Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Gavin Kelly writes that the UK's welfare state has been shaped by the Cons to prevent working households from being able to aspire to anything better than precarity:

According to a recent analysis for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the combined effect of the changes to the tax and benefits system between 2010 and 2021 will be average losses for a couple with children of £3,000 a year, rising to more than £5,000 for a lone-parent family – almost a fifth of their income. Families with disabled members, or with three or more children, tend to lose more.

These are life-altering sums. In every corner of Britain, we see the symptoms of these and other cuts as growing numbers fall through the gaping holes in our safety net: the rise in food banks, street-sleeping, temporary accommodation and problem-debt. Tax-credits for those on middle incomes have been steadily chipped away and child benefit for the better off axed altogether – though it’s still the case that the support on offer to middle Britain remains more generous than it was in the mid-1990s, prior to the Labour government. The use of the benefits system has also changed: jobseeker’s allowance, which has withered in value compared to earnings, is claimed by only six out of 10 of today’s unemployed, compared to almost 100% in the early 1990s.

 

The cold calculus of cash losses is vitally important, of course, but only tells us part of the story. A core idea of the welfare state was that it provided the bedrock of security needed for people to take economic risk. Increasingly, however, it has the opposite psychological effect. Take universal credit for example. It’s not just that 3.2 million working households will be £2.5k worse off than under the old system (though 2.2 million will be better off). Moving today’s benefit claimants on to UC over the next five years will involve several million families knowing they face big losses if their personal circumstances alter – the birth of a new child, separation from a partner, a boost in earnings. An idea conceived in the name of “aspiration” has yielded a policy that will pressure families to stand still.

- The Globe and Mail's editorial board notes that Doug Ford's "business-friendly" messaging in fact reflects nothing more than enmity for the working poor. And PressProgress documents how workers will be worse off if Ford gets his way.

- Mitchell Anderson discusses the corrupting influence of the fossil fuel industry generally. And David Roberts points out the tens of millions of dollars it's poured into attacking citizens' initiatives in a single U.S. election cycle.

- Meanwhile, Tristin Hopper discusses the effect a carbon price will have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But Nic Rivers and Leah Stokes note that there's limited evidence to suggest a Lib-style rebate scheme will help to build popular support for stronger climate policy.

- Finally, David Climenhaga examines the backstory behind the sale of Jason Kenney's UCP platform to car dealerships.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- CBC News examines the state of consumer debt in Canada. Jake Johnson writes that despite the growing recognition of inequality as an issue, 2017 saw an unprecedented amount of money funneled into the fortunes of billionaires. And Owen Jones highlights the importance of requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share toward genuinely social programs, rather than relying on their charity to meet public needs.

- Meanwhile, Noah Smith comments on the danger of trying to demonize social benefits (or a Republican view of "socialism") based on the level of popular support for government spending to benefit citizens. Which goes a long way toward explaining Paul Krugman's observations about the Republicans' refusal to honestly debate policy choices.

- Sarah Boseley discusses the stark difference in mortality rates between wealthier and poorer regions of England.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert wonders whether British Columbia's referendum will represent the first step toward electoral reform across Canada. And Libby Davies and Katrina Pacey discuss the reasons why we'd be better represented as a result of that change.

Musical interlude

Frou Frou - Let Go

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Moscrop discusses the need for a more meaningful definition of "progress" which doesn't hand-wave away the long-term harms and risks created by the single-minded pursuit of immediate gains in top-end wealth.

- Rajeev Syal reports that the UK Cons pushed through public-sector austerity with full knowledge of the increased poverty that would result. CBC reports on at least one private-sector employer, Quebec's Simons, which is recognizing the benefits of paying employees more than the bare minimum. And Mike Crawley notes that Doug Ford's list of attacks on workers includes delaying even a modest level of pay transparency.

- Meanwhile, Kwame McKenzie discusses the predictable public health costs of Ford's minimum wage freeze. And as a memo to the Saskatchewan Party: those problems with leaving the return on work at $14 per hour are all the worse when the minimum wage is nearly three dollars less.

- Brent Patterson criticizes the Libs' attempt to reframe the Trans-Pacific Partnership as "progressive", rather than a massive giveaway of wealth and power to the corporate sector. And David Schneiderman argues that the only truly progressive response to anti-social investment pacts is to decline to sign them.

- Finally, Ryan Maloney reports on Charlie Angus' plan to extricate Canada from any deal to contribute military weaponry to Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses. And Michael Harris writes about the costs of failing to stand up for human rights.

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.
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...(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.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Campbell Robb laments the persistence of in-work poverty in the UK - though it's of course worth noting the reality that poverty of all kinds is worth combating. Pat Thane points out that increasing poverty can be traced directly to deliberate and avoidable austerity, while the Real News talks to Matt Gardner about the U.S.' exacerbation of inequality through tax giveaways to the rich. And Susan Delacourt wonders what happened to Justin Trudeau's supposed interest in alleviating inequality in Canada.

- Jesse McLaren points out how Doug Ford's attacks on workers will only make the hallway medicine problem worse by foisting more social problems onto the health care system. And Martin Regg Cohn writes about Ford's choice to target younger Ontarians.

- David Climenhaga comments on Jason Kenney's used-car-salesman brand of politics. And Murray Mandryk discusses how the Saskatchewan Party is refusing to cut the province's losses on the Global Transportation Hub by throwing busing subsidies at Loblaws even after cutting off transportation for Saskatchewan's citizens.

