Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Hanwen Zhang highlights yet another rise in COVID cases - albeit paired with obviously-unwarranted minimizing of the risks involved. 

- Jessica Wildfire pushes back against the establishment demand that people somehow evolve to become cacti in order to survive a climate breakdown, which Michael Mall similarly challenges the claim that adaptation is a substitute for averting catastrophe. And Nicholas Frew reports that the damage caused by carbon pollution-driven extreme weather events are turning SGI into a burden rather than a boon. 

- Meanwhile, in case anybody was under the illusion that climate calamity was the only readily-avoidable consequence of allowing fossil fuel operators to run rampant, Daisy Brickhill warns that new drilling licenses in the North Sea are threatening sensitive wildlife habitats. And Sharon Lerner reports on the Trump EPA's choice to green-light a Chevron boat fuel ingredient which is virtually certain to cause cancer in anybody exposed to it over a lifetime. 

- Emily Leedham reports on the Globe and Mail's belated and begrudging changes to its much-trumpeted "Canada's Top 100 Employers" advertorial based on their repeatedly providing free publicity to corporations responsible for workers' deaths. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow discusses how AI is being used by for-profit health care providers to deny needed treatment. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Tim Requarth writes about the U.S.' appalling number of COVID orphans who have lost caregivers due to failures in public health policy - and the fact that they're now being left without alternative social supports as well. And the Decent Work & Health Network points out Ontario's worsening lack of protections for workers generally, while Alex Cosh asks why British Columbia has ended measures which are vital to alleviating spread and illness among migrant workers. 

- The Canadian Press reports that British Columbia is moving toward restoring card-check certification which will make it easier for workers to take collective action. But Catherine McInyre exposes how Amazon has skirted labour and employment laws to avoid collective bargaining with the workers who allow it to function. 

- Conor Curtis and Tzeporah Berman rightly ask why the Trudeau Libs would even consider allowing massive new offshore drilling while pretending to care about averting a climate breakdown, while Elaine Anselmi takes a closer look at how the Bay du Nord project came to be approved yesterday. Kate Aronoff similarly points out the folly of the U.S. Democrats' focus on pushing oil companies to drill more. Don Pittis is rightly appalled at the spate of fuel tax breaks which are serving as a carbon pollution subsidy and handout to a fossil fuel sector already swimming in windfall profits. And Emily Chung reports that researchers learning the effects of natural gas stoves in the home are shifting away from them as quickly as possible. 

- Meanwhile, Damian Carrington reports that microplastic pollution is beginning to be found even in people's lungs. 

- Finally, Sharon Blady discusses how investments in preventative medicine - including pharmacare and dental care - produces fiscal benefits as well as improved health. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ed Yong writes about the damage to people's health as care workers flee their jobs in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Kenyon Wallace and May Warren discuss how more infectious variants have made masks more important than ever as a form of personal protection. And Alanna Carlson Sinclair writes about her experience with long COVID to encourage people to get vaccinated. 

- Meanwhile, as many countries continue to lack access to vaccines, Jake Johnson highlights how the money lost to tax abuses by the rich could pay to vaccinate the world three times over. 

- Paul Taylor discusses the connection between the climate crisis and food insecurity - even before British Columbia's catastrophic flooding and mudslides cut off any connection between Western Canada and most global trade. Leyland Cecco points out the role corporate-driven forestry practices have played in causing fires and floods. Nina Lakhani reports on the concerns raised by Indigenous activists that carbon trading schemes may only incentivize damaging megaprojects rather than emission reductions and the preservation of our natural environment. 

- John Lin et al. study the massive methane leakage in Utah which results in reported emission levels severely underestimating the damage done by oil and gas extraction. And Oliver Milman reports on the Biden administration's choice to advance massive new offshore drilling leases in the wake of Glasgow. 

- Meanwhile, Robert Kuttner notes that the U.S. is working on making climate progress compatible with industrial goals through a transition to green steel. 

- Joan Baxter reports on the abuses inflicted on citizens by Canadian mining companies in Guatemala - and the stain on the country as a whole as we enable them. 

