Musical interlude

The War On Drugs - In Chains

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- The Economist discusses how income and wealth inequality lead to disproportionate influence on the part of the rich:

The relation between concentrated wealth and the political power of the rich is scarcely limited to political spending, or to America. The rich have many means to shape public opinion: financing nominally apolitical think-tanks, for instance, or buying media outlets. Although their power may sometimes be used to influence the result of a particular vote, it is often deployed more subtly, to shape public narratives about which problems deserve attention. Mr Epp and Mr Borghetto analysed bills brought before the parliaments of nine European countries between 1941 and 2014. Rising inequality, they found, is associated with political agendas more focused on matters related to “social order”, such as crime and immigration. Issues such as economic justice are crowded out. They attribute this to the “negative agenda power” of the rich. As their wealth increases, they have a greater ability to press politicians to emphasise some topics rather than others.

The evidence that concentrated wealth contributes to concentrated power is troubling. It suggests that reducing inequality becomes less likely even as it becomes more urgent. It implies that a vicious cycle of rising inequality may be developing, with a loss of democratic accountability as a nasty side-effect.

- Meanwhile, Jeff Stein reports on the global decline in business tax rates which has resulted from the corporate sector largely dictating the terms of political debate. Duncan Cameron writes that any tax system will influence the composition of our public discourse - and that for too long Canada's system (among others) has privileged the wealthy while silencing voices for progressive change. And PressProgress exposes one of the B.C. Libs' secret big-money fund-raising events. 

- Katherine Boothe debunks some myths about a national pharmacare program - and in particular the claim that there's any public benefit in handing the pharmaceutical industry exorbitant prices for an already-limited set of drugs under the status quo. And Steve Morgan discusses how Doug Ford's move to limit Ontario's public plan to make prescription drugs available to youth is a step in the wrong direction.

- Kevin Carmichael points out how parents would benefit far more from a universally accessible child care system than from child benefits alone. 

- Finally, Eleanor Ainge Roy reports on the introduction of paid domestic violence leave in New Zealand in order to ensure people facing personal threats aren't trapped by work obligations, while CBC News discusses its imminent implementation in New Brunswick as well.

New column day

Here, on how Saskatchewan may be in the eye of a global heat storm, but shouldn't use that as an excuse to keep contributing to increasingly-dangerous climate change.

For further reading...
- Scientific American's temperature circle highlights how every country in the world is seeing higher temperatures than normal. And Brandon Miller surveys the recent heat wave around the globe. 
- CBC has reported on the recent extreme temperatures in Quebec and Ontario, British Columbia, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
- And again, the Prairie Climate Centre has examined the likely results of climate change for Saskatchewan - which even on their own would justify far more than the sad excuse for a plan offered up by the Saskatchewan Party.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The Equality Trust makes its submission to a UK study of social mobility by pointing out the need for increased equality as the first step:

To genuinely improve social mobility in the UK, the over-arching policy priority has to be for a massive and sustained reduction in economic inequality (so both income and wealth). This will require bold policies and, crucially, for such policies to be carried forward as an integrated Inequality Reduction Strategy, embedded across all government departments. Our new national Manifesto for a Fairer Society outlines the sort of policy changes required.

While we support the dissemination of best practice that promotes high educational attainment we are sceptical that it will have much impact. Interventions that try to correct for the impact of inequality on social mobility (early years education intervention, parenting interventions and so on) have (a) a very weak evidence base and (b) fail to address the "causes of the causes" (thus the interventions will be needed for ever and ever) and are (c) very expensive and, therefore, subject to changes in governments and political priorities (and in relation to political priorities, we would like to state that there is no evidence that expanding grammar schools will improve our education system or our chronic social immobility, in fact, quite the reverse).

In any event, such interventions cannot be expected to correct the enormous dead-weight of problems created by inequality for families - debt, long working hours and chronic stress leading to more mental and physical illness.

- Allie Conti discusses a new research paper on the detachment of the ultra-rich from the rest of society. And Jay Willis notes that the Trump administration's giveaways to the wealthy are only making matters worse.

- Meanwhile,  Bruce Japsen points out how Trump's barriers to social benefits will drastically increase administration costs and limit access without serving any useful purpose.

- Raffy Boudjikanian reports on TransAlta's laundering of its coal lobbying effort through the University of Alberta.