- Finally, James Wilt interviews Bruce Campbell about his new book on the Lac-Mégantic explosion - and the real danger to the public posed by continued regulatory capture.

New column day

Here, on British Columbia's electoral reform referendum - and the need for a political system where voters have more say than simply a yes/no vote on an incumbent government.

For further reading...
- For examples of the attempt to defend first-past-the-post based on the desire for accountability for a majority government, see Peter Shawn Taylor's column as well as Gordon Hoekstra's backgrounder.
- Pat Carl expands on the value of continuity among cooperating parties, rather than the whiplash of single-party governments trying to undo each other's work.
- Finally, Matthew Shugart examines the anticipated effects of proportional representation in British Columbia.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Barry Ritholtz comments on Donald Trump's choice to model his budgetary policy on the combination of freebies for the rich and attacks on everybody else that produced nothing but misery in Kansas:

Kansas has been a disaster, with giant budget shortfalls, service cuts, slashed education budgets and a brain drain with young people leaving the state. The economy has failed to keep up with growth in the rest of the country and is much weaker in terms of job gains, wage increases and gross domestic product growth than neighboring states with similar economies. In 2015, for example, Kansas had one of the worst job growth rates in the country, at 0.8 percent, adding just 10,900 nonfarm jobs.

In the five years before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, no state economy performed worse than Kansas. Things became so bad that Kansas decided to simply stop updating the public about state economic news. There's no reason to do this other than to obscure the obvious: Kansas's wounds were self-inflicted.

Compare that record with California's robust economy, increased tax base, balanced budget and job growth that exceeds the national average. The president may criticize the politics of the state, but there is little to find fault with its economy. If California were its own country, its $2.75 trillion economy and would be the world’s fifth largest, after the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.

Yet despite the obvious failures in Kansas, Trump has championed that state, and not California, as his preferred model for economic growth via big tax cuts and deregulation.
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(T)here are obvious lessons to be learned. When Jerry Brown retires as governor next year, part of his legacy will be leaving the state with a $6.1 billion budget surplus. Kansas, meanwhile, is trying to dig itself out from the deficits that are a consequence of tax cuts -- cuts that the state legislature has since reversed.

Between the two, there's really no choice. Take California.

- Bruce Campion-Smith reports on a new study by the Parliamentary Budget Office showing how minimum wage increases have been an important factor limiting income inequality over the past couple of decades.

- David Roberts discusses the Republicans' gaslighting on climate change - which of course matches the longtime strategy of Canada's oil-backed right-wing parties. And Frederic Simon reports on the International Energy Agency's latest data confirming the continued rise of greenhouse gas emissions (and increased difficulty reining them in quickly enough to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown).

- Meanwhile, J. David Hughes makes the point that conducting a fire sale of non-renewable resources isn't a viable energy plan.

- Finally, Gaby Hinscliff points out new research showing that the spread of microplastics in the environment has predictably resulted in their being ingested by people - signalling the need to both assess their effects, and limit their continued disposal.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Bagged cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Eric Levitz discusses the glaring gap between Americans' policy preferences, and the outcomes from a political system which falls far short of representing most people in the face of the influence of the ultra-rich. And Matthew Yglesias comments on the hack gap between the U.S.' two main political parties. 

- Robert Reich highlights how Donald Trump has only further enriched the wealthy while making life more precarious for the rest of the U.S. Mike Crawley reports on Doug Ford's plans to strip Ontario workers of their already-minimal gains in wages and employment standards. And Don Braid comments on Jason Kenney's promises to run roughshod over Alberta workers and consumers in exchange for corporate cash.

- Meanwhile, Sally McManus writes about the need for more fairness for Australian workers:

The problem of excessive corporate power and greed is far wider than two or three industries. Across the economy, we have seen wages go backwards in real terms over the past year, whereas profits grew 9.7 per cent, seasonally adjusted, based on the National Accounts. This is no accident – we have lost the power needed to bargain for fair wages because big business now has too much power.

Increasingly workers' capacity to bargain for better pay and conditions is hampered by a system that allows employers to frustrate the process.

Even the International Monetary Fund has pointed to the disempowerment of workers to negotiate fair pay with the deregulation of the labour market, saying this has underpinned the sluggish global recovery for workers’ wages since the global financial crisis.
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There are a lot of changes required to fix the broken rule book of Australia’s workplace relations system, but the reforms should be built around laws that rebalance the system and give working people a fairer share of the wealth they create.

Our laws should give working people power, to negotiate fair pay and job security and create a balance between the power of the employer to say “no” and the needs of working people to have job security and decent pay for decent work.

- Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the spread of non-disclosure agreements as a means of forcing the people able to expose issues of public importance to refrain from doing so.

- Finally, Andrew Simms and Peter Newell propose a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. And we can only presume that anybody trying to deflect from any action at home in favour of reducing global emissions will be entirely on board.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Thom Hartmann writes about the billionaire-funded push toward outright fascism in the U.S. as a response to the growth of the middle class in the 20th century:

(U)nregulated markets—particularly markets not regulated by significant taxation on predatory incomes—invariably lead to the opposite of a healthy middle class: they produce extremes of inequality, which are as dangerous to democracy as cancer is to a living being.

With so-called “unregulated free markets,” the rich become super-rich, while grinding poverty spreads among working people like a heroin epidemic. This further polarizes the nation, both economically and politically, which, perversely, further cements the power of the oligarchs.

