Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- James Galbraith reminds us of the danger extreme inequality poses to any social bonds - and the need for political action to counteract the current momentum toward further concentration of wealth:

Controlling inequality—like controlling blood pressure—is good for your economic health. Economies with less inequality generally have lower unemployment and stronger productivity growth, and some researchers also claim better human health and social cohesion. In terms of the rest of the world, the peculiar organization of the United States into a boom/bust economy based on finance and high technology is the exception rather than the rule: We combine record-breaking inequality with low unemployment. But this is a formula that generates massive instability, as well as the resentments that gave us President Trump. Countries with stronger stabilizing institutions built on the principle of countervailing power may be less rich over the short term, but they are better-governed and built to last.
...
The US government, in short, needs to break away from the grip of concentrated financial power and from the illusions of dominance that come with feeling exceptional, invincible, and rich. Financial power has an interest in instability at home and abroad. It has an interest in seeking to dominate what can no longer be dominated. It is therefore a vector for depredation and for conflict, neither of which we can afford—especially in an era of existential risks to the environment, through climate change, and to the future of life on the planet, through nuclear war.

Ultimately, therefore, this is a political struggle. “Wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power,” notes Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. And Thomas Hobbes was right; anyone who observes the US political scene knows this, as does anyone who participates in American politics. In the end, inequality—both in the United States and around the world—is a problem that can only have a political solution.

- Robert Kuttner argues that the Trump Republicans' giveaway to their obscenely wealthy donors should be the central issue of the U.S.' midterm elections. And Peter Whoriskey discusses how the monetization of poverty by a predatory financial sector is only making inequality all the worse.

- Martin Sandbu explores the idea of a jobs guarantee, but argues that it's a less desirable alternative to a basic income which would ensure that personal financial security isn't tied to work alone. And Bernadette Meaden discusses the UK Cons' shameful determination to take any source of support away from some of the people who need it most.

- Finally, Roger Noll and Robert Litan respond to Donald Trump's attack on supply management by pointing out the false claims behind it.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Sam Pizzigati makes the case for an effective maximum wage - and notes that the U.S.' historical top tax brackets were based on the recognition that excessive top-end income can have harmful effects for everybody:

In 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, FDR asked Congress for a 100% top tax rate that would leave no individuals with more than $25,000 of annual income – about $375,000 today – after taxes.

America’s top unions backed FDR’s plan – and so, Gallup pollsters reported, did a clear plurality of Americans. Congress felt the heat. By 1944, America’s richest faced a 94% tax rate on income over $200,000. Our top tax rate hovered around 90% for the next two decades, a span of time that saw the United States give birth to the world’s first mass middle class.

America in those years became significantly more equal. By 1970, the 1%’s share had sunk to a tenth of the nation’s income, versus a quarter in 1928. The bottom 90%’s share had jumped to two-thirds.
...
The maximum wage is an idea whose time has come. I think most Americans would agree that no enterprise where workers would have to labor over a century to make what their CEOs can make in a year should get a single one of our tax dollars.

- Michelle Goldberg notes that millennial voters are embracing democratic socialism. And Dylan Scott points out that the U.S. Democrats (and other parties seeking progressive votes) can accomplish far more by embracing popular progressive ideas than by tilting to the neoliberal centre.

- Suzi Weissman interviews David Graeber about the rise of bullshit jobs - along with the path forward to try to reduce workers' reliance on socially pointless or counterproductive employment to stay afloat.

- Finally, Kathleen Belton highlights some of the steps we can take to reduce the amount of plastic we dump into our environment.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Alex Ballingall reports on the efforts of the United Nations' special rapporteur on housing Leilani Farha to push for an enforceable right to housing - and the Libs' predictable demurral in favour of vague aspirational statements. And Jen St. Denis points out that the next step in British Columbia's investigation into Lib-supported casino money laundering will be a review of its impact on the real estate market.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports that one of the first actions of Doug Ford's anti-social government has been to stop the hiring of employment standards officers to protect the wages and working conditions of Ontario workers.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford examines the effect of Australia's reduction in Sunday and holiday pay in the retail and hospitality sectors, and finds that any promise that it would lead to more jobs has proven entirely illusory.

- Chris Dillow discusses the tendency of the neoliberal centre to exacerbate power imbalances based on the hope that their side will continue to exercise it, rather than recognizing the importance of collective action.

- Finally, Michael Harris offers a warning about Stephen Harper's attempt to sell Canada out to the Trump administration.

Musical interlude

Phantogram - As Far As I Can See

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- PressProgress highlights the Canada Revenue Agency's long-overdue estimate of the public costs of offshore tax evasion, as well as other new data on the money being withheld through corporate tax non-compliance:

On Thursday, Canada’s tax collection agency published its first ever estimate of the international tax gap, revealing wealthy Canadians are evading up to $3 billion in tax every year through offshore tax havens.

The CRA estimates the amount of money wealthy Canadians are stashing offshore could range between $75.9 billion and $240.5 billion.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, CBC News obtained internal CRA documents that suggests Canada is losing more than $22 billion per year to corporate tax dodgers.

Together, corporate tax dodgers and wealthy elites are now costing Canada at least $25 billion every year – that alone would cover the costs of a national pharmacare plan, introduce a national child care program and cut poverty in Canada in half.

- Meanwhile, Rob Shaw comments on the B.C. Libs' eager facilitation of money laundering through casinos - including by repeatedly shutting down law enforcement investigating the problem. 

- David Macdonald studies the radically inconsistent availability of child care across Canada, including "deserts" where there's no reliable expectation of being able to find care. And CBC notes that most children in Saskatchewan's major cities are trapped in those deserts.

- Michael Tutton reports on a new federal study discussing the massive steps needed to deal with our current rate of climate change.

- Finally, Armine Yalnizyan responds to the corporatist attempt to destroy supply management by pointing out that the only alternative is putting ourselves at the mercy of heavily-subsidized U.S. agribusiness giants.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Stuart Heritage argues that a shared sense of morality is our best hope of ensuring that narcissism isn't rewarded. And Paul Gleason reviews two new books - including Thomas Piketty's latest - on the importance of progressive taxes to reduce inequality (in addition to funding social goods).

