Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman points out that workers are receiving less and less benefit from technological advancements - and offers a simple policy prescription to ensure workers of all skill levels don't suffer unduly based on forces far beyond their control:

I’ve noted before that the nature of rising inequality in America changed around 2000. Until then, it was all about worker versus worker; the distribution of income between labor and capital — between wages and profits, if you like — had been stable for decades. Since then, however, labor’s share of the pie has fallen sharply. As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. A new report from the International Labor Organization points out that the same thing has been happening in many other countries, which is what you’d expect to see if global technological trends were turning against workers. 

And some of those turns may well be sudden. The McKinsey Global Institute recently released a report on a dozen major new technologies that it considers likely to be “disruptive,” upsetting existing market and social arrangements. Even a quick scan of the report’s list suggests that some of the victims of disruption will be workers who are currently considered highly skilled, and who invested a lot of time and money in acquiring those skills. For example, the report suggests that we’re going to be seeing a lot of “automation of knowledge work,” with software doing things that used to require college graduates. Advanced robotics could further diminish employment in manufacturing, but it could also replace some medical professionals.

...
So what is the answer? If the picture I’ve drawn is at all right, the only way we could have anything resembling a middle-class society — a society in which ordinary citizens have a reasonable assurance of maintaining a decent life as long as they work hard and play by the rules — would be by having a strong social safety net, one that guarantees not just health care but a minimum income, too. And with an ever-rising share of income going to capital rather than labor, that safety net would have to be paid for to an important extent via taxes on profits and/or investment income.

- And Sarah Cooper and Lynne Fernandez concur in the conclusion that a more fair distribution of income is the best treatment for poverty (among other problems). 

- Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland highlights the reality that even the 1% can't avoid the detrimental effects of inequality - with a TED event in Edinburgh serving to bring the issue to the forefront:

I was a speaker, too. I talked about my chief obsession, soaring global income inequality, particularly at the very top of the pyramid, and the uncomfortable fact that the same forces that are enriching the global super-elite are hollowing out the middle class in the West’s developed economies. Making capitalism work for everyone, and not just the plutocrats, I argued, is our most pressing political and economic problem.

Taken together, and given the gilded venue, all of these comments amount to a significant shift in tone. Charlie Robertson, the global chief economist for Renaissance Capital, the Russian-based investment bank, was moved to post on Twitter, in reaction to the TED lineup, that the “intellectual ascendancy of neo-liberalism since ’70s may be in retreat.”

That is probably going too far. But we do seem to be at a turning point, or the beginning of one. Judging by this week in Edinburgh, even the winners in the global economy are beginning to realize that there are a lot of losers, too, and that it’s a problem. You might see that as too little too late; you might also see it as, at long last, a start.

- Colin Horgan writes that Stephen Harper's speech to the UK Parliament this week was more partisan than prime ministerial. Bruce Johnstone notes that it was predictably laden with falsehoods as well. And contrary to Harper's efforts to claim immunity from international economic conditions, Krugman points to Canada's rising household debt load and housing prices as offering a test case for the dangers of future deleveraging shocks.

- Finally, Lana Payne proposes that we get serious in addressing tax avoidance and evasion, while recognizing that the Cons' anti-tax ideology is standing in the way of global action:

Given Mr. Harper’s opinion on taxes, it should come as no surprise that he is said to be the problem at the G8 table. Tax havens, of course, are a practice by which the very rich get to hide their money so they can avoid paying taxes.

After all, if, as the prime minister believes, all taxes are bad, why then the need to seriously crack down on those who avoid them?

According to Canadians for Tax Fairness, Canada has been withholding support for two key aspects of the G8 tax havens action plan. They include that financial institutions in tax havens be required to have a public registry of the ultimate beneficial owner of all accounts, trusts or corporations and that there be multilateral tax information sharing between governments.

The tax fairness folks say these measures are important to “lifting the veil of secrecy that allows wealthy individuals and corporate tax evaders and criminal organizations to hide their wealth offshore.”

But Stephen Harper, it appears, would rather protect the cheats. Yes, well, don’t be surprised; there was that Mike Duffy affair.

So let’s get this straight.

The government — bent on forcing unions to publish nearly every transaction on a public website, taking up the time and resources of Revenue Canada officials, creating a pile of red tape for labour organizations, violating privacy laws and in all likelihood the Constitution — is opposed to a public registry to catch tax evaders.

Musical interlude

Deepest Blue - Deepest Blue

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Michael Harris tears into the Harper Cons for their compulsive dishonesty:

Everything in the Westminster model under which we are supposed to operate depends on information, debate and verification — all of which are missing in ‘Harperland’, to use Lawrence Martin’s ringing coinage. Also missing is that high bar of behaviour known as being an “Honourable Gentleman”.

One of the few federal bureaucrats who stood up to Harper’s cult-conservatism was the lately-departed chief of the PBO, Kevin Page. He regularly challenged the phoney books and unsupported policy of this catch-us-if-you-can government — and oh, how they came to hate him for it.

Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay and countless party bobbleheads who BS for a living on TV were caught dead to rights falsifying the cost of the F-35 fighter jet — once by Page, and then again by the auditors at KPMG.

Their response? Lie some more. The Tories crowed that the KPMG audit ‘vindicated’ their numbers. Yes, just as a conviction for violating the Elections Act was a ‘victory.’ Just as another judge confirming that there was fraud in the last federal election was “vindication”, even though the judge also said the culprit likely used the Conservative Party of Canada’s own database to perpetrate that fraud. Two plus two is five.

...
And here is what sits behind all the sneakiness, lies, and prevarications. Stephen Harper wants to deconstruct the country as we know it much faster than he is able to persuade Canadians to follow him. So he has to control information, stifle politicians and the press, and reduce the national debate to the hollow dictates and studied evasions coming out of the PMO. He can’t reveal his intentions because if he did, he would not be electable.

- Meanwhile, Peter O'Neil reports that the Cons have officially shed any of their past claims to be interested in grassroots democracy, as they plan to fight Kennedy Stewart's online petition proposal tooth and nail rather than allowing for even the slightest direct citizen involvement in shaping parliamentary debates. 

- Nathan Vanderklippe reports on the devastating Apache contaminated water spill in northern Alberta. Mike Hudema details the Redford government's attempt to cover up the spill, while the Star-Phoenix rightly notes that the lies and cover-ups that have become standard operating procedure for both the oil industry and its pet governments offer nothing but reason for suspicion about the health and safety implications of new projects.

- While plenty of others have already made the case to integrate prescription drugs into the set of services covered by our universal health care system, it's a noteworthy step that even the C.D. Howe Institute is now on board. 

- Finally, Dean Baker takes a close look at the U.S.' Social Security as a case in point signalling the futility of means-testing social programs:

Of course you could start the phase out a higher income level (like $50,000 per person) and have it at a more reasonable rate (e.g. 10-20 percent), but then you find that you don't save the program much money. In our paper we found that the savings, net of tax, for a 20 percent phase out starting at person incomes of $40,000 would save around 3 percent of benefits. If it was started at a person income of $100k it would save around 0.6 percent of benefits. These numbers give a much more realistic idea of how much can be saved with means-testing. See how much fun math can be?

