Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Alan Rusbridger explains the Guardian's much-appreciated effort to provide both space and analysis of the need to fight climate change. And Naomi Klein makes the case for a Marshall plan-style response to transition the world to a sustainable society, while highlighting the need for a public push to make that happen.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford discusses the fallout from the Cons' single-minded obsession with oil development. And Thomas Walkom calls out their blatant attempt to avoid discusses the economy now that they've left it sputtering.

- On that front, Edward Keenan writes that Stephen Harper's fearmongering seems more like a parody of over-top-top rhetoric than anything which could possibly be taken seriously:

On occasion, the Conservative government headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper has shown an inclination to take on the role of the press — by producing and distributing its own approved news items to print and broadcast media through the PR agency News Canada Ltd., for example. It now appears it has decided to do the work of satirists, too. How else to explain the transparent layers of irony running through the Conservatives’ public communications, the ham-fisted illustrations of doublespeak that so effectively lay bare the cynical, hollow heart and totalitarian inclinations of their new legislation?

One imagines the frustrated novelists and comedians in the Conservative StratCom writers room shaking their heads at the efforts of editorial cartoonists and TV sketch troupes: You call that parody? Let us show you how this is done.

“They hate us because we love freedom and tolerance.”

See, the devastating self-skewering element of this line is that it is nominally intended to serve as the justification for a proposed law, Bill C-51, that will restrict freedom. And it is offered at a time when members of the government are using the bill as a means of whipping up intolerance against Muslims to score cheap political points. Here we have a piece of legislation that would, among other things, curtail freedom of speech fairly broadly on matters related to terrorism and give an espionage agency domestic policing powers that allow it, in secret, to be specifically exempted from honouring the Charter of Rights.

An extra-constitutional secret police and surveillance agency, and criminal penalties for expressions of dissent. If “we love freedom and tolerance” isn’t the perfect punchline to explain that, what is?

- But the spin has had real-world consequences, as Chris Selley laments the fact that the Cons' scare tactics have managed to interfere with a a cheerleading competition scheduled for the West Edmonton Mall. And Humberto Dasilva comments on how the terror push both relies on and encourages xenophobia, while Haroon Siddiqui exposes the McCarthyite hearings being held by the Con-dominated Senate.

- Finally, CBC examines how the millionaire investors being prioritized for immigration purposes actually contribute less tax revenue than the refugees the Cons want to shut out.

Musical interlude

Age of Electric - Enya

On dumbed-down messages

Shorter Tom Lukiwski:

When it comes to terror laws, we Conservatives have no time for "legal jargon" like rights, life, liberty or justice. In fact, we'd like you to focus solely on one word.

On clear oversight

Shorter Chuck Strahl:

I can't see why a secret police service should be overseen by anybody other than the MPs who are willing to break their own rules to inflict it on the public in the first place.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New column day

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

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

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Edward Keenan is the latest to point out that any reasonable political decision-making process needs to include an adult conversation about taxes and why we need them:

This week, when asked about the prospect of raising taxes beyond the rate of inflation in coming years, John Tory called the idea “an admission of failure.”

This is distressing to hear. Consider the context: Tory’s current budget turns out to require a lot of dipsy-doodling that edges the city perilously close to its debt ceiling while hiking TTC fares and garbage fees. Meanwhile the unexpected bills keep rolling in: lookee here, Metrolinx just tossed another $95 million onto the city’s obligations! Whoah, lookee there, Toronto’s Union Station obligations just went up another $60 million because the province and feds are telling us to stuff our pleas for help. That’s without beginning to even ponder the 10-figure numbers involved in keeping the TTC and social housing in good enough shape that they can safely continue operating.

What Tory calls admitting failure, we might instead call “math.”

It’s difficult math to face up to, but it’s the result of more than a decade of childishly pretending we can avoid the calculations by thinking happy thoughts and wishing on the first star to the right.
...
The federal and provincial governments have refused to rain money on us from their own tax revenue. The quest for “efficiencies” has been on a long time, but has never shown the potential to be a miracle cure for our revenue woes. The City of Toronto needs to raise more money, either through property taxes or new “revenue tools.”

