Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Peter Gowan and Ryan Cooper write about the need for much more affordable social housing across the income spectrum. Rhys Kesselman responds to a few of the more laughable attacks on British Columbia's more progressive property tax. And Stephen Punwasi discusses the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's warning that Canadian mortgage lenders are pushing both brokers and borrowers toward risky products which may create systemic instability.

- Dean Beeby examines FINTRAC's internal report showing how Canadian banks have been facilitating money laundering - and discusses how a report for public consumption was reworded to give the opposite impression.

- Mitchell Anderson rightly calls out the nonsensical claim that building pipelines is anything but a negative for the cause of reducing the effects of climate change, while David Suzuki weighs in on the audit showing how governments at all levels are falling short of their commitments. And Richard Partington reports on Mark Carney's warning that fossil fuel dependence may be just as catastrophic for financial interests as for the planet, while Olaf Weber and Chelsie Hunt model the superior prospects for investments which avoid throwing money at dirty energy. 

- And David Climenhaga rebuts the theory that Alberta (or any other jurisdiction) would do itself any favours by choosing to be an environmental pariah - even as the likes of Scott Moe and Doug Ford push in that direction.

- Finally, Ronald Labonte discusses the nutrition and health consequences of corporate-driven trade deals, including any attempt to renegotiate NAFTA.

Musical interlude

The Pretty Reckless - Take Me Down

New column day

Here, on how the Libs' criminal justice bill (Bill C-75) is aimed solely at speed rather than fairness - and seems likely to fail even by that insufficient metric.

For further reading...
- Others weighing in on the bill include Omar Ha-Redeye, Michael Spratt, Stephanie DiGiuseppe, Sarah Leamon and Joanna Smith.
- And it's particularly worth contrasting the lack of any action on minimum sentences (coupled with many increases in maximum sentences) against Jody Wilson-Raybould's apparent mandate.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The Canadian Press reports on new research showing how wealth shocks at any level of income or wealth are associated with a higher risk of mortality:

Middle-aged Americans who experienced a sudden, large economic blow were more likely to die during the following years than those who didn't. The heightened danger of death after a devastating loss, which researchers called a "wealth shock," crossed socio-economic lines, affecting people no matter how much money they had to start.

The analysis of nearly 9,000 people's experiences underscores well-known connections between money and well-being, with prior studies linking lower incomes and rising income inequality with more chronic disease and shorter life expectancy.
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About 1 in 4 people in the study had a wealth shock, which researchers defined as a loss of 75 per cent or more in net worth over two years. The average loss was about $100,000.

That could include a drop in the value of investments or realized losses like a home foreclosure. Some shocks happened during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Others happened before or after. No matter what was going on in the greater U.S. economy, a wealth shock still increased the chance of dying.

- And on a related note, Richard Florida points out that Americans are much more anxious and dissatisfied than they were just under a decade ago.

- Sarah Anderson discusses the cumulative dangers of poverty and climate change in causing the spread of pest-borne diseases. And Canada Without Poverty examines the stresses of surviving on a low income - including the lack of access to basic dental care which many Canadians take for granted.

- Meanwhile, Chris Dillow highlights the danger of relying on a single indicator of inequality which may mask the breadth and depth of poverty.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board writes that Canada's access-to-information system is serving as a barrier to accountability, rather than a mechanism to facilitate oversight.

Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andre Picard writes about the unjustifiable limitations and inconsistencies in Canada's health care system:

Break your leg and the X-ray and cast will be covered, but you will need to pay for the crutches. Break your jaw and it will be wired at no cost; break your teeth and you will pay the dentist. Get cancer treatment at the hospital and there will be no charge; take the same oncology medication at home and you will pay dearly. Suffer from severe depression and your hospitalization will be covered, but psychological care and medications will not be covered by public insurance after you’re released. If you have diabetes and live in Quebec, many more of your drugs and supplies will be covered than in neighbouring New Brunswick. Need trauma care while visiting another province, and you could get stiffed with a big air ambulance bill. Live out your final days in a hospital and the state will pick up the tab, but do so in a nursing home and you will pay.

The list of inconsistencies and absurdities is a long one. Coverage often depends on where you live, where you work, your age – but more than anything, public coverage is limited by historical accident.
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The inconsistent coverage of mental health care (and psychological services in particular), home care and prescription drugs has been the subject of much debate, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

If we are going to have a semblance of a national health system across 13 provinces and territories – without forgetting the large federal health system – it’s important to have equitable (not equal) access for all Canadians. Yet, the variations in coverage between jurisdictions have never been more pronounced.

