Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- PressProgress points out that neither the public nor a group of the world's leading economists sees the slightest value in balanced-budget gimmicks which override sound public decision-making. And Paul Krugman observes that the entire conservative economic strategy is based on overinflating bubbles, then letting somebody else clean up the resulting mess.

- Matthew Weaver highlights the use of "poshness tests" to screen out working-class applicants seeking work with key UK employers as a particularly stark example of how prestige and wealth have less and less to do with individual achievement. And Anna Mehler Paperny reports on the spread of precarious work which has made so many other jobs into traps for the unwary.

- Meanwhile, Molly McCracken rightly slams Manitoba's PCs for trying to privatize child care and other social services when that only produces worse working conditions as a means to create a profit stream. And Warren Bell examines the far-reaching implications of the Doctors of B.C. run-off election due to the presence of corporate-health zealot Brian Day.

- Mike Blanchfield reports on a new study from Voices-Voix documenting the Cons' stifling of dissenting voices. Kim Covert writes about the Cons' decision to create lower tiers of citizenship. And Errol Mendes argues that we need a Magna Carta moment to ensure that our federal government uses its power in the public interest, rather than using public resources solely to increase its own power.

- Finally, the Parkland Institute makes the case to end corporate and union donations to political parties in Alberta.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your Saturday.

- Bill Curry breaks the news of the Cons' next round of public service slashing - with Canada Revenue Agency employees whose work far more than pays for itself once more looming as one of the main targets of a government determined to ease the way for tax evasion and avoidance.

- Jodie Sinnema reports on the Parkland Institute's ideas for a more progressive tax system in Alberta. And it's particularly worth noting that Albertans themselves recognize the value of fair taxes even as their government continues to insist on the need to cater to the wealthy:

A survey of 1,207 residents in 2012 found 60 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed higher-income earners should pay a greater share in taxes.

“They’re quite open, certainly much more open than the pervasive mythology that you see perpetuated by the government and some other pundits around this issue,” Stunden Bower said. “People who have the capacity to pay more should pay more.”

- Stephen Maher rightly questions why the Cons are so eager to harass EI recipients while simply taking Senate appointees at their word that we should keep shovelling public largesse their way:

I would like the government to treat those two sins — filing a fake EI claim and filing a false declaration of primary residence — in exactly the same way.

There should not be one rule for senators and another for fish plant workers, who smell worse but are more honest than a lot of politicians.

If it’s OK for Duffy to just pay back the money he received as result of an incorrectly filled out form, then it should also be OK for people who fill out those EI forms incorrectly to just pay the money back.

And neither Duffy nor jobless fish-plant workers should have inspectors popping by their frigging houses unannounced.

- Finally, Bruce Owen's story about an unprovoked physical attack on Manitoba NDP MLA Kevin Chief is well worth a read - both in highlighting Chief's personal response, and as a reminder that there are other (and more constructive) responses to crime beyond the obsession with vengeance that serves as the Cons' inevitable reaction.