- Finally, Palko Karasz writes about the wave of ocean-dumped garbage now hitting the Dominican Republic and other coastlines. Julia Short points out how climate change has made our oceans more acidic than they've been in millions of years. Umair Irfan discusses what has made rising temperatures particularly dangerous for residents of areas not build to account for them. Ryan Cooper offers a reminder that reining in climate change offers substantial economic opportunities, while ignoring it will only cause economic harm in the long run. And Jonathan Watts highlights how our consumption of natural resources has continued to grow to increasingly unsustainable levels.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading...

- Thomas Torslov, Ludvig Wier and Gabriel Zucman examine the shifting of corporate profits to tax havens - and the false promise that corporate tax cuts will serve any purpose other than to undermine the collection of needed revenue by countries with real economies. And Liz Alderman notes that Portugal's rejection of austerity has led to better economic and social results than the alternative of cuts and suffering.

- Tom Saler writes about new archaeological research tracing inequality dating back thousands of years - and finding it to be a matter of choice rather than inevitability. And Meagan Day points out that inequality (particularly at the very top) continues to get worse by the year.

- Alex Finnis reports on the UK's largest jump in poverty since Margaret Thatcher was in power. Thiemo Fezter studies (PDF) the role the UK Cons' austerity played in fomenting support for the far-right UKIP as well as the disastrous Brexit vote. And Polly Toynbee writes about the added demands being placed on the UK's citizenry to plan for their government's irresponsibility out of already-limited resources:

Eight years of austerity has only cut debt by shifting a financial deficit on to a social deficit everywhere else. Philip Hammond, the chancellor and austerian-in-chief, has said taxes must rise to pay for the NHS, but he will return to his autumn budget besieged by needs in every threadbare service. Austerity was not accompanied by telling the public to expect less of everything for ever.
...
 or now, the Brexit crisis distracts from all its other failures. When the former attorney general Dominic Grieve tells Sky News that no deal will cast us into “a state of emergency – basic services we take for granted might not be available”, Cassandra-like, he is ignored as Project Fear mark two. But when Doug Gurr, the head of Amazon UK – no political player – warns of “civil unrest” within two weeks of a no-deal guillotine, we should all sit up and pay attention. He said that to Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, at a meeting with business chiefs last Friday: Amazon is making contingency plans.

Everyone will take fright at the government’s own warnings to businesses and households. John Manzoni, the head of the civil service, told MPs last week that a no-deal break would be “almost unimaginable”, and have “horrendous consequences”. Already the government warns that the M26 in Kent will be a “holding area” for 1,400 trucks to ease gridlock as 10,000 lorries a day are potentially delayed by new EU customs checks. Mazoni warns of the need to stockpile food and medicines: “We have to put contingencies in place.” Stockpiling food – that’s an order to panic! And why not – half our food is imported, of which 80% comes from Europe via Dover.
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Conspiracy theorists claim a “deep state” really controls this country, a civil service and a dark establishment that prevent any radical change. That theory is now being tested to destruction. This has been the worst session of parliament in recent memory: the next may be worse. There is no deep state – nothing out there to save us from self-inflicted disaster. Only we can save us from ourselves.

- Samira Shackle discusses the value of viewing crime primarily as a condition to be treated, rather than an excuse to inflict punishment.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron makes the case for a national public bus service to more than fill the void left by Greyhound's disappearance.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats at rest.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matt Bruenig points out that public ownership of businesses produces a number of beneficial incidental effects, including by ensuring that knowledge and investment stay in place over time rather than being subject to the whims of the capital class.

- Sarah Smarsh discusses how a failure by politicians to take on the corporate class has opened the door for people to vote for self-destructive populism. And Mike Colledge and Chris Martyn comment on the need to foster shared values and interests - including our common humanity and empathy for people in need - as an antidote.

- Steven Singer notes that any attempt to draw correlations between private schools and educational outcomes can be traced readily to differences in income.

- Alicia Bridges reports on the aftermath of Husky's salt water leak near Turtleford. And Global News reports on the belated investigation into the release of toxic gas affecting Unity - resulting in precisely zero consequences to the business responsible other than an order to comply with the law it was violating in the first place.

- Finally, Alex Ballingall and Alex Boutilier rightly challenge the rhetoric portraying the presence of refugees in Canada as a crisis. And Liam Casey tells the stories of a few of the refugees awaiting the hearing of their refugee claims in Toronto.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Giri Sivaraman and Jim Stanford challenge the right-wing dogma that unions - and unions alone among private actors - should be expected to provide benefits independent of any contributions. Fiona Onasanya discusses the need for collective action to push back against exploitation by corporate behemoths like Amazon. And Doug Nesbitt highlights the role organized labour plays in combating workplace racism.

