Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Errol Mendes points out that any commitment to securing human rights in our foreign policy is currently limited by the lack of any systematic attempt to see how those rights are being treated. And Rick Mercer rants about the Libs' gall in misleading Canadians about the sales of arms to tyrants (though his recollection of the election campaign is somewhat off):


- Meanwhile, David Boyd points out that climate change is just another area where an obsession with corporate interests above all else is leading to fundamental values being compromised.

- Daniel Dale documents the callous disregard Michigan's Republican administration has shown toward the people it's poisoned in Flint. And Kristi Tanner takes a look at the devastating long-term public health impacts of a single austerian decision.

- Doug Cuthand points out how Brad Wall is playing politics at the expense of First Nations - though it's worth keeping in mind that voters get the final say in whether that calculation works or not.

- Finally, Dani Rodrik writes about the need to bring public investment back into our discussion about how to build an economy that works for everybody:

The idea that public investment in infrastructure – roads, dams, power plants, and so forth – is an indispensable driver of economic growth has always held powerful sway over the minds of policymakers in poor countries. It also lay behind early development assistance programs following World War II, when the World Bank and bilateral donors funneled resources to newly independent countries to finance large-scale projects. And it motivates the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which aims to fill the region’s supposed $8 trillion infrastructure gap.

But this kind of public-investment-driven growth model – often derisively called “capital fundamentalism” – has long been out of fashion among development experts. Since the 1970s, economists have been advising policymakers to de-emphasize the public sector, physical capital, and infrastructure, and to prioritize private markets, human capital (skills and training), and reforms in governance and institutions. From all appearances, development strategies have been transformed wholesale as a result.

It may be time to reconsider that change. If one looks at the countries that, despite strengthening global economic headwinds, are still growing very rapidly, one will find public investment is doing a lot of the work.

...

Public investment can enhance an economy’s productivity for a substantial period of time, even a decade or more, as it clearly has done in Ethiopia. It can also catalyze private investment, and there is some evidence that this has happened in India in recent years.

The potential benefits of public investment are not limited to developing countries. In fact, today it may be the advanced economies of North America and Western Europe that stand to gain the most from ramping up domestic public investment. In the aftermath of the great recession, there are many ways in which these economies could put additional public spending to good use: to increase demand and employment, restore crumbling infrastructure, and boost research and development, particularly in green technologies.

Such arguments are typically countered in policy debates by objections related to fiscal balance and macroeconomic stability. But public investment is different from other types of official outlays, such as expenditures on public-sector wages or social transfers. Public investment serves to accumulate assets, rather than consume them. So long as the return on those assets exceeds the cost of funds, public investment in fact strengthens the government’s balance sheet.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Scott Santens writes about one possible endpoint of the current trend toward precarious employment, being the implementation of a basic income to make sure a job isn't necessary to enable people to do meaningful work. And Common Dreams reports that a strong majority of lower-wage workers support both unions, and political parties and candidates who will allow them to function.

- Harvey Cashore and David Seglins follow up on the multiple connections between the Cons, the Canada Revenue Agency and KPMG even as the latter was under investigation for facilitating offshore tax evasion.

- Joe Friesen breaks the news that Stephen Harper's PMO specifically intervened to stop Syrian refugees from having their claims processed.

- Meanwhile, Harsha Walia and Dana Olwan ask whether the Harper Cons are really going to cling to power through bare racism, while Andrew Coyne notes that the forces at play are more insidious than fear alone. And Rick Mercer sums up what the election campaign is ultimately all about:


- Finally, Jason Childs and Alexander Siebert compare (PDF) the liquor retail distribution systems across Western Canada and find there's little reason to privatize anything other than to push more alcohol into citizens' hands.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tavia Grant, Bill Curry and David Kennedy discuss CIBC's analysis showing that Canadian job quality has falled to its lowest level recorded in the past 25 years:

Several reports have concluded that the country’s job market is not as strong as it looks and now a study from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce paints an even worse picture. According to the bank’s analysis, job quality has fallen to its lowest level in more than two decades. A CIBC index that measures 25 years worth of data on part-time versus full-time work, paid versus self-employment and compensation trends, has fallen to its lowest level on record.

The Bank of Canada’s new measure of labour market indicators also showed “slack” in the jobs market and it has noted “ongoing labour market challenges” such as a low participation rate among core-aged Canadians. Another report from the Toronto-Dominion Bank last month pointed to more weakness than the unemployment rate suggests.

The trend has implications for the broader economy. A lack of hours along with a prevalence of lower-wage jobs and self-employment underscore why many households are having difficulty shoring up savings and why consumer spending may taper off this year.

As household finances get squeezed, the risk is that debt – already near record levels – could grow further, leaving people more vulnerable to any type of economic shock.

- Wojtek Gwiazda interviews Jordan Brennan about the connection between corporate trade agreements and inequality. And Joan Fitzgerald discusses why water and other essentials need to be responsibly managed as public goods, rather than being used solely as short-term profit centres.

