Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Francine Prose offers a reminder that everything else happening in the U.S. is secondary to the imminent threat of an authoritarian takeover. Ed Burmila highlights how Donald Trump can't afford the usual PR tactic of throwing somebody else under the bus for abusive behaviour due to his reliance on total impunity to keep his goons behind him. And Noah Berlatsky observes that the Trump regime's public statements can't be evaluated based on truth or falsity when they're aimed solely at laying the groundwork for perpetually increasing violence.

- But Luke O'Neil writes that the sense of solidarity on display in Minneapolis offers ample reason for hope that fascism won't ultimately win out. And Robert Worth discusses how plenty of people are finding homes for themselves in the resistance to Trump's occupation. 

- Meanwhile, Kate Connolly reports that the international response to Trump's capriciousness includes Germany's examining the prospect of repatriating gold currently held on U.S. soil. 

- And both Jason Markusoff and David Climenhaga note that the already-limited appeal of Alberta's separatist faction is declining all the more as the consequences of being more tightly tied to Trump become inescapable.

- Finally, Caitlin Johnstone rightly notes that the few people sitting on obscene levels of wealth and power can't have reached that position through anything resembling a healthy worldview. And Oxfam documents the continued concentration of wealth at the top of the income spectrum.

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Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Crawford Kilian reviews Richard Seymour's Disaster Nationalism as setting out the problem of fascists using emergencies both real and contrived as an excuse to shut down democratic processes and single out invented enemies for punishment - while recognizing that there's no easy way to inoculate against it. Steven Hill discusses how that analysis largely explains Donald Trump's election in the U.S. Jen St. Denis reports on the Russian influence being used to try to break down democracy in Canada and elsewhere. And Joseph Thomas offers his suggestions as to how to fight misinformation like a doctor in a one-on-one setting. 

- Maurice Mitchell comments on the need not to give up on electoral politics as a means of improving the well-being of the general public, while Marc Elias offers his take on how to build an opposition movement. Jared Yates Sexton discusses the predictable outcome if peaceful and democratic means of change appear to be completely blocked off. And Tara Raghuver and Ruthy Gourevitch discuss the potential for the growth of tenant unions as a mechanism for organization and collective action.  

- Chris McCahill writes about new research showing that higher levels of car dependence produce reductions in life satisfaction as well as health. Catie Gould discusses how parking requirements are a major obstacle to the availability of affordable housing. And John Michael McGrath examines the Charter case for a right to bike lanes, while Matt Hansen reports on the dooring of a cycling advocate on the day of a hearing into Ontario's anti-bike legislation.

- Katie Dangerfield reports on the dangers facing striking postal workers in their day-to-day employment (which Canada Post is seeking to exacerbate by making work even more precarious). And Tom VanHeuvelen, Xiaowen Han and Jane VanHeuvelen study the impact of unionization on mortality - finding that union membership leads to a longer and healthier life. 

- Finally, Oxfam America highlights the social and health benefits of a guaranteed income, while noting that it's possible to work toward one at any level of government. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jamie Ducharme examines the realities of a COVID-19 surge in progress - as well as the reason to worry that avoidable illness and death is being treated as the new normal. Kailin Yin et al. highlight the harm caused by systemic inflammation and immune dysregulation in the course of infection, while Brian Imbiakha et al. find that mice without adaptive immune cells don't experience those effects. And Marti Catala et al. study the evidence showing that vaccination helps to prevent long COVID symptoms. 

- Oxfam's latest briefing paper on inequality highlights how wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a privileged few - and will continue to do so unless we take drastic steps to challenge our corporate overlords. 

- Rachel Donald reports on new research documenting the human behavioral crisis underlying the climate breakdown. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson discusses how the fossil gas sector is seeking to exacerbate that problem by locking us into decades of carbon pollution to come, while Stephen Stapczynski, Ruth Liao and Anna Shiryaevskaya point out the real-world effects of that propaganda. 

