Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Anne Sosin and Ranu Dhillon write that it's long past time to take the well-documented and devastating effects of long COVID into account as part of the measure of public health policy. And with a few provinces finally making second booster shots available, Prakash Nagarkatti and Mitzi Nagarkatti offer their take on the considerations to be taken into account in deciding whether to get boosted. 

- Fahad Razak et al. write that we can't begin to ameliorate a collapsing health care system without getting COVID-19 under control. And Kenyon Wallace reports on the warning from emergency room physicians about the crisis at the St. Joseph's Health Centre in Toronto, while Alexander Quon reports on the prospect that laboratory services disruptions in Saskatchewan are set to get even worse. 

- Isabella Weber and Mark Paul discuss how interest rate hikes will only exacerbate the difficulties faced by the working class as a result of corporate-driven inflation. Lana Payne writes that consumers should be angry at CEOs rather than workers for exploiting the opportunity to take windfall profits. And Adam King discusses how the left can find an opportunity in labour shortages. 

- Émile Boisseau-Bouvier and Laura Cameron highlight how the Libs are set to miss their deadline to end fossil fuel subsidies - and are hiding behind weasel wording to avoid any action at all. 

- Finally, Chris Hedges warns that the U.S. in particular is headed toward irreversible civilizational decline.  

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Katherine Wu warns about the consequences of the powers that be deciding that people will be subjected to repeated COVID-19 infections. And Saba Qasmieh et al. examine the difference between reported case numbers and actual COVID prevalence, and find that the data now being provided may underestimate case counts by 30 times due to the choice not to conduct systematic testing. 

- The Globe and Mail's editorial board discusses how density - not further publicly-subsidized sprawl - represents a key part of the solution to ensuring people's right to housing is met. 

- Marco Chown Oved, Kenyon Wallace and Ed Tubb call out the Ford PCs' plan to shovel billions more public dollars toward the well-connected private long-term care home operators which saw some of the worst death rates in the course of the COVID pandemic. And Stephen Magusiak and Luke LeBrun report that Doug Ford's shady activities include having inner-circle operatives put one of his own cabinet ministers under surveillance. 

- Duncan Kinney exposes how the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce is exploiting a loophole intended for community groups to avoid property tax on most of a $11 million commercial property - and how the provincial government is allowing the business lobby tax advantages which aren't available for labour organizations. 

- Finally, Umair Haque laments the ongoing - and indeed worsening - carnage in the U.S. most recently exemplified through the mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde. Elizabeth Bruenig writes about the U.S.' final descent into utter nihilism as yet another preventable  massacre of children produces public outcry but absolutely no policy response. And Sigal Samuel writes about the debate over grossly insufficient estimates of the social cost of carbon in the U.S. - and the reality that any reasonable valuation of human rights and a viable existence for future generations would make any avoidable carbon pollution untenable. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Sabrina Eliason, Tehseen Ladha and Sam Wong highlight how the elimination of public health protections puts children at particular risk. And CBC News examines what we know so far - and still have yet to learn - about the ultimate impact of long COVID. 

- Umair Haque writes that the #FluTruxKlan may represent the first obvious example of the collapse of democracy in the U.S. sending ripple effects around the globe. Justin Ling reports on the connections between the convoy and the extreme right, while Brian Palmer also looks into the origins of the occupation. And Talia Lavin traces what the participants and their backers have been discussing while rendering Ottawa unliveable (and seeking to do the same across the country) in the name of overturning democracy. 

- Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how the apparent choice between fascism and fecklessness may signal the erosion of democracy in Canada as well. And Innovative Research notes that Canadians are understandably frustrated with both the convoy and the ineffective government response. 

- Jon Stone reports on Michael Gove's admission that trickle-down economics have been an utter failure for any purpose other than further enriching the already-wealthy.

- Finally, Joe Hernandez reports on new research confirming how the fossil fuel sector is greenwashing its continued carbon pollution. Brett Tryon discusses why gas stoves are untenable based on their contribution to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. And Jennifer Balch et al. study yet another harmful climate feedback loop, as hotter and drier night contribute to the easier spread of wildfires. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Alex Ballingall and Raisa Patel ask why Canada's federal government seems to have learned nothing from four previous waves of COVID. And Kari Dequine Harden writes about the large number of children saddled with the effects of long COVID because their leaders didn't bother to keep public health protections in place for the benefit of those who couldn't yet be vaccinated.

