Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Elian Peltier reports that Denmark's message that the COVID pandemic is over has predictably given rise to a new - and particularly dangerous - wave as people abandon even the most elementary care to avoid community transmission. And Brittany Gervais reports on the justified outrage of immunocompromised Albertans who have been told the new normal involves their being unable to participate in society due to uncontrolled viral spread. 

- Cindy Blackstock, Leilani Farha, Monia Mazigh and Alex Neve offer some important questions about how we treat protests generally in the wake of the #FluTruxKlan being allowed to lay siege to Canada's capital. Doug Cuthand discusses how the deference shown to violent extremists shows the operation of white privilege in action. And Justin Ling points out the role of QAnon and other conspiracy theorist groups in driving the convoy. 

- John Anderson discusses what Canada has lost through two decades of corporate tax revenue lost to tax slashing and loopholes. 

- Meanwhile, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood notes that workers predictably haven't benefited from yet another temporary boom in oil prices. And Marc Lee, Tom Green, Peter McCartney and Anjali Appadurai discuss the need for British Columbia's royalty regime to take into account the transition away from relying on carbon pollution for energy. 

- Alyshah Hasham writes about a new learning hub intended to ensure that people facing criminal charges aren't trapped in a cycle of poverty and recidivism. 

- Finally, Lee discusses the need for more medium-density not-for-profit housing to ensure that a fundamental right isn't left to the whims of market forces and exclusionary zoning. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mike Konczal notes that a single-minded focus on shareholder wealth - exemplified by today's obsession with stock buybacks - has frozen workers out of any returns from economic development. And Anne Perkins writes about the outrageous gap between the pay of the luckiest CEOs and the rest of the workforce.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias discusses Elizabeth Warren's plan to reconnect businesses to the societies which enable them to make their money, both by mandating social purposes and by ensuring worker representation in decision-making.

- James Wilt examines the public returns on natural resource wealth in Alberta compared to other similar jurisdictions, and finds that Albertans are receiving a woefully insufficient price for oil sands extraction.

- Meanwhile, Crawford Kilian points out the need for massive investments to address climate change - both to do everything in our power to avoid an imminent "hothouse" scenario, and to adapt as best possible to the extent that effort fails.

- Finally, George Monbiot examines how jarring increases in obesity rates over the past few decades can be traced almost entirely to corporate manipulation of consumer habits.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Mariana Mazzucato discusses the dangers of confusing market prices with intrinsic values:

Value has gone from being a category at the core of economic theory, tied to the dynamics of production (the division of labour, changing costs of production), to a subjective category tied to the ‘preferences’ of economic agents. Many ills, such as stagnant real wages, are interpreted in terms of the ‘choices’ that particular agents in the system make, for example unemployment is seen as related to the choice that workers make between working and leisure. And entrepreneurship – the praised motor of capitalism – is seen as a result of such individualized choices rather than of the productive system surrounding entrepreneurs – or, to put it another way, the fruit of a collective effort. At the same time, price has become the indicator of value: as long as a good is bought and sold in the market, it must have value. So rather than a theory of value determining price, it is the theory of price that determines value.

Along with this fundamental shift in the idea of value, a different narrative has taken hold. Focused on wealth creators, risk taking and entrepreneurship, this narrative has seeped into political and public discourse. It is now so rampant that even ‘progressives’ critiquing the system sometimes unintentionally espouse it.
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Such assumptions about the generation of wealth have become entrenched, and have gone unchallenged. As a result, those who claim to be wealth creators have monopolised the attention of governments with the now well-worn mantra of: give us less tax, less regulation, less state and more market. By losing our ability to recognize the difference between value creation and value extraction, we have made it easier for some to call themselves value creators and in the process extract value. Understanding how the stories about value creation are around us everywhere – even though the category itself is not – is essential for the future viability of capitalism.

To offer real change we must go beyond fixing isolated problems, and develop a framework that allows us to shape a new type of economy: one that will work for the common good. The change has to be profound. It is not enough to redefine GDP to encompass quality-of-life indicators, including measures of happiness, the imputed value of unpaid ‘caring’ labour and free information, education and communication via the Internet. It is also not enough to tax wealth. While such measures are important in themselves, they do not address the greatest challenge: defining and measuring the collective contribution to wealth creation, so that value extraction is less able to pass for value creation.

- Ben Parfitt notes that British Columbia is being severely shortchanged when it comes to deriving public revenue from natural resources. And Simon Enoch and Emily Eaton examine how an oil boom tends to offer little benefit to public coffers and services even in the areas which are supposed to be prospering.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Livesey wonders whether the Libs' Trans Mountain bailout is based on a perception that Canada has signed away any ability to limit the prospect of an oil pipeline to serve Chinese investors. Michael Harris weighs on on the foolishness of paying far above market price for a project which creates massive public risks, while David Climenhaga wonders whether Trudeau plans to be bound by Kinder Morgan's side deal with the anti-worker CLAC. And Mike De Souza reports that two Kinder Morgan executives are being rewarded with $1.5 million bonuses for extracting the deal the company was able to wring out of the federal government.

- Finally, Denise Balkissoon rightly argues that Canada needs to take responsibility for the continued pattern of children being removed from their families - particularly in Indigenous and minority communities.

Leadership 2018 Links

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On delayed rectification

I'll largely echo David Climenhaga's take on Alberta's oil and gas royalty review (PDF). But it's well worth highlighting the difference between the two main interpretations of the review's recommendations - and what they mean for future resource policy.

By way of comparison, some of the media spin includes statements along the lines of the following:

The key points of the report are:

• Albertans are receiving their fair share.
• Oilsands royalties won't change.

