Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Jennifer Rigby report on the World Health Organization's recognition that COVID-19 remains a global public health emergency even as far too many jurisdictions pretend otherwise. Andrew Nikiforuk examines the dangers of an evolving set of variants, while David Axe points out the risk of a major new threat from widespread new infections in China. The Economist offers its recognition that the fallout from COVID is preventing people from working. And Jessica Wildfire discusses why we have reason to be angry about the avoidable harm that's still being inflicted on everybody. 

- Maia Szalavitz offers a reminder that any evidence-based approach to homelessness will focus on providing housing first. And Nojoud Al Mallees reports that the "Rapid Housing Initiative" intended to spur construction of needed homes is falling far short of its billing (due in large part to conservative provincial governments who couldn't care less about the availability of affordable housing). 

- Meanwhile, Kathryn Blaze Baum and Tu Tranh Ha discuss how Canada's building codes are outdated in accounting for an increase in extreme weather. 

- Trevor Hancock argues that the fossil fuel cheerleading so frequently given a privileged place in corporate media should come with a health warning due to the obvious effects of continued carbon pollution. 

- Finally, Moira Wyton discusses what to expect as British Columbia decriminalizes possession of small amounts of a number of drugs, including the unanswered questions as to whether the permitted quantities themselves will be used as pretexts for arbitrary police action. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Mark Tenforde, Kiva Fisher and Manish Patel study the activities most likely to spread COVID-19 - with restaurants, gyms, bars and churches ranking as the obvious sources of community transmission. And Bruce Arthur warns not to count on an increasing number of vaccine deliveries as a magic bullet against the coronavirus pandemic - particularly when variants are spreading among unvaccinated populations.

- Jim Stanford writes that the model being used to distribute vaccines - ensuring that the people who need a vital good most receive it at no cost - is one we should look to expand to cover more of the essentials of life. And Bernard Ho, Osman Raza and Andriy Katyukha ask when the Libs will live up to their promise to make that happen in ensuring access to medicine in particular. 

- Christine Dobby discusses how concentrated capital has caused a rental housing crisis even when there are far more homes available than people to occupy them. And Stephanie Allen makes the case for community land trusts to ensure that community-based housing is developed and made available for the people who need it.

- Lars Osberg writes that instead of using the end of the pandemic as an excuse to revert to neoliberalism as usual, we need to once again recognize and account for our interdependence. And even the Economist recognizes that we can't afford to simply go back to the status quo ante in designing our social supports.

- Finally, for those with time to explore some new online resources, saskoil.org offers a thorough look at the impact of the fossil fuel sector in Saskatchewan. And The Breach will soon be offering a needed independent national media outlet.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Ronan Burtenshaw discusses the British public's strong support for a New Deal featuring higher wages and more fair tax contributions by the rich as the UK plans for a recovery from the coronavirus. But Naomi Klein calls out how COVID-19 is instead being used to give all the more power to tech billionaires who only want to remake society to enhance their power and goose their profits.

- The Economist points out the increasingly-glaring gap between the real economy and the stock market. And Chuck Collins discusses how the wealthiest few in the U.S. are only getting richer through the pandemic which has left nearly everybody else in a precarious financial position, while J.C. Pan likewise recognizes that billionaires are swallowing the rest of the economy whole.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman highlights the reasons why Republicans are determined not to help Americans facing hunger and hardship.

- Victoria Gill reports on Mark Carney's recognition that self-isolation won't save us from the effects of a climate breakdown. And Nina Lakhani discusses new researching showing that dangerous heart and humidity are on the rise.

- Finally, Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze observes that a full building retrofit program would work wonders both in ensuring sustainable development and reducing the damage we do to our planet. And Sean McElwee, Julian NoiseCat and John Ray note that U.S. voters are all the more supportive of a Green New Deal in light of the need for massive public investments to sustain and rebuild economic activity in any event.

Sunday Morning LInks

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- James Cairns discusses why socialism is seeing a resurgence in popularity, particularly among younger citizens who see little reason for hope in politics as usual:

Occupy Wall Street popularized the language of the 99 per cent and the 1 per cent as a way of explaining class inequality. The 2012 Quebec student strike declared that "Education is a Right" while beating back a 75 per cent tuition hike. Bernie Sanders is campaigning for a "political revolution" that would end the power of corporate interests over public policy. Allied movements, such as Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, and Extinction Rebellion, while not explicitly socialist, fuel shifts in politics-as-usual.

These activist groups are doing socialist education on a mass scale. By their words and deeds, movements are giving people concrete reasons to believe in jobs with fair wages, cities built on affordable housing, the end of student debt, clean air and water for everyone.

Filmmaker and author Astra Taylor describes the despair of so many young people facing precarious employment, insecure housing, and crushing debt. She says the reason so many of these people are organizing for socialism is that "socialism would feel like having a future."

- But in case there was any doubt how many obstacles stand in the way of a fairer future, Shawn Gude interviews Matthew Lacombe about the stealth political control exercised by a few billionaires. And Peter Pomerantsev writes about the massive piles of disinformation being used to confuse and confound voters. 

- Paul Krugman offers a reminder that how corporate tax giveaways ultimately end up transferring massive amounts of wealth to foreign investors.