Maybe people don’t want to hear that. But telling it to them straight is not “admitting failure.” It’s owning up to reality, in the hopes of avoiding a civic failure that will follow if we continue to act like children who can’t handle basic math.

- But then, Ian Welsh reminds us that often what's right is also what's most efficient - as in the case of providing homes for the homeless.

- Bruce Western and Linda Forman Naval make the point that governments should make a concerted effort to make work available to released offenders - particularly if the alternative is to exploit current prisoners. But Jacob Boon reports on Drew Butler's sad example of how people are instead treated even after serving a sentence in full.

- Meanwhile, Thomas Walkom writes that while the Cons fearmonger about terrorism, they're deliberately ignoring the far greater security threat posed by climate change. And Thomas Mulcair presents the NDP's case against the Cons' terror bill.

- Kimberly Brown reports on the Canadian government's shameful interventions in Mexico on behalf of human rights abuses in the mining sector.

- Finally, Paul Adams muses about what we could expect from a Lib government and reaches exactly the right conclusion (if not one which is any surprise based on historical precedent): when it comes to the economy and social programs, Justin Trudeau and his party will be exactly as progressive as the NDP can force them to be and not an iota more.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats at rest.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Carol Graham discusses the high financial and personal costs of poverty:

Reported stress levels are higher on average in the U.S. than in Latin America. Importantly, the gap between the levels of the rich and poor is also much greater, with the U.S. poor reporting the highest levels of stress of all cohorts. Of course ‘stress’ is a complex phenomenon, however: “Good” stress is associated with the pursuit of goals, while “bad” stress is associated with struggling to cope. Bad stress, which is associated with an inability to plan ahead, lower life satisfaction levels, and worse health outcomes, is more common at the bottom of the distribution.

Pain, worry, sadness, and anger (reported as experienced the day before or not) are also all significantly higher among low income cohorts than among wealthy ones, while reported satisfaction with life as a whole is significantly lower...

...
There are also big differences in reports of chronic suffering across income groups, according to a recent study by Ronald Anderson. Those with incomes below the poverty line were twice as likely to report chronic pain and mental distress as those earning $75,000 or more, and three to five times more likely to have extreme pain or extreme distress.

Experiencing discrimination is also associated with stress. Among other things, discrimination raises the transaction costs of simple things such as getting a loan or buying a home. Maternal stress related to discrimination is associated with lower birth weights—which are linked to worse outcomes on a number of progress indicators—thus passing disadvantage on to the next generation...

- And Eli Hager comments on the spread of new debtors' prisons in the U.S. as just another areas where people living in poverty are facing gratuitous obstacles.

- Gaspard Sebag reports on McDonalds' widespread tax evasion. And while we can fully expect any corporation to argue that it's managed to stay in a legal grey area, Jon Stone finds that the public isn't prepared to tolerate that kind of hair-splitting from corporations who aren't paying their fair share.

- And there's particularly little reason to see any meaning in bare compliance with the letter of the law when, as Michael Gould-Wartofsky writes, the game is rigged in favour of the wealthy to begin with. Speaking of which, the Globe and Mail weighs in on how tax-free savings accounts have been designed to devour Canada's federal budget in the name of transferring wealth upward.

- Mark Dowie covers the failure of Stephen Harper's all-in bet on the tar sands from a U.S. perspective.

- Finally, Tim Harper rightly argues that Canada needs to stop any slide into intolerance - no matter  how determined the Cons are to push us in that direction for political gain. And PressProgress highlights how the combination of bigotry and gross intrusions into civil liberties has even right-wing commentators slamming the Harper Cons.

On full information

Michael Harris' latest is well worth a read in offering a guide to avoiding the worst consequences of election-year spin. But it's worth noting that his most important advice is only presented as an afterthought:

Final note on street-proofing your vote? Inform yourself. Look at what the people who want their power renewed have done with it so far, and at what those who seek power say they will do if they get it.

Above all, don’t cast your ballot out of fear.

While the warnings found earlier in Harris' piece may be helpful as examples of what candidates shouldn't do and what the public may want to avoid, any voter's election-year calculus should be based on one core question: which candidate and government will best represent the interests of one's self and one's fellow citizens?