Contrast that against Rachel Notley's message (which matches the actual comments from the review panel, and indeed from Brian Jean in gloating about the lack of changes):

“The fact of the matter is the environment has changed profoundly, even in the last 12 months, and so that is what is driving our decision-making at this point,” Ms. Notley told a news conference in Calgary yesterday morning. “It is not the time to reach out and make a big money grab. That just is not going to help Albertans over-all right now, and so I feel quite confident that this is the right direction to take.”

There's thus a stark contrast between the claim that Alberta's royalty structure is in fact sufficiently fair to stay in place indefinitely, and the view that a period of low prices isn't the time to alter it to improve its level of fairness.

Indeed, anybody looking to the report to confirm or refute the first point will find plenty of conflicting information. Yes, it suggests that Alberta's royalty rates are "comparable with other jurisdictions". But it also recommends annual reporting and further reconsideration as to whether royalties paid meet a number of goals, including "returns to Albertans" - meaning there's ample room for further review as circumstances change. And we'd expect the gap between costs and royalties to be much higher when prices and profits are up.

So the answer on an improved return for the public is best seen as a "not now" rather than a "not ever". And while that's still disappointing compared to the prospect of ensuring improved public benefits in the long term (which could be palatable if paired with supports to cover a short-term downturn), it doesn't close the door to a more fair system in the future.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Paul Weinberg discusses the need to focus on inequality in Canada's federal election, while Scott Deveau and Jeremy Van Loon take note of the fact that increased tax revenue is on the table. The Star's editorial board weighs in on the NDP's sound and progressive fiscal plan. And Matthew Yglesias includes the rise of the NDP as part of the growth of a new, international progressive movement.

- Rank and File interviews Michael Butler about the privatization of health care in Saskatchewan, as well as the role of the federal government in ensuring a viable public system. Thomas Walkom comments on Thomas Mulcair's health care promises - and the stark contrast between the NDP's efforts to build our health care system and the deafening silence from the Cons and the Libs. And the Wellesley Institute finds a similar lack of anything useful from the NDP's major-party opponent in analyzing prescription drug policies.

- Bruce Campbell compares the respective benefits Canada and Norway have managed to achieve from oil exploitation - with the result looking downright ugly due to what we've given away.

- Jorge Barrera reports on the latest revelations about the Harper Cons coming out of Bruce Carson's influence-peddling trial.

- Laura Payton reports on a deal the Cons struck with a gun lobby group - then reneged on - in order to silence opposition to Bill C-51. But Haydn Watters points out that the Cons are at least being quite helpful in branding themselves as the party of 24-hour surveillance. 

- Finally, Keith Boag writes that while we should demand more from our leaders, we won't get it unless people are also more engaged in how we're governed.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Dana Flavelle examines how many Canadians are facing serious economic insecurity. And Kevin Campbell discusses how the Cons are vulnerable on the economy due to their obvious failure to deliver on their promises, as well as their misplaced focus on trickle-down ideology:

During this election it is essential to understand that we live in an era of persistent financial insecurity among the majority of the population. Household balance sheets are in a tenuous state throughout the industrialized world, particularly in Canada. This inevitably affects how citizens choose to vote. Healthcare, education, ethics and the environment — they all matter a great deal and undoubtedly influence voter behaviour. But the party that secures economic confidence wins elections in this country.
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The reality is that the parties of the left actually focus heavily on the well-being of the most vital driver in the economy: you. The household. And by that, I do not mean nuclear families alone. I mean any household, including single people, single parents, childless couples and widowers. I mean everyone who orbits around the average or the median, and certainly those who survive on less. The household is the engine to which the rest of the economy responds. It is a strong foundation of employment, consumption and tax revenue that propels everything else in the system.

Corporations and investors simply respond to demand — and aggregate demand is not powered by the top one per cent or even the top 10 per cent. Disposable income flows when we create the conditions for the average household to adequately feed, clothe and shelter itself, supported by the opportunity to be healthy and educated.
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A Leger poll released last week placed “stimulating the Canadian economy” as the top issue for the October election, sequentially followed by the related subjects of “helping middle-class families” and “job creation.” The NDP leads on the latter two items and is nipping at Harper’s heels on the first. If recent history is any guide, victory will come to the party that evokes the greatest confidence on such issues.

Progressives can, and must, earn that confidence.

- Meanwhile, Roderick Benns talks to Alax mayor Steve Parish about the benefits a basic income can provide in both fighting poverty and ensuring economic security. 

- Martha Friendly highlights the need for child care in Canada - as well as for the federal government to be involved in funding and developing a functional system. And Joey Porter reports on the Cons' gross failure to deliver even approved funding for clean water for First Nations.

- Dave Cournoyer takes a first look at Alberta's royalty review panel and the benefits it should produce for the public. And Mike De Souza reports on what happens when environmental regulators actually do their jobs - as Nexen is being required to demonstrate it can operate pipelines safely in the wake of its spill, rather than being let off with a promise to do better.

- Finally, Harriet Sherwood examines a global crackdown on human rights organizations and other civil society groups. And Sheena Goodyear reports on how Tony Turner's Harperman fits into the wider issue of allowing public servants some voice in the political system in which they work.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Branko Milanovic discusses how rent theory fits into the glaring gap between productivity and wages:

Bob Solow explored a couple of days ago another possibility. Going back to his own initial work on the theory of growth, some 60 years ago, Solow asked the following question: why did we assume that there is perfect competition and that factors are paid their perfect completion marginal products? We knew, continued Solow, that there were monopolies; moreover, the theory of imperfect competition (Chamberlin and Joan Robinson) existed since the 1930s. Solow said: “I could not find a good reason, but since theory and facts were broadly in accord, nobody bothered much with the assumption”. That is, until recently. How can we explain, continued Solow, a sustained and significant divergence between nonfarm sector productivity and real wage? Despite some quibbles about the measurement of the two, there is no doubt that the they have diverged. But that goes against everything we thought we knew! (I am paraphrasing Solow here.)