Deep thought

"The Conservatives are being asinine, let's shut down Parliament!" isn't a recipe for more functional politics, it's a means of encouraging more asinine behaviour from the Conservatives.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mike Fancie offers this year's definitive response to the the misguided concept of "tax freedom":

The Fraser Institute’s math on income and taxation has been roundly criticized, including by a former Assistant Chief Statistician and by our Andrew Jackson for skewing numbers to make a point. But while we take issue with the Fraser Institute’s numbers, and setting aside the bias inherent in their tax calculator’s $150,000 income ceiling, the more important discussion lies in appreciating why we pay taxes in the first place. Our tax dollars, far from disappearing into a black hole, are the reason that our roads are paved, our public schools are exceptional, our tap water is clean, and that our public health care continues to keep Americans jealous of their Northern neighbours.

A recent BBC article on the free maternity packages Finnish new mothers receive from the government was picked up by the Globe & Mail, who raved that Finland’s “every child matters -- every family matters” philosophy contributes to their children being among the world’s healthiest. And it turns out the tax dollars Finns pay to provide programs like this, much like Quebec’s $7-a-day childcare program, end up more than paying for themselves.

All this is to say that all but the most affluent of us get much more from our tax dollars than what we pay into the system. Taxes, in the words of a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, are the price we pay for a civilized society.

- But we're far from having a fair tax system precisely because so many wealthy individuals are evading their social responsibilities. Even as the CBC reports on a few more of the Canadian names on the ICIJ's list of tax evaders, it also notes that the Cons are pointing to cases that have nothing to do with offshoring as evidence of a crackdown.

- Meanwhile, it's for the best that the Cons have at least stopped obstructing international action to improve transparency in resource industries. But the fact that they're once again allowing extractors to write their own rules leaves little reason for optimism about Canada's own policy.

- And Chris Cobb reports on the Cons' choice to privatize and commercialize Canada's national historical record.

- Finally, Frances Russell wonders whether the Cons' sense of entitlement to power is causing them to neglect a crumbling foundation.

New column day

Here, on how Canada's federal privacy law actually prohibits our own federal government from conducting secret surveillance (so long as it's actually followed) - as well as how little that law means if countries don't recognize that privacy applies beyond their borders.

For further reading...
- Michelle Shepard reported here on Canada's history of surveillance activities. 
- The federal Privacy Act is here. See in particular section 11's obligation to public lists of personal information collected by each government institution, as well as the treatment of exempt data banks in section 18. 
- CSEC allows Canadians to make requests for their own information here. But it points to this generic list of personal information banks, rather than mentioning that any set of "data trails" on Canadians might be collected.
- Meanwhile, CSEC points proudly to its "foreign intelligence allies" here - with a couple of countries well known for excessive surveillance looming prominently on the list. And Peter MacKay is trying to use the "foreigners" dodge in responding to questions about CSEC's activities - while pogge highlights why we need international pushback against the surveillance state. 
- I don't see much value in the proposal floated by Jack Harris and Hugh Segal to brief a small number of parliamentarians on spying activity - as the provision of information which can't be used as part of a public discussion only figures to make it more difficult for anybody to ask tough questions.
- Finally, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has weighed in with her own confirmation that metadata should be treated as protected personal information.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Doreen Massey observes that our political vocabulary has largely been hijacked by corporatist language:

At a recent art exhibition I engaged in an interesting conversation with one of the young people employed by the gallery. As she turned to walk off I saw she had on the back of her T-shirt "customer liaison". I felt flat. Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation to the gallery and to this engaging person had become one of instrumental market exchange.

The message underlying this use of the term customer for so many different kinds of human activity is that in all almost all our daily activities we are operating as consumers in a market – and this truth has been brought in not by chance but through managerial instruction and the thoroughgoing renaming of institutional practices. The mandatory exercise of "free choice" – of a GP, of a hospital, of schools for one's children – then becomes also a lesson in social identity, affirming on each occasion our consumer identity.

This is a crucial part of the way that neoliberalism has become part of our commonsense understanding of life. The vocabulary we use to talk about the economy is in fact a political construction...

There are loads of other examples of rarely scrutinised terms in our economic vocabulary, for instance that bundle of terms clustered around investment and expenditure – terms that carry with them implicit moral connotations. Investment implies an action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future positive outcome. Expenditure, on the other hand, seems merely an outgoing, a cost, a burden.

Above all, we need to bring economic vocabulary back into political contention, and to question the very way we think about the economy in the first place. For something new to be imagined, let alone to be born, our current economic "common sense" needs to be challenged root and branch.

- Daniel Altman delivers a blistering rebuke to austerity economics. But there's also a more positive path available, as Todd Aalgaard reports on Andrew Cash's work to recognize and address the needs of workers with little or no job security:

Cash has long advocated for the rights of freelancers, temp workers, contract workers and part-timers in a cross-section of industries, many in the cultural sector. Now, as a parliamentarian, he’s morphing his concern into a private member’s bill to be introduced this spring in the House of Commons. 

The gist of the legislative bid is a call for expanded access to EI, improving the pension system for part-timers, restricting the laying off of workers and rehiring them as “independent contractors,” income averaging for those with variable incomes, and ending the misuse of unpaid internships.

“We’re talking about the fact that in a city like Toronto, almost 50 per cent of the people who live here cannot access stable, full-time jobs,” Cash explained to me some days before the meeting, shivering in an unseasonably chilly May breeze.

He was referring to studies like the one published just three months ago by McMaster U and the United Way, which found that insecure work in the GTA has increased by 50 per cent in the past 20 years. A similar report last year by the Law Commission of Ontario revealed how provincial legislation has failed to keep up with this major shift in the workforce.

“The bill is about the issue of quality of employment,” he said, pointing out that most in these insecure categories aren’t paid what they’re worth, receive no protections, have no pensions or other benefits and simply can’t sustain a household.

- Jennifer Ditchburn finds yet another example of the Senate protecting its own rather than applying clear spending rules, as a Conservative-controlled steering group within its internal economy committee suppressed concerns about Pamela Wallin's travel claims. And the combination of the Cons' abuses of power and the Libs' desire to slap a new coat of paint on the same old patronage machine can only help the NDP's cause in presenting an ethical alternative.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg writes about Stephen Harper's lack of concern for his own party's election fraud:

The Conservative Party claims that it shares the general outrage on the use of fraud in the last election.

But the Party's actions belie that claim.

Not only did the Party seek to derail the robocall voter suppression court case, it has been notably uncooperative with Elections Canada's investigation of that fraud, and it has failed to respond to the Chief Electoral Officer’s concrete proposals for reforms designed to put and end the sort of abuses that happened in 2011.

Judge Mosley pointed out that prior to 2011 we in Canada did not have a history of U.S.-style voter suppression tactics.

Both Mosely and the Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Mayrand, have noted that the use of fraudulent phone calls pretending to be from Elections Canada, and other tricks, in order to prevent people from voting, is a very dangerous and disturbing new phenomenon in Canada.