- Finally, Nicole Lyn Pesce reports on yet another record set of bonuses set to be siphoned off by the financial sector. And Len McCluskey discusses the need for workers to be strong and organized to counter the constant drive by employers to exploit labour. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Robyn Urback writes that the second wave of COVID-19 can be traced largely to people - including far too many political leaders - who have been able to treat a pandemic as somebody else's problem due to their own privilege. Aaron Wherry points out the cost to social solidarity when politicians make it clear they don't think they're included in admonitions that we're all part of the effort to control a deadly disease, while Shree Paradkar highlights how they should be named and shamed. And in a prime example of corporations valuing business revenue over public health, Ashley Burke reports on the lobbying by airlines to delay any testing requirements for people flying back to Canada.

- Guy Quenneville reports on the reality that unnecessary delay in setting rules and half-hearted messaging from the Moe government have resulted in Saskatchewan at best plateauing in trying to limit the spread of COVID-19. John Ivison warns that an even worse third wave may not be far away if provincial governments continue to ignore what's worked based on the implausible hope that they can get away with continuing what hasn't. Bruce Arthur calls out Doug Ford's pitiful incrementalism in the face of a crisis which demands an all-out response. And Adam Miller points out how and why Canada is behind many international counterparts in distributing the first round of vaccines, while Andre Picard rightly questions the lack of urgency.

- Meanwhile, Zak Vescera reports on the damage the pandemic has done (and will continue to do) to people's mental health in Saskatchewan. And Lee Berthiaume reports on the danger that a prolonged pandemic will fuel violent right-wing extremism.

- Hannah Seo writes about the ongoing environmental damage caused by abandoned offshore oil and gas wells. And Matt McGrath examines Christian Aid's research into the loss of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars extreme weather events in 2020 (as just one of the prices of failing to combat a climate breakdown).

- Finally, Bob Berwyn takes a look at some new developments in climate science over the past year - including some reason for hope that a rapid transition may be able to stop climate feedback effects faster than previously assumed.

Saturday Morning Links

 Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Charlie Smith talks to Robert Hare about the increasing concentration of corporate control - and deterioration of the public's capacity to provide a needed counterweight - in the decades since The Corporation was released.

- PressProgress exposes the hundreds of thousands of dollars of Saskatchewan Party donations connected to the Rawlco radio network's owners. And the Saskatchewan NDP highlights how Scott Moe insists on preserving an archaic campaign finance system where he's motivated to serve out-of-province numbered companies rather than the people of the province. 

- Marco D'Angelo warns that transit services are in danger of falling into a death spiral just as they're proving especially vital in ensuring fair access to transportation while minimizing carbon pollution.

- Meanwhile, Ian Hanomansing interviews David Suzuki about the Libs' appalling willingness to hype nuclear power, while CBC News reports on their choice to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at offshore drilling - even as they again dither when it comes to meaningful action to avert a climate breakdown.

- Finally, Saskatchewan's Chief Electoral Officer Michael Boda puts a call out for people to work at the polls to ensure everybody has access to the polls.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mia Rabson reports on a new Climate Action Network report card showing that Canada's plans for greenhouse gas emissions are as bad as any in the G8, projecting to lead to the same 4 degree temperature increase which would result from from Donald Trump's outright denialism. And Marc Jaccard concludes that the Cons' excuse for a climate plan will actually result in increases in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions over the next crucial decade.

- Meanwhile, Eliane Brum highlights how humanity as a whole is facing severe risks from Brazil's deliberate destruction of the Amazon rain forest in the name of short-term profits.

- Alicia Bridges reports on new research showing how even conventional oil production in Saskatchewan may be resulting in serious risks to drinking water. And Stephanie Tobin examines the false promise of offshore oil spill cleanup - where even ideal conditions result in 90% of what's dumped into water being left there to contaminate marine areas.

- Olivia Tobin reports on Jeremy Corbyn's warnings about the generation of young people being left behind by the UK's Conservative government, while Jagmeet Singh comments on the similar problem with the increasing precarity facing young Canadians. And Heather Scoffield writes about the experience of poverty among people being told they should be grateful for stagnant gaps between the wealthy and the rest of us.

- Finally, Jill Filipovic discusses new research showing how "pro-life" positions are primarily about asserting male dominance over women.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Cory Booker rightly questions why corporations are hoarding the wealth created by the work of their employees. And Richard Reeves wonders why so many workers are left unable to find jobs with even remotely decent wages, particularly without signing over their lives in the process:

(I)he Great Recession also shone a light on trends long predating the downturn, not least in terms of stagnant wage growth for so many workers. By comparison with the postwar years, economic growth has been slow for the last few decades. At the same time, the transmission mechanism linking economic growth to the wages of workers appears to have broken. The share of income going to workers has dropped sharply, from 65% in 1974 to 57% in 2017.

