Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Moscrop discusses the need for a more meaningful definition of "progress" which doesn't hand-wave away the long-term harms and risks created by the single-minded pursuit of immediate gains in top-end wealth.

- Rajeev Syal reports that the UK Cons pushed through public-sector austerity with full knowledge of the increased poverty that would result. CBC reports on at least one private-sector employer, Quebec's Simons, which is recognizing the benefits of paying employees more than the bare minimum. And Mike Crawley notes that Doug Ford's list of attacks on workers includes delaying even a modest level of pay transparency.

- Meanwhile, Kwame McKenzie discusses the predictable public health costs of Ford's minimum wage freeze. And as a memo to the Saskatchewan Party: those problems with leaving the return on work at $14 per hour are all the worse when the minimum wage is nearly three dollars less.

- Brent Patterson criticizes the Libs' attempt to reframe the Trans-Pacific Partnership as "progressive", rather than a massive giveaway of wealth and power to the corporate sector. And David Schneiderman argues that the only truly progressive response to anti-social investment pacts is to decline to sign them.

- Finally, Ryan Maloney reports on Charlie Angus' plan to extricate Canada from any deal to contribute military weaponry to Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses. And Michael Harris writes about the costs of failing to stand up for human rights.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bandy Lee discusses the need to treat inequality as a social disease which calls for immediate treatment:

Residents of countries with higher income inequality have worse health, not just of the poor but of the rich (Subramanian and Kawachi, 2006). Greater income inequality is also associated higher levels of mental illness (Burns, Tomita, and Kapadia, 2014); murder and assault (Hsieh and Pugh, 1993); obesity and obesity-related death (Pickett, 2005); as well as drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, racism, incarceration, and a number of other societal problems (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). Such countries also have more sociopolitical instability in the form of assassinations, coups, and riots (Alesina and Perotti, 1996); worse institutions in terms of less efficient governments, higher regulatory burdens, and weaker rule of law (Easterly, 2007); and more corruption (Jong-Sung and Khagram, 2005). The wealthy have stronger motivations to minimize redistribution while at the same time having more power to influence institutions, given the relatively higher share of their resources (Buttrick and Oishi, 2017).

Economic inequality may further put the world at risk of both environmental and nuclear harm. Taming the planet’s climate or reducing nuclear weapons requires trust and cooperation, but these are difficult in the setting of economic inequality and exploitation. Income and wealth gaps accelerate the environmental crisis (Martinez-Alier, 2002), with increasing local and global conflicts over the sharing of the burdens of pollution and access to natural resources. Previous failures to reach consensus in climate summits have been attributed to, among other factors, conflicting policies of rich and poor countries, which disagree on the implementation of mitigation measures (Vasconcelos, Santos, Pacheco, and Levin, 2014). When there is greater income and wealth inequality between nations, there is an erosion of trust due to the ensuing social and cultural differences, and greater perceived need for military defense, including nuclear weapons for nations that can afford them.

Social and economic inequality is linked to disease, death, and other forms of harm. To better understand these societal ills, we must look at inequality as a disorder in itself.

- And Sanjutka Paul examines how a bias toward top-down, property-based decision-making has systematically stacked the deck against workers, particularly in service-based sectors.

- The Trade Justice Network rightly criticizes the Libs for abandoning the concept of progressive trade by implementing the TPP. And Nicholas Caivano and Richard Elliott argue that if Justin Trudeau is going to give in on anything to renegotiate NAFTA (however unnecessary that may be), we should expect him to defend fair drug prices rather than fighting to protect corporate-friendly arbitration structures.

- Karina Roman points out that the Libs' privatized Infrastructure Bank is sucking up millions of public dollars without apparently accomplishing anything.

- Finally, Stephanie Taylor reports that SaskPower is backing away from plans to relocate operations to the Global Transportation Hub - but that the public is already on the hook for the land purchased as part of the previous attempt to portray the GTH as something other than an utter failure. And Adriana Christenson reports on the Saskatchewan Party's hidden selloff of SaskEnergy gas plants.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joel French discusses the need to move beyond merely preserving the public institutions Alberta has now, and to start building the new ones which will be needed in the future.