If the Harper government does not put a package of election reforms before Parliament by the fall of this year or, at the very latest, early in 2014, it will be too late to institute needed changes before the next federal election in 2015.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Wraparound cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Deborah Gyapong discusses CMA President Anna Reid's presentation to the federal All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, with the positive response of MPs from all parties looking like a particularly noteworthy development:

The CMA put forward seven recommendations for governments at all levels to examine to improve health outcomes.

-- A comprehensive prescription drug strategy in consultations with the life and health insurance industry to make sure that 10 per cent of Canadians who lack access to prescription drugs can get them.

-- Ensuring low-income Canadians have access to rehabilitation, mental health, home care and end-of-life care.

-- Exploring options for funding long-term care services such as public insurance schemes or registered savings plans.

-- Expanding relief programs for informal caregivers such as family members caring for aging parents or a disabled child.

-- Recognizing "the importance of the social and economic determinants of health to the health of Canadians and the demands on the health care system.

-- Require federal Cabinet decision-making to include a health impact assessment.

-- Have the federal government "give top priority to the development of strategies to minimize poverty in Canada.

APAPC members said they hoped to bring Recommendation Five, recognizing the importance the economic determinants of health, to their respective party leaders.

- Brian Langille and Josh Mandryk outline how Tim Hudak's plans to attack organized labour go beyond even the worst U.S. right-to-work schemes:

Majoritarianism and exclusivity are the core democratic principles underlying our model of labour relations.

Majoritarianism refers to the principle of majority rule in union certification and internal union democracy. If 50 per cent of the workers in the bargaining unit vote to form a union, majority rules. The flip side is that workers who wish to form a union cannot do so unless a majority of their co-workers vote to do so as well.

Exclusivity refers to the fact that once a majority of workers in a bargaining unit vote for a union, that union becomes the exclusive bargaining agent of all employees, preventing other unions from representing workers in that unit as well as preventing individual contracts of employment for bargaining unit employees.

These are the same democratic principles that underlie our political democracy. The principles are very simple and familiar. You may not have voted for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives but that does not mean you do not have to pay your taxes. You cannot opt out. And it also means the federal government cannot exclude you from medicare coverage and so on because of how you voted. The government cannot “opt you out.” They are the government for everyone. This is how our democracy works. This is what the PCs propose to dismantle.

There is more. The Ontario PCs do not intend to do away with majoritarianism and exclusivity in their entirety. Doing so would open the door to minority unions, which would provide meaningful access to collective bargaining for workers in industries like banking and food services which have proven impervious to organizing under our model of labour relations. As they would have it, the benefits of majoritarianism and exclusivity would be repealed, but the burdens would remain intact. Those in the minority have no right to seek representation at all.

- Andrew Coyne discusses how denials and cover-ups are turning relatively minor issues into major scandals at all three levels of government in Toronto. And Martin Regg Cohn questions why part of Kathleen Wynne's attempt to change the channel includes an inexplicable defence of the Senate.

- Finally, Paul Adams wonders whether the post-Harper era has already begun. And I'm particularly curious as to whether anybody jockeying for position within the Cons will notice the level of popular support for more inclusive government and effectively run against Stephen Harper's command-and-control political model.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jason Fekete reports that the Harper Cons are taking the side of international tax evaders against other G8 leaders trying to implement an effective enforcement system. And CBC reports that the Canada Revenue Agency has repeatedly turned down the opportunity to access information about tax cheats based on a policy of not offering enforcement rewards.

- In the wake of revelations about the U.S.' PRISM surveillance system (summarized by Mathew Ingram), Michael Geist warned that Canadians should be equally concerned about their privacy. And that observation looks particularly apt in light of Colin Freeze's revelation that Peter MacKay personally approved the revival of a dormant program which "incidentally" intercepts online communications.

- John Cotter reports that the Cons are once again slashing basic regulation - as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will let livestock producers decide for themselves whether it's worth doing anything to curb the spread of anthrax. And the CFIA is being particularly explicit in confirming that public health is being treated as a "business decision":

“It is very much a business decision or a cost-benefit decision on the basis of the producer and their veterinarian,” said Dr. Penny Greenwood, national manager of domestic disease control for the CFIA.

“When it is a business decision, it is really not appropriate for CFIA to be involved in the control of those diseases, as opposed to diseases that are very difficult to control.”

- Finally, Andrew Potter's take on Rob Ford is well worth a read. But I'll particularly highlight this point as to the type of personality issue that actually should concern voters assessing Ford and his enablers:

(T)here’s something more basic to Ford’s personality, and there’s nothing that appealing about it: the man has zero self-control. From reading while driving himself to work, drinking to excess at official functions, going to KFC while on a much-publicized diet or allegedly smoking crack and hanging out with drug dealers, it is clear that Ford is simply incapable of resisting temptation or delaying gratification.

And — it is crazy that this needs pointing out — there is nothing politically or morally praiseworthy about this. From Plato to Freud and everyone in between and since, self-mastery of the passions by our capacity for reason has been recognized as the key to being a proper-functioning adult and to the proper functioning of the city. No one has seriously made the case that rule by the passions, the id, the animal instincts, is a viable way to run a polity of any size. More to the point, no one has credibly argued that this is any way for a grown-up to behave.

Except, that is, Ford’s enablers, whose greatest fear is that he will go to rehab and expose their ongoing support for what it really is: a dangerous and foolish egging-on of a very sick man. Which is what makes Ford less of a buffoon and more of a tragic figure.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your weekend.

- Dave Coles introduces readers to the Cons' latest attack on labour - with a backbencher's private member's bill again serving as an excuse to introduce unprecedent restrictions on union organization.

- Michael Harris suspects that the Cons' attempt to delay any public review of their burgeoning Senate slush fund scandal by a referral to the Auditor General is doomed to fail. And Karl Nerenberg discusses exactly what the slush fund means - including the holes it highlights in Canada's party financing system.

- Martin Regg Cohn rightly calls out Jim Flaherty for once again trying to use a federal cabinet post to bully Ontario's provincial government. But it's also worth noting that in addition to misrepresenting the type of policy under consideration in Ontario, Flaherty is also being dishonest about the rationale used to sell his own party's tax cuts - which included generating tax room to be available for additional provincial revenue:

Our government firmly believes that unanticipated surpluses, the last area I wanted to mention, should be used primarily to reduce the debt and reduce federal taxes rather than to launch new policies in areas where the federal government is not best placed to design or deliver programs.

This, in turn, creates tax room that provinces and territories can consider filling for their specific needs and purposes. It supports the premise that governments need to be accountable to Canadians for their taxing and spending decisions. That clarity of roles and responsibilities is essential by ensuring that Canadians can hold governments accountable for their actions.

- Michael Geist discusses his appearance in front of the Standing Committee on International Trade to discuss the most dangerous elements of the TPP - as well as the secrecy surrounding its negotiations:

(I)t is deeply troubling that DFAIT has established a secret insider group with some companies and industry associations granted access to consultations as well as opportunities to learn more about the agreement and Canada's negotiating position.