- Jorg Broschek discusses how reduced speed limits could significantly slash carbon pollution while also making communities far safer. 

- David Climenhaga writes that Danielle Smith's government which is fearmongering about federal policy leaving people to freeze in the dark has actually made that a real risk due to its own corruption and mismanagement. Yet even his list of examples omits the most jarring contrast between energy security as a goal and UCP policy, as it's actively pushed to bring in crypto miners to use as much energy as possible. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow writes about the need for solidarity among all kinds of workers - including tech and gig workers - to counter the accumulation and abuse of corporate power. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Anthony Fernandez-Castaneda et al. examine the long-term neurological and cognitive damage caused even by "mild" cases of COVID. Sally Cutler discusses the implications of the Omicron COVID variant remaining transmissible longer than previously assumed even as governments and employers are adamant about forcing people back to work while infected. And Laura Unger reports on the warning from scientists that Omicron is unlikely to be the last major variant of a disease that's been allowed - and even encouraged - to keep spreading and mutating. 

- CBC's Cross Country Checkup offers some needed attention to workers who are already burned out even as more onerous demands get pushed on them. And Nadine Yousif reports on the growth of alcohol-related illnesses as the industry exploits people's fatigue and desire to escape. 

- Larry Elliott reports on Oxfam's latest research into the preposterous concentration of money through the pandemic that has seen the ten richest men in the world get twice as wealthy - as well as its call for a tax on windfall gains to rein in inequality while funding a healthy recovery. Hailie Tattrie interviews Alyssa Gerhardt about the need for systemic fixes to corporate food price gouging. And Sam Bowman theorizes that a dedicated push to make housing available and affordable could help ameliorate many other problems as well. 

- Sam Adler-Bell discusses how the Republican attack against critical race theory reflects their refusal to accept the very existence of systemic inequality and oppression. 

- Finally, Yannic Rack reports that big oil is paying far less than its share of Canada's carbon price. And M.V. Ramana discusses how the spin around small modular nuclear reactors represents nothing but a climate delay tactic which bears no plausible prospect of resulting in any practical energy solutions. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Steven Lewis writes that the Saskatchewan Party's mealy-mouthed messaging around the coronavirus looks to be a calculated political choice which is having devastating public health consequences:

There has been a pattern in Saskatchewan's communication about COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. The language is deliberately elastic. It is long on encouragement and exhortation and short on directive. It is more like a public health campaign to reduce smoking rates or encourage physical activity than a mass mobilization in the face of an emergency. 

The subtext is almost therapeutic: you might want to think about this or that, I'm not going to tell you what to do, you have to want to change. You can imagine the fingers crossed behind the back or the permissive wink.

Is this mere bumbling and ignorance of the evidence on how to succeed and how to fail at pandemic control? It's possible but unlikely. The approach is too consistent. No one is winging the messaging after a year of practice. 

Nor is it plausible that the public servants, the public health leadership and the cabinet are unaware of which jurisdictions did what, and the impact of those policies and practices. Yet Saskatchewan consistently drops the ball.

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(T)he people more inclined to take the pandemic seriously, examine the evidence and listen to public health experts will do the heavy lifting. The gamble is that there are enough of them to give the skeptics and die-hard libertarians a free pass from the consequences of their own choices. 

When the majority takes adequate precautions, the recalcitrant minority also benefits, its safety subsidized by the sacrifices of others. A few hundred cases spread in bars or churches are, on this logic, the price worth paying for keeping the base happy while counting the days until the vaccine cavalry charges to the rescue.

I could well be wrong. Maybe politics has nothing to do with it. The alternative explanation — refusal to learn and adapt, disdain for expertise, bewildering obfuscation — is less flattering to the government. So in the spirit of charity, I cling to the hope that the premier's persistent dodge is artful, the handiwork of a clever strategist rather than one woefully out of his depth.

