Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Laura Spinney writes about the debate as to whether to eliminate COVID-19 or control its continued spread. And Carl Zimmer reports on the Brazilian variant which represents just the latest new mutation which may complicate any attempt to barge ahead with business as usual in the face of the coronavirus.

- Tzeporah Berman and Nathan Taft point out the deception behind the oil industry's attempt to pitch a misleading "net zero" emissions target as an excuse to keep spewing carbon pollution now (and to encourage end users to keep doing so for decades to come), while Naveena Sadasivam discusses the massive cleanup costs fossil fuel barons are foisting on the public. And Simon Lewis warns against being fooled by businesses trying to turn accounting tricks into carbon credits they can sell.

- Rahi Abouk, Keshar Ghimire, Johanna Catherine Maclean and David Powell study how marijuana legalization affects workers' compensation claims - concluding that it actually leads to a reduction by offering another form of pain management. And Zak Vescera reports on the need for improved access to naloxone to reduce the damage from opioid overdoses.

- Finally, Molly Scot Cato writes about the positives of taxes in reducing inequality, creating positive behavioural incentives and funding the services we need. Which makes for an important contrast against Stephanie Mudge's observations about Third Way liberalism which made democratic decision-making subordinate to the interests of capital.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- George Monbiot discusses the dark money behind much of the political turmoil in the UK and elsewhere, while questioning why the secretive and self-interested funding of astroturf groups should receive favourable tax treatment:

A mere two millennia after Roman politicians paid mobs to riot on their behalf, we are beginning to understand the role of dark money in politics, and its perennial threat to democracy. Dark money is cash whose source is not made public, and which is spent to change political outcomes. The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, unearthed by Carole Cadwalladr, and the mysterious funds channelled through Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party to the leave campaign in England and Scotland have helped to bring the concept to public attention. But these examples hint at a much wider problem. Dark money can be seen as the underlying corruption from which our immediate crises emerge: the collapse of public trust in politics, the rise of a demagogic anti-politics, and assaults on the living world, public health and civic society. Democracy is meaningless without transparency.

The techniques now being used to throw elections and referendums were developed by the tobacco industry, and refined by biotechnology, fossil fuel and junk food companies. Some of us have spent years exposing the fake grassroots campaigns they established, the false identities and bogus scientific controversies they created, and the way in which media outlets have been played by them. Our warnings went unheeded, while the ultra-rich learned how to buy the political system.
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While dark money has been used to influence elections, the role of groups such as the IEA is to reach much deeper into political life. As its current director, Mark Littlewood, explains, “We want to totally reframe the debate about the proper role of the state and civil society in our country … Our true mission is to change the climate of opinion.”

Astonishingly, the IEA is registered as an educational charity, with the official purpose of helping “the general public/mankind”. As a result it is exempted from the kind of taxes about which it complains so bitterly.

- William Barber offers a needed reminder that the war on poverty in the U.S. is far from over - and indeed needs far more people committed to the fight. And CBC News reports on Angus Reid's findings about the state of poverty and precarity in Canada.

- Meanwhile, Arjumand Siddiqi and Odmaa Sod-Erdene point out that the minimal and conditional social assistance available in Canada and other peer countries doesn't appear to correlate with any improvement in personal health.

- Eleanor Ainge Roy examines research into a four-day work week offered by one New Zealand employer, and finds it to have been a complete success in improving both work and personal outcomes.

- Finally, David Moscrop makes the case for mass pardons as a necessary corollary to the legalization of marijuana and the disproportionate punishment of minoritie for the past use of a soon-to-be-legalized substance.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Michelle Chen takes note of the influx of young energy into the U.S.' labour movement:

(I)n contrast to the myth of millennials’ being economically and politically adrift, they’re stepping in readily to fill the union ranks that have hemorrhaged middle-aged workers over the years—2017 actually saw an increase in the overall number of unionized workers over the previous year. A movement that we’re used to thinking of as getting older and smaller is actually growing stronger and younger—and they may well be leading the next progressive voting bloc in tandem with the labor movement.
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millennials may experience unique push-and-pull factors that drive them into unions. As EPI details in a separate analysis, unionization counters the characteristics that make jobs lousy today: gender and racial discrimination, wage gaps and lack of advancement opportunities.

