Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Angella MacEwen discusses how the Bank of Canada is fighting a class war on the side of the rich by pushing to reduce employment and wages while corporations continue to profiteer off the backs of the public. And Armine Yalnizyan interviews Tiff Macklem about the choice to do so. 

- Jason Warick interviews Tony Dagnone about the need for Saskatchewan Health Authority board members to stand up for medicare rather than running interference for the Moe government's destruction of health services, while Mickey Djuric reports on the severe understaffing issues facing the province. Kyra Markov reports on another deadly week of COVID-19 in Alberta - both as a direct cause of death, and as an intolerable strain on an already-overloaded health care system. And Tina Yazdani reports on the Ontario family doctors who are abandoning patients due to their own intolerable workloads. 

- John-Baptiste Oduor interviews Tommie Shelby about the case for abolishing prisons, including the connections between incarceration and other means of oppressing vulnerable groups. But Thom Hartmann writes that the U.S. Supreme Court is going out of its way to facilitate and stoke bigotry. 

- Finally, Noah Smith is right to recognize the value of public utilities to both ensure a reliable power supply and support large-scale research - though it's sad that he has to see the concept as "wacky" rather than self-evidently desirable. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Zakreski reports on Shannon Grant Tompkins' effort to share the stories of the people suffering from the spread of COVID-19. And David Climenhaga writes that poor government is leading to avoidable sickness and death as Alberta (like Saskatchewan and other provinces) apparently mistook earlier luck for competence and invincibility.

- Denise Balkissoon writes that the pandemic should serve as a warning that children aren't infinitely resilient (as they've been assumed to be for the purpose of enabling continued underfunding of schools and community programs). 

- Daniella Ponticelli reports on the people who have been deprived of any support at all due to the Moe government's insistence that they rely on temporary federal programs while making no effort to restore benefits once those expired.

- Anna Louise Sussman discusses New Zealand's effort to apply genuine pay equity by properly valuing work disproportionately performed by women. And Thara Kumar and Kayva Anchuri make clear that Albertans are prepared to stand up for the care workers currently being targeted by the Kenney UCP.

- Mitchell Thompson reports on Amazon's imposition of impossible expectations on employees who are seeing their health harmed as a result.  

- Finally, Seth Klein writes about the urgency of mobilizing against a climate breakdown. Jordan Press reports that even Tiff Macklem is pushing for stronger action than we've seen to date. And Alex Ballingall points out Canada's woeful record of missing even the least ambitious of emission reduction targets - which only stands to continue as the Trudeau Libs focus on subsidizing the oil sector rather than living up to our obligations under the Paris agreement.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Lance Taylor summarizes his new book documenting how and why U.S. inequality has ballooned over the past few decades. And Heather Scoffield writes about Tiff Macklem's attention to inequality and the plight of marginalized people - as well as how it represents a (necessary) departure from the basis for Canada's previous monetary policy.

- Patricia Cohen highlights how debates over the effect of social programs tend to involve evidence that benefits for people out of work tend to help everybody, weighed against rhetoric from employers who assume they'll be better off if workers are desperate for lack of any alternatives to low-paying work. Alex MacPherson and Zak Vescera follow up on Scott Moe's choice to turn federal benefits into a provincial cash cow rather than allowing any expanded programs to benefit recipients. And Joseph Hall notes that wage subsidies may likewise have served mostly to goose profits rather than to help workers.

 - Crawford Kilian observes that the aftereffects of the coronavirus will last for decades whether or not people have experienced severe medical symptoms in the short term. And Kyle Benning reports on Kyle Anderson's warnings about the growing number of untraceable COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan. 

- Jemima McEvoy discusses the multiple U.S. teachers who have already died of COVID-19 in only a month since their classes resumed. And PressProgress takes note of the attempt to substitute "arm's-length" measurements and an attempt to have students face the same direction for adequate physical distancing in Regina public schools.

- Andre Picard discusses how people living with dementia have been hit harder than anybody else by the coronavirus pandemic.

- Finally, Monetta Bailey writes about the important role of protest in expanding the range of choices available to people who have been structurally denied the opportunities others take for granted.