I realize that Minister Fast denied the existence of such a group when he appeared before you last month.  However, documents I obtained under the Access to Information Act indicate that the first secret industry consultation occurred weeks before Canada was formally included in the TPP negotiations in a November 2012 consultation with telecommunications providers. All participants were required to sign non-disclosure agreements.  

Soon after, the circle of insiders expanded with the formation of a TPP Consultation Group. Representatives from groups and companies such as Bombardier, the Canadian Manufactures and Exporters, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, and the Canadian Steel Producers Association all signed a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that granted access to "certain sensitive information of the Department concerning or related to the TPP negotiations."

I have copies of the signed NDAs here that make specific reference to the TPP Consultation Group.

The creation of a secret TPP insider group suggests an attempt to shy away from public consultation and scrutiny of an agreement that could have a transformative effect on dozens of sectors at a time when we should be increasing efforts to gain public confidence in the talks by adopting a more transparent and accountable approach. I believe the TPP's highly secretive and non-transparent approach runs counter to Canadian values of openness and accountability. We should be actively encouraging participants to increase TPP transparency and should lead by example by ceasing the two-tier insider approach to trade agreement information. 

- Finally, Will Hutton discusses why tolerance is of limited value without some associated commitment to human dignity:

Tolerance of other people's differences is a core element of a liberal order, but a good society is one where we go beyond just shrugging our shoulders at someone's sexual preferences, religious beliefs or ethnicity. It is one in which we engage with each other, create law and justice as a moral system enshrining human dignity and accept mutual responsibilities. The aim is to live with dignity, to be able to make the best of one's capabilities and to expect that the consequences of undeserved bad luck – what Dworkin called brute bad luck – would be compensated by society in a mutual compact. This is a million miles from the Economist's arid conception of liberalism.

Nor are these disputes just airy-fairy differences between intellectuals – they go to the heart of how we live, what we do and say. Unless we take a much more robust and rounded view of liberalism, tolerance ends up as indifference, disengagement and refusal to respect other people's ambition to live with dignity. Anything goes...

In successive areas of public policy – "reform" of criminal justice and legal aid, the health service, climate change, employment law, social security – the debate is similarly defined wholly in terms of the need to assert individual rights and choice, to minimise social and public responsibilities and, above all, to roll back taxes. If the facts or scientific evidence do not support this drive, then the facts are changed or the science ignored.
...
(I)if the right is dominant, a rounded liberalism has one advantage. The right's world leads to economic stagnation, social atomisation and a destructive nationalism. Nor, ultimately, is there happiness and dignity to be found by living as a tax-avoiding, climate-change-denying anti-feminist while mouthing how tolerant you are. There is a quiet and mounting crisis in conservatism. Liberalism, in its best sense, could capitalise on the opportunity. It is a pity Ronnie Dworkin won't be around to be part of the fight back. We'll just have to do it by ourselves.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders:

The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over the same period, according to a study by Tali Kristal, a sociologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. The boost in companies’ bottom line comes at workers’ expense, Kristal wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

“It’s a zero sum game: whatever is not going to workers, goes to corporations,” Kristal said. “Union decline not only increased wage gaps among workers, but also enabled capitalists to grab a larger slice of the national income pie at the expense of all workers, including the highly skilled.”

The findings, published Thursday in the American Sociological Review, add a new dimension to the debate over income inequality in the U.S., suggesting that policies aimed at boosting unions may help. Corporate profit soared to a record high share of the economy earlier this year, according to Bloomberg, while workers' wages have remained largely stagnant. The rise in profit comes as union membership has dropped to a record low.

- Nora Loreto discusses the importance of including younger workers in the benefits of unionization - rather than conceding future losses to protect past gains. And Trish Hennessy offers some numbers on working women - including confirmation of the role of unions in pursuing pay equity.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Cons' PMO-controlled slush fund looks to be the missing link connecting Clusterduff to the broader party apparatus. And as Colin Horgan points out, the Cons aren't helping their already-lacking credibility any through feeble attempts to deny the obvious facts about a fund - particularly after confirming them a day earlier.

- Meanwhile, Alex Jordan Himelfarb comments that Stephen Harper's choice to flee questions about his party's patronage system reflects disdain for democratic transparency. And Chantal Hebert wonders whether resignation may soon be in the cards for Harper.

- Finally, Adrienne Silnicki observes that funding health care is a matter of political choice - and that the governments who demand that we accept fewer services in the name of tax breaks for the wealthy be held to account for that readily-avoidable state of affairs.

[Edit: Fixed attribution, typo.]

Musical interlude

Gareth Emery feat. Lucy Saunders - Sanctuary

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- David Miller makes the case to take aim at inequality in Canada:

With globalization being the holy grail of efficiency, it became a race to the bottom as international capital sought the lowest cost and the lowest wages. The result in Canada and many other countries was the closing of industries, the gutting of union organizing through new laws that attack unions and limit their ability to operate, and the gradual rise in income inequality since 1990. Canada now ranks 12th out of 17 first-world economies for income inequality, and were given a "C" grade by the Conference Board of Canada.

How do we reduce this trend and reap the long-term rewards? There are a number of potential solutions, but I'll touch on three.

First, we need to re-think the "lowest possible cost" globalization mantra. International trade is here to stay and can yield many benefits, both in Canada and abroad. But the emphasis should be less on "free trade" and more on "fair trade," so that people from all walks of life can benefit. The recent factory collapse in Bangladesh is just one example of what can happen when the lowest cost trumps everything.

Second, we need to strengthen the rights of trade unions to organize in the new digital economy. The power balance has swung too far -- and we need to better empower trade unions in their fight to bargain for fairer wages. For those not in a trade union, we need to raise the minimum wage to reduce the incidence of subsistence living.

Third, we need to examine how we can use public policy for all projects at all levels of government to advance the economic prospects for those least well off. For example, in Toronto, when we decided to reinvest in one of our poorest neighbourhoods, Regent Park, our procurement policies stipulated that 25 per cent of jobs related to the rebuild go to local residents. It was an effective way of ensuring that greater economic benefits flowed directly to the community that needed it most.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford is optimistic that Canadian governments are looking for new revenue tools to help address inequality. And Avaaz is leading a public push to close international tax loopholes which could go much further.

- But then, Paul Dewar observes that the Cons are still determined to prevent international action on issues which should represent simple areas of agreement - writing in particular about Stephen Harper's attempt to protect illegal arms brokers.

- Seumas Milne writes that a combination of relentless lobbying and a revolving door between regulators and industry has resulted in a thoroughly corrupted state in the UK - and the problem figures to be no less significant in Canada. And Simon Ravenscroft notes that the rich have been conspicuously unaffected by the austerity afflicted on mere commoners.

- Peter Kent is trying to spin as a plus the fact that oil companies are demanding that their old, dirty operations be allowed to continue without being subject to environmental regulations. And Leslie Young reports that we have plenty of reason to worry about newer installations as well - as the Plains Midstream debacle in Peace River resulted in Alberta pulling its limited regulatory staff from inspections of new pipelines in order to help assess the existing mess.