Union jobs provide a net wage premium for women, especially in service-sector jobs that often lack stability and livable wages. Collective bargaining and union representation are associated with significantly higher wages for black and Latino workers. Nationwide, unionized workers are more than 50 percent more likely to have an employer-sponsored pension, and the vast majority have health insurance through their employer—a virtual financial unicorn for millennials who are often tracked into freelance and gig work with few benefits. Workers under age 25 who are unionized earn roughly a fifth more than their non-union counterparts.

Because unions give workers a voice in their workplace, unions offer young people a progressive support network at work, including legal support if they suffer harassment and want to bring a grievance against an abusive supervisor, and a community of solidarity for organizing colleagues against biased or inequitable treatment. 
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(W)hether they just cast a union vote or just landed their first gig, millennials have a keen sense of what they’re up against in the new economy, understand the challenges and opportunities of taking action at work, and, see unions are a springboard into the jobs, and justice, that they need and deserve.

- Meanwhile, as a reminder of the long-term benefits of collective action by workers, Guy Chazan reports on one German union's success in winning both a 28-hour work week and a substantial pay increase.

- In contrast, Ellen Smirl studies Winnipeg's privatization of waste collection and finds that it's served mostly to reduce pay and job security for the workers delivering public services.

- Karolina Walczak and Fallon Hewitt write about the particular dangers faced by homeless women. And Blooms reports on the freezing death of one Portland woman in the immediate wake of her eviction from a home for seniors and people with disabilities.

- Finally, D.C. Fraser reports that after first dragging its heels establishing any policy to deal with the legalization of marijuana, the Saskatchewan Party still hasn't bothered to consider its budget impacts.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kenneth Rogoff writes about the dangers of presuming that economic growth (at least in stock markets if not wages) can withstand political upheaval. Marco Chown Oved reports on the strong support for Democracy Watch's petition to raise corporate taxes and close loopholes. Rajeshni Naidu-Ghelani reports on the latest consumer survey showing a large number of Canadians barely managing to keep afloat financially even in the face of what's supposed to be good economic news. And Stella Lord offers a how-to guide to fight poverty through improved wages and benefits.

- Meanwhile, Erika Shaker and Trish Hennessy list a few of the reasons why we shouldn't let anti-worker voices dictate the terms of our minimum wage debate. And Jeremy Nuttall confirms that the arguments to suppress wages lack any basis in reality. 

- Vann Newkirk argues that the arguments being used by Republicans to strip health care and other necessities from people who can't find work would be far better applied toward a jobs guarantee. 

- Marc Lee discusses the small steps being taken by the federal and B.C. governments on housing - as well as the compelling need to do much more.

- Finally, Andre Picard makes the case for clearing criminal records based on the possession of marijuana.

Leadership 2018 Links

The latest from Saskatchewan's NDP leadership campaign as the entry deadline has passed and the membership deadline approaches.

- While I haven't tracked endorsements all that closely, it's certainly worth keeping track of any changes since previous leadership campaigns between two candidates who have run before. And on that front, it's worth noting that 2009 and 2013 Meili endorser Dion Tchorzewski has joined 2013 campaign manager Nicole White in supporting Wotherspoon. 

- Meanwhile, Trevor Herriot offers his take on the importance of leadership which can build bridges rather than merely keeping us where we are - which Herriot himself notes is an expression of support for Meili.