- Meanwhile, Chuck Collins points out that the U.S. could fund the majority of its COVID-19 relief by taxing back the wealth accumulated by billionaires as the rest of the population has suffered. And Oxfam notes that the Trudeau Libs have decided not to take steps to make Canada's revenue collection more consistent with a feminist recovery.

- Alastair Gee writes about the danger that our climate breakdown may mean the end of forests as they've existed for thousands of years. And Jonathan Porritt warns against the hype that we can avert climate change through nuclear and hydrogen power which will ultimately serve mostly to ensure that an exploitative resource extraction model remains profitable. 

- Regan Boychuk reports on Alberta's belated suspension of SanLing Energy for ignoring obligations to put up $67 million to fund massive end-of-life obligations for its oil facilities. And Sammy Hudes reports on a similar order against Mojek Resources Inc. 

- Finally, Nicole Abbott offers a personal account as to why Canada needs pharmacare for all.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Tom Parkin points out that neither austerity nor isolationism offers any real solution to improve Canada's fiscal and economic standing. And Rob Carrick highlights what should be the most worrisome form of debt - being the increased consumer debt taken on to allow people to keep spending in the absence of wage increases:

“If wage growth slows, so does your purchasing power and so does the economy,” said Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. This is our strange economic reality today – people are taking on debt to make up for stagnant or declining purchasing power, but it’s not enough to jolt the economy. Growth is still on the weak side, December’s strong job creation numbers notwithstanding.

Ms. Yalnizyan was one of the economists who contributed to a must-read collection of 75 economic charts that Maclean’s compiled as a guide on what to watch in 2017. Her input was a chart showing the growth rate for the average hourly inflation-adjusted earnings of salaried and hourly employees. The chart is headlined, “Canada just can’t shake off the slowth,” a term that means slow growth.

Unfortunately, the data in the chart may understate the problem of income stagnation. Ms. Yalnizyan said the average data are pulled higher by workers with incomes at the highest levels, and by the skew in our working population toward older workers at the peak of their career earning power.

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We should probably spend a little less to keep our borrowing more in line with our incomes. But growth in household debt in the third quarter of last year was actually quite modest at 1.3 per cent. The debt-to-income ratio moved higher – to 166.9 per cent from 166.4 per cent in the second quarter – because disposable incomes rose a puny 1 per cent.

Higher incomes would help contain debt growth, but it’s hard to be optimistic about pay hikes in today’s slow-growth world. A report from CIBC World Markets late last year found that the quality of employment is falling, as judged by the proportion of part-time versus full-time jobs, self-employment versus paid employment and the compensation of full-time jobs....

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There are two ways for the cycle of debt rising faster than incomes to end. Either an economic shock terrorizes people into borrowing less, or we get to a point where incomes rise faster than debt levels. The federal Liberals talk a lot about helping the middle class. We’ll know they’ve accomplished something if wage increases once again give us an advantage over inflation.

- Meanwhile, Simon Enoch writes about the futility of any attempt to cut one's way to growth - with particular reference to the Saskatchewan Party's ill-advised attacks on Saskatchewan workers.

- Maiji Unkuri examines how Finland's basic income trial should ensure that people are able to seek out desirable work. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports that Ontario is just now starting to make some effort to document workplace diseases and ensure that workers receive the support they need in response.

- Charles Marohn discusses the impact of different types of public investment in housing, and concludes that poor neighbourhoods offer a far greater return than affluent ones.

- Finally, the CP reports on Oxfam's latest look at wealth inequality in Canada - featuring the revelation that just two people now have more wealth at their disposal than 11,000,000 of their fellow Canadians.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Emily Badger discusses a new study showing just how much more expensive it is to be poor:

(T)he problem isn't simply that the poor aren't savvy about sales or bulk buying. They're more likely to use these tactics closer to the beginning of the month, when they have more cash on hand from paychecks or benefits. Then, they behave more like consumers who have more money.

Of course, the poor face a lot of other obstacles to reaping savings, too. They may not have access to larger supermarkets that offer a wider variety of cheaper items. Or they may not have the car you'd need to transport home 30 rolls of toilet paper, or the closet space you'd need to store them.