While there’s a clear moral dimension to this—pointed out by Adam Smith in his classic Theory of Moral Sentiments—there’s also a vital political dimension.
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The Republican candidates’ and their billionaire donors’ behavior today eerily parallels that day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, “In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.” President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace’s warnings are more urgent now than ever before.

If Trump and the billionaire fascists who bankroll the Republicans succeed in destroying the last supports for America’s enfeebled middle class, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—and succeed in blocking any possibility of Medicare for All or free college and trade school—not only will the bottom 90 percent of Americans suffer, but what little democracy we have left in this republic will evaporate. History, from Greek and Roman times through Europe in the first half of the 20th century, suggests it will probably be replaced by a violent, kleptocratic oligarchy that no longer shrinks from words like “fascist.”

- And Toni Hassan discusses the need to reduce inequality in order to allow for individual security and well-being.

- Bloomberg's editorial board offers a few (if less-than-ambitious) suggestions to rebalance employment relationships which have become increasingly distorted in favour of giant corporations. And Claire Tran reports on Generation Progress' mapping of the U.S.' student debt, including the observation that unmanageable debts are most common for students who need to pursue degrees in order to overcome other structural disadvantages.

- CBC reports on Apple's extreme measures to try to avoid any affordable or consumer-based repairs to its products.

- Finally, the New York Times' editorial board laments the disenfranchisement of voters for nothing but bare political gain.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Jennifer Pagliaro and David Rider report on Toronto's longstanding internal knowledge of the costs of austerity. And Ed Conway highlights a new budget showing the austerity gap in the UK - though as the Equality Trust points out, that could be made up with a fraction of the wealth hoarded by by the UK's richest 1,000 people.

- Meanwhile, Richard Vize writes about the UK's increasing infant mortality rates caused by needless cuts to social benefits and services. Maia Szalavitz examines the connection between more severe inequality and higher homicide rates. And Richard Florida notes that geographic inequality in the U.S. is only getting worse with time.

- Brooke Harrington comments on the lack of any consequences attached to bad behaviour by the wealthiest Americans.

- Peter Dietsch and Michael Guenco suggest a few first steps to make sure that Canada collects a fair share of revenue from the people who have the most wealth to contribute.

- Finally, Matthew Yglesias discusses how proportional representation could solve the most glaring problems with the U.S.' decaying political system.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Kate Aronoff interviews Mariana Mazzucato about The Value of Everything, including some important discussion about the relationship between governments and markets:

Aronoff: You talk a lot about the power of the state in shaping markets. What does the idea that the government should only intervene to tweak markets get wrong?

Mazzucato: How we talk about governments and markets is very problematic. In traditional economic theory, governments are just fixing market failures. And I talk about governments—if they’re actually well organized—as different types of public institutions in society. I see them as co-creators of wealth. They co-create and co-shape markets, not just fix them. Regulation is even a problematic phrase, because it sounds like the market is just there and created by others, and the government is just there to regulate it and make it a bit more stable. Redefining markets is central to what I believe we should be doing, and that leads to very different types of policy.

Aronoff: Are there any places where you think the private sector simply shouldn’t play a role? What’s the balance?

Mazzucato: There are two issues. Whether it’s public or private ownership, a key problem is how public and private meet, right? So in the UK—take the railways. Forget for a minute whether they should be public or privately owned. If you are going to privatize them, you better get the contract right. In exchange for what he got in the contract to buy the public railway system, [Virgin CEO] Richard Branson—who bought the rails—should have been forced to promise that he would invest in the rail system and make it more efficient and more green. Whether it’s water or energy, companies should be made to invest profits in, for example, renewable energy, but also in methods that will improve the product itself and the value to the consumer. In the drive for outsourcing and privatization, these contracts have been written problematically.

Then the question is, should some areas be fully public? Well sure, those areas which are absolutely fundamental. I believe medicine is one of them. Essential medicine like vaccines are a human right. It’s very hard to apply the profit model there. Instead of companies just trying to charge a lot of money in order to recoup their cost, you could have the government set a prize for any company that wants to come in and produce this drug that will solve a certain disease, and lay out the metrics for evaluating whether that drug is what we’re looking for.

- Don Lenihan writes that climate change represents the ultimate example of an issue where obvious long-term needs are being ignored due to short-term political motivations on the part of voters and politicians alike.

- Chuka Ejeckam highlights how British Columbia's electoral reform referendum could be a first step toward change across Canada, while Andrew Coyne notes that London, ON's municipal election will offer a first example of ranked ballots in action. And Seth Klein offers his take on the three more proportional systems on the ballot.

- And finally, Martin Regg Cohn's criticism of Doug Ford's patronage highlights one of the main problems with first-past-the-post: when elections are seen primarily as a means of saying "no" to incumbents, it's all too easy to get stuck with an even worse alternative.

Musical interlude

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Rupert Neate reports on the latest Credit Suisse study showing that wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a few ultra-rich individuals. And Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe take note of a similar trend for U.S. wages, particularly when it comes to the soaring amount being claimed by CEOs.

- Sharon Treat discusses how the USCMA only figures to put large corporations even further beyond the reach of any regulation in the public interest. And Marie Aspiazu points out its effect on digital rights, including its extension of already-excessive copyright terms.

- The Star's editorial board takes a look at the costs of Doug Ford's cancellation of Ontario's cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. And both Lars Osberg and the C.D. Howe Institute make the case for full fee-and-dividend systems - though it's still worth raising the value of ensuring that some money collected as a result of carbon pollution actually gets applied to reducing the scope of the problem.