- Tanner Wallace-Scribner reports on Meili's visit to Swift Current, including his take on the use of the proceeds of marijuana sales:

"I think there is some debate to be had about the best way to retail it," he said. "One thing I would say is, the money that comes in, we should make sure that every cent goes to support mental health and addictions. To support anyone who is struggling with any addictions but also to invest in that really under-resourced part of our health system."

Meili added they need to focus the money they make off of the sale of marijuana and put it towards making peoples' lives better.

- Brian Zinchuk interviews Wotherspoon about his plans for the energy sector, including the need for regular royalty reviews to ensure the public receives fair value for our resources.And Nykole King previews tonight's debate at the University of Saskatchewan.

- Finally, Meili has unveiled his arts and culture policy ahead of a series of music events.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Axel von Schubert notes that the effect of Donald Trump's giveaway to his billionaire buddies will be to turn the U.S. into a tax haven itself. And Michelle Chen discusses how the growth in inequality has been the result of political choices at the behest of the people who already had the most:

Wherever you live in the world, here’s a newsflash: You’ve been robbed. Not by a hidden bandit, but a global kleptocracy: the super-rich who’ve managed to rob the poor blind in every corner of the globe for the past seven decades. And a research team led by pioneering economist Thomas Piketty, the World Inequality Lab, has mapped out how that theft has played out on a global scale.

Not surprisingly, America was near the top of the list in terms of how unequal our country is, in addition to being far richer as a whole than any other nation. Still, while inequality is universal—polarizing countries and dividing individual nations internally—some countries are, surprisingly, more unequal than others.
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The wealth gap is epidemic but not inevitable. Policy choices still make a difference. In the United States, deeply ingrained antipathy for the welfare state and regulation has pushed a harsh neoliberal agenda since the late 1970s—a pattern that is now being reproduced across the Global South as poor countries attempt to capitalize on global trade but in the process are becoming more exposed to extreme market volatility and devastating poverty and social strife.
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We can mitigate the worst effects of capitalist overproduction through mobilizing what’s left of our democratic institutions at the local and state levels, where social spending and education investment are often concentrated. Mobilizing grassroots campaigns to boost the minimum wage, expand union representation, institute universal health care, or guarantee retirement security obviously can’t overturn the global trend in wealth accumulation, but will at least move struggling communities toward a fairer social contract.
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To ensure that future generations are better prepared to stop and reverse wealth polarization, developing a socially conscious, educated citizenry is key. On the other hand, given the number of college graduates working low-wage jobs and facing debt, Chancel emphasized, “education can’t do everything against inequality. This is where minimum wage policies, support to trade unions, work regulation policies, [and] laws to ensure that workers are represented in corporate governance institutions can play an important role” in balancing out structural inequality. 

- Meanwhile, Tracy Sherlock points out the increase in inequality in British Columbia over the past decade, with poor workers being paid less while the wealthy see their income soar.

- Ben Casselman writes that a turn toward full employment is offering a real opportunity for people who previously faced barriers to work.

- Finally, Mariana Mazzucato discusses the importance of creating wealth in multiple forms, particularly public ones. And Murray Mandryk comments on the Saskatchewan Party's reflexive refusal to allow the public to share in any new economic development, as epitomized by its choice to release a half-baked plan for corporate distribution rather than using existing retail infrastructure for marijuana sales.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Brent Patterson rightly worries about the prospect that Justin Trudeau will choose to emulate Donald Trump's anti-social agenda (just as he's too often done with Stephen Harper's):

At the time of last year's federal budget, Finance Minister Bill Morneau commented he would exercise prudence "to ensure that we have the capacity to deal with the environment that we find ourselves in". That was widely interpreted in the media as the federal government recognizing that Trump's corporate tax cuts were on the way and that those cuts would have implications for Canada.

There will also very likely be corporate pressure to cut regulatory protections for Canadians. Wudrick says, "It's not as if Canada can count on other advantages to mitigate being competitive on taxes; regulatory uncertainty, for example, helped kill large projects such as Energy East."