The world, in fact, is full of opportunities to save money — if you just have enough money to access them. If you can afford a Costco membership, you can buy pounds and pounds of incredibly cheap canned soup. If you can afford Amazon Prime (and have a stable mailing address and credit card), you can really rack up savings on costly items like diapers. And buying diapers in bulk can mean spending hundreds of dollars at a time (or borrowing hundreds of dollars from your future self).
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These results, she says, should make us reconsider how poverty can prevent people from making smart financial decisions. If we simply drop a new supermarket into a food desert, for instance, that doesn't guarantee that poor people who live right next to it will be able to take advantage of all its savings. One possible solution is that retailers could consider pushing their deals to the beginning of the month. But they'd only be incentivized to do that — to help their customers pay less per unit — if they have to compete for these shoppers.

- And James Wood reports on the Alberta NDP's move to cut down on one of the costs of poverty by cracking down on predatory payday lenders. 

- Glen Hodgson comments on the urgent need for Alberta to develop a reliable tax base rather than relying on royalty revenues to pay its bills. 

- Laurie Monsebraaten writes about the UN's report showing a persistent housing crisis in Canada. And Jeremy Nuttall points out the need for a rights-based approach to basic human needs.

- Pete Evans reports on Oxfam's finding that the gender wage gap in Canada is actually growing. And PressProgress points out a few of the policy options available to push toward pay equity.

- Finally, Tonda MacCharles reports on a Senate hearing indicating that CSIS is stealthily making use of its new powers under C-51 with no public accountability. Thomas Walkom notes that CSIS' explanation as to what's being done under those powers only highlights how unnecessary C-51 actually is. And Leadnow responds by rightly demanding that any new powers be suspended pending review - rather than allowing a secretive security state to keep trampling rights until a poorly-defined consultation process plays out.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Simon Kennedy highlights another key finding in Oxfam's latest study on wealth, as the global 1% now owns as much as the other 99% combined. And Dennis Howlett reviews Gabriel Zucman's Hidden Wealth of Nations, while noting that like the works it seeks to update it may fall short of measuring how much is being hidden from tax authorities:

Zucman  dissects several failed attempts to reign in tax havens including the G20/OECD on-demand exchange of information, the American Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA) (link is external)legislation and the European Union’s Savings Tax Directive. He estimates that globally about 8% of households’ financial wealth is held in tax havens. That works out to be about $7.6 trillion dollars or about $200 billion a year in lost revenue. He arrives at these numbers by comparing the national balance sheets to identify the difference between the assets and liabilities between nations. This seems like an elegant and simple solution to estimating what is hidden in tax havens.  But Zucman admits that this estimate “excludes a certain amount of wealth.”

James Henry, in a more detailed study, The Price of Offshore Revisited (link is external), done for the Tax Justice Network in 2012, estimates that the figure is closer to $21 to $32 trillion. Henry says Zucman vastly underestimates the role of developing countries and kleptocracy. He also notes the ommission of  offshore currency hoards, estimated at  $1.8 trillion. Henry also claims Zucman ignores estimates of private bank Assets Under Management -- now at least $13 trillion. Finally, Henry points out that Zucman ignores offshore nonfinancial assets like real estate, gold, precious metals, art, and ships, which is worth at least $10 trillion.

Henry plans to update his study which will likely show even more wealth going to tax havens. Zucman also acknowledges that his figure does not include corporate tax avoidance, which is often done legally, taking advantage of all the loopholes and weak tax laws that allow them to do this. Zucman does estimate that corporations are depriving governments of a third of corporate tax revenues by employing tax haven based subsidiaries to shift profits and lower their tax bill.

- Jessica Toale writes that the need for sustainable and broadly-shared economic development is just as obvious in the UK as in the countries normally associated with development goals.