- Umair Haque discusses how the U.S.' elite consensus around unrestrained capitalism has led to its political ruin - and while the U.S. may stand out for now, it's not hard to see the same dynamic playing out in Canada and elsewhere. And Elizabeth Meager points out that investor protection agreements have been treated as barring countries from meeting their climate commitments. 

- Meanwhile, Phil MacDonald and Sarah Brown note that soaring energy costs in the UK are the result of continued reliance on fossil fuels. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson writes that access to safe food is just one more area in which inequality of income and wealth feeds into disparities in other aspects of well-being.

- Finally, Stephanie Kelton discusses the dangers of treating reflexive interest rate manipulation as the only - or best - means of responding to inflation.

Monday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Cory Neudorf writes about the need for layers of COVID-19 protection now to avoid extreme measures like lockdowns due to the collapse of our health care system. And CBC News reports on the necessarily appalled reaction by public health experts in response to a recording of Jason Kenney's COVID denialism and declaration that Alberta is "open for good" regardless of the harm to health and well-being. 

- Adrian Blundell-Wignall writes that Australia can't escape responsibility for the "Stage 3" carbon emissions from the products it exports abroad - representing a point which Canada also needs to reckon with. 

- Bethany Lindsey writes about the massive conflict of interest of doctors who assess workers about drug issues while standing to profit from the testing regimes they can order. 

- Angela Sterritt reports on the drastically different treatment of privileged white anti-vaxx protesters compared to Indigenous land defenders. 

- Finally, Umair Haque discusses the impossibility of building a society out of an amalgamation of sadists - and the dire situation facing the U.S. as it attempts to respond to multiple crises while conservatives react with violent rage to any concept of social responsibility or empathy. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rebecca Solnit discusses the importance of accurately describing Donald Trump's attempted coup, rather than euphemizing a violent attack against democracy. Enzo DiMatteo highlights the similarities between Trump's playbook and that of the federal Cons. Murray Mandryk writes that the U.S.' experience with authoritarian demagoguery should result in our recognizing the need to strengthen our own political systems against similar threats, while David Climenhaga warns conservatives that de-Trumpification is coming to Canada. And Christina Warner notes that part of the process of strengthening our defence against political violence is to use our collective power and wealth to ensure nobody is left out from the essentials of social and political life. 

- Arthur White-Crummey exposes how the Sask Party was fully aware of the imminent risk of a COVID spike even as it hemmed and hawed about new public health measures following last fall's election. Bruce Arthur points out the need for something far more than desperation to lead a province to safer terrain. And Andrew Nikiforuk examines Yaneer Bar-Yam's work trying to get us to aim for zero COVID, rather than accepting needless sickness and death.

- Michael Johansson, Talia M. Quandelacy, Sarah Kada et al. study how much COVID transmission has been asymptomatic - concluding that over half of spread is from people who aren't yet experiencing, or never will experience, symptoms to provide any warning. And Amanda Follett Hosgood reports on the justified concerns that limitations on industrial work camps fall short of what's needed to avoid spread through particularly vulnerable northern communities. 

- Elizabeth Payne reports on the risks posed by personal support workers who are so underpaid in their high-risk jobs as to have to rely on homeless shelters to sleep at night. And Christopher Curtis writes about the crisis in Montreal's homeless shelters as a curfew decrees that people stay at home whether or not they actually have one.

- Finally, PressProgress talks to health care workers about their reaction to the politicians who have seen a pandemic as an opportunity for a beach vacation, rather than a time to share in sacrifices for the common good. And Elizabeth Thompson points out how Conservative Senator Don Plett ranks high on the list of offenders after signing a directive barring international travel and admonishing people to stay home - only to take his own personal jaunt to Mexico.

Monday Morning Links

 Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Alex Himelfarb, Andrew Jackson and Brian Topp write about the need for a tax system which collects a fair share from the wealthiest in order to fund the recovery and renewal we should be demanding. And Ben Steverman reports on Raj Chetty's work showing how the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately hurt people who were already falling behind.

