Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Scott Vrooman rightly makes the point that increased wealth at the top tends to splash outside a country's borders rather than trickling down. And CBC News reports on how that process has been facilitated by KPMG and other firms wining and dining executives of the Canada Revenue Agency who are supposed to be ensuring their clients' contribution to a fair society.

- Paul Krugman describes the symptoms of robber-baron stagnation - which all too closely match the state of the U.S.' economy. And Ian Welsh outlines an economy which would serve the interests of people rather than profiteers.

- Unfortunately, the Libs seem bent on pushing the economics of destruction - not only by pushing more arms sales abroad, but also by looking to buy into another round of Star Wars missile defence schemes.

- Laurence Mathieu-Leger and Ashifa Kassam write about the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat and elsewhere. And Charlie Angus discusses the desperate need to go beyond band-aid solutions.

- Finally, John Oliver looks into credit reports and other background checks - and highlights how information which is useless at best and grossly inaccurate at worse is serving to keep people from finding work, housing and other necessities of life:

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Claire Provost writes that corporate trade agreements are designed to make it more difficult to pursue fair tax systems:

Governments must be able to change their tax systems to ensure multinationals pay their fair share and to ensure that critical public services are well funded. States must also be able to reconsider and withdraw tax breaks previously granted to multinationals if they no longer fit with national priorities.

But their ability to do so, to change tax laws and pursue progressive tax policies, is limited, thanks to trade and investments agreements. In rapidly developing ‘corporate courts’, formally known as investor-state dispute settlement system (or ISDS), foreign investors can sue states directly at international tribunals.
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Because control over taxes is seen as core to a country’s sovereignty, many states have included tax-related ‘carve-out’ clauses in these trade and investment treaties to limit ability of corporations and other investors to sue over such disputes. But a growing number of investor-state cases have in fact challenged government tax decisions – from the withdrawal of previously granted tax breaks to multinationals to the imposition of higher taxes on profits from oil and mining.
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(E)ven the prospect of an ISDS case can be a powerful deterrent for states considering actions against multinationals. These cases can drag on for years, and are extremely expensive. Even if a state successfully defends itself, it often ends up facing million dollar legal bills regardless. The only safe course of action is to never challenge multinational corporations - a dangerous prospect for the public interest that could thwart necessary, progressive action for tax justice.

- Michael Winship interviews Naomi Klein about the inability of markets to deal with the threat of climate change. And Mike De Souza reports on the complete imbalance between corporate and public interests at the moment by pointing out how thoroughly Stephen Harper's National Energy Board appointees have undermined any attempt to enforce pipeline safety rules.

- Christina Pazzanese examines the connection between economic inequality and democratic disenfranchisement in the U.S. And Tom Mulcair writes about a few of the ways the federal budget could lessen inequality in Canada.

- Finally, John Oliver duly slams the spread of voter ID laws as a means of rigging elections at the expense of voting rights:

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your election day reading.

- Ed Finn discusses how neoliberalism is damaging Canada, and what we need to do to reverse its influence:

Corporate influence on federal politics, the country’s flawed electoral system, and the staunch pursuit of a political and economic ideology since the 1980s that has threatened some of Canada’s greatest political achievements, like universal health care, while exacerbating inequality and eroding the state of Canada’s democracy, he said, are all topics that should be on the table at leaders’ debates and in public discourse if Canada is to begin moving toward a brighter future.
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Finn said while much of the current focus among Canadian voters is on Stephen Harper, it’s important to note that “Harper’s offence is not that he initiated the regressive policies that set Canada on a downward course 30 years ago, but that during his decade in power he greatly expanded and intensified them.”

If things are to change, it’s not simply a matter of voting Harper out of office, but assessing the big picture and voting for politicians and parties that offer socially and economically progressive alternatives, he said. 

- And Scott Vrooman likewise observes that we should see ourselves as citizens whose role goes far beyond voting alone, rather than as mere consumers of party brands.

- Jon Herriot and Naheed Dosani offer a few suggestions as to issues which voters should keep in mind in deciding who has earned their support. And Dr. Daniel Boudreau points out how important a national pharmacare program can be for everybody's health.

- Paul Dechene reminds us why ethics should be a thoroughly toxic issue for the Harper Cons. And Roger Annis writes that the Libs' goal is to take Canadian politics back to a past we should be looking to leave behind us.

- Finally, Ian Welsh offers a concise take on the campaign that we've seen so far. And John Oliver captures both the absurd and the embarrassing within the campaign:

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Boothe responds to the C.D. Howe Institute's unwarranted bias against public-sector investment:

Is the public sector holding back provincial growth rates by crowding out private sector investment?  That’s the contention of a recent C.D. Howe paper by Philip Cross.  The paper provides a great case study of the danger of confusing correlation with causality.