In the last few years, as the zombie gradually wakes up, household incomes and wages have begun to nudge upwards – but families are still having to work more hours to get the income they need. Women are working more, and earning more (though the pay gap remains). But as men work less, and earn less, many families are simply standing still in economic terms. Since 1979, the median male wage in the US has dropped by 1.4% for white men – and by 9% and 8% for black and Hispanic men, respectively. Workers at the top of the earnings and education distribution have seen their paychecks continue to fatten: not so on the middle and bottom rungs of the labor market. Wage growth remains torpid in the middle of the distribution.

At the same time, the volatility of incomes at the bottom of the distribution has grown, in part because of shifts towards the so-called “gig economy”, intrinsically episodic, and in part because of the rise of unpredictable schedules. Most American workers are still paid by the hour, and half of them have no formal control over their schedules. Two in five hourly-paid workers aged between 26 and 32 know their schedules less than a week in advance. Hard to arrange childcare on that notice. Many American workers are fighting, like the trade unions of old, on two fronts: for money, and for time.

Why? Why, for so many for middle-class and working-class Americans has “economic growth become a spectator sport”, as the liberal economist Jared Bernstein memorably put it.
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Whatever material gains workers managed to achieve came at the price of a profound loss of sovereignty. In her book Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It), philosopher Elizabeth Anderson argues that CEOs are the new totalitarians, who “think of themselves as libertarian individualists”, while acting in practice as “dictators of little communist governments”. We imagine ourselves free but effectively barter our freedom away in exchange for pay, effectively handing over our passports as we punch in.

What most people want is a job that pays a decent wage and offers both some satisfaction and security. The harsher critics of the system, like Anderson, believe that these goals are incompatible at a deep level with capitalist dynamics. But at least for some, especially for white men, market capitalism delivered pretty well for at least a generation. This is why it was so important to fight to crowbar the doors open for women and people of color. The progressive goal was not to curtail the market, but to open it.

- Liv Grant writes that her work on David Attenborough's climate change documentary has left her with an inescapable sense of climate anxiety. And Bob McDonald points out the increasing costs and risks of climate breakdown as feedback loops reinforce each other.

- Irina Ivanova discusses the new reality that wind and solar power are the U.S.' most affordable energy sources - at least when the fossil fuel lobby isn't actively obstructing their use. And CBC News reports on the Libs' latest plan to match any environmental protection with an equal and opposite step toward destruction, as they've opened up oil and gas drilling in a marine refuge off the east coast of Newfoundland while banning it in protected areas on the west coast.

- Finally, David Mowat responds to the short-sightedness of the Ford PCs by writing about the importance of investing in public health in order to prevent costly and avoidable harms. And Kate Haynes highlights the significance of the social determinants of health which are being ignored by Ford.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Matt McGrath reports on David Attenborough's warning of an impending climate catastrophe. And Moira Fagan and Christine Huang examine the widespread recognition around the world of the importance of averting a climate breakdown.

- Jonathan Watts reports on polling showing half of UK respondents are willing to pay more in order to avoid polluting our oceans with plastic. But Oliver Milman points out Donald Trump's attempt to push poorly-regulated offshore drilling - indicating that the powers that be are far behind the public in recognizing the importance of our natural environment.

- John Stapleton and Yvonne Yuan note that Canada's official poverty line doesn't take into account the higher effective food prices facing lower-income people.

- Joseph Stiglitz offers his diagnosis as to how our economy came to be grossly unbalanced in favour of the wealthy - and his suggestions as to how progressive capitalism might be possible:

Beginning with the Reagan era, economic policy played a key role in this dystopia: Just as forces of globalization and technological change were contributing to growing inequality, we adopted policies that worsened societal inequities. Even as economic theories like information economics (dealing with the ever-present situation where information is imperfect), behavioral economics and game theory arose to explain why markets on their own are often not efficient, fair, stable or seemingly rational, we relied more on markets and scaled back social protections.