- Bruce Campbell writes about the positive ideas hinted at in the federal throne speech, while also warning of the Libs' propensity for deferring to elites who would rather see everybody else's lives get more precarious as long as it enhances their own wealth and power. And Scott Schmidt highlights W. Brett Wilson as a prime example of how the reactionary instinct is based on nothing more than trying to protect undeserved and unfair wealth and privilege based on the assumption that it's normal:

COVID presented a new way of looking at our society and oligarchs like Wilson desperately need you to forget the realities you’ve been presented with this year. Before the pandemic, it wouldn’t be hard for a man like Wilson to convince the public that the unemployed or down-on-their-luck were on their own, that they somehow contributed to their situation and the rest of us weren’t responsible for getting them back on their feet.

The pandemic should have shattered that mirage entirely the moment we hit lockdown and sent millions of our family, friends and neighbours into unemployment.

“Wait a minute,” we were supposed to say. “Could it be that people aren’t always at fault when they lose their job? Is it possible that circumstances beyond one’s control can thrust them into poverty? Maybe we should ensure these people have nothing to worry about financially in case this happens to me one day.”

Wilson wants you to forget that. Wilson wants you competing, blaming, fighting; he wants it because that’s how he’ll gain even more wealth. People like Wilson want society back to where it benefits them the most – one where individuals are in constant competition.

Wilson wants to own businesses where he can pay people low wages at part-time hours so he can maximize profits for his already massive bank account, all the while acting like he’s just another boot-strap go-getter who scraped and clawed his way toward that fortune. And now he’s claiming to be mad at the government for paying people to stay healthy and safe because that’s apparently more than he is willing to offer those same people to spend their days feeding his profits.

It’s been a long, trying year for everyone – especially those who lost their job – and it’s easy to see why people want to “get back to normal.” Just remember that the “normal” Wilson wants is the one where he gets rich off your labour and then sticks you with a bill when he’s done.

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood points out how the Libs aren't showing any of the needed urgency when it comes to abating a climate breakdown. David Suzuki draws a connection between carbon pricing and soap in a pandemic as a simple and necessary (if insufficient) part of an overall plan to improve outcomes. And Emily Eaton writes about the desperate need for a realistic appraisal of climate change in Saskatchewan to replace myths designed to excuse as much carbon pollution as the oil sector can spew.

- Finally, Indi Samarajiva writes that the U.S. is facing a decline familiar to people who have lived through descents into violence and war. And Scott Gilmore discusses the parallel sicknesses facing Donald Trump and the U.S. generally.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Kurtis Alexander points out how climate change is exacerbating the gap between wealthy and poor countries. Megan Mayhew Bergman highlights the importance of discussing climate change even where it's all too often treated as a taboo topic, while Jeff Sparrow points out that politicians are largely lagging behind the public's interest in climate action. And Kyle Pope and Mark Hertsgaard note that we also need to see more and better coverage of the impact a collapsing climate has on our lives.

- Meanwhile, Zach Dubinsky reports on new research suggesting that the tar sands are producing even more carbon pollution than previously assumed.

- Peter Walker reports on new research from the UK showing how first-past-the-post politics may tend toward extreme positions and poor reflections of public values by forcing voters into one of two camps. And the Canadian Press reports on Prince Edward Island's election and referendum which may finally bring proportional representation to Canada.

- The Financial Post points out a new survey showing an increasing number of Canadians - now 48 per cent - saying they're $200 or less per month away from insolvency. And Melody Judilla writes about the need for the rich to start contributing their fair share to a functional society.

- Finally, Julian Borger reports on the U.S.' plans to block any resolution prohibiting the use of rape as a weapon of war if it's taken to include any access to support for victims.

Monday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Chris Hughes discusses how progressive politics, including expanded social programs and more progressive taxes, are proving to be a winner for U.S. Democrats in both primaries and general elections. Jacob Bacharach writes about the myth of the U.S. as a particularly wealthy country in the face of the deprivation it's imposed on so many of its citizens. And Nesrine Malik notes that it's pointless to shoot the messenger in light of reports such as the one by the UN's special rapporteur on poverty and human rights documenting the blight of poverty in the UK.

- Alex Hemingway approves of the Horgan government's replacement of a regressive health premium with a payroll tax aimed at large employers, but points out it would have been far better not to cut overall revenue in the process.

- Luke Savage points out how Doug Ford has exposed the contempt of Canada's right for basic norms such as not gratuitously overriding Charter rights. Edward Keenan comments on his politics of spite. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board criticizes Ford for using his majority power to permit cash-for-access now that he has power to sell.