- Finally, Simon Enoch argues that climate sanctions may be needed to ensure that the worst offenders don't undermine any effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And George Monbiot writes that in the absence of sorely-needed government action to avert a total climate breakdown, there looks to be little alternative but civil disobedience.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Don Pittis writes that the disastrous results of the U.S.' giveaways to corporations and wealthy individuals - including a ballooning deficit which isn't contributing to any improvement in the rate of economic growth, together with an expectation that people will pay the price in cuts to health and social programs - should serve as an important warning to anybody pushing Canada to join the race to the bottom. And Jim Tankersley refutes the predictable claim that Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich have represented anything but a needless cut to public revenue.

- Matt Henderson writes that our choice in dealing with imminent climate breakdown is between making needed contributions now, or forcing future generations to pay a far heavier price later. And Tony Coulson notes that there's general support for carbon pricing as part of a plan to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. But David Climenhaga points out the concentration of ownership in the fossil fuel sector which leaves a wealthy elite with little interest in caring about either public opinion or the future of our planet. And Roy Culpeper and Susan Tanner discuss how that tiny group of selfish oil barons has thus far dictated the terms of Canadian climate policy.

- Terry Parker responds to corporate objections to community benefit agreements by pointing out the importance of ensuring that major construction projects help the community at large.

- Finally, Meghan McDermott highlights the flaws in a few of the arguments being pushed by the "no" side in British Columbia's electoral reform referendum. And Seth Klein points out why voters should be happy to see minority legislatures which are both more cooperative and more accountable - in addition to actually reflecting voters' preferences.

New column day

Here, discussing the Price of Oil collaborative's latest report on how the Saskatchewan Party is requiring provincial regulators to keep the public at risk in order to avoid having oil operators answer for their sour gas pollution.

For further reading, I've previously written about the the same issue based on an earlier series of reports here; see also my related post, including links to previous media work dating back to 2015.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Robert Cribb, Patti Sonntag, Michael Wrobel, P.W. Elliott and Carolyn Jarvis examine the Saskatchewan Party government's utter refusal to monitor or regulate pollution caused by the oil industry - and the people who have been kept at risk as a result. And Geoff Leo takes a look at the anti-regulation and pro-austerity dogma that led to the collapse of a brand-new bridge in the RM of Clayton.

- Leslie Hook and Caroline Binham report on the warning by central banks around the globe of the need for financial decisions to both minimize and mitigate the risk of climate breakdown. And Fatima Syed reports on the billions of dollars Ontario will lose as a result of Doug Ford's destruction of cap-and-trade carbon pricing.

- Annika Koljonen points out that while the U.S. and UK are seeing stagnant or falling life expectancies as a result of corporatist political decisions, Finland is seeing the largest improvements among affluent countries in the world due to needed social investment. And Aditya Chakrabortty discusses how even the IMF has had to recognize that the UK's privatization schemes were nothing more than a neoliberal scam:

Let’s start with the IMF itself. Last week it published a report that barely got a mention from the BBC or in Westminster, yet helps reframe the entire debate over austerity. The fund totted up both the public debt and the publicly owned assets of 31 countries, from the US to Australia, Finland to France, and found that the UK had among the weakest public finances of the lot. With less than £3 trillion of assets against £5tn in pensions and other liabilities, the UK is more than £2tn in the red. Of all the other countries examined by researchers, including the Gambia and Kenya, only Portugal’s finances look worse over the long run. So much for fixing the roof.

Almost as startling are the IMF’s reasons for why Britain is in such a state: one way or another they all come back to neoliberalism. Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used our North Sea oil money to pay for swingeing tax cuts. The result is an overfinancialised economy and a government that is £1tn worse off since the banking crash. Norway has similar North Sea wealth and a far smaller population, but also a sovereign wealth fund. Its net worth has soared over the past decade.

 

The other big reason for the UK’s financial precarity is its privatisation programme, described by the IMF as no less than a “fiscal illusion”. British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, “increase revenues and lower deficits but also reduce the government’s asset holdings”.

Throughout the austerity decade, ministers and economists have pushed for spending cuts by pointing to the size of the government’s annual overdraft, or budget deficit. Yet there are two sides to a balance sheet, as all accountants know and this IMF work recognises. The same goes for our public realm: if Labour’s John McDonnell gets into No 11 and renationalises the railways, that would cost tens of billions – but it would also leave the country with assets worth tens of billions that provided a regular income.

Instead, what this IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future generations.

- Finally, Maryse Zeidler reports on the Elizabeth Fry Society's push to ensure that the Canada Child Benefit is actually accessible to the vulnerable children who need it most.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Expectant cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ben Chu reports on the conclusion from the chief economist of the Bank of England that decreased unionization in the UK is responsible for reducing wages for all workers by .75% per year over the past 30 years.

- Hassan Yussuff warns that Doug Ford's insistence on reversing any gains for workers at the first opportunity will put many women in avoidable danger. And David Climenhaga comments on Jason Kenney's plans to similarly launch an all-out attack on workers, with no regard for evidence or public input.

- Eliza Barclay and Umair Irfan offer a list of suggestions to avert climate breakdown, while Noah Smith discusses the importance of clean energy development in China as part of the global fight against climate change. Matt Henderson points out the unfairness of pushing carbon debts onto future generations, while Brent Patterson makes the case for holding corporations to account for their carbon pollution.