John Manley, the former Liberal cabinet minister who now heads the Business Council of Canada, says, "Initiatives such as tax reform, changes to environmental policy and deregulation [in the United States] could have serious consequences for Canada's economy." His prescription? Cut corporate tax rates to stay competitive, streamline the regulatory approval process, negotiate free trade agreements with Japan, India and China, and adopt less restrictive climate policies.

We'll see what the Liberals do regarding corporate tax rates in the upcoming federal budget (expected in March), but it has already signalled its intention to streamline the regulatory approval process, is pursuing 'free trade' agreements (including the Trans-Pacific Partnership that could be signed by March of this year), while its so-called "restrictive climate policies" have allowed for the approval of the 890,000 barrel per day Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and the 760,000 barrel per day Enbridge Line 3 pipeline - that together would generate 39-52 megatonnes of upstream carbon pollution a year.

- Owen Jones discusses the knighting of Nick Clegg as a prime example of how utter failure is no obstacle to lionization within an elite political class.

- Andre Picard writes that Canada can learn from California's experience in managing the legalization of marijuana. But of course that would involve some level of governmental interest and competence - both of which are sorely lacking within Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party administration.

- Meanwhile, Jeremy Barreto comments on Rachel Notley's success in developing affordable renewable power for Alberta.

- Finally, David Moscrop makes the case for an offer of guaranteed seats in the House of Commons for Indigenous representatives.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Stephanie Levitz reports on new polling showing an increasing number of Canadians self-identifying as part of the working class or poor, while also seeing little room for optimism about their futures. And Jared Bernstein offers his analysis as to why wages are remaining stagnant south of the border.

- Randy Shore writes about the growing gap between the cost of living and the wages employers are willing to pay - though it's hard to have much sympathy for businesses on the latter point. And Amelia Gentleman notes that more than half of London's poor are in working families - signalling that a job is no assurance of a reasonable standard of living.

- Thomas Piketty offers a warning about the end of France's wealth tax - which is equally applicable to jurisdictions which lack it to begin with:

 Confronted with the rise in inequality, awareness is gaining momentum. Those who advocate withdrawal into some form of cultural identity are, of course, attempting to exploit the feeling of abandonment experienced by the working classes, at times successfully. But concomitantly we see the rise of a new demand for democracy, equality and redistribution. The United Kingdom might swing distinctly to the left in the years to come – and perhaps also the United States if the democrat candidates who are preparing to stand are anything to judge by.

In this type of context, the abolition of the wealth tax today in France, almost 40 years after the arrival in power of Reagan and Thatcher, has totally missed the plot. There is absolutely no sense in making tax gifts to groups who are old and wealthy and have already done very well in recent decades. All the more so as the loss in revenue is anything but symbolic. If we add the gifts made to dividends and interests ( which will in future be taxed at a maximum rate of 30%, as opposed to 55% for salaries and incomes from non-waged activities), we come to a total cost of over 5 billion Euros. This is the equivalent of 40% of the total budget allocated to the universities and higher education which will remain static at 13.4 billion Euros in 2018, whereas the numbers of students rise steadily and preference should be given to investment in training. I would like to bet that the students will remind the government of this when it endeavours to add selection to austerity in the coming months.
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The political strategy which consists in transforming the wealth tax into a property tax (impôt sur la fortune immobilière), to avoid a complete suppression of the wealth tax, quite frankly leaves me speechless. There is no logical reason to levy a higher tax on a person who invests their fortune in a house or a property rather than in a financial portfolio, a yacht or any other type of good. We can only hope that elected members remember that they were not elected to be part of this kind of farce.

- James Wood reports on the Alberta Federation of Labour's push to ensure that legalized marijuana results in decent work through publicly-owned cannabis stores. 

- Jino Distasio points out how funding for Housing First initiatives can go much further than other attempts to address homelessness.