- Josh Eidelson discusses how the Koch corporatist machine intends to capitalize on yesterday's SCOTUS decision undercutting public-sector labour organization. But Peter Greene notes that plenty of unions have already learned to navigate the types of restrictions imposed by the Republican contingent on the court.

- Kelly Grant reports on British Columbia's proposal to require the disclosure of pharmaceutical industry payments to doctors.

- Murray Mandryk discusses the mounting problems with the Saskatchewan Party's multi-billion-dollar privatized Regina bypass.

- Finally, Brian Hill points out that Canada's immigration system imposes unreasonable barriers to family reunification, including by failing to classify the parents of child refugees as "family members".

New column day

Here, on how Scott Moe's equalization bluster ultimately shows only that he's more interested in political posturing than responsible governance.

For further reading...
- Gregory Beatty reviews how Saskatchewan's effort to remove renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula was abandoned when Brad Wall decided it was inconvenient to remind the public of Stephen Harper's broken promises, while Murray Mandryk also traced the history in connection with the Saskatchewan Party's leadership campaign. And Tim Cook reported on Lorne Calvert's plan for a constitutional challenge when it was raised.
- The Star-Phoenix' editorial board calls for an adult conversation about equalization. And Daniel Beland, Gregory Marchildon, Andre Lecours and Rose Olfert rightly argue that Moe's attempt to undermine the concept of equalization itself falls far short of the mark.
- Finally, the column's reference to the expected returns from a carbon price are based on this policy brief (PDF) from Dale Eisler, Margot Hurlbert, Jim Marshall and Jeremy Rayner.

Room with a View

I'll be appearing on The View Up Here in about 20 minutes to discuss and expand on the column linked here.

For those interested in a bit of light reading and browsing as we discuss how Canada has failed to live up to its self-image as a generous and compassionate country, see:
- the OECD's current and historical social spending data, showing Canada falling behind recently while never having significantly outpaced the OECD average;
- Irene Papanicolas' study (cited by Andre Picard) comparing health and social spending among peer countries;
- Daniel Dutton's study on social spending and health spending in Canada, including the lack of the former compared to the latter; and
- Cases and studies on how Indigenous people in Canada are at a disadvantage in funding and access for child and welfare services, education and housing (PDF) among other areas.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Katrina vanden Heuvel discusses how the Trump tax giveaway to the rich will exacerbate class and race inequality in the U.S. And David Climenhaga offers a reminder that Alberta's budget crunch remains a product of its failure to collect a reasonable level of revenue from sustainable sources to fund public services.

- Jordan Press reports on the recognition by the UN special rapporteur on the right to housing that the Libs are going out of their way to that right into an easily-discarded aspirational goal.

- Meanwhile, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis reviews the massive price tag on Justin Trudeau's Trans Mountain takeover. And Dean Beeby reports that the Libs' free money for large corporations isn't limited to pipelines, as they've decided to forgive a "loan" which formed part of the Cons' auto bailout while cloaking the details in total secrecy.   

- Sally Davies writes about the folly of holding children responsible to make healthy nutritional choices in a corporate-dominated environment which pushes junk food at every turn. And Peter Walker points out that municipal planning focused on liveable neighbourhoods can produce a drastic increase in cycling and walking among other healthy activities.

- Finally, Stephen Quinn interviews Helen Clark about the democratic benefits of proportional representation in New Zealand.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Summery cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Wawmeesh Hamilton discusses the lack of basic upkeep of desperately-needed First Nations homes, as the federal government looks to transfer responsibility without providing funding. Jamie Grierson notes that the UK's lack of resources for supportive housing results in survivors of domestic abuse sleeping rough - or even going back to their abusers. 

- Meanwhile, the Star's editorial board argues that the rest of Canada can learn from Quebec's example in reducing child poverty by investing in child care and income supports:

What was surprising in the study by Campaign 2000, though, is that nine of the 10 ridings in Canada with the lowest child poverty rates were in Quebec. In those ridings the rate ranged from 4.1 to 6.6 per cent. That’s not an anomaly. Last year a Statistics Canada study found that though Quebec has the second-lowest household income in the the country, it also has the second-lowest rate of child poverty.

Why should that be?

According to Statistics Canada it’s because the province has chosen to invest generously in two proven poverty busters: universal day care and the most generous provincial child benefits in the country.

Ottawa has a chance to emulate the Quebec model by making universal day care and increased child benefits part of its Poverty Reduction Strategy, due out in the next few weeks. It should.

The programs would cost a lot of money up-front. But in addition to achieving the laudable goal of reducing child and family poverty, they would generate substantial savings and economic benefits for everyone.

- The CP reports on a new study from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction showing the cost of substance abuse at a level of over $1,000 per Canadian.

- Finally, Jim Stanford responds to yet another attempt to dress up free money for the wealthiest corporations as having anything to do with what's good for workers. And Tommy Christopher takes note of the report of the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extreme poverty as to the harm done by the Trump tax giveaway to the rich.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Don Reisinger reports on Capgemini's latest research into the continued concentration of wealth at the extreme top end. And James Galbraith comments on the instability which arises inevitably out of extreme inequality:

Controlling inequality—like controlling blood pressure—is good for your economic health. Economies with less inequality generally have lower unemployment and stronger productivity growth, and some researchers also claim better human health and social cohesion. In terms of the rest of the world, the peculiar organization of the United States into a boom/bust economy based on finance and high technology is the exception rather than the rule: We combine record-breaking inequality with low unemployment. But this is a formula that generates massive instability, as well as the resentments that gave us President Trump. Countries with stronger stabilizing institutions built on the principle of countervailing power may be less rich over the short term, but they are better-governed and built to last.
...
In the United States, the key driver of inequality is capital-asset prices. This is because in a capitalist nation, capitalists and not workers own such assets and get their income from dividends, interest, stock options, and capital gains. Capitalist booms yield prosperity—often a wasteful prosperity—along with instability; as the bankers say, it’s not the speed that kills, it’s the sudden stop. Concentrated ownership of capital assets is therefore a central issue. Spreading the wealth sensibly over time means more public investment at every level and more investment by nonprofits with longer time horizons and sensible social objectives. It means fostering cooperatives and other stabilizing private economic forms that are not dependent on Wall Street. Instead of boosting the economic growth rate—a measure largely disconnected from social well-being—we should have a strategy to live better: more sustainably, more equally, with less waste and more common spaces, more public goods and enjoyments.
...
The US government, in short, needs to break away from the grip of concentrated financial power and from the illusions of dominance that come with feeling exceptional, invincible, and rich. Financial power has an interest in instability at home and abroad. It has an interest in seeking to dominate what can no longer be dominated. It is therefore a vector for depredation and for conflict, neither of which we can afford—especially in an era of existential risks to the environment, through climate change, and to the future of life on the planet, through nuclear war.