The combination of horse-race talk, partisan spin and one-way messaging which we know all too well is then problematic precisely because it's designed to push voters down self-serving shortcuts in answering the core question. But by focusing more on avoiding the former than addressing the latter (as Harris seems to suggest as his order of priorities), voters may well leave themselves vulnerable to different forms of manipulation.

The inevitable end result of each elections is that somebody will be elected to represent each riding. While parties and candidates will have their own ideas as to how people should decide who that will be, it's the civic duty of each voter to decide what matters most, compare the parties' and candidates' positions, and cast a ballot accordingly. And shutting out the spin is only a small part of that process.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Janine Berg writes about the need for strong public policy to counter the trend of growing inequality. And Gillian White traces the ever-increasing divergence between worker productivity and wages in an interview with Jan Rivkin:

White: Some say that the decrease of collective bargaining has played a role in creating the gap, how true do you think that is?

Rivkin: There are a number of causes, one is the underlying shift in technology and globalization. Another is systematic underinvestment in the commons, which is a set of shared resources that every business needs in order to be productive: an educated populace, pools of skilled labor, a vibrant network of suppliers, strong infrastructure, basic R&D and so on. A third is shifts in institutions and politics and bargaining power, which is embodied in the decline in collective bargaining and the weakening of labor unions. There's no question that that is part of the story. How large a part? I don't think anyone has a well-informed perspective.
...

White: Is there a way to rectify the situation, to close the gap or at least create better outcomes for workers?

Rivkin: There are some forces at work that are unstoppable and we probably wouldn’t want to stop them even if we could. Forces of globalization, technological change—those genies are out of the bottle. But there are other parts of they dynamic that are purely choice. The damage done by underinvestment is a self-inflicted wound.

We need a movement toward cross-sector collaboration for rebuilding the commons and for sharing prosperity. We're seeing multiple examples of businesses that have realized that it’s in their interest to make sure that their workers are well educated, are skilled, that their supply networks are healthy, that the infrastructure in the cities where they operate is strong.

Investing in the commons should not be a substitute for raising wages, but wages are determined in a competitive market. It's impossible, for a company to justify paying an employee more if that employee hasn't been appropriately productive for the company. I think that business leaders just need to recognize that companies can't thrive for long if their communities are struggling.

- But of course, it's rather difficult to encourage public action to solve a serious problem when individuals can be punished merely for pointing it out. And Alina Tugend reminds us that without the protection of either a union or a constitution which limits the action of a government employer, workers may be risking their jobs merely by commenting on political matters. 

- Kate McInturff answers some key questions about the wage gap between male and female workers. And Heather Mallick decries the increased expectation that young workers will put up with providing unpaid labour.

- Ted Fertik and Dan Cantor offer some lessons which progressives in the U.S. and elsewhere should draw from Syriza's rise in Greece, with these in particular standing out:

Lesson 2: Against the oligarchs and the "totalitarianism of the market" which serves as a cover for their interests, we, the forces of democracy, have to fight back.

Only a few benefit from the oligarchs' policies, but they have the power and they have a grip on the political system. The oligarchs prevent the creation of a genuinely fair electoral playing field via a rigged campaign finance system and the rollback of voting rights. The oligarchs bring in cheap immigrant labour but prevent immigrants from getting citizenship. The oligarchs buy politicians.
Democracy -- real democracy -- is a threat to them.

America gave birth to the idea of popular sovereignty, but who in America today believes that it is the people who rule? We will get policies for the rest of us when the rest of us have real political power.
...
Lesson 8: No mourning for the golden days.

The immediate policies that the new Greek government proposes to implement are all rollbacks of "reforms" that were forced on them by their creditors. That could have been presented as going back to some tolerable previous status quo. Instead, the new government has denounced the old as corrupt and undemocratic, saying that it intends to destroy once and for all the grip of the country's oligarchs on power.

In the U.S., even as the "great compression" of the post-Second World War era produced steadily rising living standards for the (mostly white) middle class, it will be not enough to merely "restore the middle class." That slogan may poll well, but the challenges we face require new thinking and a new level of political energy. 