- The Economist writes that the environment currently looks to be the key ballot box issue for Canadian voters. David Suzuki discusses the dangers of recklessly producing and disposing of fossil fuel-basded plastics. And Sharon Riley offers some needed background on the Teck Frontier tar sands mine which has been recommended for approval despite the certainty that it will cause massive environmental damage even beyond its contribution to climate breakdown.

- Finally, Colby Cosh highlights why the latest bleatings about Alberta separatism don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne discusses why we can't afford another Harper government - but also why we shouldn't merely accept the Libs as the only alternative no matter how dishonestly and angrily they try to limit our choices. And Tom Parkin highlights the need to empower social movements to shape our political system.

- The Economist discusses the range of new ideas developing among progressive thinkers in contrast to the pattern of stagnation and reactionary messaging on the right.

- Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the grim prospects of Ontarians with disabilities based on Doug Ford's imminent attacks on the province's social supports. And Alicia Bridges highlights similar uncertainty in Saskatchewan due to the Moe government's announcement of unspecified changes which they're not actually willing to present to the public.

- Meanwhile, Adam Hunter reports on the massive - and readily avoidable - travel bills being racked up by the Sask Party government which is inflicting cruel austerity on the province's citizens. And Anna Mikhailova and Charles Young point out how UK Conservative MPs are pointing to their adult children as an excuse to line their pockets with funding intended to defray child care expenses - even as they deny child care to parents who actually need it.

- Finally, William Snow writes from experience as to how the U.S.' elite universities serve as incubators for growing inequality of opportunity.

[Edit: added link.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Beth Gutelius writes that any discussion about the future of work can draw important lessons from the past, with most of the issues facing workers today echoing or arising out of ones which have surfaced before:

The set of structural forces that has converged over the last forty years has shaped the economy and produced an uneven distribution of benefits, especially along lines of race, gender, immigration status, disability, and other markers of social difference. These are the ghosts of work, forces which include:

• Structural racism and gender discrimination that disadvantages people of color, especially African Americans, and women;
• Immigration policy that has resulted in a secondary labor market for undocumented immigrants and immigrants with certain visas;
• Industry reorganization that has led to an increasingly fissured economy and increasing reliance on outsourcing and worker subcontracting;
• Decline in union density, due to explicit and well-funded attacks on workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, which has reduced the wage-setting capacity and political influence of unions;
• Shifts in corporate governance that have lead to increased shareholder power and CEO pay, and curtailed shared prosperity;
• Globalization and trade policy which produced a new set of low-road competitive dynamics, including offshoring;
• Attacks on the public sector which have resulted in policies skewed toward financial and private sector deregulation, privatization, and the overall shrinking of the role of government;
• Tax policy reform that has favored the wealthy and corporations, and has lead to a redistribution of gains toward the top of the income spectrum; and
• Financialization, which has bloated the role of the financial sector in the economy.

What a list! Taken as a whole, these major trends have shifted power and resources away from workers, and allowed or even incentivized employers to pursue a range of low-road approaches to profitability. These root causes may be shifting somewhat, but they are not going away.

...

1. The future of economic justice is a just transition to what will involve more technologically-mediated labor markets and jobs. A just transition should mitigate the costs and share the benefits of new technologies.
2. Change is certain, but its path is not, and giving in to inevitability will stifle our imagination. There are many alternatives, and it is our collective duty to create and promote them.
3. Efforts to confront the changing nature of work should strengthen the role of the public sector in setting and enforcing workplace standards and delivering a social safety net.
4. Those workers most affected by an issue should be involved in shaping any proposal or campaign to address it, and the process should help build workers’ voice and capacity to act.

- Meanwhile, the New York Times editorial board examines the long-haul trucking industry as a damning example of the combination of longer hours, greater demands and stagnant wages faced by so many workers in the U.S. over recent decades.

- The New York Times editorial board also points out how the Trump tax giveaway served only to further enrich the wealthy. And Thomas Piketty discusses the dangers of burgeoning inequality.

- The Economist offers a useful set of principles and proposals to make tax systems more fair and effective. 

- Finally, Don Lenihan writes about Canada's telecommunications oligopoly - and the need to treat access to the world as an essential service to ensure access is available in areas which won't receive equitable services based on profit motives. And Sarah Fischer discusses the dangers of increased concentration of local television broadcasting and other media.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Economist examines the latest research showing the amount of money stashed in tax havens is even higher than previously estimated. And the Guardian calls for action on the IMF's conclusion that we'll all end up better off if the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes:

The IMF’s analysis does something to redress the balance, making two important points.

First, it says that tax systems should have become more progressive in recent years in order to help offset growing inequality but rather have been becoming less progressive. Second, it finds no evidence for the argument that attempts to make the rich pay more tax would lead to lower growth. There is nothing especially surprising about either of the conclusions: in fact, the real surprise is that it has taken so long for the penny to drop. Growth rates have not picked up as taxes have been cut for the top 1%. On the contrary, they are much weaker than they were in the immediate postwar decades when the rich could expect to pay at least half their incomes – and often substantially more than half – to the taxman. If trickle-down theory worked, there would be a strong correlation between countries with low marginal tax rates for the rich and growth. There is no such correlation and, as the IMF rightly concludes, “there would appear to be scope for increasing the progressivity of income taxation without significantly hurting growth for countries wishing to enhance income redistribution”.