- Andrea Gordon writes about a new report showing how students in poorer Ontario neighbourhoods are losing out from the selective availability of before- and after-school care and other programs. And Rachel Black and Aleta Sprague point out how everybody loses out from barriers to social services set up largely out of racial resentment in the U.S.

- Meanwhile, Kerry Geraldine Malone reports on the grossly disproportionate number of Indigenous youths who are incarcerated.

- Finally, Josh Ryan-Collins reminds us of the folly of treating government budgeting like a family's finances. And Jordan Press reports on the federal government's plan to start ensuring that public money helps to secure social benefits.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Simon Enoch challenges Scott Moe's misleading rhetoric on equalization by pointing out that Saskatchewan could easily afford child care and other programs which Moe criticizes other provinces for funding - if only the Saskatchewan Party hadn't blown the proceeds of a boom on tax slashing and vanity projects.

- Christian Weller examines the results of the U.S.' latest tests of supply-side dogma, and finds that it continues to fail miserably:

On June 7, the Federal Reserve released its latest data on corporate finances, providing the first look at what happened after the passage of the tax cuts.* The supply-side arguments do not hold up; corporations have gotten a lot more money, but that additional cash has not translated into increased domestic investments.
...
(I)nvestments took a back seat in the first quarter of 2018. Capital expenditures equaled 178.6 percent of after-tax profits in that period, meaning that companies borrowed money to invest. This was down from 191.2 percent at the end of 2007. If, in the first quarter of 2018, corporations had invested the same amount relative to after-tax profits as they did at the end of 2017, they would have had an additional $58 billion to spend on manufacturing plants, office buildings, and equipment such as computers, heavy machinery, and trucks.

Yet, rather than investing the money in this way, corporations used it to keep shareholders happy. In the first quarter of 2018, the share of after-tax profits that went to net equity issues—share repurchases above and beyond new share issuances—equaled 37.5 percent, up from 32.7 percent at the end of 2017. This acceleration indicates that corporations spent an additional $12 billion in the first quarter of 2018, for a total of $257 billion, in order to buy back their own stocks. Such a buyback raises the prices of a company’s shares and boosts the wealth of its shareholders.

...
Corporations continue to be awash in money; the 2017 tax cuts just made it a lot easier for them to get that money. Yet the cash is not benefiting the economy in the form of increased investments. It is therefore unlikely that the gains promised by supporters of supply-side economics will trickle down to workers.

- Meanwhile, Jason Joseph offers a theory that nominal economic strength is failing to boost wages in part because workers are afraid to leave their jobs for potentially higher-paying alternatives.

- Susan Lund examines the corporate debt bubble which has been inflating since the 2008 financial crisis. And John Quiggin discusses the false promises - and harmful realities - of the privatization of public services.

- Finally, Jesse Norman offers a reminder that the real Adam Smith - rather than the caricature so often presented by laissez-faire zealots - was fully aware of the need for markets to be genuinely trustworthy, rather than granted blind faith. And Aditya Chakrabortty writes about a course designed to connect the public with the basics of economic theory - and the inability of what's generally taken as a given among corporatist economists to stand up to the lived experience of citizens.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Jay Shambaugh, Ryan Nunn, and Lauren Bauer discuss the need for U.S. law and policy to adapt to protect independent workers who have been excluded from normal employment rights:

Armed with up-to-date, accurate data, policymakers and regulators can work to keep regulations relevant and appropriate to the modern labor market. One particularly pressing policy issue is the classification of contingent workers: should participants in the “gig economy,” and alternative work arrangements more broadly be treated as employees or independent contractors? As these new data demonstrate, a sizable share of workers in the United States remain outside the traditional employment structure and consequently lack many of the protections and benefits that come with being a traditional employee. Economists Jackson, Looney, and Ramnath document many of these disadvantages, also finding that the Affordable Care Act played an important role in providing health insurance for many workers in alternative arrangements.
...
In their proposals, Harris and Krueger propose that independent workers have the right to collectively bargain as well as protection from various forms of employment discrimination. However, independent workers would not qualify for hours-based benefits like overtime or the minimum wage. Harris and Krueger argue this new classification would benefit both workers and businesses, reducing expensive litigation by clarifying the rights and obligations of each party.
...
(A)lternative work arrangements or gig-employment may conceal insufficient labor demand. These workers may be perfectly willing to take a full-time job and are only in these arrangements because they cannot find traditional employment. Only 44 percent of on-call workers and 39 percent of temporary help workers preferred their work arrangements to traditional employment. In this case, these workers may act in a similar manner to unemployed workers or those out of the labor force who would like a job. A large number of such workers might keep downward pressure on wages despite low levels of unemployment, suggesting policymakers need to consider this reserve of semi-employed when assessing the extent of slack in the labor market.

- Kenyon Wallace and Mary Ormsby report on the recommendations of a coroner's jury following the death of a homeless man in Toronto - with the need for housing and income supports figuring prominently. And Melanie Green discusses the widespread food insecurity facing Indigenous children in Canada.

- Rhys Kesselman answers critics of British Columbia's modest steps to bring its property tax system in line with other jurisdictions by noting that property-based wealth provides a fair and efficient source of revenue.

- Equiterre highlights the increasing number of pipeline safety incidents in Canada. And Norm Farrell points out the connection between poorly-documented methane emissions and a systematic failure to make sure that polluters pay for the damage they do to our planet.