There is no going back to 1965. Young people in particular -- and who can deny that the youthfulness of Syriza and Podemos is part of their appeal? -- will not be moved by policies purporting to return us to an America of which no one under 45 has any living memory.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey laments the surface popularity of a terror bill whose glaring flaws would almost certainly sink in with a reasonable amount of study. Tonda MacCharles discusses the type of more-effective soft security which is being ignored in favour of the Cons' push for barely-fettered secret police. Michael Geist points out how dishonest the RCMP has been in exercising far less power than security services would have under C-51, while Jim Bronskill notes that the Cons are seeking to foist sweeping powers on CSIS after having broken a promise to create effective oversight. And Pete Dolack comments on the criminalization of dissent in Canada.

Still awaiting confirmation that his birth, prophesied by a swallow, ignited a bright star in the sky that immediately changed the season from winter to spring and caused an awe-inspiring double rainbow to appear

There are reasonable responses to a Prime Minister's being unable to attend the Canada Winter Games. And then there's Bal Gosal's reply, which sounds much more like the type of understated message we'd expect from a toady of your neighbourhood megalomaniac dictator:

Speaking at the Otway Nordic Ski Center Saturday, Gosal insisted Harper is "probably the greatest sports fan in our country."

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan counters the Cons' spin on tax-free savings accounts. And Rob Carrick points out that raising the limit on TFSAs would forfeit billions of desperately-needed dollars to benefit only the wealthiest few in Canada:

TFSAs are Swiss army knives – a financial knife, corkscrew, screwdriver and more. But doubling the annual contribution limit of $5,500 is a bad idea.

Message to the federal government: Please don’t, because we can’t afford it.
...
A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer this week says the federal government would lose $14.7-billion a year in revenue by 2060 and the provinces would lose $7.6-billion a year. That’s a tremendous amount of money to forgo in a country with a population aging as quickly as ours.

The latest population estimates from Statistics Canada suggest that seniors will account for 25.5 per cent of the population by 2061, up from 14.4 per cent in 2011. You can imagine what this trend will mean for government spending on health care and income programs such as Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

In fact, Ottawa was so concerned about the sustainability of OAS – it’s funded from general government revenue – that it announced that it would gradually increase the age of eligibility to 67 from 65 starting in 2023. Ottawa saved a whack of money doing that. Now, it’s looking at depleting the savings it realized with a higher TFSA contribution limit.

- Thomas Walkom offers some suggestions to save Canadian capitalism from its own most destructive impulses. And Don Lenihan discusses another set of big ideas worth considering, while recognizing that none of them will come to pass without a more effective political process.

- Elizabeth Douglass writes that between plunging prices and increasing recognition of safety and climate risks, 2015 is off to a rather rough start for the oil industry. And that's before doctors start highlighting pollution and climate change as serious health issues - which Kyle Plantz reports to be a foreseeable and desirable possibility.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Johnstone reminds us that farmers are still suffering from the Cons' choice to prioritize the use of rail to transport oil.

- Aarian Marshall discusses what the Cons' census vandalism has cost Canada:

Though Peterborough’s situation is particularly difficult, it’s not an anomaly. In 2006, 93.5 percent of Canadians responded to the then-mandatory long-form census. In 2011, 68.6 percent returned the NHS. This is despite the fact that census officials distributed more surveys to compensate for the predicted drop in response rates—to one in three Canadians in 2011 instead of the one in five in 2006. Still, Statistics Canada withheld 2011 NHS data for 1,128 of 4,567 Canadian census subdivisions. “[A]pproximately 25 percent of geographic areas do not have reliable National Household Survey data available for their use,” Canada’s auditor general wrote in a 2014 report.
...
“Because of the move to the voluntary NHS, Canada is a richer, whiter, more educated country now,” says Ryan Berlin, a Vancouver-based economist and demographer with the non-profit Urban Futures Institute. Berlin is making a joke here, one that’s been making the rounds in Canadian academic conferences for the past few years. But he’s not wrong. Certain populations—low-income residents, immigrants, the disabled, aboriginal peoples, and those without a firm grasp of the English language—were far less likely to return the voluntary census. These are also often the communities most in need of social programs. The question marks are particularly disconcerting in the wake of the worldwide  recession. Where are the needy? Canada isn’t entirely sure.