However, if you assume a model of imperfect competition, where in addition to labor and capital being paid their marginal product, there is also a rent (due to the fact that price is greater than the marginal revenue product), the issue becomes: how is that rent going to be distributed between labor and capital? And until the early 1980, due to trade union density (“The treaty of Detroit”), relative shortage of labor, trilateral (government-capital-labor) negotiations etc., the rent was divided in a way that favored labor. But with the decline of the unions, ideological assault on labor (the Reagan revolution) and a huge expansion of available wage-labor worldwide (as China and Eastern Europe rejoined the world economy), the bargaining power of labor waned and that of capital increased. Consequently, the share of capital in national income increased, and productivity growth got decoupled from real wage growth.
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In Solow’s view, the determination of what share of the rent goes to labor and what to capital is not solely political. It depends also on their relative scarcities (or put it the other way round, on the reserve army of the unemployed). But political factors do play a role too: power of trade unions, ideology, who controls the government, probably fear or not of a social revolution. So, as these political factors have receded, or more exactly, have moved in a direction adverse for labor, the division of the pie has become more favorable to capital.

- Dylan Matthews offers a useful survey of views on a basic income. And Scott Santens points out that a basic income is entirely consistent with the goals of the labour movement.

- Atul Gawande discusses how a U.S. medical system which doles out unnecessary treatment in the name of profits produces both higher costs and worse health outcomes. And Sabrina Tavernise connects Baltimore's poverty and poor health - which have been allowed to fester for decades - to the rightful frustration of citizens.

- Eric Jaffe argues that investment in transit does plenty of good for a city's development - including by providing a far more reliable pool of workers for employers. But Jordon Cooper writes that instead, Saskatoon (like far too many other Canadian cities) is set up to make transit more costly than driving for residents.

- Finally, Mitchell Anderson writes that Alberta voters are rightly asking what's happened to the promised benefits of an oil boom.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lynne Fernandez properly labels the Cons' federal budget as the "inequality budget". Andrew Jackson discusses how we've ended up in a new Gilded Age in Canada, and what we can do to extricate ourselves from it. And BC BookLook reviews Andrew MacLeod's new book on inequality by pointing out some of the important facts which seldom seem to surface elsewhere.

- Speaking of which, Andrew Nikiforuk exposes how the Alberta PCs handed the oil industry $13 billion in free money by failing to correct a miscalculation as to how royalties would change with time. (Feel free to insert quotation marks and/or pause for laughter in the general vicinity of the term "miscalculation".)

- And Michael Prince writes that a compassionate care benefit is following the Cons' typical pattern of handing plenty of money to those who need it least, while offering nothing at all for the people doing the most to help others.

- PressProgress highlights how the Cons' past funding for transit has been left unused, meaning that there's no reason to take seriously the promise of new money years down the road in the federal budget. And Jim Stanford duly slams the Cons' auto strategy of handing car makers massive amounts of money to produce vehicles elsewhere.

- Craig Forcese follows up on the problems with C-51 by pointing out that it wrongly sees all Charter rights as being both conditional and subject to destruction at the mere mention of national security. Open Media offers a new and hand primer on the Cons' terror bill. The Globe and Mail notes that the U.S. is moving to make its no-fly list more sensible and fair even as the Cons make ours more draconian. And Andrew Mitrovica explains why "just trust us" isn't sufficient accountability from anybody when it comes to national security powers:

So here’s what we’re getting by way of reassurance. C-51 looks “frightening” but it isn’t really — not when viewed from Fadden’s altitude in the security sphere. The security services will never use the vast new powers being granted by the bill to cross the line on Canadians’ civil liberties because Richard Fadden won’t let them. And besides, CSIS is beholden to the Public Safety minister — and we all know how seriously Steven Blaney takes his job.

What a crock. Ever since its inception in 1984, Conservative and Liberal ministers responsible for the agency have said repeatedly, both in and outside the House of Commons, that they do not and cannot get involved in the day-to-day operations of CSIS. And we’re supposed to believe Blaney, the guy who was making Holocaust comparisons during his own committee appearance on the bill, is going to be the one to break that streak?
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One of the more disturbing aspects of Fadden’s performance before the committee was how myopic it was. He made pointed reference to terrorist attacks against “Western interests” and Canada’s “allies” in Paris, Madrid and London. He claimed that Canada’s “priorities” in combatting terror only changed after the Americans were attacked on 9/11.

At no point during his testimony did he mention the largest mass murder in Canadian history — the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182. Most of the 329 victims aboard that flight were Canadians; 86 were children. It was a terrorist attack that made the European attacks cited by Fadden seem subtle. So why didn’t he bring it up?

Because it didn’t fit the narrative. The Air India affair was a black eye for Canadian security and law enforcement. CSIS and the RCMP — the agencies Fadden never tires of describing as “second to none” — were so incompetent and preoccupied with turf wars that they failed, despite ample warning, to stop the terrorist attack, even though they had the tools to do so. And the Air India terror plot was engineered and executed in Canada; its intended victims were Canadians who hailed from every province, save P.E.I.
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Air India was and remains a shining example of security service incompetence at its absolute worst. C-51 wouldn’t have prevented it. So while the bill will most certainly pass, the government’s arguments in its favour stand convicted of their own faulty logic. Unless, however, we’re all willing to just trust the Harper government — and Richard Fadden.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Robert Ferdman reports on a Pew Research poll showing that wealthier Americans are downright resentful toward the poor - and think the people with the most difficult lives actually have it too easy:

(T)he prevalence of the view might reflect an inability to understand the plight of those who have no choice but to seek help from the government. A quarter of the country, after all, feels that the leading reason for inequality in America is that the poor don't work hard enough.