- Finally, David Climenhaga exposes the shadowy financing network - featuring both well-known U.S. wealth and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation - which is behind a right-wing attack on gay-straight alliances and LGBTQ rights in Alberta.

Musical interlude

Ladytron - Tomorrow

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Harry Leslie Smith reiterates his determination to make sure that new generations don't face the poverty and deprivation that marked his childhood. And Beverly Gologorsky discusses the rise of extreme poverty in the U.S. and its lasting effects on its victims:

In the psyche, poverty begets fear, anxiety, tension, and worry, constant worry. In the soul, poverty, which feels like the loss of you know not what, is always there like a cold fist to remind you that tomorrow will be the same as today. Such effects are not outgrown like a child’s dress but linger for a lifetime in a country where the severest kinds of poverty are again on the rise (and was just scathingly denounced by the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights), where each tax bill, each favor to the 1 percent, passes a kind of life sentence on the poor. And that is the definition of hopelessness.

Americans who barely made it through the recent recession now find themselves in conditions (in supposed good times) that seem to be worsening. In poor neighborhoods and rural areas, even when people listen to the pundits of cable TV chatter on about economic inequality, the words bleed together, because without the means to make real change, the present is forever. At best, such discussions feel like a teardrop in an ocean of words. Among professionals, pundits, and academics barely hidden contempt for those defined as lower or working class often tinges such discussions.
...
During the past few decades, however, with huge sums being poured into this country’s never-ending wars, unions weakening or collapsing, wages being pushed down, and workers losing jobs, then homes, so much of that safety net is gone. If Donald Trump and his crew of millionaires and billionaires continue with their evisceration of the rest of the safety net, then food stamps, welfare aid directed at children’s health, and women’s reproductive rights, among other things, will disappear as well. Add to that the utter disregard the Trump administration has shown for people of color and its special mean-spiritedness toward immigrants, whether Mexican or Muslim—and for growing numbers of non-millionaires and non-billionaires the future is already starting to look like the worst, not the best, of times. 

- Janet McFarland writes that executive pay has been skyrocketing even as the public's concern about inequality has grown in recent years. And Prem Sikka discusses how just a decade after the most recent financial meltdown, regulators have resumed catering to corporate interests rather than protecting the public from them.

- Mike De Souza looks at the details of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain environmental violations, featuring internal calculation errors, faulty equipment and a failure to report to regulators. And Bill McKibben notes that the fossil fuel industry is being recognized as a particularly irresponsible actor even in the corporate world.

- Finally, Doug Saunders offers a reminder that contrary to the fearmongering by right-wing demagogues, there's no rational basis to treat the presence of immigrants of any type or background as a problem.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andray Domise discusses both the U.S.' choice to be an intentionally unsafe destination for refugees, and Canada's complicity in validating that choice and other policies of dehumanization rather than speaking out against even such obvious abuses as the imprisonment of children. And the Canadian Labour Congress calls for Canada to live up to its responsibility to refugees by stopping the classification of the U.S. as a "safe third country".

- Alan Broadbent and Kevin Page write about the need to recognize and give effect to the right to housing as a step toward eliminating homelessness in Canada. And Geoff Dembicki reports on Gary McKenna's research showing the influence of developers in Vancouver as a prime example as to how the greed of the wealthy few has taken precedence over the needs of the many.

- Meanwhile, Catherine McIntyre exposes the continued presence of discriminatory ads for housing and other services on social media platforms.

- John Arlidge reviews Richard Brooks' Bean Counters as to the role of major accounting firms in consolidating corporate power.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson discusses the inevitable reality that Doug Ford's anti-social populism will only make matters worse for many of the voters who elected him.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Braced cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- David Ball offers a reminder that Canada's immigration system includes the needless detention of children - and that we should be working on ensuring families can stay together, rather than claiming any virtue in merely falling short of the scale being implemented by the Trump administration.

- Neil MacDonald writes that ruthlessness and dehumanization are exactly what Trump's voters wanted - and that they're sadly not at all out of line with the U.S. history. And Andre Picard discusses the long term health ramifications of the U.S.' policies of family separation and child incarceration. 

- Meanwhile, Sally Weale reports on a new survey showing the large number of children in the UK going without basic hygiene due to poverty.

- David Leonhardt charts the perpetually-increasing size and power of big business in the U.S. And Gordon Laxer argues that Canada shouldn't hesitate to say goodbye to NAFTA due to its similar effects at home.

- Finally, Mark Winfield points out that a typical right-wing prescription of less regulation and free money for the corporate sector will only exacerbate Ontario's problems:

Getting rid of cap-and-trade and reducing the provincial gas tax will not make the increasingly evident impacts of climate change go away.

If Ford attempts to make cuts to hydro rates without first addressing the underlying drivers of increasing electricity costs, Ontarians might see even higher costs in the future. Key among the underlying drivers of those cost increases are the life-extensions and refurbishments for the province’s aging nuclear power plants they Wynne government committed to.
...
A simple economic strategy focused on tax cuts and deregulation will be hopelessly inadequate to deal with the regional impacts of the transition from manufacturing to service and knowledge-based economic activities, to say nothing of the challenges presented by the Trump administration’s US actions in agriculture, steel and auto manufacturing.
...
(R)esponding to these various dynamics will require a more sophisticated economic strategy than tax cuts and further deregulation, that in a province that had already declared itself “open for business” under the Liberal government. Indeed, the approach outlined in the PC platform runs a very real risk of undermining the basis of the province’s economic success.

The losses in provincial revenues from tax cuts will undermine the quality of services and infrastructure the province is able to offer. Deregulation around the environment carries risks that would undermine the quality of life the province offers its residents, to say nothing of threats it would pose to their health and safety.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Matt Bruening comments on the National Low Income Housing Coalition's research showing that minimum-wage workers are unable to afford basic housing across the U.S.

- Sarah Butler reports on the UK's latest parliamentary study of precarious work. Jordan Press reports on the state of child poverty in Canada - with Bill Morneau's riding including one of the highest concentrations of children living in poverty in the country. And Larry Elliott discusses how the new default expectation of insecurity has fed into the rise of demagogues willing to offer someone to blame in lieu of any solutions.