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With a nod to the work of the French economist Thomas Piketty, the fiscal monitor also says countries should consider wealth taxes for the rich, to be levied on land and property. The IMF’s findings on tax provide ample and welcome political cover for Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, as they seek to convince voters that Labour’s tax plans are not just equitable but also economically workable. By contrast, the study challenges Donald Trump to rethink tax plans that would give an average tax cut of more than $200,000 a year for someone earning more than $900,000. The response from the US administration was predictable: mind your own business. The IMF is not naive. It knows it is one thing to make the case for higher taxes on the rich but another thing altogether to get governments to implement them, because better-off individuals have more political clout. The IMF has demolished the argument that what is good for the super-rich is good for the rest of us, but don’t expect the top 1% to give up without a fight.

- Bernie Sanders highlights the contrast between the greater equality Americans want, and the government by and for the few they're instead stuck with. And Rachel West and Harry Stein find that the Republicans are managing to overrun their own farcical talking points about the uses of government revenue - as they could in fact buy and maintain a pony for every small American child with the money they instead plan to funnel to the wealthy.

- Meanwhile, Tom Parkin writes that a distorted tax system is contributing to the erosion of Canada's middle class. Andrew Coyne discusses how the Libs' already-pathetic excuse for closing some loopholes has turned into another giveaway to corporations. And Chantal Hebert comments on the comedy of errors surrounding the Libs' tax policy.

- Kamal Ahmed points out that younger workers in the UK are increasingly having to borrow just to cover basic expenses. And Barbara Ellen writes about the patent unfairness resulting from people living in poverty having to pay more for the necessities of life.

- Finally, the Mound of Sound blasts the Libs for insisting on new pipelines rather than taking any meaningful steps toward a green transition (or even an honest accounting of the costs of fossil fuels). And Nike Block comments on Canada's longstanding and shameful history of prioritizing exploitative mining over people around the globe.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading:

- Ross Douthat (!) discusses the distinction between actual cosmopolitanism, and the global elitism that's instead come to dominate international power relations:

Genuine cosmopolitanism is a rare thing. It requires comfort with real difference, with forms of life that are truly exotic relative to one’s own. It takes its cue from a Roman playwright’s line that “nothing human is alien to me,” and goes outward ready to be transformed by what it finds.

The people who consider themselves “cosmopolitan” in today’s West, by contrast, are part of a meritocratic order that transforms difference into similarity, by plucking the best and brightest from everywhere and homogenizing them into the peculiar species that we call “global citizens.”

This species is racially diverse (within limits) and eager to assimilate the fun-seeming bits of foreign cultures — food, a touch of exotic spirituality. But no less than Brexit-voting Cornish villagers, our global citizens think and act as members of a tribe.

...

(I)t’s a problem that our tribe of self-styled cosmopolitans doesn’t see itself clearly as a tribe: because that means our leaders can’t see themselves the way the Brexiteers and Trumpistas and Marine Le Pen voters see them.

They can’t see that what feels diverse on the inside can still seem like an aristocracy to the excluded, who look at cities like London and see, as Peter Mandler wrote for Dissent after the Brexit vote, “a nearly hereditary professional caste of lawyers, journalists, publicists, and intellectuals, an increasingly hereditary caste of politicians, tight coteries of cultural movers-and-shakers richly sponsored by multinational corporations.”

They can’t see that paeans to multicultural openness can sound like self-serving cant coming from open-borders Londoners who love Afghan restaurants but would never live near an immigrant housing project, or American liberals who hail the end of whiteness while doing everything possible to keep their kids out of majority-minority schools.

They can’t see that their vision of history’s arc bending inexorably away from tribe and creed and nation-state looks to outsiders like something familiar from eras past: A powerful caste’s self-serving explanation for why it alone deserves to rule the world.

- Meanwhile, the Economist also recognizes the reasons for anger at a neoliberal economic model which has left far too many people worse off.

- Sean McElwee and Jason McDaniel highlight the connection between denial of race and gender discrimination, and the belief that inclusive language doesn't matter.

- Mike Soron comments on the need to fight back against "climate conservatism" which pays lip service to protecting our planet from man-made pollution while denying the possibility of actually doing anything. And Steven Poole points out how zombie ideas manage to continue spreading long after they've been disproven - with the pecuniary interests of people who profit from their acceptance looming as one of the most obvious explanations.

- Dean Beeby reports that contrary to their campaign promises, the Libs are encouraging the Canada Revenue Agency to continue pursuing charities politically targeted by the Cons for daring to pursue social justice.

- Finally, Shane Bauer offers a long-form look at a private prison from the perspective of a newly-hired correctional officer.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Luke Savage warns that the Libs' election win may ring hollow for Canadian progressives:

Throughout its democratic history, Canadian politics have basically oscillated between two parties that do not seriously threaten the status quo or the injustices it perpetuates. Occasionally goaded by organized populist movements, they have both been compelled, particularly during minority parliaments, to make concessions while preserving the basic contours of the political order.