- Carol Goar writes that several provincial governments have made it more difficult to develop an effective national pharmacare system by needlessly slashing their provincial programs.

- Andrew Coyne slams the Cons' latest attempt to equate preposterous sentencing restrictions with a defensible crime policy. And Ashley Csanady examines some of the flaws in more detail - with a rightful focus on the absurdity of putting an individual's freedom in the sole hands of a minister.

- Finally, Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' politics of fear:

New column day

Here, on the many problems with building social benefits and employment policies alike on a foundation of distrust.

For further reading...
- Rick Mercer rants about the obstacles the Cons are throwing in the way of veterans. And the CP follows up on the Cons' response to Paul Franklin's case here.
- CBC reports here on the Cons' plans to slash existing sick leave for the federal civil service.  Kathryn May points out the complete lack of any justification for that course of action, and has since noted that the plan is further being extended to out-of-scope positions. And Robyn Benson offers a thorough dismantling of the reasoning behind forcing people to work while sick.
- Emma Graney reports on the Sask Party's similar push to force sick Saskatchewan public-sector workers back to work sooner.
- Oliver Wright writes about Gus O'Donnell's observation that privileged politicians are often utterly clueless about the programs they oversee and the people who depend on them.
- Finally, Bryce Covert and Josh Israel discuss the utter waste of time and money involved in drug-testing welfare recipients.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- George Monbiot comments on the far more important values we're endangering in the name of constant financial and material growth:

To try to stabilise this system, governments behave like soldiers billeted in an ancient manor, burning the furniture, the paintings and the stairs to keep themselves warm for a night. They are breaking up the postwar settlement, our public health services and social safety nets, above all the living world, to produce ephemeral spurts of growth. Magnificent habitats, the benign and fragile climate in which we have prospered, species that have lived on earth for millions of years – all are being stacked on to the fire, their protection characterised as an impediment to growth.

Cameron boasted on Monday that he will revive the economy by “scrapping red tape”. This “red tape” consists in many cases of the safeguards defending both people and places from predatory corporations. The small business, enterprise and employment bill is now passing through the House of Commons – spinelessly supported, as ever, by Labour. The bill seeks to pull down our protective rules to “reduce costs for business”, even if that means increasing costs for everyone else, while threatening our health and happiness. But why? As the government boasted last week, the UK already has “the least restrictive product market regulation and the most supportive regulatory and institutional environment for business across the G20.” And it still doesn’t work. So let’s burn what remains.
...
Why are we wrecking the natural world and public services to generate growth, when that growth is not delivering contentment, security or even, for most of us, greater prosperity? Why have we enthroned growth, regardless of its utility, above all other outcomes? Why, despite failures so great and so frequent, have we not changed the model? When the next crash comes, these questions will be inescapable.

- Meanwhile, Michelle Butterfield writes about increased income inequality in Canada - particularly in resource-rich provinces where nominal growth is being efficiently funneled only into the pockets of those who already have the most. And Nick Hanauer points out that the loss of historical overtime pay has made a huge difference in the lives of American workers (who are now working the same extended hours without being compensated accordingly).

- Katrina vanden Heuvel discusses how citizens end up paying the price for corporate tax giveaways. But Andrew Prokop documents how ALEC is putting a well-funded thumb on the scale to make sure that public policy serves only select private interests. And Lindsay Abrams highlights one example of government power being used to undermine public interests, as Republicans have passed a bill to prohibit any scientists other than industry shills from informing environmental decision-making.

- Andy Blatchford reports that the Cons are just like their Republican cousins in abandoning any pretense of doing anything more than rubber-stamping the policy preferences of corporate lobby groups - this time pushing a tax credit based on nothing more than the CFIB's spin. And PressProgress notes that the Cons' definition of an "extremist" - which is of course their threshold for the wholesale elimination of any civil rights - includes people who advocate for renewable energy.

- Jeremy Warren reports on Saskatoon's homeless population and (unsurprisingly) finds that while Jerry Peequaquat may have received more public notice than most, his death was far from an isolated case.

- Joshua Shaw proposes that we recognize collective health as an enforceable right.

- And finally, Rick Mercer offers the definitive response to Stephen Harper's crisis management:

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Adam Lent highlights the strong majority of respondents in the UK who see the political system as serving the powerful rather than the public. And Elizabeth Warren explains why the same conclusion applies in the U.S., while making the case that there's room to improve matters simply by emphasizing the choices voters face:

The system is rigged. And now that I’ve been in Washington and seen it up close and personal, I just see new ways in which that happens. But we have to stop and back up, and you have to kind of get the right diagnosis of the problem, to see how it is that—it goes well beyond campaign contributions. That’s a huge part of it. But it’s more than that. It’s the armies of lobbyists and lawyers who are always at the table, who are always there to make sure that in every decision that gets made, their clients’ tender fannies are well protected. And when that happens — not just once, not just twice, but thousands of times a week — the system just gradually tilts further and further. There is no one at the table…I shouldn’t say there’s no one. I don’t want to overstate. You don’t have to go into hyperbole. But there are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers.
...
(W)e need to do a better job of talking about issues. And I know that sounds boring and dull as dishwater, but it’s true. The differences between voting for two candidates should be really clear to every voter and it should be clear in terms of, who votes to raise the minimum wage and who doesn’t. Who votes to lower the interest rate on student loans and who doesn’t. Who votes to make sure women can’t get fired for asking how much a guy is making for doing the same job, and who doesn’t. There are these core differences that are about equality and opportunity. It can’t be that we don’t make a clear distinction. If we fail to make that distinction, then shame on us. That is my bottom line on this.