- But Eric Levitz observes that the U.S. is instead taking deliberate policy steps to ensure that workers don't benefit from nominal economic growth. And Douglas Rushkoff writes that the long-term plan of the capital class is to detach itself from the rest of humanity rather than working toward common benefits - while noting the futility of that worldview:

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.
...
(W)hen the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

- Susan Dynarski discusses new research confirming the role unions play in the sharing of income and wealth. And Lana Payne highlights how the Trudeau Libs have traded away the possibility of stronger labour policy in order to enrich businesses through the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

- Finally, Leilani Farha points out how the corporate sector is capturing the housing desperately needed by residents of larger cities around the world. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Livia Gershon discusses why relative equality plays a far greater role in people's well-being than absolute income in developed countries. And Stefanie Stantcheva writes about the cultural roots of the U.S.' relative acceptance of extreme inequality (though it's worth noting that even in the U.S. public preferences are far more egalitarian than actual results):

Despite their country’s mounting income gap, Americans’ support for redistribution has, according to the General Social Survey, remained flat for decades. Perhaps John Steinbeck got it right when he supposedly said that, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

For those who believe that a society should offer its members equal opportunity, and that anyone who works hard can climb higher on the socioeconomic ladder, redistribution is unnecessary and unfair. After all, equal opportunists argue, if everyone begins at the same starting point, a bad outcome must be due to an individual’s own missteps.

This view approximates that of a majority of Americans. According to the World Values Survey, 70% of Americans believe that the poor can make it out of poverty on their own. This contrasts sharply with attitudes in Europe, where only 35% believe the same thing. Put another way, most Europeans consider the poor unfortunate, while most Americans consider them indolent. This may be one reason why European countries support more generous – and costlier – welfare transfers than the US.
...

An even more striking pattern is that Americans are overly optimistic about social mobility in parts of the country where actual mobility is low – including the southeastern states of Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In these states, respondents believe that mobility is more than two times greater than it is. By contrast, respondents underestimate social mobility in northern states – including Vermont, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington – where it is higher.

As part of our study, we shared data on social stratification in Europe and America with our participants. We found that self-identified liberals and conservatives interpreted this information differently. When shown pessimistic information about mobility, for example, liberals became even more supportive of redistributive policies, such as public education and universal health care.

Conservatives, by contrast, remained unmoved. While they acknowledged that low social mobility is economically limiting, they remained as averse to government intervention and redistribution as they were before we shared the data with them.

- George Monbiot discusses how a program to combat isolation has produced substantial social and health benefits for one UK community.

- The CCPA has released its Alternative Federal Budget as a reminder of what we could accomplish at the federal level with a modicum of political will and social values, while Andrew Jackson focuses on the opportunity to expand the Working Income Tax Benefit. And Paul Willcocks comments on the potential long-term benefits from the B.C. NDP's first budget under John Horgan.

- Nav Persaud makes the care for a national pharmacare program by pointing out the problems with tying prescription drug access to jobs.

- Finally, Jeremy Nuttall highlights the lack of any improvement in the latest iteration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership - no matter how reflexively the Liberals slap the term "progressive" on it.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Rick Smith writes about the Filthy Five loopholes taking the most money out of Canada's public coffers for the least benefit to anybody but the wealthy. And Ed Finn reminds us to follow the money in figuring out who stands to gain from unconscionable policy choices.

- Douglas Quan reports on the justified outrage against Vancouver for trying to pitch itself as a low-wage jurisdiction in an attempt to cater to Amazon. And Raymond Wong discusses how youth have paid the price for out-of-control house prices - though yesterday's provincial budget offers some much-needed hope and help on that front.

- Meanwhile, the Maytree Foundation offers its recommendations for Ontario's forthcoming budget, while Fred Hahn points out how that province's citizens will be paying the price for the Libs' power privatization for decades to come. And ProgressAlberta traces the history of exorbitant public spending on high-priced private schools at the expense of accessible education under that province's Conservative governments.

- Brent Patterson comments on the Libs' contempt for the Canadian public surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as they plan to simultaneously hype "side letters" as their primary negotiating accomplishment while keeping them secret until it's too late.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board weighs in on the need to address child care at the national level. And Sarah Kliff examines the connection between child-rearing and long-term wage disadvantages.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Anna Coote discusses some of the potential problems with a universal basic income on its own - particularly to the extent it takes momentum away from the prospect of universal basic services.

- Scott Sinclair examines how little has changed - and how many substantial dangers haven't - in the latest iteration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

- Joan Bryden reports on the Parliamentary Budget Officer's five-year fight for information to allow it to assess the money Canada loses to offshore tax evasion. And the report from Alex Boutilier, Marco Chown Oved and Robert Cribb highlights other available estimates suggesting the Canadian public loses from 6 to 15 billion dollars every year to tax havens.