- The Canadian Press reports on the Canadian Medical Association's pushback against Ford's plan to tie up the health care system with doctor's notes for employers. And Carolyn Ferns compares British Columbia's progress on child care to Ford's regression.

- Finally, David Pugliese exposes the "capability gap" used as an explanation for the purchase of fighter jets as a political talking point with no basis in operational records - and that in fact the Libs were informed there was no need for any purchase before 2032 before giving the thumbs-up to immediate orders.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Rupert Neate reports on new research showing that the world's billionaires saw their wealth increase by 20% in 2017 alone.

- Pete Evans discusses the increasing debt facing most Canadians as ever more net wealth is diverted to the extremely privileged few. And Alex Hemingway comments on the role of a speculation tax in making housing more affordable while also funding social needs.

- Paul Summers reviews the UK's continued wage stagnation for most workers compared to soaring executive salaries. And Mike Crawley examines the evidence and finds that Doug Ford's excuse for repealing a minimum wage increase has no basis in reality, while Ricardo Tranjan points out that workers are nothing but worse off when fair wages are replaced with tax gimmicks.

- Meanwhile, Michael Coren writes that Ford's agenda is based on little more than punishing the poorest Ontarians:

(T)here is something deeper, darker, and more sinister going on. It’s an attack upon human dignity, a scapegoating of the “other,” which is a classic hard-right tactic. The ghost of capitalism past and the ghost of capitalism present, where decency and compassion are dismissed as mere humbug.

It’s surely no coincidence that the same week as the most powerless of workers were humiliated, the same government announced that plans to build three university campuses in the suburbs or outer towns of Toronto were cancelled. These are frontline colleges, providing young people with vocational training as much as academic excellence.

Because of the location of the central campuses, it’s expensive, extremely time-consuming, even impossible, for many to become students. These are often the less privileged and less wealthy kids, and as such it was a direct assault on equality of opportunity.

Earlier in the month, the Ford administration removed funding to the Roundtable on Violence Against Women, designed to help government support those escaping domestic violence. It also scrapped funding to a Toronto after-school program for at-risk young youth. And the list goes on.
...
...(T)he rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the call for justice and fairness is dismissed as extreme and unreasonable. Remember that cruelty, and remember that we will be judged by how we treat those less fortunate than ourselves.

- Finally, Dorothy Woodend interviews Chris Hedges about the precarious state of the U.S.' global hegemony.

New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's self-induced aversion to responsible climate policy may producing serious political and economic consequences.

For further reading...
- D.C. Fraser reported on the NDP's Regina Northeast by-election win. And Jennifer Quesnel reported on Moe's response to a meeting with his federal counterparts which signals a refusal to adapt.
- Meanwhile, John Ivison's column on the Canadians for Clean Prosperity's study into the foreseeable effects of a carbon tax and rebate offers reason to think the public debate outside the Saskatchewan Party's base could be in for a substantial turn - even if it would make for less than ideal policy from an emission reduction standpoint.
- David Roberts reported here on the polling results of the Edison Electric Institute. And Eric Levitz discussed the U.S. electorate's appetite for action against climate change.
- Ari Phillips reported on the new climate change agreement between China and California. And for background, China has previously taken steps to reduce both the number and climate impact of planned coal plants, while taking a global lead in solar power.
- Carl Meyer reports on the counterproductive assumption that climate action and economic development are in opposition to each other rather than complementary pieces of any reasonable long-term plan. And Sean Holman recognizes that far too many important questions about climate change are largely ignored in most Canadian media.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frank Rich writes that the lack of a meaningful response to the 2008 financial crisis has understandably undermined public confidence in the U.S.' future:

Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems, except Peak TV (for those who can afford it).

That loose civic concept known as the American Dream — initially popularized during the Great Depression by the historian James Truslow Adams in his Epic of America — has been shattered. No longer is lip service paid to the credo, however sentimental, that a vast country, for all its racial and sectarian divides, might somewhere in its DNA have a shared core of values that could pull it out of any mess. Dead and buried as well is the companion assumption that over the long term a rising economic tide would lift all Americans in equal measure. When that tide pulled back in 2008 to reveal the ruins underneath, the country got an indelible picture of just how much inequality had been banked by the top one percent over decades, how many false promises to the other 99 percent had been broken, and how many central American institutions, whether governmental, financial, or corporate, had betrayed the trust the public had placed in them...