- Deirdre Fulton notes that the U.S.' TTIP trade deal with Europe is rightly coming under fire for prioritizing the wealthy few over everybody else. And Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines the findings of a new study showing that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will actually destroy jobs in Canada, while doing more to shift money from the bottom to the top than to boost economic growth.

- Max Stanfield discusses how postal banking would provide needed services in underserved communities while reducing reliance on predatory payday lenders.

- Finally, Ryan Meili offers a preview of what could be accomplished at this week's health minister summit. And Austin Frakt points out that even discussion about the unfairness of drug costs may be enough to reduce prices - though of course any resulting policy figures to be important to preserve the gains.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Oxfam offers its latest look at global inequality, featuring the finding that 62 people now control as much wealth as half of the people on the planet. And the Equality Trust discusses how that extreme inequality is eroding any sense of community:

Inequality is a huge threat to economic and democratic systems, social cohesion and the health and wellbeing of entire populations. We know from the now vast array of research on the subject that in more equal countries you’re more likely to trust others, live longer with better physical and mental health and your children are more likely to achieve a decent education.
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The huge imbalance in the resources, wealth and incomes people now enjoy should concern us all. Most recognise it when they see their children growing up in a country where it is harder to find a well-paid job, or to get on the property ladder. But we also see it every day in our relationships with others. Inequality stretches society, making it harder for people to recognise and understand others who are not in the same position as they are. It’s why trust is so low in more unequal countries and mental and physical health problems are so high.

We often hear politicians talk of equality of opportunity, of giving everyone a fair chance at the start of life. But when some start with access to unimaginable wealth, and others enter the world in poverty and deprivation, it’s clear that’s just not possible. Oxfam’s work today shows just how vast and indefensible inequality of outcome now is. It’s high time politicians took seriously the task of reducing it.

- Meanwhile, Stephanie Fontana examines the massive amounts of money hidden away in tax havens for the sole purpose of avoiding any contribution to any social good.

- Gus Van Harten lists a few of the ways in which the Trans-Pacific Partnership stands to funnel still more wealth to those who need it least at the expense of everybody else. And Michael Geist notes that the TPP's damage to health care may go far beyond inflating the cost of medication through gratuitous drug monopolies.

- Finally, Larry Schwartz warns us of the dangers of relying on corporate advertising based on cherry-picked or outright fabricated numbers.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Oxfam points out that without a major redistributive effort, hundreds of millions of people will be trapped in extreme poverty around the globe no matter how much top-end growth is generated.And Michael Valpy writes that the Cons have gone out of their way to stifle any talk of shared responsibilities and communitarian goals.

- Meanwhile, Art Eggleton discusses the urgent need for more affordable housing in Canada. And Robyn Allan writes that Canadians are getting gouged while buying gas - with an assist from the Cons who ensured that we don't have access to accurate information about who's profiting from what we pay at the pumps.

- Harvey Cashore and Frederic Zalac report on the links between the Con government and KPMG as the latter was having any assessment of its offshoring tax avoidance schemes stalled in front of the courts.

- Lawrence Martin highlights what we lose when our government considers information suppression to be one of its core values.

- Finally, PressProgress exposes Ron Liepert's belief that civil rights aren't part of the Canada we live in. And Craig Forcese and Kent Roach comment on the effect of the Cons' terror legislation:

When enacting its 2015 security laws, the government consistently rejected the outside policy advice it received. It radically ramped up information-sharing about even marginal security threats. But it disregarded advice—from both the Privacy Commissioner and the judicial inquiry into Maher Arar’s mistreatment—to the effect that Canada’s system of independent review was partial, stuck in silos, and manifestly inadequate. The government also disregarded the advice it received from four former prime ministers and a score of other former officials urging that increased review and oversight of national security activities were necessary, and that they would improve rather than detract from security.