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Medicare cannot provide all care to all people at all times. We need to make tough choices on what is, and isn’t, in the medicare basket of services. We need to eliminate obsolete and wasteful practices, and embrace only new ones that are cost-effective.

We have the tools to do so. But good evidence isn’t enough. As the report notes, we need to “translate the language of science and evaluation into the language of decisions and public policy.”

- Jocelyn Timperley explores the long-term economic benefits of fighting climate change now, rather than having to answer for its effects later. And Merran Smith discusses the obvious risks of being left behind in a global transition to clean energy.

- Tammy Robert examines the Saskatchewan public's widespread recognition of the problem of climate change and willingness to help fight it - no matter how obstinately Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan Party try to stand in the way. And Jennifer Quesnel takes a look at the modest effect of an Alberta-style carbon tax even before accounting for rebates and investments from the new public revenue.

- Finally, Tom Parkin weighs in on the mirror-image cynicism of Doug Ford and Kathleen Wynne in Ontario's election campaign. And Donald Savoie discusses how Justin Trudeau is either taking Atlantic Canada for granted, or abandoning it altogether.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Covered cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Amy Remeikis reports on new research showing how educational inequality translates into an even wider economic gap.

- Hannah Johnston and Chris Land-Kazlauskas examine (PDF) the gig economy and the need for workers to be able to organize around it. But Rebecca Moss discusses another of Donald Trump's moves to undermine workers even more, this time by trashing panels working on workplace safety and whistleblower protections.

- Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis report on Trump's concurrent move to nix emission standards for vehicles. Ben Parfitt exposes the B.C. Libs' suppression of facts about the dangers of fracking based on their belief that the public shouldn't have accurate information about environmental risks before going to the polls. And James Wilt takes note of the Trudeau Libs' move to scrap any environmental assessment for major oil sands projects.

- Meanwhile, Jonathan Watts reports on yet another study showing that the effects of climate change are already more severe than assumed, this time resulting in far more underwater ice melting than anticipated.

- Finally, Andrew Boozary and David Naylor weigh in on the need for a stronger health care system - including stronger connections to the social programs which can improve public health:

Achieving wider insurance coverage and fairer prices for drugs would be important steps toward a better system. But that won’t ensure the right drug gets prescribed for the right reasons — especially if a condition might be better treated with, say, cognitive behavioural therapy by a psychologist, or by a course of physiotherapy.

Here’s the upshot. For over 30 years, there’s been good evidence about the reforms needed to modernize our health system. The key is integration of services and budgets, allowing savings to be realized when evidence-informed investments are made in new, cost-effective services and technologies.

If that happened, prescription drugs could be covered and managed as part of the same budget as professional services, hospital stays, and home care. Shared care would mean shared budgets — not more volume-driven stovepipes with new sets of professionals publicly insured on a fee-for-service basis.

Governments and providers would also have incentives to promote stronger linkages between health and social services, thereby helping build healthier communities from the bottom up.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Charlie May writes that the inequality which is radically reshaping the American political scene receives short shrift compared to other stories. And Thomas Piketty studies (PDF) the political realignment which is seeing relatively well-defined class politics replaced with "multiple-elite" models.

- Meanwhile, Tom Parkin notes that Justin Trudeau's particular elitist vision is wearing thin very quickly:

We have common needs. We all need health care. Our children need education. We need an income, nutrition and a community to live in. We need security and protection. We need an environment that can sustain us. We enjoy recreation and sport, art, cooking and entertainment.

We are in it together.

And it’s in working on those common needs that Trudeau has really failed. Over two years, perhaps the only common need he’s much addressed was through his improvement to the Canada Pension Plan.

But he’s cut transfers for our health care and seems opposed to a universal pharmacare plan. He’s turned his back on childcare to help our children while we work. Infrastructure and housing have been pushed into the future. His defence of the environment we share has disappointed.

Perhaps Trudeau sees his role as floating above our identities, balancing and celebrating them. But perhaps Canadians are recognizing that a politician who doesn’t get down to our level and address our common needs isn’t taking our society anywhere.

- Kate Aronoff discusses a growing movement among U.S. Democrats supporting a job guarantee. But Matt Bruenig raises some questions as to whether it would meet all of the intended purposes - then makes the case for family welfare benefits as a primary income support.

- The Wall Street Journal charts how any recovery since the 2008 economic crash has been limited to the few who already had the most. And Carys Roberts and Mathew Lawrence discuss the prospect of a citizens' wealth fund in the UK.

- Finally, Kelly Crowe examines one of the connections between corporatist trade and declining health, as an increase in processed food imports since the signing of NAFTA can be linked to increasing obesity.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne offers her take on the need for Canada to catch up to the rest of the developed world in providing social supports:

Canada is sitting at a dismal 17 per cent, down at the bottom of the pack with Ireland, Israel, and Latvia. No bragging rights here.