- And Julia Conley notes that older Americans are starting to bear the brunt of policies which initially seemed to favour them at the expense of younger generations - particularly as co-signors to unmanageable student loans are seeing the bills come due.

- Meanwhile, Ben Batros discusses the importance of an international fight against tax avoidance and tax havens to meaningfully reduce inequality rooted in gross wealth disparities.

- Pat Thane points out that there has been little change in the prevalence and causes of poverty in the UK over the past century-plus. And Gary Bloch implores the Ford PCs to work on building supportive social programs, rather than making it their primary aim punish the poor (and in the process increasing the costs of the health and justice systems for everybody).

- Finally, Jenny Schuetz notes that both renters and homeowners would benefit from a housing policy designed to ensure everybody has a safe and affordable home.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Brad Delong writes that political choices - not a lack of resources - are responsible for the limited progress being made toward the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

- Matt Bruenig weighs in on the U.S.' unprecedented levels of wealth inequality. And Bill Moyers comments on the vulture capitalists looking to turn Puerto Rico's disaster into an opportunity to enrich themselves.

- Tim McDonnell highlights how much of the new fossil fuel development in the U.S. produces profits only because of massive public subsidies. 

- Kathleen Harris and Elizabeth McSheffrey each report on Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand's conclusion that Canada is falling far short of translating climate policy into meaningful action. And Dana Nuccitelli, John Cook, Sander van der Linden, Tony Leiserowitz and Ed Maibach emphasize the importance of recognizing and acting on the scientific consensus around climate change.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board discusses the importance of a justice system which works on reintegrating prisoners into society, rather than setting people up to fail and reoffend.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jeff Guo reports on Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson's research showing how the U.S. went from standing out internationally for its relatively equal distribution of wealth, to being equally exceptional in its inequality:

In the Revolutionary era, inequality in America was dramatically lower than it was in England or the Netherlands, in part because of the abundant opportunity (enjoyed at the expense of the Native Americans), and in part because of the kinds of people who immigrated.

We get some impression of this from historical documents. George Washington predicted that the young nation would allow even the lower classes to prosper thanks to “the equal distribution of property, the great plenty of unoccupied lands, and the facility of procuring the means of subsistence.” In his chronicle of the young United States in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that “nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people.”

The new data not only confirms these anecdotal accounts, but it also puts the past in perspective. According to Lindert and Williamson’s calculations, today’s income inequality may be the highest the nation has ever known. 

“We went from one of the most egalitarian places in the world to one of the least,” Williamson said. “What happened?”

- Julius Grey and L.M. Casgrain discuss how economic inequality is harming Canadian democracy. And Thomas Walkom points out the inevitability that the public will eventually get fed up with being told there is no alternative to economic systems which leave them perpetually more vulnerable.

- But in case anybody was under the illusion that the Trudeau government has changed much of anything on that front, Jeremy Nuttall reports on how the Libs have stacked the parliamentary deck in favour of the continued exploitation of temporary foreign workers.

- Finally, Angella MacEwen examines the economic stimulus effects of a higher minimum wage. And Michael Mendelson, Sherri Torjman and Ken Battle study the effects of a bolstered Canada Pension Plan, while recognizing there's still room for improvement in ensuring a fair retirement income for all.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- In the wake of yesterday's Brexit vote, David Dayen points out how the failure of technocratic policy left many voters believing they had nothing to lose in abandoning the European Union. Dawn Foster highlights the role Conservative-driven austerity played on that front. And Owen Jones comments on what comes next:

(W)hile much of the blame must be attributed to Cameron, far greater social forces are at play. From Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, from Syriza in Greece to Podemos in Spain, from the Austrian far-right to the rise of the Scottish independence movement, this is an era of seething resentment against elites. That frustration is spilling out in all sorts of directions: new left movements, civic nationalism, anti-immigrant populism.

Many of the nearly half of the British people who voted remain now feel scared and angry, ready to lash out at their fellow citizens. But this will make things worse. Many of the leavers already felt marginalised, ignored and hated. The contempt – and sometimes snobbery – now being shown about leavers on social media was already felt by these communities, and contributed to this verdict. Millions of Britons feel that a metropolitan elite rules the roost which not only doesn’t understand their values and lives, but actively hates them. If Britain is to have a future, this escalating culture war has to be stopped. The people of Britain have spoken. That is democracy, and we now have to make the country’s verdict work.