The result is an economy with more exploitation — whether it’s abusive practices in the financial sector or the technology sector using our own data to take advantage of us at the cost of our privacy. The weakening of antitrust enforcement, and the failure of regulation to keep up with changes in our economy and the innovations in creating and leveraging market power, meant that markets became more concentrated and less competitive.
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We are now in a vicious cycle: Greater economic inequality is leading, in our money-driven political system, to more political inequality, with weaker rules and deregulation causing still more economic inequality.
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The prescription follows from the diagnosis: It begins by recognizing the vital role that the state plays in making markets serve society. We need regulations that ensure strong competition without abusive exploitation, realigning the relationship between corporations and the workers they employ and the customers they are supposed to serve. We must be as resolute in combating market power as the corporate sector is in increasing it.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk rightly questions Scott Moe's willingness to serve as Jason Kenney's lapdog rather than paying attention to the needs of Saskatchewan's residents.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Wade Davis comments on the ecological amnesia which has resulted in repeated cycles of extinctions:

In three generations, a mere moment in the history of our species, we have throughout the world contaminated the water, air and soil, driven countless species to extinction, dammed the rivers, poisoned the rain and torn down the ancient forests. As Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson reminds us, this era will not be remembered for its wars or technological advances but as the time when men and women stood by and either passively endorsed or actively supported the massive destruction of biological diversity on the planet.

Given the dire consequences, how might we explain this peculiar and ultimately self-destructive capacity to shed memory and shift our expectations as we adapt to an increasingly impoverished world? Were this to be a fundamental adaptive trait of our species, we would surely find evidence scattered throughout the ethnographic record. But most assuredly we do not.
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...Just as 18th-century slavers concocted racial fantasies to mask the evil of their trade, perhaps we have learned to shed memory to avoid confronting the actual consequences of our egregious violations of the natural world. Our shifting expectations and dimming memory are less an adaptive trait than a reflexive impulse. If we are responsible for the numbing of our own senses, we can surely awaken to new possibilities as stewards of life, inspired by Indigenous peoples who have walked this path before us, guided by a conscience informed by memory.

- Jared Keller writes that the destruction from Hurricane Michael offers one reminder as to the security risks associated with climate breakdown. And Art Cullen discusses the threat a hotter, drier planet poses to agriculture in the U.S. and elsewhere - even as the problem is ignored by the Trump administration.

- Meanwhile, Simon Flowers sets out a readily-achievable scenario in which a determined transition to clean energy would exceed the Paris emissions reduction targets. And Lorraine Chow writes about New Zealand's decision to end new offshore oil and gas exploration out of its recognition that fossil fuel expansion and environmental responsibility are utterly incompatible.

- Finally, the Economist reports that rising inequality isn't limited to wages and income, as benefits are also diverging between the U.S.' higher- and lower-income workers. Bethany Hastie replies to a review of British Columbia's Labour Code by pointing out the need for far more protection for people facing precarious work. And Simran Dhunna discusses how the Libs are leaving immigrant caregivers at the mercy of employers with little hope of achieving permanent residency in Canada.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Joel French discusses the need for Alberta to implement a more thorough and progressive tax system in order to ensure it has the revenue to support its residents. 

- Meagan Day highlights how Bernie Sanders' new labour bill would empower workers and enhance workplace democracy:

The bipartisan neoliberal attack on unions, which began in earnest in the 1970s, has been enormously effective in undermining the power of the United States labor movement. As a result, the percentage of US workers who currently belong to a union is about 10 percent, down from its peak of nearly 28 percent in 1970.

Again this problem is fundamentally political, stemming from the balance of power in our society and not from a natural or inevitable economic process. The solution, too, has to be political — and it’s in that spirit that Bernie Sanders has introduced a new bill called the Workplace Democracy Act, which aims to clear obstacles to the labor movement’s growth, and ultimately increase collective worker control over the economy. The chances of such a bill passing in a GOP-controlled legislature (or even in a Democrat-controlled legislature; a weaker bill was opposed by moderate Democrats during the Obama administration) are basically nil, but Sanders’s bill is a strong political move anyway. It signals an uncompromising commitment to unions and invites other politicians to support an ambitious vision of a revitalized movement for worker power — or oppose that vision at their own risk.

The Workplace Democracy Act makes three crucial interventions. First, it would overturn a provision in the 1947 Taft-Hartley law that replaced card check — a system where employers have to recognize a union if more than 50 percent of employees in a particular bargaining unit say they want one — with an elaborate secret-ballot election process overseen by the National Labor Relations Board...A national card check system would allow workers to unionize by simple majority, avoiding the messy electioneering process that’s tilted in favor of employers, who inevitably have more resources.