But as my colleague Christopher Ingraham pointed out last year, to say that the poor have it easy is to ignore how serious their struggle is in comparison to the rest of the population, and especially those with money to spare. The poor are much less likely to have health insurance, much more likely to be the victim of a crime. They don't get the same level of education or have the same food options. Inequality, as my colleague Matt O'Brien wrote, "starts in the crib," and it plays out even in what babies of different socioeconomic backgrounds are fed. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

- Meanwhile, Amitha Kalaichandran counters that homelessness (like other aspects of poverty and inequality) is anything but a choice. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on how poor neighbourhoods in Toronto rely on payday lenders, and how that only makes matters worse for people already trying to scrape by with very little.

- PressProgress highlights the stagnation of Canadian wages, while Andy Kiersz points out that Canadian household debt is not only higher than the U.S.' today, but also higher than the unsustainable levels that contributed to the 2008 economic meltdown. And Sherri Torjman argues (PDF) that the Cons' regressive income splitting scheme is the last thing Canadian families need at the moment.

- Andrew Jackson discusses the connection between increased reliance on information technology to perform skilled work, and the growing income and wealth gaps:

IT has eliminated middle skilled jobs, and new jobs are being created at the high and the low end of the education and skills spectrum. At the same time, IT development has resulted in huge “winner take all” rewards for a handful of individuals who have pioneered major new applications which have been widely adopted – think Google and Facebook. Compared to the giants of the industrial age, these companies have huge market capitalizations but relatively few workers, and only have to invest modestly in physical capital.

The theory of skill biased technological change tells us a lot but has significant problems as an overall explanatory framework for rising income and wealth inequality. As has been frequently noted, inequality still varies a great deal between advanced industrial countries using the same technologies because institutions, such as unions and labour laws as well as government social and tax policies, make an important difference.

And, as Thomas Piketty showed in his own 2014 best-seller, the ranks of the very rich go far beyond internet billionaires to include those who have inherited wealth, as well as the very well-paid CEOs of “old economy” enterprises who have ruthlessly used IT to cut costs. Technological change may explain why the less skilled are doing badly, but there is a bigger story behind the rise of the super wealthy compared to the merely highly educated.

That said, the authors of the Second Machine Age and their colleague David Autor at MIT make a convincing case that new technology has very much worked against those without very high levels of skills. They make the key point that the elimination of routine jobs by machines results in the relatively unskilled competing for the many lower level jobs which are non routine and cannot be readily automated, such as personal care support workers, hairdressers, cooks and chefs, janitors, security guards and so on. The relative weight of these low productivity, low skill, low pay positions in the job market is increasing, and their pay is flat or falling.
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The authors of The Second Machine Age discuss, but do not go so far as to advocate, a basic income for all citizens. But it will be hard to refute the moral and economic logic for spreading the bounty of technological progress to the many if the wealth of the very rich increases as rapidly as the power of the marvellous machines that are now at their service.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone laments the willingness of resource-obsessed governments to get us stuck in commodity price traps. Which makes for a needed counterpoint to Murray Mandryk's odd position that the point when we recognize we're trapped is no time to try to free ourselves.

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.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Stephanie Levitz reports on the Broadbent Institute's study showing that Con-friendly charities haven't been facing any of the strict scrutiny being used to silence anybody who dares to speak up for environmental or social causes. And Jeremy Nuttall notes that the problem is probably worse than it seems from the outside, as charities are clamming up for fear of calling more attention to themselves:

Tom Henheffer is the executive director of Toronto-based Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, an organization with board members including journalists for the Toronto Star and CBC.

Henheffer said the Broadbent Institute's study confirms what has been suspected since the audits began.

"They want to bully people into not speaking out against them, that's the entire point of the audit," he said. "And it's working, that's the really sad thing."

While investigating the story The Tyee has had charities decline to comment or divulge information about those conducting the charity audits, saying they fear retribution from the government.

Henheffer said he's heard the same sentiments, adding organizations are "terrified" and checking with their lawyers.

- Meanwhile, the climate of fear is now spreading toward the Cons' treatment of individuals, as Tim Harper discusses how irrational fearmongering about terrorism figures to be used as an excuse to attack privacy rights. And Paul Adams writes that the Cons have plainly decided to make that fearmongering a central part of their next election campaign.

- But then, it's not only state actors who are working on suppressing individual freedoms, as Rosa Marchitelli reports on the growing list of corporations who are bullying people into silence about their bad business practices. (Clearly nobody could have foreseen such a development.)

- Joe Friesen and Renata D'Aliesio point out that the lack of accurate information about First Nations employment is allowing employers to hire temporary foreign workers rather than do anything to develop the pool of indigenous Canadians who would be able to do the work.

- Finally, Marc Lee rightly slams the B.C. Libs for yet another giveaway to the resource sector, this time a new set of gratuitous royalty and tax cuts for the liquified natural gas developers who were supposed to offer an economic panacea.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mitchell Anderson discusses Canada's woeful excuse for negotiations with the oil sector - particularly compared to the lasting social benefits secured by Norway in making the best of similar reserves:

Digging through the numbers, it seems Norway is considerably more skilled at negotiation. By charging higher taxes and investing equity ownership in their own production, the Norwegian taxpayer was paid $46.29 BOE in 2012. That same year, the U.K. taxpayer realized only $20.08 per BOE -- less than half as much.

What about Canada? Much of our production is bitumen, which admittedly is a lower value (and often unprocessed) product with higher extraction costs. That said, it seems the nicest nation on earth is being taken to the cleaners. In 2012, Canada produced more than two billion BOE and collected $18 billion in provincial and federal taxes and royalties. This means that the Canadian taxpayer realized a benefit of about $9 per BOE -- less than one-fifth what Norway collected in the same year.