If the left has a future in Britain, it must confront its own cultural and political disconnect with the lives and communities of working-class people. It must prepare for how it responds to a renewed offensive by an ascendant Tory right. On the continent, movements championing a more democratic and just Europe are more important than ever. None of this is easy – but it is necessary. Grieve now if you must, but prepare for the great challenges ahead.

- Steve Burgess discusses the difficulty in placing strong views on free trade at any single point on the political spectrum. And Branko Milanovic discusses the different underlying issues giving rise to populist movements around the globe.

- The Associated Press reports on the IMF's recommendation that the U.S. catch up to the world on minimum wage, social benefits and tax policy.

- Charles Mandel writes about Canada's failing fisheries. And Jason MacLean notes that our environmental laws as a whole need to be brought back up to par following their gutting by the Cons.

- Finally, Alex Boutilier reports on Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's rightful concerns that Canadian privacy law is also decades out of date.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Krugman compares the U.S.' longtime recognition that concentrated wealth can do massive social harm to the Republicans' recent efforts to claim that raising any revenue from the rich is somehow un-American:

The truth is that, in the early 20th century, many leading Americans warned about the dangers of extreme wealth concentration, and urged that tax policy be used to limit the growth of great fortunes. Here’s another example: In 1919, the great economist Irving Fisher — whose theory of “debt deflation,” by the way, is essential in understanding our current economic troubles — devoted his presidential address to the American Economic Association largely to warning against the effects of “an undemocratic distribution of wealth.” And he spoke favorably of proposals to limit inherited wealth through heavy taxation of estates.

Nor was the notion of limiting the concentration of wealth, especially inherited wealth, just talk. In his landmark book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the economist Thomas Piketty points out that America, which introduced an income tax in 1913 and an inheritance tax in 1916, led the way in the rise of progressive taxation, that it was “far out in front” of Europe. Mr. Piketty goes so far as to say that “confiscatory taxation of excessive incomes” — that is, taxation whose goal was to reduce income and wealth disparities, rather than to raise money — was an “American invention.”

And this invention had deep historical roots in the Jeffersonian vision of an egalitarian society of small farmers. Back when Teddy Roosevelt gave his speech, many thoughtful Americans realized not just that extreme inequality was making nonsense of that vision, but that America was in danger of turning into a society dominated by hereditary wealth — that the New World was at risk of turning into Old Europe. And they were forthright in arguing that public policy should seek to limit inequality for political as well as economic reasons, that great wealth posed a danger to democracy.

...

We aren’t yet a society with a hereditary aristocracy of wealth, but, if nothing changes, we’ll become that kind of society over the next couple of decades.

In short, the demonization of anyone who talks about the dangers of concentrated wealth is based on a misreading of both the past and the present. Such talk isn’t un-American; it’s very much in the American tradition. And it’s not at all irrelevant to the modern world. So who will be this generation’s Teddy Roosevelt?

- And Thom Hartmann Shaw points out the damaging effects of outsourcing and privatization in the U.S.

- Daniel Weinstock laments the lack of a left-wing party with broad public appeal in Canada's most progressive province. And CK makes the case for Quebec Solidaire as the best option among the parties actually contesting the current Quebec election.

- Carol Linnett points to Jim Hoggan's discussion of our polluted public discourse. Joe Romm highlights the latest IPCC report as showing the long-term costs of environmental negligence. And Jacques Leslie writes that Canada is tarring its own reputation on the international stage by attacking sane climate policy at home and abroad:

(T)he Harper government has shown its disdain for scientists and environmental groups dealing with climate change and industrial pollution. The government has either drastically cut or entirely eliminated funding for many facilities conducting research in climate change and air and water pollution. It has placed tight restrictions on when its 23,000 scientists may speak publicly and has given power to some department managers to block publication of peer-reviewed research. It has closed or “consolidated” scientific libraries, sometimes thoughtlessly destroying invaluable collections in the process. And it has slashed funding for basic research, shifting allocations to applied research with potential payoffs for private companies.