You know, during the Senate race that I was in — I mean, I was a first-time candidate, I’d never done this before — the thing that scared me the most was that the race wouldn’t be about the core differences between my opponent and me. I wanted people to understand where I stood on investments in the future, investments in education and research that help us build a future. Where I stood on the minimum wage and equal pay. And where he stood on the other side. The point was not to blur the differences and to run to some mythical middle where we agreed with each other. The point was to say that, here are really big differences between the two of us. Voters have a chance to make a choice.

- Meanwhile, Nikola Luksic and Tom Howell discuss the challenge in trying to encourage voters to make decisions based on something more than visceral impressions - particularly when party strategies are aimed squarely at exploiting those instantaneous reactions. And John Cruickshank argues that the perception among younger citizens that politics aren't worth their time will only make matters worse.

- Nora Loreto worries about the effect of privatizing our electoral system, while Karl Nerenberg discusses a needed challenge to the Cons' latest attempt to keep voters away from the polls. And Rick Mercer reminds us how the Cons - including their Parliamentary puppet Andrew Scheer - are going out of their way to make our political institutions ineffective.


- Finally, for those looking for issues where there's ample room for contrast and departure from past neglect, Jeffrey Simpson lambastes the Cons for their refusal to be anything but an obstacle in the battle against climate change:

Those who care about reducing carbon emissions have stated the truth repeatedly: Canada will not meet the reduction target so often proclaimed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

Against all evidence, including its own numbers, Ottawa has insisted that the country remains on track to reduce emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 to 2020.

It has been an alarming but not atypical performance: Look facts in the face and insist that black is white, presumably hoping or believing that citizens don’t know or care. And one wonders why the public is cynical about government.
...
Perhaps worst of all, but not surprising, is the commissioner’s finding that not only will the reduction targets not be met, but no serious plans exist within the federal government, alone or in conjunction with the provinces, to meet them.

This is hardly surprising, given the lack of interest in the file by this government – a lack of interest that arises from a political calculation that Conservative supporters are either opposed or indifferent to climate-change mitigation...The idea of Canada acting as a leader, or first mover, has no appeal for this government.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Dean Starkman writes about the media's failure to see and report on the culture of corruption and manipulation that led to the 2008 economic meltdown:

Was the brewing crisis really such a secret? Was it all so complex as to be beyond the capacity of conventional journalism and, through it, the public to understand? Was it all so hidden? In fact, the answer to all those questions is “no.” The problem—distorted incentives corrupting the financial industry—was plain, but not to Wall Street executives, traders, rating agencies, analysts, quants, or other financial insiders. It was plain to the outsiders: state regulators, plaintiffs’ lawyers, community groups, defrauded mortgage borrowers, and, mostly, to former employees of financial institutions, the whistleblowers, who were, in fact, blowing the whistle. A few reporters actually talked to them, understood the metastasizing problem, and wrote about it. You’ll meet a couple of them in this book. Unfortunately, they didn’t work for the mainstream business press.
...
To read various journalistic accounts of mortgage lending and Wall Street during the bubble is to come away with radically differing representations of the soundness of the U.S. financial system. It all depended on what you were reading. Anyone “paying attention” to the conventional business press could be forgiven for thinking that things were, in the end, basically normal. Yes, there was a housing bubble. Any fair reading of the press of the era makes that clear, even if warnings were mitigated by just-as-loud celebrations of the boom. And yes, the press said there were a lot of terrible mortgage products out there. Those are important consumer and investor issues. But that’s all they are. When the gaze turned to financial institutions, the message was entirely different: “all clear.” It’s not just the puff pieces (“Washington Mutual Is Using a Creative Retail Approach to Turn the Banking World Upside Down”; “Citi’s chief hasn’t just stepped out of Sandy Weill’s shadow—he’s stepped out of his own as he strives to make himself into a leader with vision”; and so on) or the language that sometimes lapses into toadying (“Some of its old-world gentility remains: Goldman agreed to talk for this story only reluctantly, wary of looking like a braggart”; “His 6-foot-4 linebacker-esque frame is economically packed into a club chair in his palatial yet understated office”): it’s that even stories that were ostensibly critical of individual Wall Street firms and mortgage lenders described them in terms of their competition with one another: would their earnings be okay? There was a bubble all right, and the business press was in it.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Leach comments on the Harper Cons' own carbon bubble - as a government relentlessly pushing tar sands development seems utterly oblivious to the reality that further development could become non-viable based on a readily-foreseeable (and indeed necessary) change in climate policy.

- Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' fixation on income splitting - and how it shows they couldn't care less about anybody who doesn't share their own privileged lifestyle:


- And Doug Cuthand observes that First Nations have been particularly marginalized based on their failure to fit into the Cons' target demographics:

Funding has been eliminated to the following groups since the Harper government came to power: Sisters in Spirit, NAHO, the National Aboriginal Health Organization, The First Nations Statistical Institute and NWAC, Native Women's Association of Canada. Virtually all the aboriginal political organizations experienced funding cuts this year.

We cannot forget the failure of this government to honour the Kelowna Accord that would have injected more than $5 billion into a series of First Nations initiatives, including housing, education health and economic development.

In addition to the cuts to the political organizations, First Nations administrations have seen budget cuts ranging from 10 per cent to 25 per cent. A clause has been inserted in tribal council funding agreements that none of their grant allocations can be used for "advocacy or political activities."

How the Department of Colonial Affairs plans to police this is beyond me. You can't have a group of chiefs in a room without them discussing political issues.

The government views tribal councils only as service providers. In other words, it sees tribal councils replacing the Department of Indian Affairs and becoming the new Indian Agents. The days of participatory democracy are but a memory. The Harper government wants to control the agenda, and any group that provides an independent or contradictory voice is suspect.

In addition to the cutbacks to First Nations organizations, institutions and services, we now have the "Fair Elections Act" that is attacking our democratic rights as Canadians. The removal of the vouching for voters without proper ID could be problematic for First Nations voters.
...
This leads me to conclude that the Conservatives have given up on us as supporting them in the next election. They have cut our funding to the bone, and now they are reducing our impact at the ballot box. Is this Harper's war on Indians?

- Finally, Tim Harford notes that too much reliance on "big data" can lead to massive mistakes when institutions fail to recognize the limits on what a particular set of information actually tells us.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- David Macdonald comments on Statistics Canada's latest wealth survey, with particular emphasis on the continued gap between a privileged few and the vast majority of Canadians:

(T)he top 20% of families have twice as much wealth as the bottom 80% of families combined. Even if the bottom 80% of families doubled their net worth tomorrow, they still wouldn’t have as much as the top 20% presently do.

Inequality is not only about the wealthy, it’s also about the middle class. Looking at the middle 20% of families, while they represent 20% of the population, they only receive 15% of all income. However, the middle 20% of families only have 8% of all net wealth and this has remained fairly constant since 1999.

All the above examines the share of net worth, not its dollar value change over time. In fact, net wealth has increased for all quintiles since 1999.  For instance, middle class net wealth has increased by almost 80% since 1999 in inflation-adjusted terms. The upper class has increased their net worth by a little over 80% since 1999. That seems fairly equal until you realize that the wealth they were starting from in 1999 was already incredibly unequal: 80% of $760,000 is a lot more than 80% of $137,000 (the 1999 median wealth values for the upper and middle classes, respectively).

In fact, of every new dollar of Canadian wealth created since 1999, $0.66 went to the richest, $0.23 went to the upper middle class and the bottom 60% fought it out for the remaining dime.

The reasons why wealth increased for the middle class in contrast to the rich are also quite different. If we look at the distribution of debt instead of net wealth, we find that the middle class actually holds the most debt of any quintile, certainly more than the poor, but interestingly also more than the rich.  The middle class has managed to increase their net wealth in large part due to increased leveraging, not asset price appreciation. The richest families have less debt and substantially more assets. Their increased wealth is largely due to asset accumulation, not leveraging.

- Meanwhile, Phillip Inman reports on a new IMF study which shows that redistribution of wealth correlates to slightly more economic development - meaning that policies aimed at giveaways to the wealthy in the name of growth tend to fail even on their own terms (while succeeding only at exacerbating inequality).

- Ian Welsh explains how our political and financial systems are set up to funnel free money to the banking sector - while pointing out the inevitable result that an already-coddled industry is accumulating ever more wealth and power.

- Karl Nerenberg offers seven suggestions to make the Cons' elections legislation less damaging. But it's particularly worth noting that exactly one point on the list reflects a change from the status quo - meaning that the main effects of the Fair Elections Act are to make matters worse than they'd be if nothing were to be passed at all.

- And Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' plans to change Canada's electoral rules solely for their own benefit:


- Finally, David Climenhaga looks at the dwindling membership of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation - showing that even astroturf has an expiry date.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Barbara Yaffe writes about the continual rise in food bank use and the underlying political choices which have brought it about:

(I)n the last decade food banks have been helping Canadians through both good times and bad.

Doubtless, the latest food bank numbers, at least in part, are related to the private-sector propensity since the 2008 recession to maintain or boost profit by reducing employee numbers.

Also, as anyone who frequents a supermarket knows, food has grown noticeably more expensive in the past few years.

And Canadians are more indebted.

The public sector also is being constricted, with the robustness of social programs being diminished.

“As governments cut the size of the public workforce, emphasize low taxes and restrict new spending, social policy ... is at risk of neglect.”