While statisticians with the Canadian government do have sophisticated mathematical tools to help estimate how many underserved citizens they missed, the 2011 still survey left glaring uncertainties. In one example, the NHS found that Filipinos were the most represented group among immigrants who entered Canada between 2006 and 2011. But a footnote in the Statistics Canada release notes that this result is “not in line with administrative data from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada which provides the number of recent immigrants by their country of birth settling in Canada each year.” Why the gap? It could be sampling errors, it could be response patterns, or it could be an “under or over estimation of certain groups of recent immigrants in the NHS.” Officials say they just can't be certain why they don’t know what they don’t know.
...
Academics also stress that census data is often used as a benchmark, to check whether other data sets derived from alternative sources are correct. Now there appears to be no universally-acknowledged set of numbers against which to check one’s own work.

- Finally, PressProgress points out that the Harper Cons and their mouthpieces seem to be the only people alive - whether in Canada or elsewhere - who don't think the tragic and ongoing history of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada merits a public inquiry. And Stephen Maher highlights the complete disconnect between the Cons and Canada's First Nations who rightly expect far better.

Burning question

What exactly do we expect CSIS to do with a possible data dump of every piece of information held by every federal government agency when at last notice, it was struggling to find the capacity to check e-mails for malware?

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bryce Covert weighs in on the IMF's latest study showing a connection between stronger trade unions and greater income equality:

While it can be hard to say for sure whether the decline in unionization is a direct cause of growing income inequality, they found that it is a “key contributor” to steep increases in income at the top, which holds true even after they controlled for other factors such as shifts in political power, labor market trends like the growing power of Wall Street and deindustrialization, and top marginal tax rates.

The authors also found that reductions in country’s minimum wages have increased inequality “considerably.”

Why would lower unionization rates have such an impact? The authors explain it in two different ways. Lower union density reduces workers’ bargaining power, which means corporate managers and shareholders stand to see higher returns if workers don’t have the power to ask for a bigger share. A lack of bargaining power may also mean that workers have less influence on corporate decisions, which could led to policies that better benefit top earners like higher executive pay. Unions also play a political role and can push parties to pass policies that would better redistribute income, but if they are weakened they don’t have the same influence.

- And Enda Curran and Simon Kennedy highlight how even governments which face little democratic opposition are responding somewhat to the public's demand to reduce inequality.

- But sadly, we're seeing little on that front in the places which can most afford it. On that front, CBC reports on the massive and growing problems of poverty and inequality in Toronto, while Sara Mojtehedzadeh surveys some much-needed solutions. And David Ottewell and Owen Bennett discuss the clear connection between cuts to housing programs, and rapidly increasing homelessness in the UK.

- Eric Reguly comments on the effect of monetary policy in exacerbating inequality - but while Reguly is right to note that we'd be far better off fighting recessions through helicopter drops than quantitative easing, it's the lack of the former which puts central banks in the position of having to use the tools at their disposal. And Andrew MacLeod looks at the kid-glove treatment of mortgage insurance providers in B.C. as just another example of the financial sector receiving a perpetual get-out-of-consequences-free card.

- Ben White reports on Elizabeth Warren's important challenge to the TPP and other corporate power agreements.

- And finally, Mark Hooghe, Sofie Marien, and Jennifer Oser argue that we shouldn't take hashtag activism and other online communications tools as a substitute for direct representation in decision-making, particularly since they may only perpetuate existing disparities in reach and power.

Musical interlude

Gareth Emery - Exposure

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Frank Graves writes that we're seeing the end of progress for all but the wealthiest few - and that we all stand to lose out if we come to believe that progress for the rest of us is impossible:

There is a virtual consensus that a growing and optimistic middle class is a precondition for societal health and economic prosperity. This consensus position reflects the historical record of when nations succeed. Yet if this consensus is correct, we note with alarm that almost nobody thinks that these conditions are in place in Canada. To the contrary, the consensus view is that the middle class is shrinking and pessimistic.
...
There are important barometers of confidence and we have tested these the same way in repeated measures for twenty years or so; the trajectories are clear and revealing. Never in our tracking has Canada had such a gloomy outlook on the economic future. Never in our tracking has the sense of progress from the past been so meager.