Against this, a third current has always insisted that fundamental change is necessary to build a truly just society. This ethos gave us medicare — an institution built by from the ashes of war and depression on principles of universalism and social solidarity.

Neither sweeping platitudes nor bureaucratic conservatism will ever deliver social progress of this kind, eradicate poverty, or save the planet from the economic structures that degrade it every day.

From where many of us stand, what happened last night cannot be read as anything other than a setback, and a major one, for these efforts. It's time we stopped marginalizing social justice or patronizingly relegating it to the fringes.

Democracy isn't a spectator sport. Elections aren't meant to be experienced as affirmative infotainment.

Achieving social progress requires more than just a perpetual return to the traditional, professionalized politics that leaves one in seven of us in poverty, tolerates people having to sleep on the streets, and allows thousands of children to wake up hungry and badly housed every single day in one of the richest societies in the world.

We have to demand better. And plenty of us believe and hope that, one day, we will.

- David Bush and Doug Nesbitt point out just a few of the areas where Canadians will need to hold the Trudeau Libs' feet to the fire. Rick Smith offers his suggestions as to the progressive change we should expect from a new federal government, while Maude Barlow maps out the road ahead. And Scott Reid writes the the first step needs to be an immediate break from Stephen Harper's paranoia and the destructive politics that went with it.

- Laura Stymiest and Elizabeth Lee-Ford Jones discuss the need to fight poverty in order to improve individual health. And Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin highlight the need to push back against user fees and other barriers to health care access - including the ones being introduced in Quebec in recent months.

- Finally, Patricia Cohen examines what tax increases on the richest few can accomplish - particularly in light of the growth of extreme top-end incomes. The Economist comments on the continuing problem of corporate and top-end tax evasion. And the Institute for Research on Public Policy has released a few noteworthy chapters on inequality in Canada - featuring confirmation both that high incomes have more to do with specific industries than individual contributions, and that education is far from a magic bullet in equalizing either outcomes or opportunities.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Peter Poschen argues that the goals of protecting our climate and ensuring the availability of good jobs isn't an either-or proposition:

(C)limate change and the degradation of natural resources increasingly disrupt economic activity and destroy jobs. The International Labour Organization (ILO) puts the productivity losses generated by climate change alone at 7.2 per cent. Cost estimates by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank are even higher. Environmental sustainability is not an option from a labour market perspective, it is a necessity.

What is more: proactive policies to protect the climate and preserve the environment can actually create substantially more jobs than the ‘business as usual’ growth. Our review of global and over 30 national assessments concludes that creating up to 60 million additional jobs by 2030 is perfectly possible.

Big strides could also be made in reducing working poverty, notably in agriculture which still employs one in every three workers, over one billion globally. Access to clean and affordable energy, as well as energy-efficient public transport and housing is a powerful way to overcome social exclusion. Access to modern energy alone would significantly improve the lives and could provide entirely new economic opportunity to 1.3 billion mostly poor people. 

- And unfortunately the Harper Cons are proving the same point by ensuring that Canada fails on both counts - most recently by blocking climate progress even as an oil-fuelled economy stagnates.

- Manuela Noriega highlights Bernie Sanders' recognition that reducing inequality is a matter of life and death. But Robert Naiman rightly calls out major media outlets for labeling Sanders as "unelectable" based on his backing policies - such as fairer taxes on the wealthy and a reduction in military spending - which actually enjoy far more popular support than the elite agenda pushed by most candidates in both major parties.

- Meanwhile, Fred Dews reports on Raj Chetty's findings as to how location dictates social mobility in the U.S.  Joseph Stiglitz suggests that the U.S. needs to adopt the "Scandinavian dream" in order to ensure that people's interests aren't completely crushed by corporate exploitation. And Stephen Koukoulas reminds us that inequality just as much damage to growth as it does to fairness.

- Finally, the Economist reports on the IMF's research showing that austerity figures to do far more harm than good in most developed countries (including Canada).

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jessica McCormick and Jerry Dias respond to Stephen Poloz' view that young workers should be happy to work for free, and note that he of all people shouldn't be pointing the finger at individuals to address problems with systemic unemployment:

The most infuriating aspect of Poloz's statement is that he himself could do more than virtually any other Canadian to help put young people into real, paying jobs. Monetary policy is one of the most potent tools to stimulate spending power and job-creation. The Bank of Canada could do much more to create real jobs for young people (using conventional and unconventional policies regarding interest rates, monetary expansion, and exchange rates). But instead, it puts more priority on orthodox financial goals (like inflation targeting and non-interference in foreign exchange) than on full employment. Poloz is left to advise young people on how to "adjust" to this grim reality, instead of doing more to solve the underlying problem.

When there are far fewer jobs than job-seekers, there is a natural tendency for individuals to do whatever they can to personally survive. Individual actions such as preparing better resumés, developing good networks, and -- yes -- doing volunteer work, might increase one person's chance of landing a rare paid job. But those individual coping strategies hardly constitute an adequate policy response to a genuine social crisis. Poloz, and his counterparts in the federal government, need to develop and implement real solutions for youth unemployment, instead of issuing insulting platitudes to job-seekers.