 - Gus Van Harten reviews how FIPA investment deal with China being forced through by the Cons looks to have disastrous effects for Canada. And Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' refusal to accept debate or accountability on the deal:


- Amy Minsky has been reporting extensively on the Cons' anti-union bill - first highlighting the dishonesty involved in labeling the bill as a private member's legislation when Stephen Harper's own chief of staff has been documented meeting with the anti-worker lobbyists behind it, then covering the resulting committee hearings.

- And finally, Michael Harris discusses how direct interference by the Cons has led to the termination and silencing of journalists who dare to question their actions rather than serving as meek stenographers.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Annie Lowrey reports on the evidence showing that the perpetually-increasing inequality pitched by the right as an economic plan actually serves to damage economic development:

The yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots — and the political questions that gap has raised about the plight of the middle class — has given rise to anti-Wall Street sentiment and animated the presidential campaign. Now, a growing body of economic research suggests that it might mean lower levels of economic growth and slower job creation in the years ahead, as well.

“Growth becomes more fragile” in countries with high levels of inequality like the United States, said Jonathan D. Ostry of the International Monetary Fund, whose research suggests that the widening disparity since the 1980s might shorten the nation’s economic expansions by as much as a third. 

...

The concentration of income in the hands of the rich might not just mean a more unequal society, economists believe. It might mean less stable economic expansions and sluggish growth.

That is the conclusion drawn by two economists at the fund, Mr. Ostry and Andrew G. Berg. They found that in rich countries and poor, inequality strongly correlated with shorter spells of economic expansion and thus less growth over time.

And inequality seems to have a stronger effect on growth than several other factors, including foreign investment, trade openness, exchange rate competitiveness and the strength of political institutions.

- Campbell Clark documents Jason Kenney's latest jaw-dropping ministerial power grab (which would entitle him to shut anybody out of Canada for purely political reasons and with no accountability whatsoever). And Thomas Walkom discusses the real motivation behind the move to place sole power in the hands of a single minister:

I reckon the real reason for this amendment is not (Terry) Jones at all but (George) Galloway, an engaging — if sometimes infuriating — rapscallion who quit the British Labour Party to found his own and who has long been an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights.

Kenney first tried to bar Galloway for organizing a relief convoy to Gaza, claiming that this constituted support to terrorism. As Mosley noted in his 2010 ruling, that claim wasn’t remotely credible.

A few days after the judgment was handed down, Galloway entered Canada and, as Conservatives gnashed their teeth, went on a triumphant 11-city speaking tour.

Riots did not break out.

The proposed amendment — think of it as the Galloway amendment — would ensure that this never happens again.

Kenney says he wants to consult widely before going ahead. But if he were serious, he would abandon this overly broad approach completely and seek much more circumscribed power instead.

That he is not doing so says volumes.

- Don Lenihan discusses what it means to be a progressive:

For the last two centuries, (progressivism) has been defined by the tension between freedom and equality. While the Right focused on protecting individual freedoms, the Left struggled to balance liberty and equality. As we move into this third stage, a new governance dimension is emerging that cuts across the old Left-Right spectrum. It is defined by the tension between top-down and bottom-up governance, as follows:

We can conclude by saying that, in this third stage, the most progressive governments, organizations and people will be those whose centre of gravity is somewhere in the bottom, left-hand quadrant of the diagram. They are the ones seeking to engage communities of all sorts–geographcial (sic), linguistic, cultural and communities-of-interest–in order to leverage the social captial (sic) within them.

- Finally, Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' continued ad spending. (And the point most worth emphasizing is that the ads are now promoting nothing at all, as any "plan" referred to in the first waves of ads ended years ago to be replaced by a do-nothing government.)

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- The Economist adds a noteworthy voice to the chorus calling for greater tax enforcement to ensure the corporate elite pays its fair share:

Characterising this steady financing as short-term lending is “the ultimate example of form over substance” and undermines a fundamental tenet of American tax policy, huffed Mr Levin. When an HP executive tried to insist the manoeuvre did not constitute profit repatriation, the senator wielded an internal HP document in which it was discussed—in the repatriation-strategy section. The Senate investigators said they suspected other companies were doing the same thing but couldn’t say how prevalent the practice was.

Who to blame for all this darting through loopholes? To no one’s surprise, Mr Levin pointed the finger mostly at the companies that engage in “tax alchemy”.
...
The rule-setters and enforcers deserve their share of the blame. It is true that enforcement of arm’s-length deals is tricky because no two intangible assets are quite the same, making it hard to establish a fair price. Moreover, the IRS has to rely in part on the taxpaying company’s own projections of cash flows, risks and so on. But the agency leans too often on the side of leniency. It does not help that transfer-pricing regulations have grown unwieldy. Some experts describe them as unworkable.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board also took some flak at the hearing. Jack Ciesielski, an independent accounting expert, was scathing about a FASB exception that allows firms to avoid reporting and reserving for American tax liabilities for foreign earnings if they plan to invest these “permanently” overseas—a loophole that they continue to exploit even as they lobby for a tax break so they can bring those same profits home.