Canada produces 45 per cent more petroleum than Norway. Imagine for the sake of argument that Canada collected what Norwegians did between 2009 and 2012. In those four years, Canada would have enjoyed revenues of $365 billion -- enough to pay off more than half of our national debt.
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Every provincial jurisdiction is also in direct competition with each other in a race to the bottom to attract private petroleum investment. Internal government documents accessed by the Alberta Federation of Labour found that B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan charge lower royalty rates than any U.S. state. Bizarrely, this was framed as a public policy achievement.

Since our country has an every-province-for-itself negotiating strategy, job strapped jurisdictions are not only contending with immensely powerful outside forces, but their own angry electorate every few years. It's hard to drive a hard bargain when voters can be maneuvered to take up industry's negotiating position. Nothing motivates a politician quite like the prospect of electoral defeat, and voters have become enlisted as unwitting allies in the billion-dollar brinksmanship of industry to access resources at ever-cheaper prices.

- Jane Gerster's report following up on David Macdonald's study of wealth inequality includes this apt observation from Erin Weir:

In many ways, the growing divide is more concerning than income inequality, said Erin Weir, economist for the United Steelworkers.

“Wealth matters because it also confers political power and social status,” Weir said, adding “wealth makes increasing inequality a self-reinforcing trend: invested wealth is a source of income, those who already have the most wealth have the greatest capacity to accumulate more wealth.”

- Update: And Alex Pareene responds to the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling to further facilitate the flow of concentrated wealth into politics on by pointing out the possibility of reducing wealth inequality in the first place.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford reviews the neoliberal policy choices which have exacerbated that inequality over the past few decades.

- Finally, Sheila Fraser rightly slams the Cons' cynical attack on Canadian voting rights. And Bruce Cheadle reports on how the Unfair Elections Act is set up to facilitate yet more Robocon-style schemes - even as Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor confirm the connection between the Cons' party database and the 2011 voter suppression fraud.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Ian Welsh discusses the nature of prosperity - and the illusion that it means nothing more than increased economic activity:

All other things being equal more productive capacity is better. The more stuff we can make, in theory, the better off we’ll be. But in practice, it doesn’t always work that way.

Part of the problem is due to hierarchies and inequality. Inequality is undeniably bad for us. The more unequal your society is, the lower the median lifespan. The more unequal the society, the sicker, in general. More heart attacks, much more stress. The more unequal, the more crime. These links are robust.

The links run two ways. On the one hand, humans find inequality stressful. The human body, if subject to long term stress, becomes unhealthy and far more likely to be sick. People who feel unequal act less capable than those who feel equal. This is true for the rich and powerful in unequal societies and the poor. Everyone suffers. Though the poor and weak do suffer more, even the rich and powerful would be healthier and live longer in equal societies, most likely simply due to the stress effect.

The second part is distribution, or rather, the question of who gets to decide the distribution. The more unequal a society, the less stuff the poor and middle class have, comparatively. Some technologies tend to lead to more inequality, some tend to lead to more equality.  ...
Increases in productive capacity and technological advancement do not always lead to welfare and when they do, it do not have to do so immediately. The industrial revolution certainly did lead to increased human welfare, but if you were of the generations thrown off the land and made to work in the early factories, often 6 1/2 days a week, in horrible conditions, you would not have thought so. You were in virtually every way worse off than before being thrown off the land, and so were your children. A few industrialists and the people around them certainly did very well, but that is not prosperity, nor is it affluence.

Prosperity, in the end, is as much about power and politics as it is about technology and productive ability. The ability to make more does not ensure we are making the right things, or that the people who need them, get them. Productive capacity which is not shared is not prosperity.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress highlights the Cons' latest efforts to make sure workers don't share in any benefit from corporate operations.

- Keith Stewart writes that the oil sector's interest in fostering dependence on its product runs contrary to the social interest in generating clean and renewable energy, while Andrew Gage explains the NEB's choice not to take seriously the most obvious risks involved in the Gateway pipeline and tanker project. And Erin Weir offers up PCS' minimal royalty projections as the latest example of how Saskatchewan's dependence on corporate potash production is producing little return for the province's resources.

- Finally, Greg Weston reports on CSEC's illegal intrusion into the online activity of travellers at Canadian airports:

The latest Snowden document indicates the spy service was provided with information captured from unsuspecting travellers' wireless devices by the airport's free Wi-Fi system over a two-week period.

Experts say that probably included many Canadians whose smartphone and laptop signals were intercepted without their knowledge as they passed through the terminal.

The document shows the federal intelligence agency was then able to track the travellers for a week or more as they — and their wireless devices — showed up in other Wi-Fi "hot spots" in cities across Canada and even at U.S. airports.

That included people visiting other airports, hotels, coffee shops and restaurants, libraries, ground transportation hubs, and any number of places among the literally thousands with public wireless internet access.

The document shows CSEC had so much data it could even track the travellers back in time through the days leading up to their arrival at the airport, these experts say.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz discusses the link between perpetually-increasing inequality and the loss of social trust:

Unfortunately, however, trust is becoming yet another casualty of our country’s staggering inequality: As the gap between Americans widens, the bonds that hold society together weaken. So, too, as more and more people lose faith in a system that seems inexorably stacked against them, and the 1 percent ascend to ever more distant heights, this vital element of our institutions and our way of life is eroding.