- The Star's editorial board weighs in on the need to reduce traffic congestion in Toronto. And Kim Willsher reports on the success of Dunkirk's implementation of free public transportation.

- Finally, Sheila Block comments on the absurdity of obsessing over artificial limits on tax revenue:

Any politician promising better public services without touching property taxes isn’t telling the whole story.

Just to maintain the status quo — which shouldn’t be the goal in an expanding city — Toronto would need property tax increases that grow with both population and inflation. That would be about 50 per cent higher than inflationary increases only.
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We see the impact of this unsustainable fiscal approach all around our city: dangerous crowding in subway stations, a desperate need for repairs in Toronto Community Housing, flooded streets during climate events, insufficient shelter beds in the height of winter, timid investments in the city’s poverty reduction strategy, and digital line ups to get kids into recreational programs.

Did I mention $30 billion in unfunded capital projects?

Even worse, each year that we delay increasing property taxes has an impact on both our current and future capacity to fund essential city services.

But what if we approached property taxes in a grown-up fashion?

As grown ups, we know that we’re better off changing the oil in our cars on schedule as part of a good maintenance program. We know that dealing with the mould in the basement as soon as possible is the best financial and health strategy. And when we can, we know that putting money aside for our retirement is the prudent thing to do.

We are doing none of this for our larger home, the City of Toronto. We are letting the mould spread. We are emptying our saving accounts. We are not investing in our children’s futures.
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As residents, we also don’t get a free pass. Voters who choose tax-freezing candidates must come to terms with deteriorating public services and sticking the bill to our kids and grandkids.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Chris Turner rightly recognizes the urgency in implementing effective policies to avert climate breakdown - though he does set the bar too low in the process. The Star's editorial board highlights how the latest IPCC report confirms the danger of politicians fighting against climate action rather than exercising power responsibly. And Rebecca Solnit reminds us that the most important chapters in our fight against climate breakdown remain to be written.

- Lana Payne writes that the benefits of a more fair and proportional electoral system would set up needed incentives for leaders to think past the next election cycle on issues such as climate change.

- Alex Himelfarb discusses the need for an antidote to apathy and despair - both to encourage participation by people now disenchanted with politics, and to prevent those who do remain engaged from falling prey to demagoguery.

- Finally, Noah Smith comments on the difficulties associated with uncertain incomes, particularly for people already facing the risks associated with poverty:

If risk is scary for the rich, think how much more terrifying it is for the poor. The kind of event that causes a low-income American to suddenly need money isn’t a wedding or college or a comfy retirement — it’s coping with an eviction, or getting robbed, or a broken pipe in their house, or their car breaking down. The life of a poor American is a nonstop sequence of sudden disasters and looming threats. If you don’t understand this, read “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” by Matthew Desmond. For a middle-class American, the situation is less awful, but big medical bills and other surprise expenses are still a very significant risk, and many Americans have little savings in the bank to cushion the blows life throws at them.

Given the risks of life in America, and the paucity of savings, a consistent income is very important. The more you live paycheck to paycheck, the more you need to be sure that the paychecks won’t stop coming — and that their size will be relatively constant from month to month and year to year. Unfortunately, during the past 40 years, income volatility has risen for the average American.
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So what’s to be done about income volatility? A big part of the job, of course, is avoiding repeats of the Great Recession. Beyond that, financialization, especially private equity’s practice of taking over companies and imposing mass layoffs, has to be thoroughly reexamined. And it may also be useful to encourage the creation of new kinds of work contracts that offer more long-term stability. In any case, though, it seems clear that income volatility is a problem that has received too little attention.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Wallace-Wells writes that even "genocide" may be too gentle a word for the consequences of a climate breakdown. Josh Gabbatiss discusses the insanity of approving - and even subsidizing - fracking and other means of exacerbating the climate crisis. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board weighs in on the need for carbon pricing as part of any viable climate change policy.

- Larry Elliott argues that a global economic crash exacerbated by climate breakdown could be worse than any we've seen yet. And Barry Ritholtz writes that a combination of growing debt and risk mismanagement is making another financial crisis inevitable.

- Andrew Van Dam discusses new research showing that parental wealth is already a stronger determinant of post-secondary graduation than genetic advantages.

- Wanyee Li reports that Vancouver's housing shortage and price inflation have reached the point where the workers needed to ensure access to housing are themselves priced out of the city.

- Finally, Brent Patterson comments on Max Siegelbaum's report about Canadian pension funds putting their money into U.S immigration detention centres. And in a somewhat dated report, John Aglionby points out the World Bank's recommendation that refugee camps also be turned into a means of extracting corporate profits.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tiffany Crawford interviews Kirsten Zickfeld about the contradiction between new fossil fuel infrastructure and any serious attempt to reverse our climate breakdown. Murray Mandryk offers a reminder of the local costs of climate change. Fatima Syed highlights how Doug Ford's supposed climate plan consists of nothing more than a determination to scrap anything which has already been working, while the Calgary Herald's editorial board calls out both Ford and Jason Kenney for their utter lack of anything constructive to contribute. And Simon Enoch recognizes that the new strategy of climate defeatism only highlights the urgency of immediate action:

We can certainly lament the fact that the discourse on climate action has sunk so low that shrugging our shoulders has become a valid argument from our political leaders. But we can also take solace in the fact that the opponents of real climate action have been forced to make such a terrifyingly prosaic argument. It means they recognize that their previous arguments of denial and delay are running out os steam. The realities of global warming are becoming too evident to even entertain denial, while the speed of climate change is making delay look more and more reckless. Urgent, radical action will soon be the only reasonable means forward to a sustainable future. The only response the defeatists can muster is to foreclose that future altogether. Let climate defeatism be the sad last gasp of those who have stood in the way of climate progress for the past thirty years and are about to be swept aside by history.

