This and that for your Thursday reading.
- David Macdonald offers this year's report on CEO compensation in Canada - showing how company men are being handed obscene pay packages while workers on the ground are left to toil away for hundreds of times less. Paul Krugman points out the connection between enhanced worker power and reduced inequality which led to the U.S.' economic success after World War II - even as Donald Trump seeks to drag the country back to a gilded age which was far poorer for all but the wealthiest few.
- Guglielmo Briscese and Maddalena Grignani study (PDF) the importance of public trust in public institutions - and the potential to substantially increase it by making useful information readily available. Don Moynihan writes that the Trump administration's plans are to make the federal government a toxic employer - and that there's precedent from his first term to see how that will play out. Jason Linkins discusses how the enshittification of the U.S.' civil service will harm the general public. And Jill Lawrence notes that the Republicans' determination to defund the IRS is the ultimate indicator of their phony populism - as the result is both to direct more tax enforcement toward those least able to pay, and to starve the government of resources as the wealthy humb their noses at their tax obligations.
- Vijay Vaitheeswaran highlights how grid-scale storage is becoming readily affordable and feasible - making renewable energy into by far the most efficient option in places where governments aren't actively distorting power production to favour fossil fuels and other extractive industries. Holly Caggiano, Emily Grubert and Mark Paul discuss the strong U.S. public support to end dirty energy subsidies. And Eric Holthaus makes the case that the most meaningful climate action at the individual level is to opt out of the system that's superheating our planet to the extent possible.
- Alexa Phillips reports that the fallout from Brexit includes the dumping of garbage ans sewage on UK beaches as the abandonment of EU standards led to a polluter free-for-all. And Walker Bragman points out how the alt-right is already seeking to politicize the avian flu - even as public health authorities shy away from both substantive action and public communication based on the contrived backlash to any and all responses to COVID-19.
- Julia Metraux interviews Anita Say Chan on how techbros have become the new eugenecists.
- Finally, The Groundbreaker makes the case for local-level organization as the necessary core of a progressive political movement.
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