- Meanwhile, Noah Smith points out that Donald Trump's giveaways to the wealthy have predictably resulted in wage cuts for workers. And Josh Hoxie tallies up the U.S.' lost public revenue just from tax cuts implemented since 2000 at $10 trillion.

- Katherine Martinko warns against putting too much stock in corporate branding campaigns rather than laws and policies which meaningfully improve environmental outcomes.

- David Suzuki reminds us that we can't hide from the consequences of climate change. And Karen Bartko reports on the latest spills in Alberta's oil patch.

- Finally, Jacob Serebrin reports on new research showing how Quebec's public child care system has enabled a far larger number of women to participate in the workforce.

On public interests

Plenty of others have pointed out the most direct lie in Jason Kenney's attempt to blame Alberta's NDP for the decisions of an Ontario court dealing with Carillion's Canadian bankruptcy. But it's worth taking a look at the much more fundamental lie at the core of Kenney's complaint.

As mentioned in the very article linked to by Kenney, the privatization of Alberta's highway maintenance operations took place under his Conservative predecessors.

It was the PCs who put a high-risk foreign operator in charge of maintaining a wide swath of the province's highways in the first place (PDF) due to their distaste for public services. And they further put the public at Carillion's mercy (PDF) just in time for the corporate house of cards to come toppling down. 

In response, Alberta's NDP has been criticizing (PDF) the PC's determination to push public-sector austerity as an excuse for privatization, and calling for decisions about infrastructure to be made by and in the interests of citizens.

Needless to say, that fault line remains between the two parties. The NDP continues to want public services to function under public control for the benefit of citizens and local businesses alike. And Kenney continues to be determined to undermine public services by selling them off or exposing them to corporate competition or control at every turn.

Of course, neither Kenney nor his corporate backers are about to let the facts get in the way of an attack on Rachel Notley. But voters in Alberta (and elsewhere) should note that there's only way to avoid having the public interest turned into an afterthought in business proceedings - and that's to make sure Kenney and his ilk don't get to lock governments into privatization scams.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that carbon pricing can be an economic benefit, while unrestrained climate change would be disastrous. Bill Curry and Shawn McCarthy report that Scott Moe has eagerly lumped himself in with Doug Ford as Canada's most ignorant premiers, as the rest of the country's provincial leaders are still working toward meaningful climate policy. And David Climenhaga notes that the climate-denier coalition is relying purely on political bluster rather than any plausible constitutional argument.

- Noah Smith examines the impact of academic research funding, and finds that directing money toward universities which already have plenty of wealth and prestige makes for a poor use of research dollars.

- Edward Keenan exposes the utter failure of John Tory's privatization of fire inspections which left fire safety in Toronto in the hands of a fraud.

- Douglas Todd discusses how the polarization of first-past-the-post politics does far more to boost extremism than a more proportional system which tends to require that multiple viewpoints be addressed in a governing coalition. 

- Finally, CBC reports on the rightful outrage in response to the Saskatchewan Party's attempt to remove the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp through the courts.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Hugh MacKenzie comments on the continued need for an adult conversation about public revenue, including the importance of bringing in enough in taxes to fund the services which serve everybody's best interests:

The disconnect between public services and the taxes we pay to provide them that has dominated the Canadian political narrative for the past quarter-century isn’t just quirk of politics that we can just file under the heading “lies our politicians keep telling us.” That disconnect matters. It invites us to vote for a property tax freeze, a sales tax cut, an income-tax cut — even if it doesn’t benefit us much. It invites us to disregard the reality that governments have a responsibility to ensure the ability to pay for the public services that we depend on.
...
None of the tax cutters ever has the guts to be honest with people about the impact of reduced revenue on public services. But the pattern has been repeated over and over again across Canada.
In 1992, the five-year average of total government expenditures as a share of GDP was 48.6 per cent. In 2016, the five-year average was 40.1 per cent — in the context of today’s $2 trillion economy, that’s worth $170 billion in lost spending on public services.

We see clear crisis indicators of decline everywhere we look:

• Crumbling public infrastructure. 
• An elementary and secondary education system whose funding cannot meet the needs of today’s students. 
• Post-secondary tuition that is now more than triple what it was 25 years ago. 
• The lack [of] affordable housing and the rise in homelessness. 
• A public health insurance system that excludes the fastest growing component of health care costs (pharmaceutical drugs) and that is straining to meet the needs of an aging population.