- Rob Ferguson reports on the billions in costs to Ontario from its privatization of Hydro One, while Aaron Derfel notes that P3 hospitals and other projects are getting more and more expensive. Kate Osamor discusses how privatization schemes are diluting the effects of foreign aid funding. And Rob Merrick points out UK Labour's plan in the wake of the Carillion collapse to develop worker-run public services to ensure that the public sector isn't so easily sold off or outsourced in the future.

- Meanwhile, Eli Day comments on the role younger workers are playing in rejuvenating the U.S.' labour movement after finding that they need a collective voice to stand up for their interests.

- Finally, John Anderson discusses the importance of a strong left-wing message from the federal NDP. And Zi-Ann Lum reports that Jagmeet Singh isn't being shy about reclaiming the ground on electoral reform which the Lib falsely claimed in 2015.

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Wanda Wyporska discusses why we can't expect a group of cloistered elites to do anything to solve the changeable dimensions of inequality.

- Jonathan Ford and Gill Plimmer write that the UK is beginning to learn its lesson about the dangers of privatizing public services. And PressProgress offers three reasons why Canada shouldn't follow down the road toward outsourcing,

- Ian Hussey debunks a few of the more tired arguments against a fair minimum wage. And Meagan Day discusses the psychological consequences of accepting the neoliberal view of atomized and constantly-competing individuals:

When identifying the root cause of this growing appetite for excellence, Curran and Hill don’t mince words: it’s neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideology reveres competition, discourages cooperation, promotes ambition, and tethers personal worth to professional achievement. Unsurprisingly, societies governed by these values make people very judgmental, and very anxious about being judged.

Psychologists used to talk about perfectionism as though it were unidimensional — only directed from the self to the self. That’s still the colloquial usage, what we usually mean when we say someone’s a perfectionist. But in the last few decades, researchers have found it productive to broaden the concept. Curran and Hall rely on a multidimensional definition, encompassing three types of perfectionism: self-oriented, other-oriented, socially prescribed.
...
...(P)eople born in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada after 1989 scored much higher than previous generations for all three kinds of perfectionism, and that scores increased linearly over time. The dimension that saw the most dramatic change was socially prescribed perfectionism, which increased at twice the rate of the other two. In other words, young people’s feeling of being judged harshly by their peers and the broader culture is intensifying with each passing year.
...
One consequence of this rise in perfectionism, Curran and Hall argue, has been a series of epidemics of serious mental illness. Perfectionism is highly correlated with anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The constant compulsion to be perfect, and the inevitable impossibility of the task, exacerbate mental-illness symptoms in people who are already vulnerable. Even young people without diagnosable mental illnesses tend to feel bad more often, since heightened other-oriented perfectionism creates a group climate of hostility, suspicion, and dismissiveness — in which the jury is always out on everyone, pending group appraisal — and socially prescribed perfectionism involves an acute recognition of that alienation. In short, the repercussions of rising perfectionism range from emotionally painful to literally deadly.

And there’s one other repercussion of rising perfectionism: it makes it hard to build solidarity, which is the very thing we need in order to resist the onslaught of neoliberalism. Without healthy self-perceptions we can’t have robust relationships, and without robust relationships we can’t come together in the numbers it would take to rattle, much less upend, the whole political-economic order.

- Finally, the Canadian Labour Congress is taking a stand against Justin Trudeau's choice to lock Canada into the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Larry Elliott writes about the fragility of the political and economic structures which the world's most privileged people are seeking to entrench in Davos. And Branko Milanovic discusses the importance of intra-country inequality which is getting worse around the globe.

- Laurie Monsebraaten reports on new research in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showing that we can achieve better health outcomes by investing in social supports.

- Katherine McGilton and John Muscedere comment on the need to listen to people living with frailty. And Patrick Butler takes note of widespread but hidden malnutrition amount UK seniors.

- Linda McQuaig points out how the spread of the franchise model has made it difficult for workers to effectively organize. But Martin Regg Cohn theorizes that Tim Hortons' offensive response to a long-overdue minimum wage hike might help lay the ground work for a more union-friendly labour law environment.