- Meanwhile, Mike King and Edward Woolley examine (PDF) the effect of public investment on research and development, and find that it actually tends to "crowd in" more private innovation than would have happened otherwise. And SOS Crowns discusses the Sask Party's stubbornness in pushing private ownership and profit regardless of whether it makes any sense to do so - with liquor retailing serving as just the most recent example.

- Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew ask why we're not seeing any meaningful discussion of the CETA now that we know exactly what's included. And Aaron Cosbey looks at the risks of the CETA and other new trade deals, including wording which may require that complicated issues be regulated simplistically:

There are also some areas that give cause for concern around sustainable development objectives. The chapter on domestic regulation obliges parties to make their licensing requirements – which could include environmental permissions and approvals – “as simple as possible” in their application to all economic activity of each other’s nationals or firms. This is an unqualified requirement that could be disastrously interpreted.

- The Economist offers a handy summary of the dangers of Dutch disease.

- Finally, Frances Webber notes that the Harper Cons are far from the only right-wing government looking to undermine the idea of human rights, as the UK Conservatives are looking at declaring that rights can be removed from anybody who falls out of favour with the government.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Following up on yesterday's column, Michael Harris offers his take on how Stephen Harper refuses to accept anything short of war as an option:

Stephen Harper talks as if this is yet another of those good-versus-evil fables he is always passing off to the public as deep analysis and sound policy.

More honest and experienced minds make a more rational case. In the United Kingdom, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove said that politicians are merely taking advantage of a distortion towards Islamic extremism. That distortion was branded on the public consciousness by the 9/11 attacks. It has since been used to exaggerate all kinds of threats, ISIS being just the latest of them.  Dearlove correctly points out that fighting in Syria and Iraq is essentially Muslim on Muslim.

He thinks that governments and the media make a great mistake in sensationalizing the threat represented by ISIS because the oxygen of publicity actually encourages their excesses. It is, he says, time to move away from the distortion that 9/11 understandably created, time to regain our footing. It is an idea not without appeal.
...
Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are right, plain and simple. The PM needs to make the case for war, if there even is one to be made. And he needs to make it to the Canadian people, not in an interview with the Wall Street Journal while in the offices of Goldman Sachs.

If he doesn’t hold a real debate, it will demonstrate that he is in the same headspace as Republican freshman Senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. According to one wag, Cruz’s idea of foreign policy is part John Wayne and part Sarah Palin; “shoot first and don’t ask any questions.” Sound familiar?

- Meanwhile, Duncan Cameron summarizes how we reached the brink of war, while Scott Stelmaschuk offers a more detailed analysis. Rick Salutin makes the case for non-intervention rather than bombing. Jeffrey Simpson points out that the Cons' supposed rationale and strategy are based on nothing but wilful ignorance and wishful thinking. And Anthony Fenton reports that the Cons are already misleading the public about the scope of Canada's current involvement.

- Tim Dickinson offers a thorough look at the Koch brothers' toxic empire. And David Dayen discusses how a "benching" remedy can make sure a corporation doesn't merely treat the price of stalling and eventually settling regulatory proceedings as a cost of continuing to do improper business.

- Finally, the Economist discusses the growing disconnect between work and wealth (and associated rise of inequality). But it is worth going further than the Economist proposes in response: in fact, the lack of a link between individual work and incomes serves as a compelling basis to both collect more revenue on higher incomes which don't reflect work or merit, and to ensure that work isn't a precondition to participation in society through a guaranteed basic income.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Robert Reich discusses the rise of the non-working rich as an indicator that extreme wealth has less and less to do with merit - as well as the simple policy steps which can reverse the trend:

In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.

The real non-workers are the wealthy who inherit their fortunes. And their ranks are growing.

In fact, we’re on the cusp of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history.

The wealth is coming from those who over the last three decades earned huge amounts on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms, or as high-tech entrepreneurs.

It’s going to their children, who did nothing except be born into the right family.
...
What to do? First, restore the estate tax in full.

Second, eliminate the “stepped-up-basis on death” rule. This obscure tax provision allows heirs to avoid paying capital gains taxes on the increased value of assets accumulated during the life of the deceased. Such untaxed gains account for more than half of the value of estates worth more than $100 million, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Third, institute a wealth tax. We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It’s called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy?

We don’t have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth. We can and must take action — before it’s too late.

- Meanwhile, Tim Stacey offers his own prescriptions to deal with income inequality. And the Economist looks at the relationship between wealth inequality, income inequality and consumption inequality - and the fact that all three are on the rise, refuting the claim that we shouldn't worry about wealth or income as long as consumer goods are distributed more fairly. 

- James Bloodworth points out that the few gains we've made against corporate greed were won by a strong labour movement. Brian Jones discusses the stagnation of the minimum wage in recent decades when labour has been under attack. And the Mowat Centre reminds us that the precarious federal government has siphoned tens of billions of dollars in EI premiums into general revenues - turning a program intended to benefit workers when they need help most into an excuse to slash taxes for the wealthy.

- Claire Markham sees a U.S. Congressional hearing as a prime example of how not to listen to people living in poverty. (Though not listening to the poor seems to be a widely-held skill on the right.) And Robin Whitaker reminds us why charity isn't enough to deal with social exclusion.