- Finally, Linda McQuaig presciently suggested that Nigel Wright's role as a party bagman should receive far more attention. And one secret seven-figure Con slush fund later, it looks like we'll be talking about the Cons' off-the-books and under-the-table dealings for a long time to come.

New column day

Here, on how the recent Munk Debate has helped to highlight Canadians' preference for a fairer, more progressive tax system - and on a couple of the most important steps we can take toward that end goal.

For further reading...
- Ipsos Reid's polling on public views toward taxing the rich is here.
- Stephen Gordon's response to the Munk Debate (referenced in the column) is here. And I'll note that there seems to be some difference in determining the tax rate applicable to high-end income: while KPMG's numbers roughly match Gordon's, the CRA's figures actually show Ontario as one of the provinces with an opportunity to increase revenue.
- Finally, the Guardian discusses David Cameron's efforts both to address tax avoidance within the G8, and to push UK territories to stop serving as cover for offshoring. And while I share some skepticism about Cameron's intentions, it's well worth pointing out the example of a right-wing leader at least recognize the unfairness of tax avoidance, rather than treating it as something to be expected and encouraged in the interest of enriching our betters.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Russell makes the case for mandatory voting as an antidote to vote suppression:

At first glance, entrenched opposition to mandatory voting in all the English-speaking democracies - Australia excepted - is puzzling. Given all the obligations of citizenship in a democracy -- paying taxes, serving on juries, licencing vehicles and businesses, paying to educate the next generation of citizens -it seems odd to oppose obligatory participation in the most important "have-to-do" of all: electing those who run our municipal, provincial and national governments. Mandatory voting -- all citizens of voting age required to cast ballots enforced by a small fine -- creates a better-informed electorate and produces a more truly representative democracy, in sharp contrast to the first-past-the-post system in vogue mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Mandatory voting would also render useless the widespread use of voter suppression tactics that apparently tried to pollute and skew the outcome of Canada's 2011 federal election; tactics like robocalls sending people to distant and wrong polling stations and telling lies about "high voter turnout." According to court documents filed in mid-August 2012 by the Commissioner of Elections Canada, these suppression tactics may have occurred in as many as 247 of Canada's 308 ridings and were recorded in all ten provinces and at least one territory.

- NDP MP Andrew Cash points out the need for public policy which recognizes and improves the conditions of workers facing precarious employment. But of course, the Cons are responding by ramming through one set of attacks on workers, and plotting out plenty more to come.

- Bruce Cheadle writes about the Cons' latest moves to shut down debate on controversial legislation. And Martin Regg Cohn notes that Ontario's Libs share the Harper Cons' preference for a culture of unaccountability - which became glaringly obvious as they deleted the documentation behind their gas plant cancellations in the belief it would prevent anybody from questioning the action.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert minimizes the long-term effect of Clusterduff. But at the very least, the aroma of scandal emanating from the Senate figures to affect the next campaign one way or another: either Senators will once again hit the campaign trail and remind voters of the scandal, or the Cons (and Libs) will be forced to make do without the artificial advantage of publicly-funded Senate spokesflacks. And Keith Beardsley for one sees the Cons as being significantly weakened by public confirmation that they don't believe they have to follow any rules.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Outgoing cats.

Juxtaposition

Bert Brown this week, shedding crocodile tears over blind partisanship in the Senate:

The real problem, Brown told HuffPost, is that the overwhelming majority of senators don’t do the job they were appointed to do.

Senators are supposed to represent their province’s interest “but they don’t,” he said; they just follow what their party’s leadership tells them to do.

“They just vote either for Liberals or for Conservatives,” he said.

“I was there for five years and eight months and we voted everything that was voted to the Conservative government, every one. There was one guy who said who wanted to abstain once,” Brown recounted.

Senators toe the party line out of a sense of loyalty to the person who appointed them, the retired senator said.

Bert Brown less than two years ago, offering his view as to the duties of an appointed Senator:

"Every senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper," Brown wrote.

[Edit: fixed title.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Mike Konczal discusses the distribution of U.S. tax breaks and incentives, and finds that measures normally presented as offering breaks for everybody in fact serve mostly as giveaways to the wealthy:

(T)he government is very responsive to the interests of the top 20 to 40 percent of Americans, and so far it has been very difficult to approach scaling back the tax expenditures in deductions and exclusions. Again, since these benefits scale with income, these tax expenditures disproportionately benefit those up the income scale.  Obama’s signature proposal for raising taxes right now is limiting the value of these itemized deductions and expenditures for couples making more than $250,000 a year to just 28 percent.

This, then, is the fight in American politics. Democrats want to expand the tax break state for the poor and cut it for the rich. Republicans want to keep it for the rich, or possibly use it to lower tax rates on the rich, but they’re uncomfortable with the part of the tax break state that benefits the poor. Although shrouded in arcane tax terminology, this is one of the most important battles over who will benefit from our economic progress, and how.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Goodall writes that reining in offshore tax avoidance will require both better laws (reflecting a commitment by governments around the globe to eliminating loopholes) and more ethical corporate behaviour:

Vanessa Houlder of the Financial Times has pointed out: "Governments are complicit in the problems they are condemning. It is their tax systems that have created incentives for businesses to behave in this way."

Law journalist Edward Fennell wrote in The Times: "Recent tub-thumping by politicians over the alleged tax avoidance by the likes of Google and Amazon is creating a cacophony of vituperation. It may seem a neat way to claw back a few votes, but whether it actually addresses the underlying problems is less clear." 

He quoted Miles Dean, of Milestone International Tax Partners, as saying that companies are using the tax system in the way intended, and that the OECD model convention – on which most double taxation agreements are based – is designed to facilitate international trade by "allowing multinationals to trade internationally without necessarily creating a taxable presence in each country".

Pascal Saint-Amans told the OECD forum that big business was not to blame. "What we have seen is that the elimination of double taxation [by means of bilateral double tax agreements] may have [resulted in] double non-taxation, which is not politically or economically acceptable. You have some players who are not exposed to international transactions being taxed at the statutory rate." He added: "It's legal. If you don't like the outcome you need to change the law."

I am not sure he's right – business must take a share of the responsibility. But the priority now must be to fix the system, and international agreement is essential.

- Steven Shrybman weighs in on Judge Mosley's finding that the Cons' voter database was used to commit widespread election fraud in 2011. But the Cons have moved on from claiming vindication, to complaining that they're enveloped in a cloud of dishonesty caused by their own party's efforts to cover up the identities of those responsible.

- Mike de Souza reports on the Cons' petulant response to his earlier stories on how omnibus budgets were used to eliminate environmental assessments for the vast majority of tar sands development - as DFO scientists were prevented from discussing the story in retaliation.

- Finally, Tim Harper writes that the scandals surrounding the Senate have been caused by patronage enablers as well as by individual senators. Michael Harris explores how the Cons have used BS tactics in trying to hide from their responsibility for Clusterduff.  Joanna Smith documents a two-party culture of entitlement, with Con and Lib bagmen alike asserting that voters are somehow better served if unaccountable partisan hacks can use their cushy sinecures to win votes for their party. And Ralph Surette rightly notes that the only answer to abuses by a narrow privileged class is broader public participation.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- I'll quickly link to a few Robocon stories which I han't yet blogged. Karl Nerenberg noted that the Federal Court decision finding widespread election fraud using the Cons' voter database was only the beginning, and Jean-Pierre Kingsley was hopeful that the ruling would lead to needed improvements in Elections Canada's authority. But the continued obstruction of the Cons themselves makes it clear that the public interest couldn't be lower on the Harper government's priority list.