- Finally, Tom Parkin discusses how Justin Trudeau's insistence on signing onto the Trans-Pacific Partnership will hurt the auto sector among other key Canadian industries. And Kelly Steele reports on the Libs going into hiding after realizing they couldn't possibly defend their decision to the public.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andrew Sheng discusses the role of oversimplified assumptions about economic development in exacerbating wealth and income inequality:

The American era has been very comfortable with the timeless, universal model of the free market. Inconvenient problems such as inequality are market failures, which the state can take care of, ignoring the reality of political capture and vested interests. Free market economics suited the privileged elite because “everyone can get rich, we can always redistribute later”. But once the elite got rich, few paid serious attention to redistribution.

The tax cut proposals in the US prove this. All indicators are that the rich will benefit from them more than the poor. The hope is that the rich will invest and the middle class will spend, while welfare and health care for the needy are cut.

Politics drives economic theory, which legitimises the status quo. Recognising inequality is therefore not difficult. The real question is: what can we really do to reduce inequality?

- The OECD offers an overview of its efforts to measure social capital. And Frank Huyler discusses how institutional breakdowns including regulatory capture by the pharmaceutical industry have played the main part in causing the U.S.' opioid crisis.

- Thomas Walkom writes that Justin Trudeau's agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership confirms that he's primarily interested in appealing to the corporate class. And Andrew Mitrovica discusses how Trudeau's silence makes him complicit in Donald Trump's bigotry.

- David Roberts reports on Colorado's example of renewable energy outclassing fossil fuels as a cheaper and cleaner means of generating power.

- Finally, Stanley Tromp offers some suggestions to modernize British Columbia's access-to-information system (which also bear review elsewhere).

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Steve Burgess points out that we shouldn't be the least bit surprise by the latest news of politically-connected billionaires managing to tilt the tax system in their favour. Ed Broadbent calls for a much-needed end to tax policy that favours the wealthy in efforts to avoid contributing to the public good. And Tom Parkin suggests that Murray Rankin's bill to better regulate international cash flows would offer an important starting point.

- Andy Beckett tells the story of UK Labour's left, and how it has managed to outlast multiple strains of neoliberal leadership to earn a promising opportunity to win power. And Jessica Elgot reports on John McDonnell's call for billions of pounds to be redirected from corporate giveaways to public purposes.

- The Standard discusses how the latest incarnation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership isn't a meaningful improvement over the previous versions.

- Alex MacPherson reports on the utter lack of any analysis or consultation before the Wall government decided to trash the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

- Finally, Geoff Leo reports on the Saskatchewan Party's disappearing e-mails and other efforts to hide what they've done while in office. And Bill Waiser writes that there's plenty more to be discovered and concerned about in the Wall government's avoidance of accountability.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Gabriel Zucman discusses how the wealthy currently avoid paying their fair share of taxes - and how to stop them by properly attributing income and ensuring registers of wealth. And Micah White is optimistic that the public response to the Paradise Papers may be to develop lasting solutions, rather than merely expressing momentary outrage.

- Andre Picard calls for data-driven decision-making on health care, while noting that plenty of important information isn't yet being properly tracked.

- Brittany Andrew-Amofah highlights three key areas where the Libs' immigration plans are in glaring need of improvement. And in a prime example of how Justin Trudeau's party is falling far short of its supposedly inclusive brand, Daniel Leblanc reports on the split developing within the federal Libs when it comes to Quebec's anti-Muslim Bill 62.

- Meanwhile, Brent Patterson calls out the Libs' broken promise of transparency on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other corporate-friendly trade deals.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk writes that Bronwyn Eyre's ignorance of Saskatchewan's history - including the relationship between settlers and Indigenous peoples - renders her utterly unfit to be education minister. And Liz James documents just how wrong Eyre is about the curriculum under her ministerial portfolio.

On suspended animation

It would be nice to be able to share Michael Geist's view that the latest TPP by another name represents a substantial improvement over the original. But to my mind, the real story of the CPTPP is how little it changes.

In principle, I'd have hoped to see a group of parties which didn't include the U.S. (supposedly the driving force behind some of the most draconian provisions of the TPP) actually discuss and reach agreement on alternative language for issues which had been pushed solely by a party which has left the table. But instead, the result of the CPTPP is merely to adopt the same problematic language, while suspending its operation for the moment.

Needless to say, that moment is sure to end as soon as the U.S. decides it wants in again - which the same corporations who lobbied so hard to dictate the terms of the first TPP will surely push whenever the opportunity arises.

At that point, in the absence of some alternative structure which can be seen as having any multilateral agreement  - not to mention in light of the insistence of the parties to the CPTPP that the original was an acceptably "balanced outcome" - there figures to be little prospect that the original terms won't then snap into place at the U.S.' insistence.