The undervaluing of trust has its roots in our most popular economic traditions. Adam Smith argued forcefully that we would do better to trust in the pursuit of self-interest than in the good intentions of those who pursue the general interest. If everyone looked out for just himself, we would reach an equilibrium that was not just comfortable but also productive, in which the economy was fully efficient. To the morally uninspired, it’s an appealing idea: selfishness as the ultimate form of selflessness. (Elsewhere, in particular in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Smith took a much more balanced view, though most of his latter-day adherents have not followed suit.)

But events — and economic research — over the past 30 years have shown not only that we cannot rely on self-interest, but also that no economy, not even a modern, market-based economy like America’s, can function well without a modicum of trust — and that unmitigated selfishness inevitably diminishes trust.
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Trust between individuals is usually reciprocal. But if I think that you are cheating me, it is more likely that I will retaliate, and try to cheat you. (These notions have been well developed in a branch of economics called the “theory of repeated games.”) When Americans see a tax system that taxes the wealthiest at a fraction of what they pay, they feel that they are fools to play along. All the more so when the wealthiest are able to move profits off shore. The fact that this can be done without breaking the law simply shows Americans that the financial and legal systems are designed by and for the rich.

As the trust deficit persists, a deeper rot takes hold: Attitudes and norms begin to change. When no one is trustworthy, it will be only fools who trust. The concept of fairness itself is eroded. A study published last year by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the upper classes are more likely to engage in what has traditionally been considered unethical behavior. Perhaps this is the only way for some to reconcile their worldview with their outlandish financial success, often achieved through actions that reveal a kind of moral deprivation.

It’s hard to know just how far we’ve gone down the path toward complete trust disintegration, but the evidence is not encouraging.

Economic inequality, political inequality, and an inequality-promoting legal system all mutually reinforce one another. We get a legal system that provides privileges to the rich and powerful. Occasionally, individual egregious behavior is punished (Bernard L. Madoff comes to mind); but none of those who headed our mighty banks are held accountable.

As always, it is the poor and the unconnected who suffer most from this, and who are the most repeatedly deceived.

- Meanwhile, David Hutton discusses the Cons' crackdown on whistleblowers and anybody else who tries to bring inconvenient truths to light. And Glen McGregor's look at the Cons' latest fund-raising pitch tells us what kind of action they're looking to punish with incessant fund-raising appeals:

The Citizen received these fundraising pitches after submitting an email address to a Conservative Party website that encouraged users to send Happy Mother’s Day greeting to Harper’s wife, Laureen.

- Grant Robertson and Kim Mackrael write that the regulatory system which we should be able to trust to ensure Canadians' safety instead did nothing in response to questions about the safety of shipping oil by rail. And ThinkProgress surveys 45 fossil fuel-related disasters from 2013 which didn't receive the coverage they deserved.

- Finally, Max Fawcett writes about the absurdity of Alberta's royalty regime which allows. And it shouldn't escape notice that Saskatchewan's resource management is even more slanted toward converting public resources into private payouts - with the public paying up to 120% of the cost of resource extractors' operations.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Scott Doherty recognizes that Saskatchewan's failure to collect a reasonable royalty rate for potash and other natural resources is directly responsible for the province crying poor when workers are laid off. And Alex Himelfarb points out that the magical theory behind perpetual tax cuts is purely a matter of illusion rather than reality.

We are more than just consumers and taxpayers. We are citizens with responsibilities for one another; we undertake to do some things together, things that we could never do alone or that we can do much better collectively. Taxes are the way we pay for those things. They’re the price of living in Canada and the opportunities that provides.  Indeed, those opportunities exist because of the sacrifices and taxes of previous generations to build the Canada we inherited.
...
We demand of our leaders to explain how they are going to pay for new services but, equally, we need to demand that they explain the COSTS of their promised tax cuts ­–­­­ to our quality of life, to our democracy, to our economy.  Would we be so pleased with the next tax cuts if we knew they came with worsening traffic congestion, increased risks to food safety, longer wait times for health care, less help for the jobless and needy, rising inequality and environmental degradation?

We seem only to talk about what government costs and not about what it gives.  Too much is at stake to let our identities as “consumers” and “taxpayers” supplant our citizenship and commitment to the common good.

- Meanwhile, the Star Phoenix discusses Station 20 West - which has become a source of food, health services and community for Saskatoon's Pleasant Hill neighbourhood despite the best efforts of the Wall government to stop it.

- And on the subject of governments with absolutely no clue about the realities facing people living in poverty, Peter MacKay believes that even homeless people should have no trouble whatsoever selling some unspecified property to pay mandatory fines.

- Armine Yalnizyan questions the rationale behind the Cons' cuts to Canada Post. And Duncan Cameron expands on the postal bank option as an alternative to the Cons' slash-and-burn approach.

- Finally, Elizabeth Thompson describes Hugh Segal's philosophy of political bridge-building - which of course couldn't be much more out of place in the current Conservative Party.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Nick Cohen writes that the corporate sector is home to some of the most dangerous cult philosophy in the world:

(T)he language of business has become ever more cultish. In the theory of "transformational leadership", which dominates the business schools, the CEO is a miracle worker. In Transformational Leadership, by Bernard Bass and Ronald Riggio, he is described, not by some gullible Forbes hack, but by two supposedly intelligent American academics. The transformational leader "inspires" his follower to "achieve extraordinary outcomes", they say. He "empowers them" to "exceed expected performance" and show ever greater "commitment to the organisation".

I don't see why anyone should find the comparison with fanatics so hard to accept and not only because the idea that CEOs can manufacture new and better subordinates matches Trotsky's belief that the revolution would create a "new man who raises himself to a new plane".