- George Eaton points out that the UK Conservatives' austerity (like that of other governments) has failed even on its own terms. Jerry Dias responds to Ford's attacks on a fair minimum wage by noting that there hasn't been any meaningful tradeoff between real gains in wages for workers, and the jobs which the business lobby wrongly claims to be at risk. And Simon Lewsen comments on the shameful presence of hunger in the midst of Canada's wealth - including the reality that food may be the most easily-cut expense item in households living in poverty. 

- Tim Pearson discusses how governments elected under proportional representation systems are more likely to take care of both our environment and our economy, rather than being focused solely on single-party political interests.

- Finally, Meagan Day looks at the Trump administration as a prime example of the dangers of putting corporate autocrats in charge of the public sector.

Musical interlude

Ladytron - Runaway

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Michael Harris writes that we shouldn't expect politicians to lead the way toward the action we need to combat climate change. Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that the economic effects of carbon pricing are modest, while ignoring climate change will have massive costs. But Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines how the USCMA figures to lock in a fossil-fuel economy while failing to pay even lip service to our most fundamental challenge.
 
- Amanda Agan and Michael Makowsky study the social effects of a higher minimum wage, including a decrease in criminal recidivism.

- The CP reports on Doug Ford's latest move to prioritize cheap intoxicants over necessary public services.

- Finally, Naomi Klein discusses Donald Trump's standing as the U.S.' most glaring example of dynastic privilege being used to suppress the hopes of anybody who doesn't share the same fortune. And Christo Aivalis comments on the ongoing relevance of Mouseland as a metaphor for Canadian politics:

The story of Mouseland—which can be seen here in animated form—described a society where mice formed the majority of the population, and yet consistently elected governments comprised of cats. Those cats—be they white cats or black cats or spotted cats—passed laws that benefitted them, often to the detriment of the mice majority.

The story turns for Douglas when a little mouse comes along with a bold idea, which is that instead of electing a government of cats, they should choose their leadership from amongst themselves. Of course, that little mouse was branded a dangerous subversive and was locked up, but as Douglas says, “you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.”

The allegory is clearly meant to apply to Canadian society, and Douglas makes that explicit: “Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada…and maybe you’ll see that they weren’t any stupider than we are.” For him, the story of Canadian politics was one where Liberal and Conservative cats ruled the roost while the masses of mice languished in poverty, precarity, and inequality. But when pioneering mice like J.S. Woodsworth stepped up to form the Labour Party and eventually the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, they offered a new path forward.
...
Mouseland is clearly a populist narrative. In our own times, many people, especially among the centrist elite, have equated populism with Trumpian far-right politics. Certainly, the right has been successful at tapping into popular discontent with the status quo, and has been able to portray wealthy leaders like Trump and Ford as regular joes. But as I’ve noted in other venues, populism is an essential component to any left wing programme which sincerely seeks to represent the masses of working-class people. Mouseland is just the sort of fable that sparks a populist understanding of politics, where the 99% of mice stop deferring to the feline elite, and start doing politics differently. Where politicians who share their life experience are elected to represent them, and in turn can pass good laws—that is—laws that are good for mice.

One of the Canadian left’s key failings over the past couple decades has been a belief that we have to move beyond class conflict as a vehicle for social, political, and economic change; that regular Canadians don’t see themselves as mice anymore, or simply see themselves as cats-in-waiting. Some of this may well be true, but the reality is that class conflict isn’t going anywhere, and the social and economic elite understand this best of all. The left in Canada needs to centre politics of the many over the few, even if that makes enemies among the people unlikely to support them in the first place. Mouseland may well just be a fable, but it is nonetheless instructive, and can be used in part to illustrate a class consciousness among the masses of people in this country, matching that class solidarity which has never dissipated among the wealthy and well-connected.

New column day

Here, following up on this post about the potential for a truly federal carbon pricing system if right-wing provincial governments keep griping about having the ability to develop alternatives.

For further reading...
- Anna Desmarais reports on the NDP's push for climate change policy to meet the standards set out in the latest IPCC report. And Gerald Butts for one has been echoing the language of a "moral obligation" - though without apparently prodding the Libs to any action beyond a public relations blitz.
- Brent Patterson highlights how the Libs have thus far fallen short of any reasonable standard of action to combat our climate breakdown. And Karl Nerenberg calls out Jason Kenney and Doug Ford for demanding even less.
- Finally, Gary Mason argues that anybody blustering against a carbon tax has an obligation to offer up an alternative. Mark Cameron and David McLaughlin suggest that carbon tax rebates may tilt the balance of public opinion in favour of meaningful pricing. And David Reevely points out that a refusal to rein in climate change now will result in costly attempts to adapt in the future.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Charles Smith writes about the importance of a living wage as a matter of fairness and justice. But Stephanie Taylor reports on Regina City Council's lamentable vote against ensuring that the people who make the city function are able to earn enough to live. 

- Meanwhile, Ipsos surveys the impact of debt on Canadian households - with nearly a quarter of respondents considering themselves overwhelmed by what they owe.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh examines some of the recently-passed protections for workers which are on the chopping block under Doug Ford's anti-labour government. And Trish Hennessy worries that Ontario's workers will end up worse off than they were before the Wynne Libs' last-gasp attempt to appear progressive.