As a result, the predictable outcome of the latest round of negotiations is to give the Libs a chance to claim they've meaningfully improved the existing TPP, while potentially locking us into a course which will see its worst terms come into effect. And so the public response to the CPTPP needs to take aim at not only what would immediately be imposed, but what would be far too likely to follow.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Thomas Frank asks how we've allowed billionaires to escape any responsibility for the maintenance of civilization by moving their wealth offshore:

I know that what the billionaires and the celebrities have done is legal. They merely took advantage of the system. It’s the system itself, and the way it was deliberately constructed to achieve these awful ends, that should be the target of our fury.

For decades Americans have lashed out against taxation because they were told that cutting taxes would give people an incentive to work harder and thus make the American economy flourish. Our populist leaders told us this – they’re telling us this still, as they reform taxes in Washington – and they rolled back the income tax, they crusaded against the estate tax, and they worked to keep our government from taking action against offshore tax havens.

In reality, though, it was never about us and our economy at all. Today it is obvious that all of this had only one rationale: to raise up a class of supermen above us. It had nothing to do with jobs or growth. Or freedom either. The only person’s freedom to be enhanced by these tax havens was the billionaire’s freedom. It was all to make his life even better, not ours.

Think, for a moment, of how this country has been starved so the holders of these offshore accounts might enjoy their private jets in peace. Think of what we might have done with the sums we have lost to these tax strategies over the decades. All the crumbling infrastructure that politicians love to complain about: it should have – and could have - been fixed long ago.

Think of all the young people saddled with catastrophic student-loan debt: we should have – could have – made that unnecessary. Think of all the decayed small towns, and the dying rust belt cities, and the drug-addicted hopeless: all of them should have – could have – been helped.

But no. Instead America chose a different project. Our leaders raised up a tiny class of otherworldly individuals and built a paradise for them, made their lives supremely delicious. Today they hold unimaginable and unaccountable power.

- Matti Kohonen discusses how tax-avoiding businesses have stayed ahead of regulators and governments. And James King highlights the consequence that only the privileged few are seeing any gains in wealth.

- Jerry Dias rightly argues that Canada shouldn't be wasting time on trade deals like the TPP which serve only to further the grip of the corporate sector at the expense of citizens. But needless to say, the Trudeau Libs couldn't be less concerned about that prospect.

- Voices-Voix offers a report card on the Libs' time in office to date. And Laurin Liu comments on the dog-whistle politics Jagmeet Singh will need to fight in order to offer a governing alternative.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board weighs in on the need for improved parental leave for everybody - not merely the wealthier families who can take advantage of a longer leave period without extra income.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Naomi Klein offers her take on why we need to talk about climate change when its effects are most visible:

(E)very time we act as if an unprecedented weather event is hitting us out of the blue, as some sort of Act of God that no one foresaw, reporters are making a highly political decision. It’s a decision to spare feelings and avoid controversy at the expense of telling the truth, however difficult. Because the truth is that these events have long been predicted by climate scientists. Warmer oceans throw up more powerful storms. Higher sea levels mean those storms surge into places they never reached before. Hotter weather leads to extremes of precipitation: long dry periods interrupted by massive snow or rain dumps, rather than the steadier predictable patterns most of us grew up with.

The records being broken year after year — whether for drought, storm surges, wildfires, or just heat — are happening because the planet is markedly warmer than it has been since record-keeping began. Covering events like Harvey while ignoring those facts, failing to provide a platform to climate scientists who can make them plain, all while never mentioning President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, fails in the most basic duty of journalism: to provide important facts and relevant context. It leaves the public with the false impression that these are disasters without root causes, which also means that nothing could have been done to prevent them (and that nothing can be done now to prevent them from getting much worse in the future).
...
(T)he right will waste no time exploiting Harvey, and any other disaster like it, to peddle ruinous false solutions, such as militarized police, more oil and gas infrastructure, and privatized services. Which means there is a moral imperative for informed, caring people to name the real root causes behind this crisis — connecting the dots between climate pollution, systemic racism, underfunding of social services, and overfunding of police. We also need to seize the moment to lay out intersectional solutions, ones that dramatically lower emissions while battling all forms of inequality and injustice (something we have tried to lay out at The Leap and which groups, such as the Climate Justice Alliance, have been advancing for a long time.)