- Meanwhile, Spiegel interviews Naomi Klein about the choice between ever-increasing resource consumption and a sustainable planet:

SPIEGEL: So you're saying that a new era of consumption and energy use began precisely at the moment when sustainability and restraint would have been more appropriate?
Klein: Exactly. And it was at precisely this moment that we were also being told that there was no longer any such thing as social responsibility and collective action, that we should leave everything to the market. We privatized our railways and the energy grid, the WTO and the IMF locked in an unregulated capitalism. Unfortunately, this led to an explosion in emissions.
...

SPIEGEL: Let's go back to our first question: Why have people been unable to stop this development?
Klein: We have systematically given away the tools. Regulations of any kind are now scorned. Governments no longer create tough rules that limit oil companies and other corporations. This crisis fell into our laps in a disastrous way at the worst possible moment. Now we're out of time. Where we are right now is a do-or-die moment. If we don't act as a species, our future is in peril. We need to cut emissions radically.
...
SPIEGEL: You're saying that all the small steps -- green technologies and CO2 taxation and the eco-behavior of individuals -- are meaningless?
Klein: No. We should all do what we can, of course. But we can't delude ourselves that it's enough. What I'm saying is that the small steps will remain too small if they don't become a mass movement. We need an economic and political transformation, one based on stronger communities, sustainable jobs, greater regulation and a departure from this obsession with growth. That's the good news. We have a real opportunity to solve many problems at once.
SPIEGEL: You don't appear to be counting on the collective reason of politicians and entrepreneurs.
Klein: Because the system can't think. The system rewards short-term gain, meaning quick profits. Take Michael Bloomberg, for example ...
SPIEGEL: … the businessman and former New York City mayor …
Klein: … who understood the depths of the climate crisis as a politician. As a businessman, however, he chooses to invest in a fund that specializes in oil and gas assets. If a person like Bloomberg cannot resist the temptation, then you can assume that the system's self-preservation capacity isn't that great.

- Naturally, the Cons are going out of their way to make sure nobody's able to talk about either growth or sustainability. On that front, Kristie Smith reports on the Cons' refusal to allow our elected representatives to assess their woeful economic record. And Carol Linnitt talks to Donald Gutstein about their determination to silence anybody trying to make the case to save our planet.

- Of course, the most prominent current example of that is their terror bill. On that front, the Ottawa Citizen rightly questions the Cons' rush to impose massive new powers with as little study as possible. Louise Elliott reports on how C-51 ignores the Supreme Court's past decisions about security certificates, while upwards of 100 professors in law and related disciplines have released a letter calling for the bill to be amended or scrapped. And both Don Martin and Michael Harris call out the Cons for their selective definition of a threat (at least before universal surveillance powers are put in place).

- Finally, Health Poverty Action examines the global cost of the war on drugs. Anna Mehler Paperny discusses the social and economic consequences of a lack of accessible child care. And the Guardian reminds us that ignoring homelessness doesn't make its human costs disappear.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson link inequality and climate change as massive problems which are generated by political choices (and thus amenable to correction through the political system):

Rising inequality is no more natural than global warming. And just as with global warming, our biggest fear should be that it becomes increasingly self-reinforcing — not because of some “natural” economic process, but because economic power begets political power, which can be used to further increase economic advantage. Look around, and the evidence that this is a real threat abounds. To cite just one example of many, the Koch brothers network, led by businessmen who are committed libertarians opposed to any effort to reduce inequality, are planning to spend almost $1 billion in next year’s election.

In other words, read beneath the headline of Leonhardt’s article and you have an argument for greater alarm about the toxic relationship between rising inequality and the dysfunction of the federal government — a message exactly opposite of the one that the inequality deniers want to hear.