- Scott Sinclair notes that the small amount of good news in the new USMCA involves some reduction in the power of investor-driven dispute resolution. But Alexander Panetta examines a few of the ways in which the deal puts more power in the hands of the U.S. to dictate economic terms to Canada and Mexico.

- Finally, Yves Engler makes the case for free public transit as a means of improving both local equality and the global environment.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Evelyn Forget makes the case for a national basic income which would provide a more stable fiscal base for Canada's provinces as well as its citizens. And Dennis Raphael writes about the social murder resulting from the wanton destruction of income supports and other policies which save lives. 

- Meanwhile, the CP reports on the recommendation of British Columbia's provincial auditor that it actually track the effects of tax expenditures, rather than merely taking for granted that they serve any useful purpose.

- Mel Watkins writes that the mistakes Canada made by giving up sovereignty in previous trade deals laid the groundwork for the latest NAFTA concessions. And Brent Patterson notes that the USCMA includes special protection for GMOs in order to benefit US agribusiness regardless of the risks for Canadian producers and consumers.

- The CP takes note that our current emission reduction targets fall far short of what's needed to rein in catastrophic climate change. And in case we needed more reminders of the immediate dangers associated with fossil fuels, Jesse Ferreras reports on the explosion and fire caused by an Enbridge pipeline rupture in B.C., while Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon talks to one of the workers in the immediate vicinity of the Irving Oil refinery explosion.

- Finally, Ed Broadbent and Hugh Segal argue that it's long past time for Canada to pursue electoral reform:

What used to be unusual occurrences in our system – minority governments – are fast becoming the norm both provincially and federally. Three of the past five federal elections have produced minority governments. With a first-past-the-post electoral system, this can be a recipe for increasing instability.

The reason for this is that such a system exaggerates the effects of even tiny swings in voting: Just a few votes in a single riding can be the difference between a majority and a minority government. As a consequence, parties that find themselves in a minority situation often engage in a constant game of “chicken,” continually jockeying for advantage with an eye to a snap election. In proportional systems, such gamesmanship is rare. A small change in the vote for a party only results in a small change in the number of seats. There’s no point in triggering a snap election. So people get on with governing. And, knowing a number of parties are likely to be elected causes leaders to be more collaborative and less confrontational with each other. This makes for better government.

The evidence of the past few months is clear. Given the realities of Canadian voting trends, converting our provincial and federal electoral systems to proportional ones needs to be an immediate priority. We hope that Quebec, B.C. and PEI get the ball rolling and we look forward to seeing other Canadian provinces and the federal level following their example as soon as possible.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats with friends.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matt Taibbi interviews Bernie Sanders about the concentration of wealth in a few large financial institutions - and the importance of regulating them in the public interest before they once again crash the economy as a whole.

- John Stapleton argues that there's no reason why inheritances should be the most reliable path toward financial security when we can afford a basic income for everybody. And CBC talks to Evelyn Forget about her push for a basic income based on her research into Manitoba's experience with one. 

- Leonid Bershidsky points out why employment statistics which fail to account for underemployment are misleading as a measure of precarity. And Michael Hicks writes that any complaints about a labour shortage reflect the refusal of employers to offer wages and working conditions capable of attracting workers. And Christopher Hope reports that a four-day work week may form part of UK Labour's plan to ensure that workers benefit from increased productivity and corporate wealth. 

- Matt McGrath points out a few of the important takeaways from the IPCC's latest climate change report (PDF summary). Stephen Leahy notes that in addition to highlighting the risk of slipping toward multiple degrees of temperature increases, the IPCC recognizes that we're seeing more severe results than anticipated even from smaller increases. Bloomberg's editorial board weighs in on the need for far more ambition in fighting climate change. And Justin Worland points out that the pathetic lack of concerted action to reduce the damage we're doing to our planet can't be blamed on any shortage of options.

- Finally, Alex Boutilier reports on the rise of far-right extremism online in Canada.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Simon Wren-Lewis notes the importance of including the working class among the groups identified as part of a progressive movement. And Gary Younge writes about the importance of genuine identity politics (as opposed to the cynical right-wing counterpart) as a means of identifying and addressing structural inequality:

(N)ot all identities count as equal. The more power they carry, the less likely the carrier is to be aware of it as an identity at all. Nobody asks me: “When did you come out as straight?” or “How did you balance travelling as a foreign correspondent with raising children?” because straight men don’t get asked that. What is often dismissed as “identity politics” might be more accurately just called “politics” originating from the concerns of less advantaged groups.

It’s not difficult to see why the right has a problem with this. Their agenda is centred on preserving and extending privileges that already exist. Denigrating equal rights campaigners as “grievance politics” practitioners, the irony is that they practise the very methods they lampoon. Railing against liberal elites, feminists, migrants and Muslims, they have cornered the market in victimhood. Trump’s presidential campaign made an unvarnished appeal to white, Christian Americans – what is that if not an identity?

The left has always been more confused. Those with a crude notion of class contend that politics driven by identity divides people, dilutes solidarity, and diverts energy from addressing material concerns such as pay and conditions. This fundamentally misunderstands identity, politics and class.