The architects of the new 2015 legislation also ignored the Air India Commission’s 2010 recommendations that CSIS be obliged to share intelligence about possible terrorism offences, and that its human sources not be able to veto appearing as witnesses in prosecutions (a recommendation that was echoed in a unanimous 2011 report of a Senate committee chaired by Senator Hugh Segal). In the final analysis, the 2015 “reforms” were long on rhetoric about a war against “violent jihadis” and attempts to secure partisan advantage, but woefully short on evidence and deliberation.
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Bill C-51 in particular was drafted in a novel and provocative manner that departed from long-standing definitions of “threats to the security of Canada” or the more Charter-compliant pattern of past, similar laws—such as hate-speech laws, immigration security-certificate provisions, and the 2001 Anti-terrorism Act.

The complexity arises from the fact that most of these new provisions are not free-standing: they amend existing laws that have their own history and purposes. The most extensive amendments were made to the CSIS Act, originally enacted in response to concerns about RCMP illegalities in the wake of the October Crisis in 1970. The 1984 CSIS Act created CSIS as a civilian and largely domestic intelligence agency that would obey the law and whose mandate was limited to intelligence collection. The new laws radically change that.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- PressProgress weighs in on corporate Canada's twelve-figure tax avoidance, while noting that the Cons' decision to slash enforcement against tax cheats (while attacking charities instead) goes a long way toward explaining the amount of money flowing offshore. And Oxfam is working on its own Canadian fair tax campaign.

- Robert Frank highlights the complete disconnect from reality which results in most American millionaires claiming that they're in the middle class, rather than representing a privileged few. And Stephen Gordon writes that there's a similar sleight of hand at work in the Libs' "middle class tax cut" which in fact primarily benefits those just short of the top of Canada's income scale.

- Ray Whitaker explains why oversight wouldn't do anything to improve the abuses we should expect under the Cons' terror bill. Alison highlights the pitiful excuses the Libs continue to offer for signing on to C-51. And Amanda Connolly notes that the Cons aren't even waiting for the ink to dry on C-51 before ramming still more powers to arbitrarily restrict Canadians' movements into a budget bill.

- Meanwhile, Jorge Barrera reports on how the RCMP is already treating activist movements in its decision to pathologize Idle No More.

- Finally, Michael Harris discusses why the Cons have every reason to be concerned - and the rest of us can be optimistic - about the NDP's Alberta election victory.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Economist argues that lower oil prices offer an ideal opportunity to rethink our energy policy (with a focus on cleaner sources). And Mitchell Anderson offers a eulogy for Alberta's most recent oil bender:

For now the latest Alberta bender is over, and it's time to take stock of certain destructive lifestyle choices. The budgetary cupboards are bare, yet Canada's allegedly "richest" province has an unfunded municipal infrastructure deficit of up to $24 billion. A badly needed new cancer treatment facility has just been delayed past 2020. The long-overdue plan to build or modernize over 230 schools by 2018 is threatened by an $11-billion "fiscal hole" in provincial finances.

According to the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, "Alberta continues to have the lowest overall tax system in Canada, with the lowest fuel taxes, no sales tax, no health premiums, no capital or payroll taxes, and low personal and corporate income taxes. Albertans and Alberta businesses would pay at least $10.6 billion more in taxes each year if Alberta had the tax system of any other province."

While provincial finances are grim and real estate values are about to fall off a cliff, the real deficit is not economic but intellectual. Some observers have made the case that the free-market mindset that got us in this mess is actually a long-term project of powerful outside forces eager to acquire Canada's treasure trove of resources at rock bottom prices.

If so, this audacious endgame has been a stunning success. The anti-tax sentiment has intruded so far into the collective psyche of Alberta voters that they almost have Stockholm Syndrome, punishing any politician that threatens to raise resource rents. The last Alberta election almost saw a Fraser Institute alumna become premier. If there is an upside to the most recent downturn in Alberta, it is bringing into crystal clear focus the abject fiscal failure of decades of "free market" resource policies promoted by well-funded think tanks.

- Meanwhile, Oxfam's Winnie Byanyima sees inequality and climate change as the two most important policy challenges of 2015.