And now, in Ontario, here we go again, with a clear denial of the link between taxes and public services “no dollar is better spent — than the dollar that is left in the pockets of the taxpayer” elevated from meaningless political rhetoric to a line in the official Throne Speech of the new provincial government.

Nine years on, the report card on the adult conversation we need to have about taxes and public services can be summed up in two phrases: missing in action; and still badly needed.

- Meagan Day discusses the gap between CEOs and the rest of us as highlighted by Bernie Sanders' town hall on work and inequality. Debbie Weingarten notes that the vacations taken for granted by many aren't available to people scraping by in precarious work situations. And Maham Abedi writes about the personal stress caused by poverty.

- M.H. Miller writes about the crushing effect of personal debt on U.S. workers. And Hailie Salvian reports on Saskatchewan's number of mortgages in arrears which is disturbingly high both in historical context, and in comparison to every other Canadian province.

- Finally, Nicholas Keung reports on an audit showing how Canada's treatment of immigrants is already biased toward arbitrary long-term detention, while Nora Loreto fully expects matters to get worse with Bill Blair having been put in charge of a new anti-immigrant portfolio due to his lock-'em-up track record. Lana Payne calls out the Cons for stoking xenophobia as a matter of cynical political calculation. And Dan Zakreski reports on the attack on Abu Sheikh as yet another example of the violence being perpetrated in the name of bigotry.

[Edit: added link.]

Musical interlude

Borgeous - Wildfire

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Brett Scott pulls back the curtain on the cashless society, and notes that it (like so many "financial innovations") is largely the result of banks seeking profits with no interest in how they harm people who don't have money to burn:

Financial institutions, likewise, are trying to nudge us towards a cashless society and digital banking. The true motive is corporate profit. Payments companies such as Visa and Mastercard want to increase the volume of digital payments services they sell, while banks want to cut costs. The nudge requires two parts. First, they must increase the inconvenience of cash, ATMs and branches. Second, they must vigorously promote the alternative. They seek to make people “learn” that they want digital, and then “choose” it.
...
Digital systems may be “convenient”, but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored “off the grid” space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.

A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.
...
The UK government has chosen to champion the digital financial services industry. This is irresponsible and disingenuous. We need to stop accepting stories about the cashless society and hyper-digital banking being “natural progress”. We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions’ campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures.

- Reade Pickert and Alan Bjerga note that any economic recovery in the U.S. has largely left behind the working poor, leaving tens of millions of people reliant on the food stamps which the Trump administration wants to take away.

- Nicole Mortillaro explores the record-breaking temperatures which are endangering lives around the globe. But Peter McCartney writes that instead of treating climate change as the threat that it is, Canadian governments are still subsidizing the industry which relies on making matters worse - including through ongoing giveaways to liquid natural gas operators in British Columbia.

- Finally, Drew Brown calls out the Libs for reinforcing the Cons' attempt to negate the humanity of large classes of immigrants. And Shanifa Nasser reports on the hate-based beating of Mohammed Abu Marzouk as the price of validating the political choice to demonize minority groups.

New column day

Here, on the need for Canada's immigration policy to actually respect the human dignity of refugees and asylum seekers - contrary to both the rhetoric of the Cons and the actions of the Libs.

For further reading...
- The Canadian Press reported on the Cons' anti-immigrant advertising - as well as their response clarifying that they're equally hostile to immigrants of all colours and backgrounds.
- Tom Parkin has pointed out the need to stop relying on the "safe third country" agreement to abandon asylum seekers to the whims of the Trump administration. And Andray Domise writes about Canada's complicity in the U.S.' actions.
- Brian Hill has reported on Canada's separation of child refugees from their parents. And Petra Molnar and Stephanie J. Silverman call for an end to Canada's large-scale immigration detention industry.
- Finally, Douglas Quan reports on the Libs' move to echo the Cons' anti-immigrant messaging by appointing a notorious human rights violator to a cabinet position aimed at treating immigrants as "irregular".