- Meanwhile, as a stark contrast to the Cons' determination not to let anybody get to the truth underlying Robocon, Don Butler reports on the type of investigation they order when they're looking for an enemy to blame. And the general theme is one of using a sledgehammer to attack a fly - even though the fly is in fact nothing more than a piece of lint.

- Which is to say that we shouldn't assume that anybody around the Cons is able to maintain much by way of intelligence - as even those inclined to be capable of critical thought are likely to have it Poilievred out of them.

- But the good news is that the Cons are having a much tougher time deflecting from their own failures. And while part of that is the result of the most effective opposition leader Stephen Harper has faced, Edward Greenspon writes that the press gallery is doing its part:

When he came into office, Harper threw out long-held rules of government-press engagement. He sowed fear and showed favouritism. Access was severely restricted and doled out based on perceived friendliness of given journalists. Public servants were forbidden from providing background on serious policy matters. A system was introduced by which the PMO, rather than the gallery, decided who could ask questions at press conferences. The List, as it came to be known, was an early flashpoint. The PMO refused any compromise. A Fourth Estate short on self-respect quickly folded. In time, a number of Ottawa reporters were subjected to harassment and vilification and PMO minions exerted pressure on publishers to reign in recalcitrant reporters and editors.

Now, weeks into the Senate-PMO scandal, it is the government that looks uncertain and the journalists determined...

It is pure folly to dismiss Stephen Harper. For sure, his loathing of the media predisposed him to underestimate the brewing Senate scandal as the frothing of gallery members envious that some in their ranks had been elevated to a higher calling. But as prime minister he has repeatedly proven to be most lethal when seemingly down and out. And he knows how to play out the clock.

The sniff testing never ceases in Ottawa, but for now a noteworthy shift is in the wind. The PM lorded over the media for a long while, but he’s missed the smell of a gallery losing its fear.

- Finally, Sixth Estate takes a look at how Canada's regulatory systems are functioning under the Cons' honour-system philosophy.

The road to abolition

Ian Peach's guest post at Pundits' Guide is well worth a read in setting out a feasible path to Senate abolition. But I'll note that the exact wording of an abolition resolution would need to be somewhat more complex than that proposed by Peach - while the political push might also take a slightly different shape than he seems to be counting on.

Peach's proposal for an abolition resolution - which, as he rightly notes, could originate with a province rather than the federal government - is as follows:

The resolution would be simple: that sections 26 through 31 of the Constitution Act, 1867 be repealed.

Now, I won't claim to be a constitutional scholar on Peach's level. But I'm not sure how the repeal of those provisions governing the appointment, tenure and disqualification of Senators would serve to effectively abolish the institution, particularly when it would leave intact:

- section 17, which defines the Parliament of Canada to include an upper house styled the Senate;
- sections 21-22, defining the number and geographic distribution of Senators;
- section 23, setting the qualifications for Senators;
- sections 24 and 32, providing for the appointment of Senators by summons; and
- section 35, setting a quorum requirement for the conduct of Senate business.

While the elimination of constitutional protection for tenure might provide more avenues to remove Senators from office, it wouldn't provide a clear answer as to what comes next. And it would seem to me to be at least open to future federal governments to keep making use of the power to summon Senators even if Peach's proposed resolution passed.

Again, that observation doesn't affect the possibility that an abolition resolution could originate with a province. But it does signal the need for a resolution originating with a province to fully excise the Senate (and the Senate alone) from Canada's current constitution.

As for the political side of abolition, Peach seems hopeful that pressure from the provincial NDP will turn the tide in provinces with current or potential minority governments. And it's possible that the NDP could make Senate abolition into part of its demands for support of any minority government.

But I'm not sure that provincial NDP wings will see much benefit in doing so unless public demand for abolition is so high that the provincial government would feel significant pressure to go along in any event. Which means that rather than hoping for NDP demands in minority governments in Ontario and New Brunswick as a necessary element of an abolition strategy, the more plausible path looks to involve the strength of the federal party's Roll Up the Red Carpet campaign in placing pressure on provincial governments to either support abolition, or be seen as parties to a continued stream of scandals and abuses.

Update: In comments at his guest post, Peach notes that his proposed resolution should in fact repeal sections 21 to 36 of the Constitution Act, 1867 - addressing most of my concerns above. But I'd still see it as important to include consequential amendments to section 17 (and other sections featuring mention of Senate authority) lest a future government take any remaining references to the Senate as an invitation to keep a second chamber running.

On meaningless spin

Far too many people who should know better have tried to find some significance in the B.C. government's submission to the Harper Cons' Northern Gateway rubber-stamping process. So in case anybody needs a refresher course, here's why we shouldn't see it as an important development.

To start with, B.C.'s announcement doesn't represent a "decision" in any meaningful sense of the word. After all, the B.C. Lib government signed an equivalency agreement (PDF) three years ago in which they agreed to let Stephen Harper decide any environmental questions related to the Northern Gateway pipeline - meaning that the say of Christy Clark and her government at this point is no greater than that of any of the witnesses the Cons have sought to shut out of the process.

Now, it's true that in the absence of the equivalency agreement, there would have been some substantial uncertainty as to the relative authority of the federal and provincial governments. But it's the B.C. Libs who chose to resolve that uncertainty in favour of giving the Harper Cons sole decision-making power.

And the Cons have gone out of their way to abuse their newfound power to decide what process will apply to the pipeline. At last notice, that process included (among other glaring flaws) a refusal to allow participants to ask questions about concerns which Enbridge and the government don't want to talk about, a limitation to the National Energy Board's authority stating that it has no jurisdiction to say "no" for environmental reasons, and a cabinet override to allow Harper to say "yes" even if the NEB finds the science to be so damning as to make it impossible to build the pipeline safely.

All of which is to say that Clark's posturing this week has precisely zero substantive impact on the formal approval process for Northern Gateway. And given that the Cons have made it clear that they're not interested in letting the public interest get in the way of tar-sands profits, there's little reason for optimism that Clark's intervention will suddenly cause them to develop a conscience.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Cay Johnston and Miles Corak both discuss the results of a study which compares economic outcomes in technologically advanced countries, and shows that tax giveaways to the wealthy exacerbate inequality without doing anything at all to contribute to economic development.

- And Paul Krugman highlights the fact that all the evidence in the world won't stop the Republicans from trying to take away what few supports are left in the U.S., with a particular focus on food stamps:

Food stamps have played an especially useful — indeed, almost heroic — role in recent years. In fact, they have done triple duty. 

First, as millions of workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own, many families turned to food stamps to help them get by — and while food aid is no substitute for a good job, it did significantly mitigate their misery. Food stamps were especially helpful to children who would otherwise be living in extreme poverty, defined as an income less than half the official poverty line. 