Second, Sanders’s bill would repeal so-called “right to work.” Also a legacy of the Taft-Hartley Act, right to work prevents unions from negotiating contracts with employers that require all employees to join or pay a bargaining fee to the union...

Third, according to some reports, Sanders will seek to increase financial penalties on employers who fire workers for union organizing, a practice that is illegal but ubiquitous, due in part to the lack of consequences. The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that “one-in-five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign.” The share of union drives that saw illegal firings of workplace activists rose steadily from the the mid-seventies to the mid-2000s. The paper’s authors note that employers “are unlikely to fire workers randomly, or simply for expressing pro-union views. Employers maximize the return to illegal firing by focusing on union activists.” The result is a climate of fear and a chilling effect on union activism, especially organic leadership among the rank-and-file, who are the least likely to take risks regarding their job security. Corporations are not currently forced to pay penalties when they’re caught retaliating against labor activists — all they need to do is make up lost income, which is not sufficient to distance them from the practice.

- Paul Barrett writes that contrary to the trumped-up complaints of the bigoted right, the only real threat to free speech on campus is the precarious work environment which prevents far too many part-time instructions from speaking up. And PressProgress notes that right-wing astroturf operations are still flouting Canada's income tax laws by pretending not to be involved in political activity.

- Finally, Robert Bea notes that Canada's environmental assessment process has approved BP to conduct offshore drilling based on the same assertions which were rejected by Australia. And Rob Antle reports on Husky's attempt to suppress information about a near-miss incident off of the coast of Newfoundland.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Vincent Bevins interviews Branko Milanovic about the economic roots of the working-class revolt against neoliberalism, while pointing out that there's nothing inevitable about globalization harming large numbers of people in the developed world:

Let’s start with the obvious question. Does the elephant graph explain Brexit and Trump? 

Yes, I think that it largely does explain Brexit and Trump. Why? Because it shows in very stark terms that people in the lower parts of rich countries’ income distributions have seen fewer benefits of globalization compared both to the people in Asia against whom they often compete in global supply chains and compared to the people in their own countries’ tops of the distributions. You just cannot undo these two facts.
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Rich world governments, in say the US and Western Europe, failed to “mop up” globalization’s mess. What could they have done differently?

Perhaps it is easy to say it with hindsight, but they could have argued for trade pacts that would pay more attention to workers’ standards rather than to the protection of intellectual property rights and patents.

Rich countries, and especially the US, could have paid more attention to the quality of education and tried to not only equalize access to the best schools but make public schools’ quality similar to the quality of private schools. You may say that it is a generally desirable policy that has little to do with globalization: I agree, but I also think that it would have reduced the number of “losers” because it would have enabled larger swaths of the population to successfully compete globally.

- George Monbiot discusses how celebrity culture has facilitated the corporate takeover of our social sphere. Katrina vanden Heuvel notes that Donald Trump's false populism has given way to pure plutocracy in the naming of nothing but corporate elites to his cabinet. And Polly Toynbee reflects on a miserable 2016 for far too many people, while highlighting the need to fight against the trends toward corporatism and austerity in the year to come.

- Malcolm Buchanan writes that the CETA is yet another bad trade deal being sold as an inevitability in the face of serious concerns.

- PressProgress points out that a million Canadian retail workers are making do with less than a living wage while catering to holiday shoppers.

- Finally, Heidi Garrett-Peltier discusses how renewable energy stands to create far more jobs than fossil fuels. And CBC reports that both Canada and the U.S. have taken some steps to rein in oil drilling in sensitive Arctic waters.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Danyaal Raza discusses how climate change is manifesting itself in immediate health problems. And John Vidal highlights the latest research on the rapid melting of Arctic ice - making it particularly appalling that Canada has abandoned its main Arctic port to rot.

- Elizabeth McSheffrey notes that the Libs also have effectively cleared the way for the environmental danger of oil spills by approving a toxic chemical for cleanup purposes. And Cheryl Santa Mario reports on how a long-running spill arising out of poorly-regulated offshore oil drilling has contributed to the destruction of a scallop fishery in Newfoundland.

- Keith Slack discusses the permanent water pollution being planned by mining companies - and all too often allowed by governments ignoring the obvious risk when the responsibility to keep treating water after a mine ceases to operate is inevitably abandoned. But Marina Jimenez points out that the Libs are doing nothing to hold Canadian resource firms responsible for social and environmental responsibilities abroad.