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- George Monbiot discusses the dark money behind much of the political turmoil in the UK and elsewhere, while questioning why the secretive and self-interested funding of astroturf groups should receive favourable tax treatment:

A mere two millennia after Roman politicians paid mobs to riot on their behalf, we are beginning to understand the role of dark money in politics, and its perennial threat to democracy. Dark money is cash whose source is not made public, and which is spent to change political outcomes. The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, unearthed by Carole Cadwalladr, and the mysterious funds channelled through Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party to the leave campaign in England and Scotland have helped to bring the concept to public attention. But these examples hint at a much wider problem. Dark money can be seen as the underlying corruption from which our immediate crises emerge: the collapse of public trust in politics, the rise of a demagogic anti-politics, and assaults on the living world, public health and civic society. Democracy is meaningless without transparency.

The techniques now being used to throw elections and referendums were developed by the tobacco industry, and refined by biotechnology, fossil fuel and junk food companies. Some of us have spent years exposing the fake grassroots campaigns they established, the false identities and bogus scientific controversies they created, and the way in which media outlets have been played by them. Our warnings went unheeded, while the ultra-rich learned how to buy the political system.
...
While dark money has been used to influence elections, the role of groups such as the IEA is to reach much deeper into political life. As its current director, Mark Littlewood, explains, “We want to totally reframe the debate about the proper role of the state and civil society in our country … Our true mission is to change the climate of opinion.”

Astonishingly, the IEA is registered as an educational charity, with the official purpose of helping “the general public/mankind”. As a result it is exempted from the kind of taxes about which it complains so bitterly.

- William Barber offers a needed reminder that the war on poverty in the U.S. is far from over - and indeed needs far more people committed to the fight. And CBC News reports on Angus Reid's findings about the state of poverty and precarity in Canada.

- Meanwhile, Arjumand Siddiqi and Odmaa Sod-Erdene point out that the minimal and conditional social assistance available in Canada and other peer countries doesn't appear to correlate with any improvement in personal health.

- Eleanor Ainge Roy examines research into a four-day work week offered by one New Zealand employer, and finds it to have been a complete success in improving both work and personal outcomes.

- Finally, David Moscrop makes the case for mass pardons as a necessary corollary to the legalization of marijuana and the disproportionate punishment of minoritie for the past use of a soon-to-be-legalized substance.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Osmond Chui writes that Australia is no exception to the trend of modest economic growth being entirely hoarded by the wealthiest few, while work and life are ever more precarious for everybody else:

What makes people angry about excessive executive pay is the growing gap between executive pay and normal wages – making it look as though insecure work and wage theft is rewarded. The sunny, optimistic image of the Australian economy that business and the Coalition are trying to sell just doesn’t match their experience.

There is one economy for the bosses and one for everyone else. While executive pay is soaring and a record number of companies are profitable, the amount that everyday Australians are getting is shrinking. Their sense of unfairness and resentment is compounded by the pursuit of corporate tax cuts and the growing sense that their work is driving those profits but they’re missing out on the rewards.

Even though Australia has experienced the longest period of uninterrupted growth in the developed world, the proportion of GDP that’s being paid to workers has hit an all-time low. Australia is among countries with the highest growth in income inequality in the world over the past 30 years, according to the International Monetary Fund. While the economy has been growing, wages have been stagnating. While median ASX100 CEO pay rose by 12.4% in a single a year, real median household incomes only grew by 2.7% between 2007-08 and 2015-16.

At the same time, work is increasingly insecure. 40% of Australians workers are now in insecure work. Australia has the third highest level of part-time work in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Centre for Future Work has found that less than half of the labour force are full-time workers with access to leave. There has also been a disappearance of “good jobs”, jobs that are full-time and not low paid, with analysis by Peter Whiteford finding that only 55% of men and only 30% of women are in such roles.
...
In a climate of insecurity, employers are increasingly brazen. It is no surprise that stories of wage theft fill the media, catching everyone from local restaurants to celebrity chefs. The most galling bit is that wage theft is not only a business model but that CEOs are actually rewarded for such bad behaviour.

We’re living in a lucky country for some, and reining in executive pay is just the tip of the neoliberal iceberg. Forcing companies to adopt CEO pay ratios would be a start but that alone won’t address the anger that is a symptom of our broken economic model.

- And Stephen Bell discusses how growing inequality ultimately harms economic development for everybody

- The Angus Reid Institute examines the increasing public awareness that poverty and precarity are the norm for far too many Canadians. And Matt Humphrey reports on British Columbia's consultations around poverty - with special emphasis on the recognition that discrimination and poverty are closely linked.

- Dale Marshall points out that provincial temper tantrums over carbon pricing are only likely to backfire in the end.