- Finally, Monia Mazigh points out that the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is conspicuously missing the most recent violations which show how much work there is yet to be done.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Martin Patriquin takes Saskatchewan's increasing recognition of the Wall government's institutional corruption to the national stage:

Politicians who navigate a corrupted political system have some of the easiest jobs in the world. With the weight and legitimacy of the state behind them, they need not sell anything more than access to themselves. And it is a seller’s market.
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To be fair to Quebec’s political parties, it took over 30 years to perfect the scheme. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and the party he leads have figured it out in about 10 years — and they didn’t have to break a single law to do it.

Political parties are generally discreet about fundraising on the backs of their leaders. The Saskatchewan Party, which has ruled over the Land Of Living Skies since 2007, does so with the cheeseball gusto normally reserved for televangelists and used car salesmen.
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In Quebec, companies and corporations had to break the law to donate to political parties. In Saskatchewan, it is entirely out in the open, and there is no limit to the amount an individual or a corporation can give. Hell, even companies based outside of the province can donate — and they have, including Calgary-based Trans Canada Pipelines and Vancouver-based Telus Inc., among dozens of others.

Wall himself is so nonplussed at the rather disastrous optics of all of this that he could barely muster a shrug when it was revealed that he owned shares in an oil company his government was lobbying to come to the province.
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In politics, you eventually become what you profess to hate. The Saskatchewan Party was born out of a sense of austere populism in 1997 — the hardscrabble laypeople rising up against the entrenched establishment. After barely a decade in power, it has become quite the opposite: a political entity that proudly sells access to its leader, just as it does to the naming rights on its golf carts.

- Jordon Cooper recognizes that the most alarming part of Eric Olauson's plan to document and attack constituents who dare to question government actions is the fact that it seems to be standard practice for the Saskatchewan Party.  And the Treaty 6 Justice Collective reminds us of the importance of fighting back against austerity and antisocial policy. 

- Jim Sinclair rightly pushes back against the desire of Brian Day and other corporate health care promoters to scrap equal access to care in favour of pay-for-play health. And CTV reports on Mohammed Hajizadeh's research documenting the unfairness which already exists in favour of the wealthy in seeking out care, while Jane Gerster points out how "prominent" Manitobans are able to jump the queue.

- Meanwhile, Peter Goffin discusses Health Quality Ontario's study showing the lack of adequate care in northern Ontario. And the CP reports on the Canadian Human Rights Commissions' latest annual report - which deals particularly with how children are being left behind on many crucial rights issues.

- Finally, Neil MacDonald comments on the absurdity of the Trudeau Libs continuing to jail people for marijuana-related offences while (supposedly) charting a path toward legalizing its use. And Rob Gillezeau examines how the Libs' planned changes to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's mandate will insulate dubious policy choices from important checks and balances.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The Star's editorial board writes that it's long past time for governments to stand up for people facing precarious work:

(P)recarious workers, many of them millennials, have been largely left behind by legislators who say the shift is inevitable and there’s nothing much that can or ought to be done about it.

But the consequences of this complacency are cruel. Two new studies paint bleak portraits of the economic circumstances of young workers and others struggling to get by in the new economy. Together, they suggest that while governments may not want or be able to stop the evolution now underway, they must move quickly to address widening gaps in worker protections, lest the better part of a generation fall through the cracks.
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Ontario’s current experiment with a basic annual income is a welcome acknowledgement of this need, whether or not it’s the right policy. Ottawa, meanwhile, deserves credit for its investments in affordable housing, though it should reconsider its apparent aversion to universal daycare, pharmacare and dental-services programs, all of which have the power to protect workers from the worst threats of precarity.

The choice between workers and progress is a false one. Of course, governments can’t and shouldn’t want to stop innovation. But neither are they powerless to shape it or to protect workers from its worst consequences.

