the other. In fact both lose by adding to the fiscal pressures and the need to then cut the education spending or the social expenditures that are crucial for making sure that the poor half of our societies can also participate and be productive members of our economies in the future.”

He pointed as an example to Ireland, the one-time Celtic Tiger that’s now a pussycat on life support and was once the envy of Europe because of its low-tax regime.

“So you sure can make a little bubble in the short term, but it's not really building the long-term platform for prosperity. Second, I wouldn't say it to Ireland alone, I would say to the European Union, the United States, Japan, other high income countries, indeed in the G20 as a whole. Let's stop this horrendous process where we are being gamed by global companies that are playing off our governments, one against the other and ending up by depriving ourselves of the productive base of our societies which after all are our skilled and educated work forces.”

- Fortunately, there's a new voice working to counter the corporate spin, as Canadians for Tax Fairness is looking to lead the charge for a more equitable tax system.

- Don Mitchell comments on the hope to replace at least a few ineffective Saskatchewan Con MPs with NDP challengers:

It's not as if Harper's herd of 13 MPs has done much for Saskatchewan. They remained totally silent during the province's campaign to resist the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan takeover by an Australian/American giant. They've taken the lead in attacking the Canadian Wheat Board and eroding its power and resources. Curiously, Saskatchewan farmers who continue to elect progressives to the Wheat Board have also been a major factor in electing sworn enemies of the board as their Members of Parliament.

Some factors which contribute to the Conservative dominance will still be in play in this election. But there is a growing basis of hope for a shift during this campaign.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg points out how the Public Service Commission is trampling on the right of public servants to participate in the federal election campaign.