And it has to happen right now – precisely when the enormous human and economic costs of inaction are on full public display. If we fail, if we hesitate out of some misguided idea of what is and is not appropriate during a crisis, it leaves the door wide open for ruthless actors to exploit this disaster for predictable and nefarious ends.

- Noah Smith examines how the uneven ownership of assets - and particularly the concentration of stocks in the hands of the rich - exacerbates income and wealth inequality.

- Kevin Milligan examines the anticipated effects of closing tax loopholes for small businesses. And Michael Wolfson points out the problems with any attempt to paint equal taxation of money held in private corporations as an attack on doctors. 

- The Council of Canadians reveals the overwhelming public response in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

-  Amarnath Amarasingam and Ryan Scrivens discuss the need to acknowledge and respond to the rise of right-wing hate groups in Canada. And James Wilt calls out the corporate media for legitimizing an outlet dedicated to nothing else. 

- Finally, Robert Jago writes that John A. MacDonald's legacy is amply captured by the continuing discrimination facing Indigenous people in Canada - and that we should focus more on the action necessary to bring about reconciliation for the present and future.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David MacDonald studies the federal government's loopholes and giveaways targeted toward those who already have the most - noting that there would be plenty of revenue to fund the programs we're told are unaffordable if that preferential treatment was ended. And Felicity Lawrence highlights
how multinational corporations are planning to exploit international trade deals to siphon $55 billions away from the UK's public coffers.

- On that front, Jerry Dias argues that having dodged the bullet that is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada shouldn't waste any more time (or endanger the public interest) by trying to renegotiate and revive it.

- Andrew Jackson points out how inequality worsened during the Harper Cons' stay in power. Zohra Jamasi highlights how Canadian wages continue to lag behind inflation. And Pedro Nicolaci da Costa discusses the U.S.' similar lack of wage growth due to the destruction of workers' bargaining power, while Chris Rexrode writes that U.S. households are returning to their pre-crash pattern of borrowing against home values to paper over the gap.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford examines Air Canada's history of selling itself off for parts as an example of businesses similarly prioritizing easy and quick money over long-term planning - making a few insiders rich, and everybody else worse off.

- Finally, Ashifa Kassam calls out Justin Trudeau for using public relations stunts as a substitute for government accountability to citizens. And a few creative commentators (particularly @ajhtweeting) have put Trudeau's running away from issues into some handy visuals:

Trudeau jogs past Site C dam clear cut carnage. Oblivious. #StopSiteC #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/3O7biS5Hwr

— A J Henderson (@ajhtweeting) May 21, 2017

Trudeau jogs over the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nobody notices#C51 #C45 #cannabisact #nopipelines #cdnpoli @ajhtweeting pic.twitter.com/lznPlJ63gP

— The Perfidious SH (@perfidiousSH) May 24, 2017

Trudeau jogs through the Attawapiskat First Nation reserve. Nothing changes. #cdnpoli #FirstNations pic.twitter.com/NDAch6LY5D

— A J Henderson (@ajhtweeting) May 21, 2017

Trudeau jogs past Kinder Morgan protest. No one notices. #cdnpoli #StopKinderMorgan pic.twitter.com/5ulHl4iIKu

— A J Henderson (@ajhtweeting) May 21, 2017

Trudeau jogs past #cbridge City Hall...nothing changes. @theslimdude pic.twitter.com/R8oKFQMaG1

— The Cambridgian (@TheCambridgian) May 24, 2017

Trudeau jogs past electoral reform. Nothing changes. #cdnpoli #KeepYourPromise pic.twitter.com/BNVtYO4rQc

— A J Henderson (@ajhtweeting) May 21, 2017

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dalia Marin argues that in order to avoid corporate dominance over citizens and workers around the globe, we should be developing international competition policies and systems to combat the concentration of wealth:

Two forces in today’s digital economy are driving the global decline in labor’s share of total income. The first is digital technology itself, which is generally biased toward capital. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning have accelerated the rate at which automation is displacing workers. 

The second force is the digital economy’s “winner-takes-most” markets, which give dominant firms excessive power to raise prices without losing many customers. Today’s superstar companies owe their privileged position to digital technology’s network effects, whereby a product becomes even more desirable as more people use it. And although software platforms and online services can be costly to launch, expanding them is relatively inexpensive. Consequently, firms that are already established can keep growing with far fewer workers than they would have needed in the past. 