When British women are being paid 18% less than men, gender is a material concern; when for every $100 in wealth a white person has in the US an African-American has just $5, race is a material issue. Likewise, if there is no lift and you’re disabled. If you can’t get married to the person you love and can’t leave them your pension, sexual orientation is a material issue. If you can’t walk down the street without fear of the police stopping, searching or shooting you, or if you cannot control decisions about your own fertility, those are material issues. Acknowledging diversity does not undermine solidarity. Indeed by rendering it more inclusive and better informed, it should make that solidarity more effective. “Labour in the white skin,” wrote that flaky identity hipster, Karl Marx, “can never free itself as long as labour in the black skin is branded.”

- Meanwhile, Jacky Habib reports on the spread of right-wing hate in Canada - including a particularly drastic increase in violent hate crimes. And Alex Boutilier reports on the need for law enforcement to respond before hatred turns to violence.

- Travis Lupick discusses Chris Hedges' latest book on the causes and effects of the U.S.' crumbling democracy.

- CBC News reports on new research showing that the effects of childhood abuse include lasting alterations to a victim's DNA.

- Finally, Auden Schendler and Andrew Jones write about the need to respond to yet another damning report about climate inaction by demanding and making change rather than accepting defeat. But the CP reports that the Libs' plan is to continue to do nothing more.

On necessary measures

I've previously linked to columns by Paul Wells and Jen Gerson on the coordinated right-wing attack on carbon pricing. (And even the Notley government has made a show of withdrawing from a coordinated federal climate change plan, though without abandoning its own climate change policy.)

But let's not assume that what's being treated as a convenient political argument for now won't produce some blowback. To the contrary, the unilateral withdrawal of provinces from any federal system might ultimately favour the development of stronger federal climate regulation.

From a legal standpoint, one of the primary arguments around the federal government's power to price carbon (among other climate change measures) surrounds the question of whether fighting climate change can be categorized as a "national concern" which cannot effectively be dealt with by the provinces acting independently. On that front, see e.g. Manitoba's legal opinion (PDF) on a "backstop" strategy - particularly to the extent it relied on the assumed fact that a province planned to adopt equally effective measures which failed to receive federal recognition.

Saskatchewan's sad excuse for a plan is the most obvious example of a province falling woefully short of that presumption. But in assessing the necessity of federal action, there might have been some argument available that a single province continuing to stumble in the wrong direction wouldn't have an important enough effect to preclude the achievement of national goals.

With Ontario now on the climate denial side - ceding any claim to basing policy on evidence in favour of anti-tax bombast - there's now no question that the current set of provincial defectors is of a sufficient size to undermine any national action. And every province which adds its name to the list of objectors (and trashes its own climate change measures in the process) will only strengthen that position, making it more likely that courts will recognize a need for federal action in response to a provincial-level vacuum. 

What's more, that point may prove important in political as well as legal terms. In time, enough provincial recalcitrance might lead to a push for a federal plan which serves as a national governing system rather than a mere "backstop".

To be clear, such a system wouldn't necessarily need to represent a less cooperative form of federalism in the sense of failing to account for the position of provinces willing to act in good faith; instead, it could incorporate provincial preferences through a federally-applied system. And it's not out of the question that the provincial governments who retain a strong interest in fighting climate change could decide the best path toward that end involves a national system - which as a bonus could result in public pressure being directed toward the federal level.

Of course, it would be preferable to see provinces take climate change seriously on their own, particularly given the seeming preference of a Lib majority government to treat the issue (like most) as one of symbolism rather than substance.

But the more conservative premiers refuse to exercise their power responsibly when it comes to the planetary threat of climate change, the more likely it is that the federal government will see a need to increase its own level of responsibility. And the end result could be a national system that's both more consistent, and even more likely to survive whatever evidence-free arguments might be made against it in court.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Bob Lord discusses how the concentration of wealth in the U.S. has pushed beyond even the obscene levels of the Gilded Age. Sunil Johal and Armine Yalnizyan examine (PDF) both Canada's inequality and polarization of wealth, and a few of the options to rein them in. And David Sirota highlights how a new aristocracy considers itself to be above any laws or other accountability:

Since Skilling’s conviction 12 years ago, our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut or election victory. This movement’s objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.

Let’s remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters. While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition, incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.

That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge, the key players who created this era’s catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment – many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
...
...(T)o paraphrase Leona Helmsley, accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class.

If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history – the eras of violent purges, authoritarian dictators and sharpened guillotines. There is no guarantee that is our future – and let’s hope it isn’t our destiny. Whether or not things proceed in that terrifying direction, though, the moral question remains: what can be done to restore some basic sense of fairness and justice?
...
This is no easy way forward and there are no shortcuts – but if we avoid this path, then the accountability-free zone will fortify itself and we will probably see the rise of an institutionalized form of moral hazard that dooms us to a tragic repetition of history.

- Meanwhile, Mark Bou Mansour weighs in on the effect of the "finance curse" in which overall well-being in the UK has been treated as secondary to the profits of the banking sector.

- Both Paul Wells and Jen Gerson discuss how carbon taxes have turned into political targets, particularly for politicians catering to oil industry donors. And David Climenhaga offers a reminder that carbon pricing alone actually represents a market-focused, right-wing response to a problem which might be more obviously (and easily) dealt with by regulation.

- Kathryn May reports on PIPSC's push for public services to be insourced rather than outsourced. And Richard Partington notes that a substantial proportion of workers with casual contracts would prefer more stable employment - signalling that their precarity is a matter of a lack of choice rather than an exercise of it.

- Finally, Matthew Hays makes the case for the elimination of the notwithstanding clause from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.