- Finally, Rick Salutin is right to decry the place of bond ratings agencies in trying to wrest control over public policy away from democratically-elected governments. But surely the subprime meltdown in which so many AAA-rated securities turned out to be junk should prevent us from believing for a second that "their sole criterion is the math" - meaning there's reason to doubt that statements about public budgets have anything to do with actual default risks rather than appealing to the financial sector's prejudices.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Nafeez Ahmed writes about the dangers of combining growing inequality and increased resource extraction:

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."

Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

"... accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels."

...
Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

- Which fits nicely with Charles Blow's argument that we can't count on increased growth or resource use to address burgeoning inequality.

- Meanwhile, William Broad discusses how other publicly-funded research is all too often being privatized and directed toward corporate interests or even personal whims rather than scientific purposes. And the Economist takes note of the spread of crony capitalism, while observing that resource-dependent economies are particularly prone to corporate domination.

- Dom Pittis points out that many businesses fully recognize the importance of an effective (and properly-funded) public sector:

Like other urban business groups, Lieba's members would be willing to pay to solve problems like traffic congestion and gridlock, he says. But that's not all.

"Strategic investment of tax dollars that will help benefit economic prosperity, quality of life, is good for businesses equally as residents," said Lieba. "Businesses aren't averse to paying taxes, maybe even paying more taxes where they see value for it."

And it's not just business willing to pay more tax. Graves says that EKOS polling shows that Canadians in general are changing their views on government spending. When asked whether they would prefer spending on health and education or low taxes, they choose the spending.
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"Problems in the economy, particularly in the younger portions of the economy, don't seem to have been solved by the pursuit of austerity and diminished government.," [Graves] said. "It may be, in fact, that it is having the opposite effect.

"I like to make profits and like to make really good profits, but I also feel that there's nothing wrong with paying your share and that, in fact, a healthy economy works best when it has a good balance of fairness and profits."

 - Finally, Michael Harris writes that the Cons have built their stay in office on little more than U.S.-style political venom - while questioning whether that strategy figures to work much longer.

New column day

Here, featuring my take on the IMF's recent report (PDF) on the relationship between equality, redistribution and growth.

I've already linked to other responses to the report from the Guardian and the Economist. But the column raises a point left largely unaddressed in those pieces - and which seems particularly important given some of the advice regularly dispensed to Canadian progressives.

I'll sum up that advice as being "don't worry about market inequality - instead, address poverty and inequality through taxation and redistribution". Which makes for a neat enough recommendation on its face - and has led me to see a guaranteed annual income as the single policy with the greatest potential to ensure broad equality and security.

But Ostry, Berg and Tsangarides find that while an equal initial distribution of income doesn't harm an economy's growth (and indeed contributes a small positive effect), particularly high levels of after-market redistribution give rise to some negative effect on growth. And those naturally arise only where pre-market distributions are so unequal to give rise to a need for exceptionally high transfers.

In other words, the study shows no drag on growth arising out of policies which encourage pre-market equality (though I'll note that it doesn't break down the policies and social factors supporting those more equal market distributions). But it does identify some perceptible drag on growth arising out of policies which settle for redistribution after the fact - which suggests to me that we should be focusing relatively more attention on the former than the latter.

Naturally, I'll invite any questions or comments about that line of reasoning. And I certainly don't see it as ruling out transfers as an important means of ensuring equality. But it does seem to me to suggest that a singular focus on after-market redistribution may have harmful economic effects (in addition to being politically implausible) - which confirming that broadly-shared high wages and effective worker bargaining power are necessary elements of a fair and prosperous economy.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The Economist takes a look at the effect of international trade agreements - and confirms the long-held concern that the erosion and non-enforcement of labour standards consistently follows the signing of government suicide pacts:

Some results are rather unsurprising. Countries with better civil liberties tend to have higher labour standards. Countries in the OECD, which are richer, do better than those outside (only one OECD member, Turkey, has a score less than 15). But other results in the paper are alarming. During the 1980s and 1990s, the labour-rights index fell precipitously (see the blue line below). The authors reckon this is down to competition for foreign direct investment.
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(T)here is evidence of between-country competition. If the labour standards across all other countries decline, those of the excepted country also tend to fall. The regressions also show that membership in the World Trade Organisation, a multilateral institution which aims to promote trade, leads to a lower labour-rights index.

But the race to the bottom operates more subtly than most people suppose. The regressions suggest that while countries do compete with each other by instituting laws that are unfriendly to workers, such competition is not that pronounced. The real problem is that countries compete by enforcing labour laws less vigorously than they might—leading to increases in violations of labour rights prescribed in local laws. Competition between countries to attract investment is less in rules than in their practical application.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford makes the case for public sector workers' right to strike:

The attack on public sector labour rights is usually justified by the claim that unions have soaked taxpayers through their irresistible demands. This claim is not supported. In practice, public sector bargaining tends to follow economy-wide trends, but with a lag. Public sector wages were much lower before public sector unionization took off in the 1970s. Wages caught up in the 1980s, then fell behind again during the austere 1990s. The public sector did better in the mid-2000s. But more recently, bargaining has clearly responded to tough times: for four years running, public sector settlements have lagged well behind private sector deals, and behind the general growth of earnings in the overall economy.