With a deft Orwellian touch, Canada’s national health agency even accused a doctor in Alberta, John O’Connor, of professional misconduct — raising “undue alarm” and promoting “a sense of mistrust” in government officials — after he reported in 2006 that an unusually high number of rare, apparently tar-sands-related cancers were showing up among residents of Fort Chipewyan, 150 miles downstream from the tar sands. A government review released in 2009 cautiously supported Dr. O’Connor’s claims, but officials have shown no interest in the residents’ health since then.

...
The pressure on environmentalists has been even more intense. Two years ago Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (who this month became finance minister) declared that some environmentalists “use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest” and “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” Canada’s National Energy Board, an ostensibly independent regulatory agency, coordinated with the nation’s intelligence service, police and oil companies to spy on environmentalists. And Canada’s tax-collecting agency recently introduced rigorous audits of at least seven prominent environmental groups, diverting the groups’ already strained resources from anti-tar-sands activities.
...
The government could defuse much tar sands opposition simply by advocating a more measured approach to its development, using the proceeds to head the country away from fossil fuels and toward a low-carbon, renewables-based future. That, in fact, was the policy recommended by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a nonpartisan, eminently moderate independent research group founded by another right-leaning prime minister, Brian Mulroney, in 1988. The Harper government showed what it thought of the policy when it disbanded the Round Table last year.

- Finally, Peter Loewen is the latest to weigh in against the Unfair Elections Act, with a particular focus on the many types of voters who will be disenfranchised for nothing even faintly approaching a valid reason. And Democracy Watch has some ideas as to how to change our electoral rules for the better - which are well worth some discussion even if they may not all be workable in practice.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Andrew Jackson rightly questions Greg Mankiw's faith-based assertion that increasing wealth accumulation is based solely on merit and contribution to society rather than hoarding and rent-seeking. And Martin Lobel highlights a few of the distortionary policies that have served to exacerbate inequality in the U.S.:

Everyone admits that our current tax system is broken and many "reform" proposals are being considered. But, our current tax code is too fragile to support most of the current "reform" proposals that powerful interests want to layer on it. Instead, we need to strengthen and simplify the tax code to provide a broad tax base before carving out another loophole, like territorial taxation, to "reform" the tax code. We need to reform the tax code so that it doesn't continue to increase the disparity in wealth between the very rich and the rest of us. We also need to remember that the more complicated the proposal, the more likely it is that some lobbyist is proposing another unjustifiable tax expenditure (aka tax subsidy, tax loophole) to benefit his wealthy client. In fact, any business that doesn't seek a tax subsidy is a fool because the rate of return is far higher than it could get in the market. According to a recent study, multinational companies had a 22,000 percent return on tax expenditures they lobbied for, although small in comparison to the 77,500 percent return earned so far on the $116 million the prescription drug industry spent lobbying for legislation to prevent Medicare from bargaining on drug prices.
...
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2010, the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 35.4 percent of all privately held wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5 percent which means that just 20 percent of the people owned a remarkable 89 percent, leaving only 11 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80 percent (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1 percent of households had an even greater share at 42.1 percent. In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 35 percent of all privately held stock, 64.4 percent of financial securities, and 62.4 percent of business equity. The top 10 percent have 81 percent to 94 percent of stocks, bonds, trust funds and business equity, and almost 80 percent of non-home real estate.

 Or to put it in a different perspective, from 2009 to 2011, "Top 1 percent income gains grew by 11.2 percent while bottom 99 percent incomes shrunk by 0.4 percent. Hence the top 1 percent captured 121 percent of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery."

Yet, individual income and payroll taxes on the middle and lower classes have increased over the last 60 years while estate and corporate income taxes have declined substantially as a percentage of receipts. The only logical conclusion is that government tax policies have been instrumental in the shift of income from the middle and lower classes to the rich. This conclusion has been supported by almost all of the non-industry supported research, including the Congressional Budget Office which recently reported that over 50 percent of the 10 largest tax breaks went to the richest 20 percent of Americans and 17 percent went to just the top 1 percent, while the middle quintile only got 13 percent and the bottom quintile only got 8 percent.

Besides taxing the almost $2 trillion of stateless income offshore, there are other alternatives to make our tax and economic system more efficient. Although the Republicans talk about cutting tax expenditures and did cut some in the 1986 Tax Reform Act, they ought to get serious and cut all the corporate tax expenditures which now cost the taxpayers just about the same amount as the corporations pay in taxes. We could also eliminate the cost and distortions of tax accounting and just tax the profits that these corporations report to their shareholders.