- Keith Humphreys explores the gap between the rich and the poor in rates of smoking cessation. And Charles Blow offers a reminder as to how expensive it is to be poor.

- Joe Fiorito rightly argues that there's no secret as to how to end homelessness if we have the will to make resources available to provide housing. And Jordon Cooper notes that while we may be more attentive to homelessness in the dead of winter, we should want to eliminate it year-round.

- Finally, Carly Weeks questions the appalling secrecy surrounding Canada's drug approval process. And Stefan Christoff discusses the Cons' latest crackdown on civil liberties.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Rosenberg writes about the high-priced effort to undermine public institutions and the collective good in the U.S. And Paul Krugman highlights how the Republicans' stubborn belief in the impossibly of good government (regardless of large amounts of evidence that such a thing is possible and desirable) has produced the U.S.' combination of waste and gridlock:

On issues that range from monetary policy to the control of infectious disease, a big chunk of America’s body politic holds views that are completely at odds with, and completely unmovable by, actual experience. And no matter the issue, it’s the same chunk. If you’ve gotten involved in any of these debates, you know that these people aren’t happy warriors; they’re red-faced angry, with special rage directed at know-it-alls who snootily point out that the facts don’t support their position.

The question, as I said at the beginning, is why. Why the dogmatism? Why the rage? And why do these issues go together, with the set of people insisting that climate change is a hoax pretty much the same as the set of people insisting that any attempt at providing universal health insurance must lead to disaster and tyranny?

Well, it strikes me that the immovable position in each of these cases is bound up with rejecting any role for government that serves the public interest. If you don’t want the government to impose controls or fees on polluters, you want to deny that there is any reason to limit emissions. If you don’t want the combination of regulation, mandates and subsidies that is needed to extend coverage to the uninsured, you want to deny that expanding coverage is even possible. And claims about the magical powers of tax cuts are often little more than a mask for the real agenda of crippling government by starving it of revenue.

And why this hatred of government in the public interest? Well, the political scientist Corey Robin argues that most self-proclaimed conservatives are actually reactionaries. That is, they’re defenders of traditional hierarchy — the kind of hierarchy that is threatened by any expansion of government, even (or perhaps especially) when that expansion makes the lives of ordinary citizens better and more secure. I’m partial to that story, partly because it helps explain why climate science and health economics inspire so much rage.

- Meanwhile, Joe Oliver seems determined to sell the same Tea Party hand-me-down lines in Canada. And Michael Spratt discusses Peter MacKay's efforts to make sure that factual research doesn't get in the way of the Cons' tough-on-crime zealotry.

- Michael Harris writes that the Cons' election-year task is once again to push voters to forget the policies they actually support when they go to the polls - or at least to undermine their view of democracy to the point where they'll stay home. And Michael Den Tandt highlights the absurdity of the Cons running on their disastrous economic record.

- Danica Kirka reports on Oxfam's latest study on inequality showing that by next year, the global 1% may own more than half of the wealth on the planet. And the Guardian makes the case for immediate action to reverse the concentration of income and wealth, while recognizing how much work remains to be done in even defining the problem.

- Finally, Barry Eichengreen discusses the blanket of financial regulations which was shredded to ribbons in the name of easy profits over the last few decades - and the fact that restoring economic stability means more than simply undoing one set of cuts.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Oxfam studies the spread of extreme inequality around the globe, as well as the policies needed to combat it:

Oxfam’s decades of experience in the world’s poorest communities have taught us that poverty and inequality are not inevitable or accidental, but the result of deliberate policy choices. Inequality can be reversed. The world needs concerted action to build a fairer economic and political system that values everyone. The rules and systems that have led to today’s inequality explosion must change. Urgent action is needed to level the playing field by implementing policies that redistribute money and power from wealthy elites to the majority.
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Despite the fact that market fundamentalism played a strong role in causing the recent global economic crisis, it remains the dominant ideological world view and continues to drive inequality. It has been central to the conditions imposed on indebted European countries, forcing them to deregulate, privatize and cut their welfare provision for the poorest, while reducing taxes on the rich. There will be no cure for inequality while countries are forced to swallow this medicine.
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Elites, in rich and poor countries alike, use their heightened political influence to curry government favours – including tax exemptions, sweetheart contracts, land concessions and subsidies – while blocking policies that strengthen the rights of the many...This undermines investment in sectors, such as education, healthcare and small-scale agriculture, which can play a vital role in reducing inequality and poverty.