These factors help to explain why the digital economy has given rise to large firms that have a reduced need for labor. And, once these firms are established and dominate their chosen market, the new economy allows them to pursue anti-competitive measures that prevent actual and potential rivals from challenging their position.
...

The objective of a world competition network is to build an effective legal framework to enforce competition law against companies engaging in cross-border business practices that restrict competition. The network may coordinate investigations and enforcement decisions and develop new guidelines for how to monitor market power and collusive practices in a digital economy. 

In the past, the G20 has focused on ensuring that multinational firms are not able to take advantage of jurisdictional differences to avoid paying taxes. But the G20 now needs to expand its scope, by recognizing that digital technologies are creating market outcomes that, if unchecked by a new World Competition Network, will continue to favor multinational firms at the expense of workers.

- But Brent Patterson notes that instead, Justin Trudeau is planning to rebrand the corporate-biased TPP as a new version of NAFTA to further entrench the power of capital.

- The Star's editorial board challenges the Trudeau Libs' plans to push through a massive infrastructure bank giveaway without proper review and debate. And Stephen Whitworth examines the high price of the Saskatchewan Party's privatization of Crowns.

- Diana Duong interviews Andre Picard about Canada's health care system which falls far short of the universality we expect. And Alex Hemingway comments on the devastating social impacts of the B.C. Libs' austerity toward health care and other essential services.

- David Suzuki points out that increased public awareness of the realities of climate change is a necessary first step before we can make the kind of change needed to rein it in.

- Finally, Laura Cameron and Joseph Wasylycia-Leis write that an impending vote in Parliament offers an ideal chance for Canadians to push their MPs to support a more fair and proportional electoral system.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Trade Justice reports on Justin Trudeau's role in pushing for an international corporate giveaway through a new Trans-Pacific Partnership - even as the country whose capital class largely shaped it before has no interest in participating. And James Munson reports that Justin Trudeau is officially more secretive than Chinese billionaires, having demanded that the press be kept out of what would otherwise have been a public meeting.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias notes that like most make-the-rich-richer tax schemes, Donald Trump's tax plan is being sold based on nothing but brazen lies.

- Mia Rabson reports on the reality that the Libs are hundreds of millions of tonnes away from meeting the commitments they've already made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

- PressProgress lists just a few of the ways workers are being left behind in Canada's economy. And Emily Donaldson interviews Katrina Onstad about the importance of taking back our time outside of work.

- Finally, Jordon Cooper comments on the Saskatchewan Party's callous cuts to crucial chaplaincy services. And Andrew MacLeod reports on the Union of BC Indian Chiefs' efforts to call out Christy Clark's neglect and ensure a change in government.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mark Holmgren writes that there's no reason why we should allow poverty to continue in a country which has plenty of wealth to reduce it, while Patrick Butler notes that the conservative view of poverty as being solely the result of personal (lack of) merit is oblivious to the real obstacles facing people. Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on an effort to bring employers together to provide fair wages and a stable living based on both business and social benefits. And Daily Bread Food Bank offers a reminder that the need to navigate the tax system may result in people receiving far less than the benefits they need (and are entitled to).

- Richard Denniss points out the rank hypocrisy of big businesses demanding $48 billion in tax cuts in Australia while also complaining about public deficits. Andrew Coyne highlights how Bombardier is paying out millions of bonuses on a business model of taking in public money. And John Michael McGrath discusses how small towns suffer from corporate benefit-chasing - particularly as the promise of tax revenue from chain retailers proves illusory.

- Regan Boychuk raises a question as to who should be liable to clean up the mess made by Alberta's oil industry. And Geoffrey Morgan reports on the example of Lexin Resources as a model for how large companies have tried to offload costs onto smaller operators which can't possible afford them.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron takes note of the Libs' broken promises when it comes to openness and accountability. And Meghan Sali writes that secrecy and a lack of public inclusion are among the key warning signs for trade deals and other insider-based policy choices.