By focusing on a few striking cases, Mr Levin and his staff have increased their chances of making a splash with an issue that many find mind-numbingly technical. And profit-shifting is, as he put it, doubly problematic today, given the fragility of the economy and the fact that corporate-tax receipts are at historic lows as a percentage of federal revenue. Expect the IRS to take a dimmer view of avoidance schemes going forward. Whether it will prove a match for the multinationals’ phalanxes of lawyers and beancounters is another matter.

- In case there was any doubt how the power imbalance between employers and workers in Canada is being exploited, CJME confirms that gas station attendants in Saskatchewan - as in Ontario and elsewhere - are being encouraged to risk life and limb to avoid being docked pay based on gas theft. And Wendy Stueck reports on the unsafe living conditions facing temporary agricultural workers in British Columbia.

- For those worried that Robocon wasn't being investigated beyond the most glaring case in Guelph, Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor confirm that Elections Canada is looking into plenty more citizens' concerns.

- Dr. Dawg and Colby Cosh tear into the Globe and Mail and its public editor for a pitiful response to compelling concerns about plagiarism.

- Finally, Rick Mercer rants as to why we need to rant more often. But I'll add that while a good rant can help to define a problem, the words don't go far if not paired with some plan to solve it.

Thursday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Common Dreams discusses the prevalence of inherited wealth among the U.S.' richest individuals (as pointed out by a report by United for a Fair Economy):

Forbes claims that their list of the 400 richest people is 'the definitive scorecard of wealth' in the United States, but UFE rebuffs that assertion, saying that the narrative of wealth and achievement pushed by Forbes ignores the other side of the coin— namely, that the opportunity to build wealth is not equally or broadly shared in contempory society.

According to the report:

• The net worth of the Forbes 400 grew fifteen-fold between the launch of the list in 1982 and 2011, while wealth stagnated for the average U.S. household.
• The racial wealth divide is starkly apparent from the overwhelming whiteness of the list. The 2011 Forbes 400 had only one African American member.
• Women accounted for just 10% of the 2011 list, and of the women on the list nearly 90% inherited their fortunes.

In addition, the report points out that (and the new 2012 list from Forbes shows continuation of this trend) the rich in 2011 got richer as the poor got poorer. The growing wealth inequality, the report says, is not due to any inherent brilliance or dynamism of the wealthy, but because of carefully crafted policy and legislative reforms enacted by government at the behest of the these same individuals.

Two examples cited by the report which directly impact the ability of the rich to retain and pass along their enormous assets:

• Tax rates on capital gains have been slashed, which especially benefits members of the Forbes list. The richest 0.1% receive half of all net increases in capital gains.
• Drastic cuts to the federal estate tax passed in the Bush tax cuts and the 2010 Obama tax deal allow the Forbes 400 to pass on more of their massive fortunes to their heirs, contributing to the growth of inequality and entrenching a class of super-wealthy heirs.

- Thomas Walkom weighs in on the anticipated effects of the CETA - noting that the problems with the deal go far beyond billions in giveaways to big pharma, while the supposed gains are tiny even based on the Cons' blind faith in the almighty market:

As the Council of Canadians has pointed out, CETA also promises to go far beyond tariff reduction. The Europeans want to prevent provinces and municipalities from favouring local business.

If as expected they get their way, this would wipe out Ontario’s remaining bus and train manufacturing capacity — and play havoc with Premier Dalton McGuinty’s green-industry strategy.

As well, Europe’s demand for greater patent protection is sure to raise the price of drugs. One study cited by Jacobs calculates the annual extra cost to Ontarians at $1.2 billion.

Why then has Canada chosen to take this path? The federal government’s answers are not convincing.

Ottawa cites a 2008 study it helped finance, which calculates the usual gains to trade predicted by economic theory. But such gains won’t be massive. In this case, the federal study says, they would amount to less than one percentage point of Canada’s gross domestic product, or about $12 billion.

If, as the Harper government assumes, all of this extra money were used to hire Canadians, then the deal would create 80,000 new jobs nationwide — which would help, if not solve, the problems faced by the 1.4 million who are currently out of work.

But Canadians know from grim experience that in the real world businesses don’t always spend their extra profits on domestic job creation.

- SOS Crowns points out that plenty of rural Saskatchewan communities will be losing broadband Internet access from SaskTel due to the latest anti-Crown edict from the Sask Party.

- Finally, Rick Mercer rants about the Cons' latest omnibus monstrosity in the making:

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom points out that the McGuinty Libs' choice to emphasize austerity rather than stabilizing Ontario's economy may lead down exactly the same destructive path travelled by Greece and other countries:

(T)he crises in Spain, Portugal and Greece occurred because government spending cuts designed to remedy debt problems sent those countries spinning into economic decline.

Throughout much of Europe, measures aimed at reducing debt have created a self-reinforcing spiral of doom.

Government workers are laid off to save money, which leads to higher unemployment. Higher unemployment reduces tax revenues, thereby widening fiscal deficits. Governments are forced to borrow more to cover these shortfalls, thus increasing debt.