- Frances Woolley writes that tax-free savings accounts - and particular the expanded version which the Cons are planning to push soon - represent both a deliberate choice to exacerbate inequality, and one of the most devastating attacks yet on Canada's federal revenue system:

RRSPs leave a legacy of tax revenue to future governments. Increasing TFSA contribution limits does just the opposite – it creates an investment vehicle that is ripe for abuse, whether by generating super-normal returns, or by sheltering income in a TFSA while claiming government benefits. At the same time, it deprives future governments of the opportunity to tax investment income.
...
There’s a saying in policy circles: “the costs are the benefits.” For some, the revenue foregone by expanding TFSAs is a cost. For others, it’s a benefit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on the record as believing in small government. One sure-fire way to shrink governments is to deprive them of revenue. Doubling the TFSA limit will do that. Not now, and not in a year from now. But in 10, 20, or 30 years’ time, the doubling of the TFSA limit will gradually erode the ability of Canadian governments to raise revenue, redistribute income, and pay for public services.

- But then, individual savings likely aren't the best means of ensuring retirement security in any event, as David MacDonald finds that a retirement system based on mutual funds diverts massive amounts of savings toward financial sector compared to the alternative of effective pension plans. 

- Michal Rozworski notes that while Canada's wage picture isn't quite as bad as the U.S.' over the past two decades, it's most certainly nothing to celebrate - particularly since any gains were tied up almost entirely in since-deflated oil prices.

- Finally, Haroon Siddiqui laments the Cons' wilful stupidity in dealing with the Middle East. And Paul Adams calls out the tantrum-based foreign policy which includes pulling funding from friendly service providers for having the nerve to question John Baird.

New column day

Here, condensing this post on the risks of allowing CSIS to self-assess the scope of Canadians' Charter rights under C-51.

For further reading...
- Again, the go-to source for analysis of C-51 is Craig Forcese and Kent Roach's site here.
- Clayton Ruby and Nader Hasan's analysis is here.
- John Mueller and Mark Stewart duly reject the attempt to invent some existential terrorist threat.
- Dale Smith muses about the Cons' rush to ram C-51 through without analysis here. PressProgress challenges the conventional wisdom as to the supposed popularity of the bill here. And the Star appeals for a thorough study of the bill before it gets pushed through Parliament.
- Jorge Barrera reports on the bill's impact on First Nations here, while Peter O'Neil notes that indigenous activists are already being singled out for extreme state interference. And Geoffrey York highlights how security services around the world spend far more time tracking and interfering with peaceful domestic dissent than anything which could be plausibly considered "terrorism".
- Finally, for more on the warped standard being applied to evaluate the constitutionality of federal legislation, see again Simon Fodden's post here, along with Justin Ling's story here.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Lee-Anne Goodman reports on studies from both the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PDF) and the Broadbent Institute (PDF) showing that enlarged tax-free savings accounts stand to blow a massive hole in the federal budget while exacerbating inequality. And PressProgress documents and refutes the pitiful response from the right.

- But then, I suppose we shouldn't expect the Cons' actions on TFSA to differ from their usual mismanagement. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries write that the Cons' tax baubles in general have accomplished nothing useful, while Ricarda Acuna notes that Alberta (as the exemplar of the Cons' low-tax, high-inequality philosophy) is paying a heavy price for a PC government's refusal to collect appropriate revenue or preserve the value of public assets.

- Tim Dickinson writes that Stephen Harper's bluster about "superpower" status has officially fizzled out. And Karl Nerenberg outlines the main themes of the Cons' stay in power - and how they reflect a fundamental clash between Harper's whims and Canadian values.

- Bryce Covert reports on the billions of dollars siphoned out of middle-class retirement funds every year by the U.S.' financial services industry, while also pointing the difficulties in reining in such a lucrative rent-seeking operation. And Bill Black exposes how HSBC's CEO used tax evasion techniques to hide his own pay from his peers (h/t to Cory Doctorow).

- Finally, Tim Harper highlights the irony in the Cons' reliance on the courts to be the sole arbiters as to the validity of CSIS actions up to and including targeted killings when the same government doesn't believe judges are qualified to deliver criminal sentences. And Justin Ling reports on the NDP's efforts to make sure C-51 isn't rammed through Parliament without serious scrutiny, while Kady O'Malley notes that the Cons' plan is to avoid letting experts be heard.