- Canada Without Poverty talks to Laura Cattari and Wayne MacNaughton about housing issues, including the all-too-predictable path from precarious housing to outright homelessness. And Kelly Stajduhar and Ashley Mollison comment on the lack of end-of-life care for people who can't supply a stable address while their needs are assessed.

- Finally, Michael Geist writes that Canada's intellectual property rules have been set up to encouraging trolling and rent-seeking rather than research and development. And Mariana Mazzucato discusses the need to get a better return on publicly-funded pharmaceutical research.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- David Dayen explains how fiscal policy intended to ensure growth for everybody is instead sending all of its benefits to the top end of the income scale - and thus failing to ensure any growth at all:

(L)et’s examine how central banks try to revive economies. They mainly try to lower interest rates in a variety of ways. This entices consumers to borrow cheaply, spurring more economic activity. Plus, consumers can refinance into lower interest rates on their current loans, saving them money that they could choose to spend. Without high returns from safe assets like Treasury bonds, investors push capital to business investment and other economic pursuits. And finally, banks with low borrowing costs can increase access to credit for individuals and small businesses.

Loose monetary policy has worked throughout recent history, but not since 2008. Take for example mortgages, the largest consumer financial product in the economy. Thanks to Federal Reserve actions, typical U.S. mortgage interest rates dropped from 6 percent to 3.3 percent from 2008 to 2013, even as the main federal funds rate was stuck at zero. Sufi uses this to discount the “zero lower bound” hypothesis as a cause of ineffective monetary policy: Through quantitative easing and other measures, the U.S. was able to reduce key consumer interest rates.

Yet housing didn’t contribute to economic growth in those years. That’s because too many households were locked out of accessing the low rates. They either lost their homes to foreclosure, or were “underwater,” owing more on their mortgages than the house is worth. As of March 2012, 70 percent of mortgage borrowers were paying interest rates of 5 percent or higher, even though the market rate was 3.8 percent.

The only people left to benefit from refinancing or purchasing mortgages were high-income earners with good credit scores, who have a lower “marginal propensity to consume,” meaning that they are more likely to save additional dollars than spend them. Citing research correlating high-debt households with higher propensity to consume, Sufi concludes, “The inability of heavily indebted borrowers to refinance has depressed spending.”
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If too many people fall into debt anyway, then aggressive debt relief is the best way for the economy to bounce back, relieving this clog in the distribution of monetary policy benefits. As we know, the U.S. ignored this policy idea after the recession, using a poorly designed loan modification program that did little for homeowners on their biggest debt burden. Not only did that leave millions to suffer, but it helped cancel out central bank activities and stunted economic growth.

If you follow this logic, policies that reduce inequality would also help enormously. A family that earns a decent living doesn’t have to go into hock to keep up with their monthly budget. They therefore maintain a stronger balance sheet and lower debt burden when times are tough, and Fed policies can more easily reach them. Inequality spurs household debt, and household debt spurs financial shocks and longer economic downturns. Therefore, the challenge of reversing inequality doesn’t just affect those losing out in the modern economy — it affects every one of us.

- Meanwhile, Tamara Khandaker reports on yesterday's Jobs Climate Justice rally aimed at fighting inequality and environmental degradation at the same time. And Stephen Leahy writes that we need to stop building new carbon-burning infrastructure in a matter of years to limit climate change to an even remotely manageable level, while Fiona Harvey highlights the OECD's research emphasizing the non-viability of coal power in particular.

- But lest we think the effort to ensure a cleaner, more prosperous future will go unopposed, Jenny Uechi reports on the oil industry's underhanded attempts to block climate change experts from even having a seat at the corporate table. And Mychaylo Prystupa finds that the Cons continue to put the job of regulating the resource industry in the hands of its executives, while Sue Bailey exposes the complete lack of knowledge as to how to contain the consequences of Arctic offshore drilling.

- Fred Hahn comments on the importance of keeping Hydro One and other critical infrastructure in public hands.

- Finally, Carol Goar writes about Dr. Stephen Hwang's efforts to identify and fight the social determinants of poor health.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Polly Toynbee reminds us that a precarious living for much of the middle class is nothing new - and neither is a cacophony of reactionary voices claiming that a desperate struggle for survival is the natural and proper state for most of humanity.

- And Jim Sinclair writes that unions are more relevant than ever in fighting for job security and worker rights in the face of a corporatist movement determined to squelch both.