- PressProgress exposes the big money and Liberal connections behind an astroturf group trying to undermine electoral reform in British Columbia.

- Finally, Tom Parkin points out that supposed fiscal conservatives are happily burning billions of public dollars in order to ensure that polluters don't pay for their contribution to climate change. And Mia Rabson reminds us that Canada is already subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of billions more poorly-tracked dollars every year.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Claire Connelly calls out the perennial right-wing spin that there's always money available for corporations or the security state, but that anything which would actually help people is invariably unaffordable. And Jim Pugh discusses how Republicans are looking to punish and impoverish the working class by putting up unreasonable barriers to social benefits:

While setting more unemployed Americans on a path to employment and economic self-sufficiency is a positive goal, the threat of withholding food is a highly ineffective way to encourage workforce participation. Some of the most common barriers to employment are insufficient education or skills, mental health issues, hiring biases and a lack of job opportunities. Fear of not having enough to eat does nothing to overcome those obstacles.

When people are hungry, they're frequently unable to focus, which makes it harder for them to get a job, not easier. Instead of boosting employment, this proposal would act as a barrier rather than an incentive.

The actual impact of this policy change would be to punish hungry Americans. In many regions of the country, people are struggling to find full-time work, but can't. While the overall unemployment rate sits at a low 3.8 percent, the rate of involuntary underemployment is more than twice that, and exceeds 10 percent in many states and counties. This proposal would leave those who are unable to find a job with neither income nor food assistance.

Instead of adding poorly-designed restrictions to SNAP, we should be pursuing evidence-based policy changes to increase the effectiveness of our social programs. As someone who works on universal basic income policy, I've spent years studying the effects of unconditional benefits, i.e. what happens when you offer people support without any requirements on their behavior. Every analysis has arrived at the same conclusion: When you give people benefits without strings attached, they use them for productive purposes. The vast majority of people want to do well in life, and they’ll make the most of any support they receive.

- Michael Rozworski's letter to the editor neatly summarizes the folly of reversing long-overdue increases to Ontario's minimum wage. And Kate Davidson comments on the importance of paying a fair minimum wage to service workers, rather than pointing to the illusory promise of tips as an excuse to grind people into poverty.

- Arian Taher discusses the radical difference between Adam Smith's humane ideal of capitalism, and the corporatist version which artificially concentrates wealth and power.

- Finally, James Wilt highlights how Doug Ford's false majority offers a compelling example in favour of British Columbia's electoral reform vote.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The OECD examines the generational implications of inequality and poverty - with the descendants of poor children in some countries requiring up to nine generations to project to reach an average income.

- Dean Baker writes that the Trump administration is only seeking to further entrench class disparities by locking in exclusionary rights through international trade agreements. And Michael Geist discusses how a few corporate actors have taken over Canada's copyright consultations.

- Meanwhile, Howard Davies notes that a new IMF database shows global debt at at all-time high even after the supposed attempt to rein in unsustainable borrowing after the 2008 economic crisis.

- David Ball reports on Kinder Morgan's disregard for environmental rules in building its Trans Mountain terminal. Needless to say, nobody is expected to face any consequences as a result of that lawlessness - in contrast to David Dodge's willingness to see activists killed in the name of pipeline expansion.

- Finally, D.C. Fraser reports on the Saskatchewan Party's decision to tear down the Justice for Our Stolen Children in the name of expunging any recognition of the abuse of Indigenous peoples from Regina's Canada Day events.

Musical interlude

The Watchmen - Do It

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Ed Finn reminds us that ending child poverty makes good economic sense in addition to being a moral necessity:

The same huge financial benefit would be reaped in Canada from an equivalent investment in curbing poverty here. Based on the variance in populations and socioeconomic issues, it’s clear that, if it would save more than a trillion dollars in the U.S., it would save as much as $100 billion annually in Canadian dollars.

Unfortunately, given the deeply entrenched neoliberalism rampant in both the United States and Canada, it’s highly unlikely that Rank’s strong anti-poverty case will fare any better with politicians on either side of the border than did similar previous studies.

The prospect of saving billions in the future by spending more to alleviate child poverty today doesn’t appeal to conservative corporate CEOs or their political minions. They are fixated on maximizing profits in the next quarter, not in 10 or 20 years from now.

The same avarice-fueled capitalist myopia that keeps them plundering non-renewable resources, polluting the environment, and propagating inequality also compels them to keep on keeping children poor. The less spent on helping the poor, the higher their profits. It’s that blatant.

Blinded by greed, committed to turning their millions to billions, their billions to trillions, these modern-day robber barons remain indifferent to the poverty, misery, deprivation and distress they inflict on billions of other people.

Tragically, their most traumatized victims are the young, the helpless, and the innocent – those most in need of adult love and care.

- Robert Frank notes that even billionaires are recognizing the grossly distorted distribution of income and wealth - and the social harms which result. And Jennifer Ditchburn discusses the need for genuine policy to deal with the future of work, rather than distractions from the reality that financial security is out of reach for far too many people. 

- Ben Zipperer points out how the U.S.' minimum wage has eroded to the point where it serves as a guarantee of poverty.

- The Independent reports on polling showing a strong majority of Britons looking to bring railways back under public ownership.

- Finally, Seth Klein and Vyas Saran counter any attempts to muddy the waters in British Columbia's electoral reform referendum by pointing out how simple and fair a proportional system can be.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jonathan Amos and Victoria Gill report on Antarctica's alarming rate of melting - with three trillion tons of ice lost in the past 25 years. Peter Erickson reminds us that the avoidable greenhouse gas emissions from subsidized oil sands development will only make matters worse for the world as a whole. And Crawford Kilian previews what we can expect when the carbon bubble bursts:

Some models assume we will work hard to keep global warming to a two-degree rise or less by moving to renewable energy and cutting back on fossil fuels; others assume we won’t, and will keep burning oil and gas despite rising temperatures.

All the models end up with a “sellout” by 2035 or earlier, in which oil-producing nations put on history’s greatest bargain sale, dropping oil prices as low as possible just to get it out of the ground before demand falls to zero. After all, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed not long ago, “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there.” Least of all when all those barrels would soon be “stranded” in the ground and $1 trillion to $4 trillion vanishes from the global economy.