The nearest you are likely to come to experiencing life in a dictatorship is at work. Unless you are fortunate, you will discover that the management is the source of all ideas and all power. Executives will have privileges that bear no more relation to real achievement than the fat and ugly cult leader's expectation of sex. In 2012, the median pay for CEOs in the USA was $14.4m, the average salary for employees $45,230. In Britain, the High Pay Commission found that the average annual bonus for FTSE 300 directors had increased by 187% in 10 years even though the average year-end share price had gone down by 71%.

Above all, whether you are in the public or the private sector, John Lewis or Barclays Bank, you will learn that if you challenge authority you will lose the chance of promotion and if you challenge it in public, you will lose your job. To prosper in the workplace, as in the dictatorship, you must tell leaders what they want to hear.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman calls for reasonable wages - including a livable minimum wage - to ensure that workers aren't at the mercy of the worst corporate leadership. And Digby explains why big business is working to bury the very idea of public service:

They must have a reason for their dedication to austerity. And that reason is simple greed: the government is competing with them for "insurance" dollars. They are rent seekers and every time the government provides a service efficiently and at lower cost, it takes the provision of that "service" away from a private entity that could make a profit at it. All the propaganda about government being the problem and the private sector being the solution is in service of creating wealth for the rent-seekers. Obviously.
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(T)here is a great deal of money to be skimmed by financial wizards and insurance company share-holders from health and pension programs. Everybody needs them. They've already managed to grab hold of virtually all the private pension management in this country and all that's left is Social Security. By starving it of funds, they hope to force more and more people to put money into market based schemes from which they can siphon off even more profit. They see every penny the government extracts for the common good as stealing from them their rightful share.   

- Michael Harris criticizes the Cons' full devotion of Canadian diplomacy to the service of our corporate overlords. The Council of Canadians notes that a strong majority of Canadians disagree with the elimination of buy-local policies in the Cons' CETA sell-out. And Erin Weir points out how the Wall government has given away tens of millions of dollars in uranium royalties without any discernible benefit to anybody besides Cameco.

- Mike de Souza reports that Joe Oliver has been aware of uncontrolled and unexplained leaks at the CNRL Primrose tar sands site since this summer - and hasn't missed a beat in denying any knowledge of risks associated with oil development of any kind. Which means that we now have our water source for the Tar Sands Taste Test Challenge - just as soon as somebody other than an oil executive is allowed in the same room as Oliver.

- And the Globe and Mail confirms that the Lac-Mégantic derailment and explosion can be traced in large part to a complete lack of regulation of oil shipment by rail, together with decreasing enforcement of existing rail regulations.

- Finally, Tim Harper wonders whether the last week's developments in the Senate scandal will produce the bumper-sticker messages which spell the end for the Cons' stay in power.

On legacies

Peter MacKinnon's report (PDF) on the possibilities for a Saskatchewan heritage fund is well worth a read. And I'll readily agree with the central premise that it's well worth setting up such a fund to turn one-time resource revenues into long-term benefits.

But it is worth noting that MacKinnon's proposed rule of thumb for deposits into a fund leave a couple of glaring loopholes which may undermine the fund in the long run:

2. Cap Reliance on Non-renewable Resource Revenues

The Government of Saskatchewan establish a cap on reliance on non-renewable resource revenues for all purposes other than deposits in the Futures Fund. This can be done by freezing the use of non-renewable resource revenues in the budget at the average of the five previous provincial budgets (2009 to 2014), which is approximately 26 per cent (See Chart 2).

This cap would stipulate that government’s use of non-renewable resource revenue beyond 2014 would not make up more than 26 per cent of the provincial budget, thereby maintaining our use of these revenues at current levels. All non-renewable resource revenues in excess of this cap shall be committed in accordance with recommendation 10.

So what's wrong with applying the average level of resource revenues from past budgets as the standard for future ones? Let's look at two loopholes in such a plan, and how they affect the overarching goal of turning current resource extraction into future income.

First, the threshold leaves the door wide open for a government to simply decide to reduce its resource income through yet another set of corporate giveaways.

As long as resources are extracted without the government actually bringing in any corresponding royalty revenue, MacKinnon's standard would see no basis for any deposit to the Futures Fund. And particularly when our current government has been perfectly happy to gift resource extractors hundreds of millions of dollars in would-be royalty payments, there's plenty of reason to worry we'd simply see royalties slashed and corporate tax credits expanded to funnel money away from a fund and toward the Sask Party's backers.

Second, the threshold limits any discussion of budget impacts to the present year. Once again, that only figures to exacerbate some of the Sask Party's warped decision-making patterns: it allows for any number of P3s and other schemes to kick the can down the road, enabling a government to commit to an unlimited amount of future spending (which might dwarf the amount of money saved in the fund) while letting some later government deal with the budgetary fallout.

Fortunately, both of those issues can be solved relatively simply - by setting a deposit floor based on a percentage of the value of the resources extracted in a particular year (effectively forcing the government of the day to ensure royalty rates are at a sufficient level to meet that standard), and by counting future spending streams as part of the size of the budget in defining the cap. But without those changes, a fund might only encourage the Sask Party to continue with its worst habits - and wouldn't figure to save anything at all for the long run.

On shortsighted assumptions

Time for a true or false pop quiz. Is the following a self-evident statement of economic fact?

"A capital asset which is not currently being exploited has a value of zero for all purposes."

I only ask because that seems to be the fundamental assumption behind Andrew Leach's cost-benefit analysis comparing raw bitumen mining to upgrading. And unfortunately, Leach's viewpoint seems to fit all too well with the current resource management philosophy of provincial and federal governments alike.