Average earnings in the public sector are five to 10 per cent higher than economy averages (depending on how they are measured) — but education and credentials are significantly higher, too. Comparing similar occupations and credentials, it’s largely a wash. Women make more in the public sector than in the private sector, but men make less. The whole wage scale is compressed (with a higher bottom and a lower top). But overall public sector compensation is not out of whack — and powerful economic and political pressures tend to keep it that way.

Governments are the only employer with the power to “solve” their labour relations problems by simply dictating a settlement. The potential for misuse of this confluence of fiscal interest and political power is enormous. Most private sector employers would love to outlaw strikes and dictate wage outcomes, but they can’t — and for good reason. Where public employees provide a genuinely essential service (like fire, police, and some health services), there’s no debate: in place of strikes or lockouts, a neutral arbitration system should replicate collective bargaining outcomes without work stoppage. But other public sector workers must have the same rights as anyone else in our society to organize themselves and promote their interests, up to and including withdrawing their labour if that’s necessary to get a deal.

- Michael Harris argues that if Stephen Harper wants to plead innocence his party's Senate bribery scandal, it's long past time for him to call a public inquiry and stop stonewalling against the disclosure of the documentation his office has consistently concealed - while Alison makes note of what's still missing from the investigative record. And Chris Selley highlights Harper's selective outrage at the misuse of public and donor dollars.

- Project Money reports on the potential for doctors to work toward better health outcomes by prescribing adequate income for patients in need. And Global interviews Ryan Meili about the regulatory mechanisms provinces can use to keep prescription drugs affordable.

- Finally, Andy Rowell points out the absurdity of exploiting parts of the tar sands which require more energy to be produced than they actually generate after extraction takes place.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Economist discusses research by Miles Corak and others on intergenerational inequality. And interestingly, other studies seem to suggest Corak has actually underestimated the barriers to social mobility:

THE “Great Gatsby curve” is the name Alan Krueger, an economic adviser to Barack Obama, gave to the relationship between income inequality and social mobility across the generations. Mr Krueger used the phrase in a 2012 speech to describe the work of Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa, who has shown that more unequal economies tend to have less fluid societies. Mr Corak reckons that in some places, like America and Britain, around 50% of income differences in one generation are attributable to differences in the previous generation (in more egalitarian Scandinavia, the number is less than 30%).
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As late as 2011 aristocratic surnames appear among the ranks of lawyers, considered for this purpose a high-status position, at a frequency almost six times that of their occurrence in the population as a whole. Mr Clark reckons that even in famously mobile Sweden, some 70-80% of a family’s social status is transmitted from generation to generation across a span of centuries. Other economists use similar techniques to reveal comparable immobility in societies from 19th-century Spain to post-Qing-dynasty China. Inherited advantage is detectable for a very long time.

A second method relies on the chance overrepresentation of rare surnames in high- or low-status groups at some point in the past. If very few Britons are called Micklethwait, for example, and people with that name were disproportionately wealthy in 1800, then you can gauge long-run mobility by studying how long it takes the Micklethwait name to lose its wealth-predicting power. In a paper written by Mr Clark and Neil Cummins of Queens College, City University of New York, the authors use data from probate records of 19th-century estates to classify rare surnames into different wealth categories. They then use similar data to see how common each surname is in these categories in subsequent years. Again, some 70-80% of economic advantage seems to be transmitted from generation to generation.

That said, I do wonder whether a "rare surname" starting point would pick up factors which might be better classified as relating to family reputations and connections than wealth - though the advantages presented by those factors obviously serve to create an unfair playing field as well.

- Meanwhile, Tim Dickinson notes that the wealthy in the U.S. have stacked the deck even further in their favour with the help of the Republican Party - as a massive increase in high-end incomes since 1997 hasn't been matched with much added contribution to the greater good by way of tax revenues.

- And speaking of stacked decks, Max Paris reports on the oil industry's (thus far successful) lobbying to avoid any significant greenhouse gas emission regulation.

- Crawford Kilian reviews Paul Wells' The Longer I'm Prime Minister while noting that Stephen Harper may have planted the seeds of his own demise.

- Finally, Stephen Maher points out that the Cons' attitude toward law-breaking by their own allies would be better applied to the criminal justice system in general:

The Conservatives’ tough-on-crime message, delivered at every opportunity, is a message about the criminal as other, like the late Anthony Smith and the other guys in hoodies in that photo of Ford outside a crack house. They are evildoers who need to be punished.

The Tories, like Ford himself, oppose supervised injection sites for drug users, which save lives and reduce crime. They give voters what they want: the emotional satisfaction of punishing wrongdoers.

This government has imposed mandatory minimum sentences across the board, not just on violent criminals but also on pot growers.

It sounds tough, but taking away discretion from judges costs us more, does nothing to make us safer and leads to injustices.

Consider the case of Leroy Smickle, a gainfully employed 27-year-old with no criminal record who in 2009 had the bad luck to be caught posing with a loaded handgun for a Facebook profile pic, and found himself looking at three years in prison. Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy ruled that the sentence would be “fundamentally unfair,” and declared the minimum unconstitutional. The Crown appealed, demanding that he serve his three years.