And on and on.
...
If we assume, as Drummond seems to, that the U.S. economy will never fully recover and that the price of oil (and therefore the loonie) will stay perpetually high, then Ontario’s economy will remain precarious.

In this scenario, “unprecedented” spending cuts of the kind Drummond recommends would be the worst possible action.

It would be far better for Queen’s Park to undertake a less ambitious debt reduction scheme, even if doing so caused the government to miss its 2018 target date for balancing the budget.

Spain’s austerity regime has led to a youth unemployment rate of 50 per cent. Greece’s has led to rioting in the streets. Ontario doesn’t need either.

- Chris Selley rightly suggests that total online surveillance is an intrusion into the lives of Canadians that deserves a fight. And Rick Mercer rants:



- Aaron Wherry surveys a few suggestions from MPs on how to make Parliament more effective.

- Mike de Souza reports that an obsession with pushing unrestrained tar sands development at the expense of all other economic priorities may prove to be just as damaging for Alberta on its own as for the other regions of the country which are more obviously suffering for the Cons' warped priorities.

- Finally, J. Rhys Kesselman has some ideas to actually improve Canada's retirement income system. But since they run contrary to the Cons' strategy of transferring wealth from those who need it most to those who need it least, I wouldn't expect them to get anywhere as long as Stephen Harper is in power.

Thursday Evening Links

Assorted content for your end-of-week reading.

- Harris-Decima is the latest pollster to confirm the NDP's momentum, this time with a poll carrying responses from over a week ago which nonetheless places the NDP at 30% and gaining on the Cons.

- Alison takes Patrick Muttart's dismissal from the Harper campaign as a much-needed opportunity to point out the links between Muttart and the Cons' U.S. Republican cousins.

- Paul Wells highlights some of the lasting impacts we can expect from the NDP's surge:

The rise of Jack Layton’s NDP was the story of the campaign’s fourth week. At this writing I have no way to guess whether the NDP will keep rising, or fade away as it has done more than once before. But at any rate, the Layton phenomenon is hardly the only way Canadian voters have stubbornly refused to stick to their assigned role. Conversations are breaking out all over, honest-to-goodness debates, and all the campaign pros in all the war rooms won’t be able to herd us back into our tidy demographic stables again.
...
Layton is not perfect. His ideas for the country will leave many unpersuaded. But he rises because he at least acts like a guy who would rather fix problems than fix blame. Even if he fades in the stretch, something permanent will remain. A whole country has remembered that it does not like to be told what it may talk about and how it may react. And when a country gets its back up the way this one has, it will not go back to sleepy predictability any time soon.

- Meanwhile, Rick Mercer's brilliant campaign summary includes this damning tidbit on the Harper Cons' duplicity:

To get a feel for the Harper campaign you only need a few hours. The differences from one event to the other are minuscule. In English Canada they start each event by singing “O Canada,” and Stephen Harper tells the crowd he’s proud to lead a party that starts every event this way no matter where they are in the country. In Quebec they skip this part and they hide the Canadian flags in the plane.

Mercer also wonders whether the leader's tour is nothing more than an anachronism - which makes it particularly interesting to note that the NDP has pushed ahead with a full-on tour as part of its successful campaign even though there may have been reason to expect otherwise.

- Finally, "Steve Shutt" on Babble raises an idea which could tell us in a hurry whether the Libs will work on replacing or joining Stephen Harper next week:

I'm wondering how best to get pledges from the Liberals who might survive to not pull a David Emerson, the former Martin Liberal from Vancouver, who between E-Day and the cabinet swearing in had a conversion from the Liberal banner he was elected under to the Harper Conservatives, who were now the one's in charge.

I think it would need to focus on the wide policy differences between the Tories and the Liberals (at least on paper both Jack and Iggy had, until the surge hit, pointed to the commonality between Liberal and NDP platforms) so that voters know that they don't have to worry about voting for the "red" door and getting their MP walking through the "blue" door.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- While there's plenty of reason for optimism that the NDP can win enough seats to make change for the better, there should never be any illusion that politics as usual will go down without a fight. Today's sad examples: Dr. Dawg slams the Libs for outing star NDP candidate Francoise Boivin (in a move which will hopefully produce enough backlash to put Boivin over the top), while Rick points out that Bob Rae is once again serving as the Libs' designated spoiler in ridings where they'd apparently prefer to see Con incumbents hang on against strong NDP challengers.

- In what should be a bigger story than it seems to have become so far, Marco Fortier points out that the Cons have tossed aside any requirement for experience or competence in order to permit religious-based charities to receive large amounts of federal money.

- There's plenty of good news in the vote mobs which are working to get students and other young Canadians voting. But Susan Delacourt points out that as per usual, there's plenty of work being done by less positive actors to suppress turnout as well:

Valeriote also says that people with Liberal signs on their lawns have been getting visits from volunteers identifying themselves as Conservative campaign workers, who are warning these would-be Liberal voters that voting for Michael Ignatieff will result in handing control of the country to Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.