Let’s begin with the simple arithmetic.  Gross domestic product (GDP) is the sum of spending on consumption, investment, government services and net exports.  Whether the investment spending is initiated by the private sector or the public sector makes no difference to the GDP accountants at Statistics Canada. Both contribute in the same way to measured GDP and a boom in either private or public sector investment will boost economic growth. The simple arithmetic gives us no reason to prefer one kind of investment over the other.
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(T)he four provinces with relatively high private sector investment ratios that Mr. Cross highlights are all energy producers, while the ones with relatively low private sector investment ratios are not.  A simpler alternate hypothesis, dismissed out of hand by Mr. Cross, is that the differences in private sector investment ratios are mainly due to the energy boom.  In fact, when one compares the rates of public sector investment per capita in Alberta and Ontario in 2012, it turns out that they are roughly comparable. Alberta actually has greater public sector investment per capita when one accounts for investment by utilities in the same way across provinces.

Scottish poet Andrew Lang warned about the misuse of statistics, remarking that they are sometime used like a drunk uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination.  The recent CD Howe paper by Philip Cross may tell us more about the author’s political ideology than the determinants of private sector investment.

- And speaking of ideological preferences for corporate wealth over the public interest, PressProgress contrasts the CRA's Con-ordered crackdown on progressive charities against its minimal action to deal with high-wealth tax evaders. And John Oliver neatly illustrates how the U.S.' economic system is rigged to favour those who already have the most:


- Meanwhile, David MacDonald examines the effect of EI, and finds that Canada's main employment income support has such restrictive entry requirements that it actually directs money away from the poor:

In fact, the group the most likely to be EI recipients is the middle 20% of the income spectrum (prior to layoff). They are the most likely to have surmounted the almost six months of constant work required to qualify for EI.

The other disturbing implication of the above results is that any group that represents less than 20% of the beneficiaries is in essence subsidizing the system. The lowest income group only receives around 16% of the benefits depending on the year. The poor pay into EI while working, but they are less likely to collect benefits if they’re laid off.

While we may consider EI a strong social support system, its current construction makes it particularly regressive for Canada’s lowest income families.

The easiest way to redress this inequality is to reduce the number of hours required to qualify for EI thereby letting in those with precarious employment resulting in more frequent bouts of EI. 

- Derek Thompson offers a reminder of the high cost of being poor. And Adam Carter reports on the effect of poverty on health for urban aboriginals in particular.

- Finally, Alison once again has all the background information you need to know on an astroturf group looking to brand any questioning of oil barons as unpatriotic.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jessica McDiarmid reports on the hazardous materials being shipped by rail across North America - and it's particularly sad that Canadians can only learn about the risks being imposed on us through a U.S. guide. But lest we be under any illusions that our neighbours have an enviable record in managing their own risks, Claire Moser reports that even identified high-risk oil and gas wells in the U.S. aren't being inspected.

- And of course, that figures to have much to do with the fossil fuel industry's domination of politics on both sides of the border. Which brings us to Murray Dobbin's take on the need to challenge petropolitics and the oil barons who control them:

One of the major political factors preventing serious consideration of major and rapid policy changes is the sheer power of the fossil fuel industry. Unimaginable wealth translates into unimaginable power worldwide. To imagine bringing the industry to heel in a serious effort to slow climate change, we have to imagine treating the industry like we eventually treated the tobacco industry: as an existential threat to human health. For decades the tobacco giants exerted so much political influence they were virtually untouchable. To the extent that this changed (it is obviously still a health scourge especially in the developing world), it changed because the notion of corporate "rights" was successfully challenged.

Multiply the impact of the tobacco industry by 1,000 and you have some idea of how difficult it will be to escape the political and social conventional thinking that protects the oil "industry" from rational policy. Indeed part of that conventional thinking is seeing the giant corporations involved as just another industry. This actually serves to protect this sociopathic monster because we have rules governing industries and the individual companies that make them up. Companies are "citizens" with rights (thanks to our Charter) and they live forever. They have literally unlimited money to lobby governments for continued subsidies ($2 billion yearly from Ottawa), and tax breaks against subsidies for renewables which could save the planet. Even though 97 per cent of climate scientists agree about climate change, these corporations have the power to trash science and sow doubts about global warming.

The energy giants are protected by rogue governments like those in Alberta and Ottawa. They are permitted to take as much of the stuff out of the ground as fast as they can ship it and sell it, regardless of the global consequences. Like no other sector of the economy (except perhaps nuclear power) they are allowed to externalize hundreds of billions -- possibly trillions -- in costs they should be paying: air and water pollution costs, health costs, the costs associated with distorting the rest of the economy, the cost of new roads and bridges and freeways and paved-over farm land. We refuse to tax it to cover those costs, and that means ridiculously low prices and little incentive to wean ourselves from its pernicious and deadly effects.

- And in keeping with Dobbin's proposal for public ownership in the resource sector, Paul Krugman recognizes the absurdity of criticizing ideas merely because they've existed for some time. (Which of course goes doubly for ideas which have proven to be smashing successes when implemented in full.)

- John Oliver suggests that corporations should bear the burdens facing individuals if they expect to share in the rights that properly apply to people:



- Finally, Rick Salutin sees Canada Day as the perfect time to reflect on the importance of citizenship - and to question why the Cons are so eager to grant themselves power to take it away.