Flaherty shed tears for the Fords because he knows them and knows they’re suffering, because whatever the tawdry facts of the case, he feels for them.

We should show as much compassion for Leroy Smickle and his family.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tim Harper writes that Stephen Harper's "lone gunman" argument - already implausible in light of the number of Senators and staffers required to cover up the Clusterduff - is falling apart at the seams. But Gloria Galloway notes that the Senators can bail out with their pensions as long as they resign before being being convicted - meaning that Mike Duffy may not be the only one who comes to see his self-interest conflicting with the Cons' attempt to throw all available non-Harper bodies under the bus. And Pat Atkinson offers some lessons to be drawn from the Cons' scandals.

- Jesse Brown points out that the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations are being kept particularly secret in Canada, with even opposition parties being refused any access to details of what they'll ultimately have to debate in Parliament. And the Economist recognizes that the general aversion to democratic participation in the treaty's creation serves to call its legitimacy into serious doubt:

(T)he TPP and TTIP are meant to do more than traditional trade agreements. They are to incorporate “21st-century” elements in labour standards, environmental safeguards, intellectual property, government procurement and the treatment of state-owned enterprises.

Mr Moore draws optimism from the electoral cycle. Australia apart, few TPP countries face imminent elections. But if the TPP relies on governments avoiding their voters, that is surely a weakness.

- Frances Russell recognizes that the Cons' economic branding is based on "wind and rabbit tracks" rather than any accomplishments of substance.

- And finally, Lana Payne discusses the need for younger generations of workers to stand up and demand a better future - rather than accepting the dubious declaration they're stuck putting up with less:

In recent years, inequality and corporate greed have dominated public discourse.
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The labour movement believes we can do a much better job of sharing our economic wealth, thus improving the lives and living standards of all citizens.

Emerging from the debate about inequality and the fact that the vast majority of income gains are going to the top one per cent is the question of what this growing inequality will mean for the next generation of workers.

For the first time in our history as a province and a country, the very real question of whether our children will do better than their parents is a troubling reflection of the kind of legacy we could be leaving: a legacy of generational inequity. A generation that will have to work longer; who face a more precarious labour market; who will be more uncertain about retiring in dignity; who will carry more debt; and who will be told to lower their expectations.

This reality flies in the face of stunning corporate profits and an economy that is producing record wealth.
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This Labour Day, we celebrate the many gains unions have made in our world. We celebrate our social progress, but only in the context of how that social progress is more fragile than ever before. How it is being eroded. A reminder that we must continue to be vigilant in our efforts to resist the forces that would see these gains turned back.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- The Economist takes a look at the effect of a "lean in" philosophy toward work - and finds that we'd get better results encouraging creative development rather than needless busy work:

All this “leaning in” is producing an epidemic of overwork, particularly in the United States. Americans now toil for eight-and-a-half hours a week more than they did in 1979. A survey last year by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that almost a third of working adults get six hours or less of sleep a night. Another survey last year by Good Technology, a provider of secure mobile systems for businesses, found that more than 80% of respondents continue to work after leaving the office, 69% cannot go to bed without checking their inbox and 38% routinely check their work e-mails at the dinner table.

This activity is making it harder to focus on real work as opposed to make-work. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, who has been conducting a huge study of work and creativity, reports that workers are generally more creative on low-pressure days than on high-pressure days when they are confronted with a flurry of unpredictable demands. In 2012 Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine, and two colleagues deprived 13 people in the IT business of e-mail for five days and studied them intensively. They found that people without it concentrated on tasks for longer and experienced less stress.

It is high time that we tried a different strategy—not “leaning in” but “leaning back”.

- Natalie Brender makes the case for an immigration system which recognizes the importance of family and community, rather than following the Cons' focus on short-term employer interests alone.

- John McKay hopes to see a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility. But for those thinking our current business leaders have any interest in the concept, Theresa Riley interviews Chris Taylor to give us a look at the anti-social gluttony of the corporate-funded ALEC:

One guy I was talking to, who was from one of these right wing think tanks was saying we need to curb Obama’s reckless power with these administrative regulations, and he wanted a federal constitutional amendment saying Congress has to approve federal regulations. I said, I don’t think most people are going to want to amend the Constitution for that. I don’t think that ignites people. Maybe it does on the far right, but most people don’t really care about that. And he said, “Oh, well, you really don’t need people to do this. You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both.”

That sentiment was underscored so many times to me, that they don’t want people involved in the political process, or in the policy process. And that seems to be the intent in a lot of ways: You have a think tank in every state and all they do is come up with these very, very regressive policies, you have corporations who are going to benefit so they fund it all, and then you have the legislators as your foot soldiers to carry out the tasks.

- Finally, Kenneth Thomas calculates the damage being done by European austerity:

We can see, then, that austerity is sinking all boats. Greece has passed Spain in unemployment and is producing barely 3/4 what it did in 2008. Ireland’s reduction in unemployment is a mirage based on emigration. The same is true in Latvia and Lithuania, by the way, which the Irish Times reports have lost 7.6% and 10.1% of their population between 2007 and 2012. As the paper notes, “If Spain and Italy had lost the same proportion, it would have been 11 million.”

Yet the drumbeat for austerity continues. The sequester goes on. And millions suffer needlessly.