But there’s more. Why is our economy depressed? Because many players in the economy slashed spending at the same time, while relatively few players were willing to spend more. And because the economy is not like an individual household — your spending is my income, my spending is your income — the result was a general fall in incomes and plunge in employment. We desperately needed (and still need) public policies to promote higher spending on a temporary basis — and the expansion of food stamps, which helps families living on the edge and let them spend more on other necessities, is just such a policy. 

Indeed, estimates from the consulting firm Moody’s Analytics suggest that each dollar spent on food stamps in a depressed economy raises G.D.P. by about $1.70 — which means, by the way, that much of the money laid out to help families in need actually comes right back to the government in the form of higher revenue. 

Wait, we’re not done yet. Food stamps greatly reduce food insecurity among low-income children, which, in turn, greatly enhances their chances of doing well in school and growing up to be successful, productive adults. So food stamps are in a very real sense an investment in the nation’s future — an investment that in the long run almost surely reduces the budget deficit, because tomorrow’s adults will also be tomorrow’s taxpayers. 

So what do Republicans want to do with this paragon of programs? First, shrink it; then, effectively kill it. 

 - Susan Delacourt rightly wonders why the Cons don't have the slightest interest in figuring out who used their voter database to commit electoral fraud - declaring victory because their own cover-up managed to prevent the Council of Canadians from identifying the culprit. But I'd think the phrase "they know perfectly well who committed the fraud" is sorely missing from any theory about of the Cons' handling of the scandal.

- Taking into account Robocon, Clusterduff, Rob Ford and other scandals, Aaron Wherry labels May 2013 as the worst month in the history of Canadian politics. (Though I still think that even in the last few years December 2008 - featuring Harper's prorogation to shut down Parliament in the face of a non-confidence vote, Stephane Dion's tragic bungling of the opportunity to form a coalition government, and the Senate appointments of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau among others which set up so many of the current scandals - ranks ahead by a fairly significant margin.)

- Finally, speaking of the Cons' scandals, Thomas Walkom suggests that Duffy is in fact the perfect representative of Stephen Harper's culture of hyperpartisanship and entitlement. Rex Murphy sees the PMO's work to cover up for Duffy as fatal to the Cons' self-image. And while I don't necessarily see the outrage properly being pointed solely at Duffy rather than his political masters, Don Martin's rant is still work a look:

Musical interlude

Odds - Make You Mad

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- A new Ipsos-Reid poll shows that nearly 90% of Canadians support higher taxes on the rich generally, and million-dollar incomes in particular. And there's an obvious need for change based on how distorted tax systems already are - as Reuters reports on a Congressional Budget Office study showing that U.S. tax deductions, credits and exclusions primarily benefit the wealthy.

- Of course, tax policy is far from the only area of corporatist decision-making designed primarily to benefit those who already have the most. Jeremy Nuttall discusses how the federal government's cover-ups succeeded in protecting HD Mining from a challenge to its abuse of temporary foreign workers; CBC reports on contract manipulation at AECL; and the Leader-Post writes about the Sask Party's decision to turn hospital linen services into a corporate cash cow.

- But it's easier to take offence when insider abuses can be tied to individual wrongdoers. On that front, Michael Harris writes that Mike Duffy doesn't seem to have done much other than what he was told to do by the Cons, while Tim Harper suspects that Pamela Wallin is the next in line under the Cons' bus. Colin Horgan sets out some of the questions that still need to be answered about the Cons' Senate scandals. But the Star recognizes that the Cons' answers have been nothing but evasive so far, while Michael den Tandt reminds us why we shouldn't trust a word Stephen Harper and his entourage have to say.

- At the same time, Paul Saurette is right to observe that right-wing scandals may only serve the cause of anti-government forces in the long run. And so in pursuing the facts, we should be careful to point out how public administration can be carried out more cleanly and effectively - not merely pile on the current set of Con offenders.

- Finally, Ian Welsh draws a distinction between broad-based ethics and narrowly-focused morals - and while I'm not sure I'd use those exact terms, his conclusion is well worth sharing:

To put the needs of the few before the needs of the many, in public life, is to be a monster.  But even in private life if we all act selfishly, as our reigning ideology indicates we should, we destroy ourselves. If we all put only ourselves and those we love first, and damn the cost to everyone else, our societies cannot and will not be prosperous, safe, or kind.

The war of all against all is just as nasty when it is waged by small kin groups as when it is waged by individuals.

Advance warning

Colby Cosh is starting to buy into the theory that the Clusterduff scandal is being strategically revealed to divert attention away from Robocon. My greater concern is that if there's a Con strategy at play, it lies in the possible aftermath of reports like this.

The more stories we hear about Duffy acting like a slightly-more-gluttonous Hedonismbot with the full support and encouragement of Stephen Harper's inner circle, the easier it will be for some operative to deliberately plant a false story within that pattern - with the goal of at least uniting the 28% behind the Cons in outrage that anybody would continue to report on months of damaging revelations after one part of the narrative doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Which isn't to say we should hesitate to discuss new revelations as they surface. But I'll hope the crystallizing narrative surrounding Duffy and Harper's PMO doesn't result in the media letting its guard down - lest one mistake serve to give the Cons a way out.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Paul Krugman makes the case for significantly higher taxes on the rich:

What would raising tax rates at the top accomplish? It would, to some extent, mitigate the rise in inequality, which some of us consider a good thing in itself: You don’t have to be a leftist to acknowledge that extreme inequality of income and wealth has a corrosive effect on democracy.

Mainly, however, the benefit of higher tax rates on the wealthy would simply be that it would raise more revenue. We live in a time when politicians are trying to downsize even the most basic social protections, claiming that we can no longer afford to pay for them; well, why not raise taxes on millionaires instead of, say, denying nutritional assistance to the poor?

You will, of course, hear claims that raising taxes on the wealthy won’t even yield increased revenue – that the “job creators” will go on strike, or hide their income from the tax collectors. However, researchers have studied the revenue effects of tax hikes (and cuts) about as thoroughly as any topic in economics, and the evidence is decisive: Increasing top tax rates from their current level would lead to substantially higher revenue. At a sufficiently high rate – the best estimates put it above 70 per cent and possibly as high as 80 per cent – further increases would be self-defeating; but we’re nowhere near that point. 

And while Stephen Gordon partially distinguishes Krugman's U.S. numbers (at least for a couple of carefully-selected provinces), I'd think it's worth trying to reach agreement on a couple of principles: that tax rates should in fact be set such as to maximize revenue, and that for similar revenue expectations it's a reasonable public policy choice to minimize inequality rather than maximizing top-end wealth accumulation.

- Michael Wolfson discusses how health care contributes to a more equal society.

- David Climenhaga notes that the Cons are choosing yet again to attack the civil service in an effort to distract from their own scandals.

- Meanwhile, the Cons have also been caught spying on anybody who dares to challenge them. And misusing public resources for partisan gain, then falsely blaming others afterward. Is there any doubt why they're doing their utmost to prevent anybody from getting to the bottom of Robocon?