- Finally, Seth Klein and Vyas Saran debunk the claim that a more proportional electoral system will in any way empower the far right. (Though it's worth noting the claim is mostly being made by the same people who have welcomed the alt-right into their own parties in the first place.)

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Enlightened cats.

Tuesday Morning LInks

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Wilt examines how Canada lets the corporate sector get away with paying far less than a fair price for our natural resources. And Marc Lee points out the massive subsidies British Columbia has handed to the natural gas industry in particular. 

- Christo Aivalis discusses the need to put public ownership on the table to ensure the availability of necessary services in the face of both business collapses and warped market incentives:

(I)n a recent announcement, Greyhound Canada has decided to end its passenger bus lines west of Ontario, leaving over 400 people unemployed, and numerous communities without access to reliable public transit. The company discontinued the lines because they are unprofitable. This follows the Saskatchewan Party’s dismantling last year of the Saskatchewan Transport Company [sic], which was founded a crown corporation dedicated to delivering public transit regardless of profitability.

The crux of the matter, however, goes beyond the Greyhound news. Indeed, this episode shows that, when it comes to essential services, Canadians cannot depend on the private sector to provide them. This issue along with many others has re-ignited the debate around the role of public ownership in a democratic society. A society in which private capital is predominate cannot be just and democratic. The only solution is to assert democratic priorities over the organization of the economy.
...
...If we are to build a just society, we require a just economy. And while that must include better social programs financed through redistributive taxation, the democratic socialist project is not encompassed by social programs alone; it must concern itself with the democratization of the economy. And while this shouldn’t be done solely through state ownership—worker, community, and consumer cooperatives all being viable mechanisms here—public control will nonetheless be a central plank. In that spirit, let’s make 2019 the year in which the left re-asserts economic democracy as the cornerstone for a better Canada.

- Robson Fletcher takes a look at the composition of the minimum-wage workforce in Alberta. And Katharine Murphy reports on Australia Labour's plan to ensure that temporary workers aren't paid less than the permanent employees they so often replace.

- Richard Florida offers a reminder that it's people already living in poverty who will bear the most severe effects of climate change. And Justine Calma discusses the lives already being lost to extreme heat in New York City.

- Finally, Paula Cocozza writes about the unreasonable expectation of perfection being placed on young adults. And John Lancaster comments on the contrast between the unrealistic assumptions and expectations underlying far too much economic theory, and the reality of the human condition.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Krugman highlights how work requirements and other barriers to social benefits serve only to needlessly increase poverty without improving employment rates. And Patricia Cohen writes about the growing gap between soaring profits and eroding wage gains in the U.S., while Irina Ivanova reports that Donald Trump's giveaway to the rich has only made matters worse. 

- Meanwhile, Benjamin Butterworth reports on Jeremy Corbyn's proposal that children learn about workers' rights as part of a standard curriculum.

- Andrea Horwath makes the case for Ontario to welcome people in need of asylum - not demonize them as Rob Ford's cabinet is choosing to do. Tom Parkin argues that Canada can't become complicit in the U.S.' decision to slam the door in the face of refugees and asylum seekers. And Rupert Neate points out that borders are entirely open for those wealthy enough to buy their way into the UK.

- Joel Lexchin responds to a few of the Ford government's attacks on a universal public pharmacare system.

- Finally, Matthew Green identifies the problems with governments treating housing as a commodity rather than a right.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Scott Santens writes about the flaw in markets which fail to distinguish between goods and services which lack value, and those which people lack the money to acquire through the market.

- Lisa Cox reports on new research suggesting that the harm we've already done to our planet's climate may be twice as severe as previously assumed. And Bora Plumptre examines how Canada's emission reductions in other sectors have been - and will continue to be - almost entirely outweighed by additional carbon pollution from the oil and gas sector.

- Meanwhile, Nora Loreto contrasts the willingness of Canadian governments to pour billions into moving diluted bitumen for export against their stinginess in ensuring people are able to travel within Canada.

- On that front, Pam Palmater weighs in on the importance of transportation as a means for Indigenous people to protect themselves and their families. And Alexandra Collins highlights how a lack of available housing perpetuates cycles of violence against poor women.

- Finally, Reinhart Reithmeier and Peter Love point out why we need our political leaders to understand the value of science. And the Western Producer calls out Jason Kenney for ignoring the evidence favouring safety protections for agricultural workers.