Once the sellout was truly under way, what would happen?
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(O)ur domestic woes will be like those of many other rich countries, only worse. Migrants and refugees will still find Canada a better option than staying home. Wars, revolutions and climate-driven disasters will make demands on us we won’t feel able to respond to. Poverty at home will trigger new problems in public health, just as it has in Venezuela.

Mercure’s forecast is unlikely to be the first; governments and fossil fuel corporations alike have probably commissioned reports with similar conclusions. With such politically ugly implications, it’s understandable that such reports have not been publicized, let alone acted upon.

But a wise government would break the news to its people, commission still more studies, and commit to acting on them: cutting losses in fossil fuels, subsidizing renewable energy companies, and promoting research in the field that might give Canada a chance to catch up with other transitioning countries.

And if we ignore Mercure’s warning, we will learn our lesson anyway, with a tuition fee of up to $4 trillion.

- Keith Reynolds studies the billions of dollars British Columbia is paying to the corporate sector due to its use of P3s rather than public ownership.

- The Guardian rightly argues that rather than limiting itself to empty words, the UK should be responding to the Grenfell Tower disaster by ensuring safe housing for everybody. And Laura Paddison examines the glaring lack of affordable housing for U.S. renters.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg writes about Doug Ford's first-past-the-post-dependent election win. And Martin Lukacs discusses the urgent need for a strong grassroots movement to counter Ford's top-down destruction.

New column day

Here, on how NAFTA has proven wholly ineffective in deterring a destructive U.S. president from starting a gratuitous trade war - and how Canada should respond in charting a new economic course.

For further reading...
- Andrew Jackson has previously discussed the effects of NAFTA to date, as well as Canada's prospects in its absence. And the Council of Canadians' factsheet on how NAFTA has affected workers is worth a look.
- The Office of the United States Trade Representative offers up some numbers as to how much more tightly we're tied to the U.S. under NAFTA.
- Among the latest developments in the burgeoning Trump trade war, Mike Blanchfield and Andy Blatchford reported on the fallout from last weekend's G7 meeting, while Katie Simpson reported on Canada's anticipated response to another round of U.S. tariffs.
- Duncan Cameron points out the importance of building multilateral economic structures rather than relying unduly on the U.S.
- Finally, George Monbiot argues that Donald Trump is right about one aspect of trade agreements: rather than seeking to bind future governments, we should recognize the value of sunset clauses which allow for the public to once again have a say in our economic development.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Shaun Richman reviews David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs - including the inevitable inference that there needs to be some means for people to be supported without having to seek out useless work:

Much of the “bullshitization” of white-collar work is purely accidental, but Graeber argues that capitalists couldn’t have designed a more effective pecking order of oppression if they’d tried. At the bottom, you have millions of workers striving to work longer hours and fighting for a couple more dollars an hour that might lift them out of literal poverty. In between the desperate lumpen and the de facto rulers of the world is a massive segment of the workforce who secretly suspect that maintaining a decent standard of living doesn’t correlate with useful or productive work (or, indeed, any work at all!). But challenging the system could imperil their relative comfort.

They are more likely to resent people whose jobs are easily explainable to their family and neighbors—but who nevertheless demand better wages and working conditions—than to make common cause with them.

Graeber points to autoworkers and teachers as workers who achieve a tangible degree of satisfaction from their work and who are frequent targets of the public’s ire for expecting that and decent wages. I think more of all those amateur chefs on Chopped, hoping to win a $10,000 purse in order to buy a food truck. How many thousands of people are living an essentially monastic lifestyle because they want to make a living feeding people? In a world filled with well-paying but meaningless work, or poorly-paid drudgery that a robot could (and may soon) do, is it any wonder that so many people yearn for a meaningful life spent cooking for people and watching them enjoy the literal fruits of their labor?

What I particularly love about Graeber’s book is how it cutes to the revival of the kind of labor lit that flourished in the 1970s. The last 40 years of globalization, automation, and the gutting of our labor laws has narrowed the focus of too many labor writers to questions of how workers can get enough hours at a high-enough minimum wage and with decent enough benefits to reverse an inexorable slide into poverty.

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Being an anarchist, Graeber is loath to suggest specific policy solutions. Still, he can’t help but talk about the policy that is most frequently advocated by the nerds who talk about the post-scarcity society: the universal basic income. Obviously, he sees value in decoupling the deservedness of food, shelter, and clothing from how one spends the majority of her waking hours. There simply isn’t enough useful work to go around for each of us to trade an hour for a loaf of bread.

The alternative progressive policy proposal—a federal commitment to full employment—is touted as more pragmatic and winnable. It’s a reasonable appeal to the god, mom, and apple-pie Calvinist work ethic. And, after all, there are a lot of roads and bridges that need to be rebuilt, a lot of child and elder care that should be compensated as the very real work it is, and well, who wouldn’t love to see a lot of WPA-style public artwork going up around the world? But, Bullshit Jobs should serve as a warning that a continued fidelity to the notion that one must work for one’s supper would likely condemn many of us to box-checking and duct-taping, as the machines take over and make most of us redundant.  

- Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin make the case for a combination of a basic income to ensure people's security, and a focus on environmental repair rather than consumerism to ensure a sustainable society. And Nathaniel Lewis points out that social welfare benefits do far more to reduce poverty than raw job numbers.

- Ed Broadbent argues that if Justin Trudeau wants to claim to be a progressive leader, he needs to start working on helping out the poor. And the BBC reports on a new survey showing growing public recognition that poor health is the result of an unjust society.

- Branko Marcetic comments on the massive amounts of wage theft by U.S. employers. And Dave Jamieson discusses the success of the Culinary Workers Union in achieving improved wages and working conditions in the face of state laws intended to undermine organized labour.

- Finally, Bob Hennelly suggests that student debt forgiveness would actually offer the economic boost which was supposed to represent the rationale for corporate tax cuts. And Albert Van Santvoort points out that contrary to the bloviations of business mouthpieces looking for any excuse to hand more money to corporations, the U.S.' tax slashing hasn't produced any discernible effect on corporate investment in Canada.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Boxed-in cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Andrew O'Hehir talks to Yanis Varoufakis about the impossibility of building shared prosperity on a foundation of consumer debt and financialization. And the Institute for Public Policy Research offers a discussion paper on the important equalizing role of organized labour - and the need for government to ensure that unions can serve the public interest.