Like Volpe, Valeriote is saying that this is all part of a voter-suppression effort. Green Party leader Elizabeth May talked about this at the Star's editorial-board meeting a couple of weeks ago -- the nasty tactics may not drive any votes toward a particular party, but instead, disgust people enough about politics that they simply stay away from the ballot box on May 2. Much of the Liberals' whole campaign this time has been focused on boosting turnout, so these 12-year-old-kid pranks could be a real problem.

Then again, it all does give average citizens a glimpse of what's become business as usual in Ottawa in recent years.

- And finally, Alison clarifies what the Cons mean in saying they're "Here for Canada".

- Update: Also, what Rick Mercer said:



- Update II: I didn't liveblog last night's Palliser forum due to a lack of wireless reception. But I'll point out that one of the most impressive parts of Noah Evanchuk's perfomance was his consistent stand to the effect that all voices - including those opposing him - should be heard at the forum and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this fact check misses the mark on the same point in suggesting that it's somehow a failing for a couple of Libs to have not removed critical comments from their Facebook pages.

Thursday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- Sure, it's nice to see some relatively principled Conservatives abandoning the party. But was there anything about the Harper Cons' vote-buying that shouldn't have been obvious long before the latest revelations in Vaughan?

- Meanwhile, some might see reason for concern that the Cons are working to keep people from voting in Guelph. But from the standpoint of living up to their campaign message, I suppose one can say they're walking their talk in considering elections to be an inconvenience that are best rendered as meaningless as possible.

- Adam Chapnick makes the case for keeping per-vote funding to political parties as a means of making sure that every vote counts. And I broadly agree - even if there are other reasons to vote one's conscience beyond the subsidy.

- Gloria Galloway thanks Rick Mercer for getting students to pay attention to politics.

- Finally, Simon Enoch points out that we can already see the results of Con-style austerity in the UK - and that a focus on the Cons' idea of economic management figures to do far more harm than good.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- There doesn't seem to be much doubt that the Cons' main focus during the election campaign has been on strictly restricting access to the people they're looking to have elected to office. And the latest addition to the list deemed unfit for interaction with their Con betters is...an advocate for homeless veterans.

- But that doesn't mean anybody has taken a break from working to suppress the facts about Afghanistan, both through continued fights against the Military Police Complaints Commission, and through the detainee document suppression tribunal. (And there, the Libs are apparently just now starting to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the Harper Cons might not be acting in good faith - only a year after the NDP recognized the same.)

- Rick Mercer deservedly slams Mike Duffy for serving as the Cons' point man in attacking Jack Layton's health:

Jack Layton didn’t reveal personal information about his health because the gallery wanted to know, he did it because, earlier that day, Conservatives had fanned out across the country and were practising the dark arts. The whisper campaign about Jack’s health they had been carrying on in the shadows was stepped up a notch.

Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy, who can perhaps kindly be described as the most amoral partisan hack to ever draw a breath, went on radio in Nova Scotia, a province of potential growth for the NDP, and in a hushed tone usually reserved for a palliative care unit told the radio audience that he personally saw Jack on the Hill and “up close it doesn’t look good, Jack doesn’t look good… he is a valiant man for carrying on.”

It takes a certain kind of man to gleefully trade on a man’s battle with cancer, and Mike Duffy is that man. It is why Stephen Harper appointed him to the chamber of sober second thought.

- Finally, Alice tweets that the NDP is on the verge of reaching the threshold of 40% female candidates, becoming the first Canadian party to do so in a general election. Of course there's plenty more left to both to balance the numbers within the party and to work on the number of women elected - but it's without a doubt a plus to be headed in the right direction.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday.

- Harron Siddiqui takes on the Cons, Libs and media alike for pushing Canada into an Afghanistan extension which most citizens don't want:

Harper’s flip-flops — won’t cut and run; won’t stay a day longer than July 2011; okay, will stay until 2014 — are functions of political posturing. Ignatieff’s position springs from his written conviction that the Afghan war was essential to Pax Americana, Empire Lite.

Regardless of motivation, Harper and Ignatieff are the eager errand boys of America in Afghanistan.

And much of our mainstream media are their cheerleaders — as they were for Bush’s war on Iraq. Good luck to the two-thirds of Canadians who oppose the Afghan war in getting fair news coverage.
...
NATO is on a treadmill going nowhere. But it won’t admit defeat, least of all Barack Obama. Battered in the midterm election, he cannot afford to give any opening to Republican and Tea Party warmongers. The 2014 deadline will neutralize Afghanistan as an issue in the 2012 presidential election.

Harper and Ignatieff are happy to oblige. The rest is propaganda.

- Sometimes, the system works!!!

- You know a political party is in trouble when its supporters are reduced to arguing that one of its competitors somehow shouldn't want the influx of high-profile figures crossing party lines to join it.

- Finally, while Rick Mercer's rant this week has already received plenty of attention, it's well worth including here as well:



[Edit: fixed wording, added and removed Axworthy link.]