The massive lobbying power of rich corporations to bend the rules in their favour has increased the concentration of power and money in the hands of the few.

- Meanwhile, Jeremy Runnalls points out that North Dakota is ensuring some real public benefit from resource exploitation by using increased royalty income on both a public wealth fund, and investments in renewable energy.

- Joe Friesen reports that despite the Cons' bluster about reining in abuse of the temporary foreign worker program, they've continued to allow an increase in the number of low-skilled positions filled with workers treated as disposable. And Bill Curry notes that the Cons' latest dodge is to base enforcement on provincial employment laws - meaning that as long as understaffed provincial enforcement agencies can't expose wrongdoing, employers will be able to keep abusing their workers with the federal government's approval.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh discusses what universal child care means for working women. And Martin Regg Cohn slams the Cons for instead pushing an income splitting scheme which is unfair both to the families who actually need better access to child care, and to provinces who have tied themselves to the federal tax system.

- Finally, Alice Funke examines the nomination process now playing out within Canada's federal parties, and finds that a fixed election date seems to have resulted in a large number of contested nominations.

New column day

Here, on how the recent spate of Saskatchewan women being fired for getting pregnant represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gender inequality.

For further reading...
- The Leader-Post reported on the increase in pregnancy-related firings here. And its editorial board weighs in here.
- Oxfam's report referenced in the column is here (PDF). And again, Shannon Gormley's column on how we project to be a lifetime away from wage equality is worth read.
- Finally, Clive Crook discusses the need for early and consistent social support to end inequality of opportunity.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Graeme Wearden reports on Oxfam's latest study on inequality and the outsized political influence of the wealthy few:

The Oxfam report found that over the past few decades, the rich have successfully wielded political influence to skew policies in their favour on issues ranging from financial deregulation, tax havens, anti-competitive business practices to lower tax rates on high incomes and cuts in public services for the majority. Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available, said the report.

This "capture of opportunities" by the rich at the expense of the poor and middle classes has led to a situation where 70% of the world's population live in countries where inequality has increased since the 1980s and 1% of families own 46% of global wealth - almost £70tn.

Opinion polls in Spain, Brazil, India, South Africa, the US, UK and Netherlands found that a majority in each country believe that wealthy people exert too much influence. Concern was strongest in Spain, followed by Brazil and India and least marked in the Netherlands.
...
Oxfam is calling on those gathered at WEF to pledge: to support progressive taxation and not dodge their own taxes; refrain from using their wealth to seek political favours that undermine the democratic will of their fellow citizens; make public all investments in companies and trusts for which they are the ultimate beneficial owners; challenge governments to use tax revenue to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection; demand a living wage in all companies they own or control; and challenge other members of the economic elite to join them in these pledges.

- Meanwhile, the Economic Policy Institute is assembling support among economists for an increase in the U.S.' minimum wage. And Rob Rainer discusses why Canada should ensure a basic income guarantee as a matter of values and conscience.

- Bloomberg reports on the latest Enbridge oil spill just outside Regina. But Sheila Pratt points out why we probably can't expect even another incident close to home to lead to any meaningful public discussion - noting that the atmosphere of tar sands intimidation in Alberta has reached the point where doctors are refusing to treat patients who observe a connection between their illnesses and oil development.

- Finally, Gerald Caplan discusses the reality Stephen Harper should try to see during the course of his trip to Israel - while acknowledging the certainty that Harper will avoid it at all costs.