- Meanwhile, Patrick Butler reports on the woeful state of adult social care in the wake of brutal cuts and an ideological insistence on the survival of only the fittest and luckiest.

- Elisabetta Bianchini reports on some of the Ontario voters lamenting the first-past-the-post system which has allowed Doug Ford to take an effectively unaccountable majority government over the objection of most of the province. And Mitch Potter muses that the result might open the door to electoral reform elsewhere.

- The Star discusses the need for Canada to start learning from - and reversing - its failures in respecting Indigenous people. And Emma Paling reports that some of the chiefs regularly used as props in support of the Trans Mountain expansion were coerced into signing on, rather than having any meaningful choice in the matter.

- Finally, Marc Lee points out that British Columbians paying more than ever for gas should trace the problem to oil-sector profit-taking, not modest steps to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Julian Baggini discusses the importance of talking about taxes as a force for the common good - particularly as a response to (and inoculation against) inane "tax freedom" rhetoric:

(W)e need to counter the subtle ways in which we are complicit in the taxophobics’ game. Think about how every newspaper and news outlet reports the budget. The bottom line is always presented in terms of whether tax changes leave specific types of people better or worse off, usually by mere pennies per week. The most important test of a budget should not be how taxes hit individuals’ pockets, but whether overall government is sustainably improving the state of the nation. Taxing less than we need to is as bad as taxing more than is necessary.

These changes in how we think and talk might strike you as modest and uncontroversial. Proof that they are anything but is that a campaign to start celebrating social solidarity day would today be laughed off as some kind of politically correct joke. Unless and until we make it normal to see taxation primarily as a valuable contribution to our own and the common good, the narrative that government is the enemy and tax is theft will continue to prevail.

- And Thomas Torslov, Ludvig Weir and Gabriel Zucman study the massive amounts of tax revenue being siphoned into tax havens to enrich shareholders at the expense of any contribution to the public interest.

- Toby Helm writes about the latest research demonstrating a connection between rising inequality and decreasing union membership. And Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett comment on how inequality leads to stress and anxiety. 

- Finally, Tom Parkin writes about Ontario's rejection of one form of cynical politics - though it's worth noting that both the Wynne Libs and Ford PCs managed to achieve their end-of-campaign goals which put political interests ahead of the public.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- J.W. Mason reviews Quinn Slobodian's Globalists with a reminder that the decades-long push to subjugate popular democracy to corporate interests is nothing new - and that we know well the consequences:

In the early twentieth century, there were many people who saw popular sovereignty as a problem to be solved. In a world where dynastic rule had been swept offstage, formal democracy might be unavoidable; and elections served an important role in channeling the demands that might otherwise be expressed through “the right to the street.” But the idea that the people, acting through their political representatives, were the highest authority and entitled to rewrite law, property rights, and contracts in the public interest—this was unacceptable. One way or another, government by the people had to be reined in.

Mises’ writings from a century ago often sound as if they belong in speeches by modern European conservatives such as German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble. The welfare state is unaffordable, Mises says; workers’ excessive wage demands have rendered them unemployable, governments’ uncontrolled spending will be punished by financial markets, and “English and German workers may have to descend to the lowly standard of life of the Hindus and the coolies to compete with them.”

Quinn Slobodian argues that the similarities between Mises then and Schäuble today are not a coincidence. They are products of a coherent body of thought: neoliberalism, or the Geneva school. His book, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, is a history of the “genealogy of thought that linked the neoliberal world economic imaginary from the 1920s to the 1990s.”

The book puts to rest the idea that “neoliberal” lacks a clear referent. As Slobodian meticulously documents, the term has been used since the 1920s by a distinct group of thinkers and policymakers who are unified both by a shared political vision and a web of personal and professional links.

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Property and its privileges are only safe in a world where the rule of money is accepted as objective, inevitable, and outside the scope of collective decision-making. The problem is that the concrete demands of statecraft often require governments to control economic outcomes, depriving them their aura of objective fact. When enemy forces are massed on the border or unemployed workers are rioting in the streets, no government that wants to remain in power can accept economic outcomes as facts beyond their control, like the weather.

But once the Pandora’s box of conscious management of the economy is opened, governments can use the power they now know they possess for all kinds of other ends. In a democratic state, a planning apparatus developed to mobilize in war or cope with economic crises may easily be redirected to serve a broader agenda.

- Doug Henwood writes that low wages and personal insecurity are a reality for U.S. workers even where more jobs than assumed are actually expected to last for a substantial period of time. And Brian Prowse-Gany and Joyzel Acevedo talk to Nick Hanauer about the false and manipulative claim that improved wages do anything to harm the availability of work.

- Charles Pierce highlights Scott Pruitt's selloff of public health in the U.S.

- Atif Shatique connects the recent critique of the "marshmallow test" with the destructive spread of conditional social benefits.

- Emma Teitel writes that our willingness to show concern about mental health in the weak of a celebrity suicide means little if we're not prepared to deal with both environmental causes and individual illnesses before tragedy strikes. And CBC reports on the latest report of the Provincial Auditor documenting the severe lack of mental health care in northern Saskatchewan.

- Finaly, Lana Payne discusses Doug Ford's election as the product of base emotion and an distorted electoral system.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Trish Hennessy examines the aftermath of Ontario's provincial election, while Andrew Mitrovica traces the spread of Trumpian antisocial populism. And Doug Nesbitt offers some lessons for workers based on the province's previous PC government.

- David Roberts takes a look at our economic assumptions behind climate change policy, and notes that they're thoroughly distorted toward a lack of action.

- Linda McQuaig criticizes the Trudeau Libs for prioritizing the oil industry's profits ahead of the national interest. And Mitchell Anderson notes that the Canadian public is now one of the few actors foolish enough to spending large amounts of money trying to continue inflating a clearly-bursting oil bubble.