Here's Leach's conclusion as to a hypothetical set of developments - one involving an extraction project alone, one an attached upgrader:

On a per-barrel basis, the numbers are equally ambiguous – in fact, you’d probably say that the upgrader looks better. Revenues per barrel of bitumen extracted are higher with the upgrader, at an average of $80.80 per barrel vs. $62.93 for the mining project alone. Average costs (capital, debt, and operating costs combined) are higher for the integrated project, at $43 per barrel of bitumen produced and upgraded versus $29.15 for the mine, while royalties and taxes are similar at around $19 per barrel of produced bitumen in both cases. The result is that the upgrader earns higher cumulative cash flows, by $4.10, per barrel of bitumen produced.
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There’s also a trick in the per-barrel numbers above – the project with an upgrader earns higher cash flow per barrel, but it produces far fewer barrels—1.7 billion fewer. So, over the life of the two projects, the total royalties and taxes collected from mining and upgrading combined versus bitumen extraction alone would be lower by $36.6 billion, while the profits to the producer would be lower by $13.4 billion. Combined, for a similar capital investment and with similar associated jobs, the bitumen extraction project returns $50 billion more in royalties, taxes, and profits.

But how much of a "trick" is it to recognize that the upgrader project leaves an additional 1.7 billion barrels of oil in the ground to be produced - providing an opportunity for further development once the single proposed project is in its operations phase?

That question is particularly important in light of the Cons' usual message around oil transportation. The Harper line is of course that every drop of oil will ultimately be squeezed out of the tar sands - and if anybody questions a particular pipeline or tanker traffic scheme, the Cons will instead approve a balloon-and-catapult system to launch dilbit in the general direction of Shenzhen, with the resulting splashback covering the entire northern hemisphere to be explained away by a vigorous chant of "ethical oil!".

By the same token, if it's true that accessible tar sands reserves will ultimately be fully developed (with some public policy desire to brand Canada as an "energy superpower" serving as an excuse to bridge gaps in actual demand), then the appropriate means of evaluating the resulting benefit is precisely the per-barrel calculation rejected by Leach - even if it takes somewhat longer to get there.

Alternatively (and more plausibly), one can ask whether other developments might make further extraction uneconomical at some point in the future. But surely the risk of changed economic conditions represents at most a basis for partially discounting the value of reserves in the ground - not a valid reason to assign them a giant zero, or consider any acknowledgement of their existence as a "trick".

Unfortunately, far too many people seem willing to assume our land and resources have no value in their current state - resulting in our accepting minimal royalties and massive environmental damage as the price of immediate extraction. And while it may not be easy to assign an exact price to that which doesn't get ripped out of the ground, it's not at all difficult to see how the zero-value assumption is wrong on its face.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons' pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons' response is to make clear that they consider an ounce of self-delusion and denial to be worth a pound of cure.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix' editorial board recognizes the desperate need for resource-rich provinces to handle their wealth responsibility:

(P)rovinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta are dipping ever deeper into their one-time resource revenue to pay their bills. Saskatchewan, for example, now depends on resources for about 25 per cent of spending, up from less than 10 per cent in the 1990s.

Alberta is in even deeper trouble. This led University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz to recently recommend that Alberta adopt a 13 per cent HST. Rod Love, former premier Ralph Klein's adviser, responded by saying westerners would destroy any politician who proposed any sort of taxes.

That illustrates why Alberta and Saskatchewan's governments would rather squander their future than introduce a rational tax strategy. It's worth noting that after nearly four decades, Alberta has an estimated $16 billion in its wealth fund while Norway has socked away more than $600 billion over the same period.

Norway had the advantage of being a national government. Canada's resource wealthy provinces must better manage their advantage before Ottawa is compelled by its Constitution to do the job for them.

- The Wellesley Institute takes a closer look at minimum-wage earners in Ontario - and finds hundreds of thousands of adults aged 25 and up trying to make a living at or near the minimum. Vincent McDermott reports on the replacement of hundreds of employees in Fort McMurray with temporary foreign workers in an attempt to lower wages and undercut unions. And the Canadian Press discusses a push for stronger enforcement of workplace safety standards in Manitoba - including real consequences for employers who suppress employee injuries.

- Andrew Mitrovica points out why we should be particularly concerned to know that a surveillance apparatus set up in the name of security is being used for all kinds of other purposes:

So what that they suck at catching the bad guys? (Anyone remember the murderous Tsarnaev brothers?) So what that the CSEC, NSA and Britain’s GCHQ can invade, unchecked, every aspect of our lives in the electronic ether? So what that together these agencies can, as The Guardian newspaper aptly put it, “harvest, store, and analyze millions of phone calls, emails and search engine queries,” every day? So what that they can keep that information about you for however long they like? So what that they break every bit of encryption you might use to afford you even the illusion of security?

I think what Shorten and Snowden have done is a courageous and eloquent rebuttal to the so-what crowd. This stuff does matter, and we need to know about it. We need to know about it because publicly the powers that be insist, like Boisvert, that the CSEC and its sister agencies exist to protect you and me from the bad guys. But we now know, courtesy of Shorten and Snowden, that we’re the real targets. They’re spying on us.

- And finally, Dr. Dawg discusses Canada's ignominious week resulting from the Cons' choice to use government resources for the exclusive benefit of private resource extractors:

Doing some industrial espionage in Brazil for private corporations—and getting caught. Instructing the Maldives on how to run clean elections. Threatening the Commonwealth.

Why is the Canadian state running errands for mining companies? Well, it’s not the first time, of course. Our trade alliance with the bloody narco-state of Colombia was based upon mining interests. The deep-sixing of a private member’s bill to enforce mining company ethics abroad is another example. (No surprise, the Harper government was supported by the Liberals in each case.) But when our government grossly misuses the public service—CSEC is supposed to be ensuring national security, not working to enhance corporate profits—we’ve gone well past the usual pro-business politics. Even as a gofer, the state has no place in the boardrooms of the nation. And to be caught at it—thank you, Edward Snowden—is plain cringeworthy.