Indeed, Canada doesn’t even reach the OECD average of 21 per cent. It was a surprising finding for many who follow such things.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been though considering what’s been happening in Canada for the past 20 years or so and the dominant narrative that Canada just can’t afford to build a stronger social safety net. And yet based on the size of our economy (our GDP) which really should define our ability to pay, Canada has lots of room to develop a stronger social fabric, including universal childcare.

Of course, that means having an adult conversation about taxes and fair taxation and climbing back from the decades long race-to-the-bottom started by the United States.

In the last 25 years, Canada has reduced taxes by the tens and tens of billions, especially to corporations. At the same time, it has introduced a smorgasbord of tax breaks to the wealthy. We don’t have an affordability problem, we have a revenue problem.

And in the narrow box that public policy and budget discussions have occurred in pushing for increased social spending has become an uphill battle. Those who pushed for a different and more equal kind of Canada were ridiculed by the right and Conservatives who for too long controlled the public policy debate ensuring that cuts to social spending became inevitable and indeed the goal.

But the conversation is shifting.

The conversation now in many circles, even banking circles, is focused on growing the economy by reducing inequality. How do we do that when Canadian household spending has maxed out? Social supports and higher wages.

- CBC News reports on the findings of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault confirming the Harper Cons' muzzling of federal scientists on climate change among other issues. And the Star recounts the difficulties its reporters have had trying to access public documents.

- James Wilt discusses the importance of supply-side policy as part of a transition away from dirty energy, while Brett Dolter highlights the Saskatchewan Party's refusal to deal with the demand side.

- Finally, Cam Fuller offers an apt review of the Sask Party's treatment of the film industry. And Alex MacPherson reports on Scott Moe's personal bankruptcy - which looks to have represented ideal preparation for the leadership of a party bent on pushing the province in the same direction.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lee Drutman points out that Donald Trump's presidency represents an entirely foreseeable result of a two-party, first-past-the-post electoral system:

(C)ontrary to claims that American political parties have to appeal broadly to win, they only need to win a quarter of the voting-age population to gain unified control of government in Washington, and their presidential nominee needs to win far less than that. Lest you think I’m picking on Republicans, the same was true (roughly) of Democrats in 2008.

Part of this is because unlike in Germany, where voter turnout hovers closer to 80 percent, American voter turnout is usually in the mid-50s in presidential elections, and closer to 40 percent in midterms (an international laggard). Many US voters don’t bother to vote because neither of the two parties appeals to them, or because they live in a safe state where their vote doesn’t matter, or because by comparative standards, there are significant hurdles to voting in the United States (such as more complicated registration, or voting being on a workday instead of on a weekend).

In short, there is nothing structural about a two-party system that guarantees moderate parties that have to appeal broadly.
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In the debate about whether democracy is in decline in the West, there’s some important cross-national variance. In a response to the widely discussed democratic decline findings of Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk, Pippa Norris compared support for democracy across Western democracies and found whatever cohort decline existed, it was largely limited to Anglo-American democracies, which tend toward two-party systems.

By contrast, in parliamentary democracies with proportional voting, there has been no consistent erosion in support for democracy. As Norris argues by way of explanation, “parliamentary democracies with PR elections and stable multiparty coalition governments, typical of the Nordic region, generate a broader consensus about welfare policies addressing inequality, exclusion, and social justice, and this avoids the adversarial winner-take-all divisive politics and social inequality more characteristic of majoritarian systems.”

- Joe Romm notes that any business case for fossil fuel power continues to crumble based on the decreasing cost of both solar and wind power, and the battery storage needed to use them most effectively.

- Ben Parfitt highlights the illegal building of 92 fracking dams in British Columbia - along with the province's disappointing response which seems limited trying to validate their construction.

- Susan Delacourt discusses the potentially large - but difficult-to-verify - role that big data plays in Canadian politics. And Colin Horgan offers an unnerving look at the type of personal information collected by Facebook and Google.

- Finally, Sandy Hudson comments on the unfair and racially-tinged burden the corporate press has placed on Jagmeet Singh (but not on his fellow federal leaders). But it's particularly worth noting - contrary to the spin being placed on Singh's leadership by other commentators - that Singh has the highest net public impression among the leaders of the official federal parties, and that the NDP is near the upper end of its typical polling range.