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Aditya Chakrabortty writes about the devastating combination of an urgent need for collective action on the key issues we face, and a deeply-entrenched political aversion to anything of the sort. And Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett highlight how the UK Cons are going out of their way to exacerbate the crisis of inequality while pointing out the only means to combat it:

Inequality is not driven by forces beyond our control but by politics and policy choices. The Resolution Foundation report says that the cuts in benefits to working-age people over the next four years are the main reason why inequality will rise. In the past, income differences widened because the incomes of the richest rose fastest. But the Resolution Foundation say that in future, living standards will fall among almost the entire bottom half of the working-age population. That will not simply make people more uncomfortable. It will damage democracy and the whole social fabric, making us a more antisocial society.
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Previous major reductions of inequality have depended on powerful political movements. Inequality was very high in the 1920s but then declined – at first rapidly and then more slowly – from the 1930s until the 1970s. The modern rise in inequality started in about 1980 with neoliberal economics under Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and has now returned us to 1920s levels of inequality. This pattern of declining inequality in the middle decades of the 20th century reflects the rise and fall of the labour movement and the fear of communism. The rise and fall of trade union membership is, in one country after another, almost a mirror image of trends in inequality. As trade unions got stronger, inequality declined and vice versa.
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Studies have shown that people in more equal societies are more willing to help each other, trust each other, and to take part in community life. The evidence also suggests that they are less out for themselves and more responsive to the common good. But with rising inequality all that fades: trust and community life decline and violence increases...
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Some academics argue that it takes a catastrophe to reduce inequality. But there is no shortage of solutions. What we need, and what is now beginning to emerge, is a mass movement capable of driving egalitarian policies forward. Taxes and benefits should be more redistributive than they are, but above all we need to reduce inequalities in incomes before tax. 

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines what the Trump administration and the end of the Trans-Pacific Partnership mean for trade - particularly in creating a new opportunity to include labour and the environment in our trade discussions if anybody cares to do so.

- Rachel Grey offers ten reasons why Canada needs a national housing plan. And Adetayo Bero discusses how stable housing can be crucial to mental health treatment.

- Meanwhile, Sarah DelVillano rightly criticizes the trend toward criminalizing poverty and the poor.

- Finally, Allison Hanes warns against letting casual hate slide when it can far too easily give rise to violence. And Caroline Biotteau reminds us that the people responsible for protecting security have long been aware that the most imminent risk of that violence originates in right-wing bigotry - even as both government and media have gone out of their way to fabricate other threats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Owen Jones writes that we should give credit for the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the popular opposition which will be need to push back against Donald Trump, rather than pretending it represents a win for Trump himself:

That Trump has any ownership over TPP is a travesty, and a damning indictment of the Democratic establishment. The new president’s rightwing populism combines xenophobia, protectionism and policies which directly enrich the Donald Trump class. Yes, American workers have suffered years of stagnating or falling wages and the decimation of industries, devastating the communities they sustained. Both Republicans and establishment Democrats are responsible, and never considered the possibility they were creating anger and resentment which one day a vulgar demagogue would exploit.
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Progressives oppose trade deals like TPP because they cost jobs, shift wealth and power to large corporations, drag down workers’ terms and conditions in a race to the bottom and threaten democracy. TPP – like the hopefully fatally wounded Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership – gave multinationals the ability to sue elected governments in secret courts for policies that threaten their profits. Here is an example of capitalism on a collision course with democracy and sovereignty.
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A programme of investing in US infrastructure may provide a much-needed short-term boost to the US economy, but combined with tax cuts for wealthy Americans and big business, Trumpism represents a grave economic danger. As is the style of rightwing populists, scrutiny – let alone dissent – will be portrayed as treachery. All the more reason for US progressives to stand firm.

Nothing that Trump does is motivated by the interests of the average American. A megalomaniac plutocrat like Trump scapegoats foreigners while promoting policies which directly enrich his associates. Don’t fall for a single thing he does. Resist, don’t normalise, isolate him, exploit divisions within the Republicans. Don’t fuel the impression that Trump is anything other than a charlatan who encourages working Americans to blame anyone but the men like him who are responsible for the multiple ills that define this wealthy but unjust society.

- John Christensen, Nick Shaxson and Duncan Wigan discuss (PDF) the "finance curse" facing countries which rely unduly on oversized financial sectors (with damaging consequences for neighbours as well). And Alex Cobham points out that even if Theresa May's first inclination is to barge ahead with a plan to make the UK even more of a tax haven, the EU has no incentive to play along in negotiating Brexit terms.

- Sally Weale writes that the gender pay gap which persists in today's workplaces starts as early as childhood, with girls receiving less allowance and on more strict conditions than boys.

- Lizanne Foster slams Christy Clark for looking out only for number one even as her government has ignored or actively exacerbated the needs of British Columbia's most vulnerable citizens.

- Finally, Tom Parkin takes a look at Guy Caron's campaign to lead the federal NDP - with a particular focus on his work to ensure public policy furthers the cause of equality, rather than being used to favour banks over people.