- And Brendan Fischer writes about a much-needed pushback against privatization in the U.S.
- even as Canadian governments earmark massive amounts of public money for the sole use of private contractors.

- Meanwhile, James Bloodworth takes another look at Ireland to see whether the poster child for corporatist economics is seeing any public benefit as a result. Spoiler alert: not by a long shot.

- Glen Pearson rightly questions why 200,000 people are homeless in Canada in the midst of what's supposed to be unprecedented wealth and prosperity. But the answer can likely be found in a government more interested in putting the screws to marginalized individuals than improving their standard of living.

- But of course, we should be glad to see examples of inspiring leadership where they arise. And so Lana Payne's column on Naheed Nenshi's response to Calgary's flood is well worth a read.

- Finally, Lorne writes about the plight of disposable labour in Canada - with temporary foreign workers treated particularly harshly for lack of any ability to push back against abuse.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Guardian reports on the Tax Justice Network's study on offshoring which finds tens of trillions of dollars to have been funneled to tax havens:

Using the BIS's measure of "offshore deposits" – cash held outside the depositor's home country – and scaling it up according to the proportion of their portfolio large investors usually hold in cash, he estimates that between $21tn (£13tn) and $32tn (£20tn) in financial assets has been hidden from the world's tax authorities.

"These estimates reveal a staggering failure," says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people.

"This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich."

In total, 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore, according to Henry's analysis; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches.

- Meanwhile, Travis Waldron catches a major corporation which is currently enjoying a negative tax rate complaining that it pays too much in taxes. All of which suggests it's no accident that the U.S. has finally reached the point where its poverty rates are worse than they were just under 50 years ago.

- There's at least some good news on the local level however: workers at the Regina Public Library finally have a new contract which looks to have avoided the most offensive of the library board's demands.

- Finally, Marni Soupcoff highlights how the Harper Cons' continued Robocon spin is only encouraging Canadians to see them as completely lacking credibility:

(W)hat might have happened if the Conservatives had thrown sound litigation strategy out the window, and decided instead to take the high road? What if their court filings had granted the need for a review of the electoral results to restore the public’s confidence in the electoral process, and argued only that the outcome of the election would not have changed absent the Robocalls?

The optics of the whole thing would be so much better. The party would be saying: “Hey, we understand why voters want to be sure that their elected officials won their seats fairly, and we do too. We have nothing to hide. We will prove to you that the right people are sitting in Ottawa.”

Instead, the Conservatives have now come out on the losing end of a court decision that makes them sound like they think democracy is a bothersome trifle to be brushed aside when it gets in the way.

On overpayments

The Citizen's report on the U.S.' rethinking its F-35 purchase focuses mostly on the prospect that Canada will be left out in the cold when it comes to industrial benefits. But it's also worth pointing out the per-unit costs which are leading the U.S. to rethink the whole idea - as our neighbours to the south are blanching at numbers which the Harper Cons were entirely happy to sign onto:

(T)he cost of each stealth fighter has jumped from $50 million (U.S.) to at least $92 million, with some U.S. estimates putting that price-tag as high as $135 million. That has sparked a push in the U.S. to cut costs.
...
Asked what impact the initiatives will have on F-35 contracts now being carried out by Canadian firms, as well as potential future contracts, Adams said "it's too soon to provide a detailed assessment of the implications and potential impacts on our programs and business."

He said, however, that Lockheed Martin is on "the path to achieving an average unit cost of about $60 million" in U.S. dollars for the F-35.

By way of comparison, the Cons' agreement to purchase 65 planes for $9 billion dollars results in a final cost of...$138 million per plane. Which means that thanks to Stephen Harper's desire to throw free money at big military, we're stuck with a bill higher than the U.S.' estimated worst-case scenario as our base price.

Needless to say, with the main purchaser involved already looking to change direction and any supposed bidding opportunities apparently evaporating, there's absolutely no reason why Canada should be the lone country eager to push ahead at a price no other country is irresponsible enough to accept. And the more desperately the Cons try to pretend that we have no choice but to pour billions down the drain in a fighter jet deal, the more clear it should be that the Cons have no clue what they're doing with our public money.

On wilful blindness

Shorter David Frum:

What's this world coming to when the most powerful country on the planet won't stubbornly prevent the rest of the globe from recognizing well-known facts in order to further the interests of a single ally?