- Meanwhile, Michael Corkery reports on the disappearance of tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S.' retail sector as another area where workers are losing out. And Bill Curry reports on the Senate combination of Cons, Libs and independents who have teamed up to block workers in federal jurisdiction from organizing.

- Helen Ries and Jihan Abbas discuss the poverty traps designed to ensure Ontarians with disabilities can never achieve any personal financial security. And Emily Mathieu writes about a new study on the risk of homelessness among seniors.

- Stefani Langenegger reports on the Saskatchewan Party's unilateral decision to slash funding to community-based organizations with no regard for either health impacts or longer-term costs. And the CP reports on Ryan Meili's call to instead close our existing health gaps by providing proper funding both for health programs and community supports.

- Finally, David Reevely comments on the Trudeau Libs' insistence on keeping in place (or even expanding) every irrational element of the war on drugs while pretending to work on legalizing marijuana.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Cole Stangler interviews Raquel Garrido about the political critique behind Jean-Luc Melenchon's emerging presidential campaign - and it sounds equally applicable in Canada:

One of the reasons why the current regime is lacking consent in French society is because the process for electing officials allows them to behave inconsistently with their campaign promises. The main cultural characteristic of the current political class is impunity. They do whatever they want because they are absolutely unaccountable.

That culture of impunity starts with the president himself. We’re the only self-identified democratic country where you have one man who has such concentrated power — elections of hundreds and hundreds of people in different institutions and he actually decides what the parliament will be talking about, the parliamentary agenda. The president behaves in such an unaccountable fashion that it actually spreads like a cascade across the entire political class.

Most elected officials in France today lack legitimacy, are elected with very low turnouts. There’s a deep sense of disgust among citizens with this political class. That creates chaos and instability.
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There are other big themes of the campaign — wealth redistribution and social justice — which are classic proposals in a situation of great inequality. Then you have climate change and protecting the only ecosystem which allows life for human beings. But before we address those issues, we need to gain the power to actually have an impact. 

- And in a prime example of Canada's culture of impunity, Chantal Hebert writes about the Trudeau Libs' cynical political choices around marijuana legalization - and how those fit with Trudeau's repudiated promise of electoral reform.

- Jon Stone reports on UK Labour's plans to ensure that public money doesn't subsidize bad corporate behaviour (including a refusal to recognize collective bargaining). And Larry Bartels studies (PDF) the gap between the policies which would result from an accurate representation of U.S. citizens' preferences, and those which are in fact seen due to the influence of wealth in politics.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh writes about the Ontario miners who were used as guinea pigs for untested - and ultimately harmful - powders intended to serve as substitutes for reasonable health and safety precautions.

- Finally, Henry Farrell examines the circumstances in which economists have - and haven't - been able to move the needle on public policy. And George Monbiot discusses Kate Raworth's doughnut model as a means of conceptualizing the desirability and sustainability of our economic choices.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Elise Gould studies the continued rise of wage inequality in the U.S. And Teuila Fuatai points out how a strong movement to improve minimum wages and study basic incomes in Canada still has a long way to go to secure a living income anywhere.

- Michael Geist's series on the problems with the TPP turns to the likelihood that Canada as a whole will lose jobs from the deal. And Glyn Moody points out that investor-state provisions end up giving corporations multiple opportunities to attack government actions.

- Robyn Urback writes that it's inhumane to ticket homeless people for having the nerve to exist - though of course, providing only a bus ticket instead is hardly an improvement. And Veronica Harnish observes that poverty alone can trap individuals in homelessness.

- Meanwhile, Paula Simons highlights the need for the Alberta NDP's crackdown on payday lenders. And CBC offers some needed background on the for-profit plasma industry introduced by the Saskatchewan Party.

- Finally, Tom Parkin rightly calls for marijuana possession to be decriminalized immediately - even as the Lib party which made legalization a signature issue now drags its heels on any action at all. And Dana Larsen highlights the tens of thousands of people continuing to be arrested for activity which Canada's government has promised to make legal.