- Charles Pierce observes that absolutely nothing has changed in the wake of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion. And Ashley Fitzpatrick reports on the Auditor General's conclusions that the federal government is completely unequipped to deal with an oil spill off the coast of Newfoundland or Nova Scotia (to match B.C.'s similar inability to handle predictable disasters).

- Finally, Alice Funke has some suggestions to start exercising our democratic muscles:

A new set of electoral boundaries coupled with two new opposition leaders, many retiring incumbents, leader commitments to open nominations, a changing party system, and a three-way race in public opinion polls -- these all set the table for lots of interest and new faces on the federal political scene.

In fact, the current round of by-elections are already paving the way, featuring as many as six competitive multi-candidate nomination races across the four ridings and the three national parties.

But we've gotten out of the habit of open, competitive riding nominations in Canada, and our democratic muscles have gotten flabby from disuse. To get back in shape, we need a fitness program to strengthen those democratic muscles, so we can flex them in service of our democracy.
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As citizens we don't control all the rules governing our democratic system, and we can't stop the people who want to subvert it from trying to do so. All we can control is our own participation. If we want to strengthen our democracy, we need to join, challenge, vote, run, write, play by the rules, and admire our competitors for doing the same. That's how to strengthen our democratic muscles, for all the races that lie ahead.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Moira Herbst is the latest to comment on the connection between the lack of good jobs and an excess of corporate cash hoarding:

(I)t would be refreshing if the pundit-political class considered a radical but obvious idea: tapping the multitrillion-dollar stockpiles of corporate cash currently sitting on the sidelines and benefiting no one. Compulsive hoarding is unhealthy for individuals. It's even worse for whole economies.

The sorry facts are these: job growth is still half of what is needed to keep up with population growth. Meanwhile, more than 14% of the US workforce is unemployed, underemployed or discouraged from looking for work. The numbers for July aren't expected to budge much. Absent a massive inflow of tax dollars, jobs aren't going to come from the public sector. State and local governments are broke, and the fight over federal deficits has turned into an all-out war in Congress.
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It turns out that US-based mega-corporations are hoarding cash. How much cash? Record sums. It's about $1.73tn in US assets, according to the Federal Reserve – 50% more than they held in 2007. When you count worldwide holdings of US companies, the figure is a staggering $5.1tn, estimates Reuters' David Cay Johnston. Apple alone has $117bn.

Banks are also stockpiling cash; they're sitting on more than $1.5tn in excess reserves in the US.

Not only are mega-companies not creating enough decent jobs with this cash, they continue to offshore work and underpay workers. Many are not even rewarding investors or accelerating their growth with the money, thereby causing harm to themselves, according to a recent survey by Ernst & Young. Economists also say that cash hoarding is blocking a recovery in Europe.

- But sadly, Tom Tomorrow makes it clear that nothing can be done:


- It's actually somewhat of a pleasant surprise that at least as of last year, the Cons hadn't yet excised all references to renewable energy from internal briefing notes. But it's all the more shameful that they continue to push a short-term reliance on high-speed, low-safety oil extraction when they can't plead ignorance as an excuse for their neglect.

- And lest there be any doubt, Alberta's drinking water sources and B.C.'s coast aren't the only sensitive areas due for a coating of petrochemical sludge if the Cons get their way.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

- It's naturally a plus to see that the federal NDP has done more to stand up for Saskatchewan municipalities hit by this summer's extreme weather than the Sask Party and federal Cons combined. But in fairness, it only took a single unequivocal press release to meet that standard.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are proudly taking a stand against stable government. Which is the kind of bizarre message that may well result in the Cons' anti-coalition spin collapsing even with the Libs largely playing into Harper's hands.

- Two more items for the Con wrongness file: their offshore drilling review boards are grossly slanted toward the oil industry, and their fear-mongering on air travel doesn't reflect any real public concern.

- And finally, the Leader-Post's editorial on the harm to patient care and staff effectiveness when nurses work excessive hours is particularly on point in noting the Wall government's failed promises:

- Why hasn't the hiring of 600 additional nurses in recent years eased staffing shortages, as the Saskatchewan Party government said it would?

- Is the 35-per-cent pay hike given the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) two years ago -- in a contract that guarantees double pay for overtime -- now proving too rich for the province to afford?

Whatever the answers to those questions, the current situation is unhealthy and unacceptable.