- Finally, Andrew Nikiforuk writes about new research showing that diluted bitumen doesn't act like oil when it spills - with the effect of rendering useless the oil industry's assurances that they can simply apply normal oil cleanup rules to pipelines transporting dilbit.

New column day

Here, on how Tom Mulcair's effective cross-examination of Stephen Harper serves as only one step toward the government we should want - i.e., one thoughtful and responsible enough to actually withstand answering real questions.

For further reading...

- Plenty of other commentators are rightly pointing out Harper's predictable retreat into obfuscation and deflection, including Chantal Hebert, John Ivison and Dan Lett.

- Andrew Coyne traces both the entire Clusterduff and the Cons' increasingly laughable talking points to an obsession with expediency over truth:

People don’t make ethical choices in isolation. They take their cues from those around and above them. Maybe Duffy’s expense padding had its roots in the Senate’s historically lax culture: indeed, given the absence of controls on senators’ expenses, it would be astonishing if only a couple of senators had succumbed to the temptation this presented.

But the efforts to cover this up, like the obstruction of the robocalls investigation or the curious lack of due diligence in the Porter appointment, are suggestive of something else: a habit of looking the other way at bad behaviour, if not actually encouraging it; and, when it is brought to light, of denying, and minimizing, and explaining it away.

This isn’t about a few senators padding their expense accounts, or criminal acts on the part of one or two individuals, or even what the prime minister knew when. It’s the whole moral code of this government that’s in question. This isn’t just a problem, something to be fixed — it’s existential. Whatever the various official investigations may or may not turn up, questions about the government’s character are now deeply planted in the public mind, in a way it shows no sign of being able to deal with, or even comprehending.

- And Thomas Walkom draws a parallel between Harper and Richard Nixon.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mark Gongloff reaches the unsurprising conclusion that a tax system warped to favour the interests of the wealthy leads to greater inequality (but not the promised growth):

Slashing top tax rates has had none of the positive effects on economic growth that the supply-side economists promised us, the NBER paper points out. Instead, it has just worsened income inequality.

There are other factors driving income disparity, including a rise in investment income (think stock dividends) compared to earned income (think wages). The recently soaring stock market, helped along by the Federal Reserve, is only pushing investment income higher. Wage income, in contrast, has been stagnant -- making income inequality even worse.

As if that weren't enough, investment income is typically taxed at lower rates, further amplifying the disparity. That means this chart doesn't begin to tell the full story of just how little the top one percent are paying in taxes. Mitt Romney isn't paying 35 percent on most of his income. He's calling his private-equity income "carried interest" and paying just 15 percent on it.

While Congress frantically finds ways to slash spending to close budget deficits, it has shown little interest in tweaking the tax code to make it more fair. Efforts to impose a minimum tax on millionaires, as Warren Buffett has suggested, have gone nowhere, as have efforts to do away with low carried-interest income tax rates. President Obama this year made permanent many of the top-rate tax cuts of President George W. Bush, while a payroll-tax cut that most benefited the poor was allowed to expire.

- Erica Alini notes that ill-thought-out austerity programs have produced massive increases in suicides - even as Jim Flaherty expresses his preference for general slashing regardless of the human cost. And Thomas Walkom writes that the Cons are designing Canada's Employment Insurance system to provide cushy patronage jobs for their friends rather than any useful support for workers.

- But lest we forget that it's possible for governments to actually improve the lives of citizens, Jason Markusoff reports on the City of Calgary's push to halve poverty in ten years (primarily by better applying the resources it already has). And Don Lenihan discusses Nunavut's new collaborative poverty reduction strategy.

- Finally, if anybody hasn't yet seen Tom Mulcair's devastatingly direct question-period back-and-forth with Stephen Harper, it's well worth a look:

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Companion cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Thomas McDonagh discusses how the combination of concentrated corporate wealth and ill-advised trade agreements has allowed business interests to override the will of even strong citizens' movements:

In 2009, when the government of El Salvador refused to issue an environmental permit to a Canadian mining corporation, community activists in Las Cabañas rejoiced. For years they had been fighting a pitched battle against the efforts of the company, Pacific Rim, to mine for gold in their region - plans that included the dumping of toxic arsenic in their rivers. It was not a campaign without risk. Four Salvadoran anti-mining activists have been assassinated in the course of their courageous efforts. That victory, however, may well prove to carry a high cost for the people of El Salvador. In a legal assault filed in a World Bank trade court, Pacific Rim is now demanding $315 million in compensation payments from the Salvadoran government, an amount equal to one third of the country’s annual education budget.

That is just one example among many where citizens have fought for and won an important policy victory only to find that victory undermined by corporations using the growing web of international investment rules and arbitration courts. There are many others. Public health campaigners in Uruguay won a huge victory in 2010 when the national government passed new health laws to discourage tobacco consumption. Even though those new laws (including aggressive new warnings on cigarette packages) directly mirrored the guidelines of the World Health Organization, the U.S. corporate tobacco giant Philip Morris retaliated with a $2 billion legal action against the government.
...
The world today is covered by an expanding web of over three thousand bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements. These agreements grant rights to corporations and allow them to sue governments for policy initiatives that they claim interfere with their profits. The resulting legal cases, despite their far-reaching local consequences, are settled far away and behind closed doors by a small group of unaccountable private lawyers in international dispute arbitration tribunals. Flying in the face of democratic principles and judicial independence, these tribunals operate with little or no public scrutiny and where the communities directly affected are denied a voice. 

- And as Stuart Trew observes, the Cons are trying to bully Canada's provinces into accepting yet more limits on their ability to govern in the interests of citizens rather than multinationals.

- The New York Times editorial board writes that the Republicans are matching the Harper Cons in preferring that policy be based on ignorance as opposed to sound data. And Larry Elliott points out the damage being done in the UK by austerity policies similarly based on wilful blindness.

- Meanwhile, the Cons themselves continue to pressure everybody who'll listen to avoid allowing the public an accurate view of their actions. Paul McLeod reports that Peter MacKay's office strongarmed the Public Service Commission into deleting findings of outside influence in hiring at ACOA, while Steven Rennie notes that the Cons are using their committee majority to prevent any investigation into the links between Social Security Tribunal appointments and party donations.

- Finally, PLG continues his look at the lessons we should learn from B.C.'s election:

So if you catch a Conservative senator with his hand in the cookie jar, without a narrative you can only say "Look, a corrupt person!" At best maybe you can say "Other Conservatives have done similar things in the past, this implies a bad culture or bad leadership." With a narrative, you instead say, "Conservatism is all about money and wealth, so of course their politicians want money and wealth rather than to benefit Canadians. Canadians need a party that isn't about capital gains and so doesn't stock its ranks with grasping crooks."

With a narrative, going negative is not merely personal but also makes a political point. And it can also point to a positive politics rather than just reinforcing cynicism. Rather than saying "They randomly happen to be bad," you can say, "They are bad for the same reasons we are good!" It is also simply more powerful. A negative fact about someone as a random, isolated thing will have less impact than a negative fact about someone embedded in an account that makes sense of it. People live narrative, have a basic response to story.