- Pam Palmater reminds us that Indigenous rights aren't subject to popular whims - even if public opinion still includes far too much baked-in racism. And Murray Mandryk comments on the Justice for our Stolen Children camp which is being evicted by the Saskatchewan Party in the name of  Canada Day festivities.

- Finally, Gary Mason is duly incredulous at the whining of multimillionaire Vancouver homeowners at the prospect of paying something closer to their fair share of the cost of a functioning community.

Musical interlude

The Veronicas - Cruel

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Frances Ryan highlights the disgrace of social programs designed to strip away basic supports when they're needed most:

Poverty has long been put down to mythical causes, be it a quirk of society – as if inequality is built into the earth – or an individual’s failings (why don’t they breed less? Work harder? Buy fewer cigarettes?). The JRF study is unflinching at skewering this. The reasons for destitution are complex, but the researchers point firmly to the role of “welfare” cuts that have dominated the political landscape since the global financial crash. Social security policies can, in many cases, directly lead to destitution “by design”, the report says, leaving people “without support when they most need it”. Two in five destitute people reported problems with the benefit system, with a quarter of all interviewees citing losing their disability benefits as a key trigger of their destitution.
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The report documents people’s desperate solutions – piecemeal kindness and exploitation to fill in the gaps of a less secure safety net: chip shops giving free fish and chips; a local vicar helping to pay for groceries; taking a risk on a loan shark.

Some people, most achingly, had been without food off and on for so long they were almost resigned to it. This level of deprivation isn’t only about going without a meal or electricity. It’s a psychological assault: depression, severe stress and anxiety were commonly reported, with a few interviewees saying that they had even felt suicidal.

There’s a risk that, with news of surging food bank use and children going without beds or clothes, this type of extreme poverty is becoming normalised. That it is somehow a natural part of any country or that, even if it isn’t, the problem is now so big, so overwhelming, that we can’t do anything to stop it. Of course, this isn’t true. For proof, look at the fact that the researchers found destitution has actually decreased in the past two years – an improvement put down in large part to the less stringent use of benefit sanctions (as well as improvement to the job market and reductions in migration). Further commonsense changes would go a long way towards pulling more people out of hardship, from embedding local welfare funds for families to seek out in times of financial emergency, and addressing debt recovery processes, to adapting universal credit so that the benefit system is no longer characterised by delays, sanctions and freezes.

Above all, there needs to be a culture change that says everyone in this country deserves, at the very least, food in their stomach and a roof over their head – whether that’s a disabled person, a banker, an immigrant or a politician. Destitution should have gone out with the slums and workhouses.

- The Economist takes note of an increasing gap in childhood obesity as one more indication of growing inequality in the UK. And Michael Wolfson comments on the need to define a standard measure of poverty in order to better measure Canada's efforts to combat it.

- Crawford Kilian reviews Jeffrey Pfeffer's Dying for a Paycheck, but notes that any effective response to the toxic effects of work needs to involve collective action by workers. And Ed Finn's review of Joyce Nelson's Bypassing Dystopia hints at a wide range of steps needed to take back power from the corporate sector.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk rightly questions the Saskatchewan Party's decision to put the future of Wascana Park at the mercy of businesses who want to capture one of Regina's most important public spaces.

New column day

Here, on the parallels between the presidency of Donald Trump and the danger of a Doug Ford-led government in Ontario.

For further reading...
- Hugh Mackenzie has done the math on the PCs' non-platform, finding a fiscal hole of $13.75 billion every year.
- Graeme Gordon reports on Ontario Proud's voter spam and other intervention in Ontario's election.
- Christopher Guly comments on the rise of Andrea Horwath, and I've previously discussed the parallels between this campaign and other NDP successes. But Marieke Walsh notes the risk that the NDP might win the popular vote but fall short in the seat count.
- Martin Regg Cohn questions Ford's treatment of his own family - raising obvious questions about how cavalier he'd be with a provincial treasury at his disposal.
- Finally, for some of the better commentary on what to expect, see Bryan Breguet and tcnorris. And Ryan McGreal has assembled Breguet's data into a riding-by-riding guide.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Kenan Malik reminds us of the ongoing importance of unions in fighting for fairness and equality. Frank Witsil reports on a push to rebuild labour strength in the service sector in the U.S, while Cole Stangler points out that U.S. youth have a significantly more favourable view of unions than of corporations. But Molly Gott and Derek Seidman document the attempt by the Republicans and their backers to undermine the strength of any public-sector education system and the teachers who work within it.

- Sam Pizzigati suggests using public purchasing power to encourage fairness within corporations as a way to rein in income inequality. And Philip Mattera studies (PDF) the systematic theft of wages by U.S. employers.

- Scott Santens discusses the potential for a basic income to spur creativity and innovation by reducing the downside of personal risk-taking.

- Anne Casselman comments that environmental disaster is becoming increasingly common due to a lack of climate change action and preparedness.

- Finally, Tera Hunter examines the U.S.' long history of child-snatching - which again remains an ongoing problem in Canada as well.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Enzo Dimatteo offers a reminder of Toronto's disastrous experience with the Ford governance model, while Edward Keenan worries that Doug Ford is eager to run roughshod over the city if he gets the chance. PressProgress tallies up the large number of Ontario PC candidates campaigning while facing investigations and lawsuits. Cecilia Keating examines the Ontario NDP's plan for change for the better. And Christo Aivilis writes about the role young voters will play in charting Ontario's future - or allowing Ford to do so instead.

- Nav Persaud compares the Ontario provincial parties' respective positions on prescription drugs. Samir Sinha argues that the primary solution to hallway medicine lies in ensuring that people can get the care they need without needing to occupy a hospital bed.

- Sheila Block highlights the problems with pretending that corporate tax slashing has anything to do with economic development.

- Alex Hemingway discusses how unduly low land taxes can fuel a housing crisis, while Joshua Gottlieb and David Green point out that a property surtax is both efficient and fair compared to other revenue sources (not to mention highly popular).

- Finally, Fiona Harvey writes about the carbon bubble which is set to pop as clean energy becomes far cheaper than continued reliance on fossil fuels. And Stephen Leahy discusses the billions of dollars Canada continues to spend subsidizing the oil industry every year (beyond the price of the Trans Mountain bailout).