Tuesday Morning Links

- The Straight's Charlie Smith points out one important difference between the current political landscape and the one in which the Libs had their success in the mid-90s: rather than being able to rely on the pattern of opposite votes provincially and federally, they're stuck with tired provincial governments in Canada's three largest provinces.

Of course, one can fairly say that the provincial Libs in both Quebec and B.C. are somewhat less than fully identified with the federal party. But that only figures to create more problems: after all, lower-information voters may be less likely to note the difference, while those with greater involvement are split between multiple federal parties among already-shrinking pools of provincial support.

- Juxtaposition for the day: Vic Toews' statement on why he wants rape to be separated from other sexual assaults in criminal law:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said earlier this year that the 1983 replacement of ‘rape' in the code with the broader term ‘sexual assault' created a “general basket description that causes all kinds of problems.”

Mr. Toews told a Senate committee that the change was “perhaps the biggest mistake in criminal law that the Parliament of Canada has ever made.”

And to see what Toews considers to be a serious mistake, the reason why the division was eliminated in the first place:

Ms. Kane, senior general counsel, co-authored briefing material for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson two days later that referred derisively to the “old, antiquated and narrow offence of rape.”

“The replacement of the antiquated rape offence by the current sexual assault offences reflects the reality that the sexual integrity of any and every victim can be violated by any form of non-consensual sexual activity.”
...
“The repeal of the rape offence was also accompanied by significant criminal law reforms to do away with outdated rules, myths and stereotypes,” Ms. Kane wrote in her advice to the justice minister.

But don't worry: the Cons are surely looking for other outdated rules, myths and stereotypes to entrench in law instead.

- Armine Yalnizyan frames this week's meeting of the Council of the Federation as a chance for premiers to step up to save Canada's census:

Now we need more than a hero, more than someone who says no. We need leaders. Elected officials who will capture in clear and resonant language what is at stake for Canadians everywhere, and define what we are saying yes to.

That voice could come from any point of the compass in this land of sensible counters and take-no-guff pragmatists.

Can the provincial leaders fix the census mess? Perhaps. If so, it will be because statesmanship eclipsed brinksmanship. And that's the type of leadership all Canadians want.

- And finally, Postmedia's Andrew Mayeda reports on the dangers of Arctic oil development, featuring both a 3-year time frame to drill a relief well in the event of a spill, and a complete lack of equipment available to do the job. But don't worry: the Cons' constant bleating that any criticism of their offshore drilling policy is anti-Canadian will surely prevent any harm.

The reviews are in

The Star's editorial board is off base in suggesting that nobody else is asking the same tough questions. But it's absolutely right to worry that the Harper Cons have turned Canada into the destination of choice for oil companies who don't want the hassle of protecting against the dangers of offshore drilling:

Unlike the U.S., Canada shows few signs of grappling with the risks of deep drilling, the gaps in regulatory enforcement, and the grey areas of corporate liability.

The contrast between our two countries is increasingly stark: While Canada’s political leaders project complacency, President Barack Obama swiftly imposed a moratorium on new offshore drilling; ordered sweeping regulatory reviews; and extracted a $20 billion fund from BP for its liability.

For multinational oil giants, there is one obvious conclusion: It’s now easier and cheaper to drill offshore in Canada than in the U.S.
...
In recent years, the National Energy Board — which regulates drilling in Arctic waters — has weakened the rules that specified the equipment and methods needed to prevent blowouts, acquiescing to industry pressure for more flexible procedures. Now, heeding public concerns, the NEB is holding a fresh round of public hearings for a review of offshore drilling regulations.

This week was the deadline for submissions in a process that will pit the public and environmental interest against a strong industry push to be exempted from drilling a relief well in the same season as an exploratory well is started. Coming so soon after the massive gulf cleanup — which took place in warm waters, near well-served ports, surrounded by large fleets of vessels — the industry’s demands for even weaker rules in the remote, freezing Arctic is a reminder that there are still battles to be fought to protect Canadian waters from the illusion of risk-free offshore drilling.

On battle lines

Stephen Harper says that criticism of the regulators responsible for allowing off-shore drilling is "an attack on Canada".

The regulators responsible for off-shore drilling have allowed projects like Chevron's Lona O-55 to proceed even after being told that a major oil spill won't be cleaned up.

So if it comes to choosing sides in a battle, how many voters believe Canada should be on the side of uncontrolled oil spills against regulation that prohibits them?

(Edit: fixed wording, typo.)