Musical interlude

Arty & Mat Zo - Rebound

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Benjamin Austin, Edward Glaeser and Lawrence Summers make the case for economic policy focused on reducing regional disparities. And Chad Shearer and Isha Shah highlight how inclusion is a necessary element of sustainable economic development:

(B)etter performance on one measure [out of growth, prosperity and inclusion] is associated with better performance on the other two measures in all three time periods. Gains in one category, like growth, are typically accompanied by gains in others, like prosperity and inclusion, and vice versa. For example, Table 1 shows that over the one year from 2015 to 2016, each one-unit increase in metro areas’ composite growth score was associated with a nearly half-unit increase in composite prosperity scores, on average. This relationship is moderately strong: growth scores explain about one-quarter of the variance in prosperity scores. The magnitude and strength of this relationship is relatively consistent over each of the time periods.

Growth and prosperity’s relationship to inclusion, however, grows larger and stronger with time. Table 1 shows that over the one-year period, each one-unit increase in metro areas’ composite growth score was associated with less than a quarter-unit increase in their composite inclusion scores. This relationship is tenuous: composite growth scores explain just 8.9 percent of the variance in their inclusion scores over a year. But the magnitude and strength of this relationship are greater over the five-year period and even greater over 10 years. Prosperity and inclusion, similarly, show little relationship over a one-year period, but exhibit an even stronger relationship over 10 years than prosperity and growth.
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(P)rogress on inclusion seems to stand out even despite the unevenness noted above. Of the 38 metro areas that achieved above-average performance on growth from 2006 to 2016, 28 also achieved above-average performance on inclusion. Twenty-five (25) of the 38 also performed above average on prosperity. Of the 45 metro areas that achieved above-average performance on prosperity during that period, 32 also achieved above-average performance on inclusion. Twenty-five (25) of the 45 also performed above average on growth.

This admittedly wonkish analysis thus points to a simple insight that should guide regional economic development efforts: although it may be elusive from year to year, in the long run, inclusion may provide the key to true economic success.

- Meanwhile, Naomi Jagoda and Niv Elis write that the Trump Republicans have realized they can't claim with a straight face that their tax scam helped anybody other than the wealthiest Americans.

- The Chicago Sun-Times examines the disastrous results of privatized custodial work in public schools. And the Canadian Press reports on the Parliamentary Budget Office's conclusion that the Trudeau Libs' capital-focused infrastructure scheme is already delivering far less than promised.

- Michelle Chen discusses how co-operatives are more productive than corporations designed solely to exploit workers and consumers in the name of shareholders.

- Finally, Doug Saunders rightly argues that the only speech crisis on campuses is the disproportionate attention being paid to people laughably claiming that their already-privileged positions should be granted even more deference.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mitchell Thompson discusses the absurdity of setting up Canada's banks for collapses and bailouts, rather than ensuring they serve the public interest. And Colin Butler reports on CUPW's continued push for a postal banking option to provide better service to far more people and communities.

- Barry Saxifrage writes about the glaring gap between Canada's supposed greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and the minimal policies actually in place. And Emily Pasiuk notes that Saskatchewan is the worst offender in lacking even a willingness to take the first step of setting meaningful targets.

- Meanwhile, Geoff Leo reports on Andrew Stevens' concerns that Scott Moe will leave Regina on the hook for the waste and scandal linked to the Global Transportation Hub after already exploiting the city for a la carte services.

- Nathan Laurie warns of Doug Ford's plans to send Ontario over a fiscal cliff. And Chris Selley points out that voters looking for an alternative would be best served voting for the Andrea Horwath's NDP rather than the party cynically copying its plans.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail wonders why the Trudeau Libs are dragging their feet on any improvements to Canada's electoral system - not to mention appointing somebody to oversee it.

New column day

Here, on Canada's failure to live up to our self-image as a generous and compassionate country - and the reality that we have plenty of fiscal capacity to close the gap.

For further reading...
- The abstract for the JAMA article referenced in the column is here, and has already been the subject of comment by Andre Picard.
- Meanwhile, PressProgress has weighed in on the OECD's latest data (PDF).
- Finally, the OECD's Society at a Glance reports - such as this one (PDF) - help place Canada's social outcomes in context.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Nathaniel Lewis laments the state of the U.S.' woefully insufficient social supports, while emphasizing the importance of public social spending in particular:

(P)rivate “social spending” is, for the most part, regressive and narrowly distributed. Households are bearing the cost directly for the goods and services that they themselves consume (like health care).

Public social spending is different. Often (though not always), it is a transfer of funds from the better-off to the worse-off. Think of a progressively funded, single-payer system. You get health insurance whether you have a job or not, and if you have a low-paying job, it will cost proportionally less than if you had a high-paying job.
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There is a strong, direct relationship between public social spending and poverty reduction. This is even more impressive when you consider that “public social spending” does not automatically mean “progressive.”
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...(P)ublic social spending does not just reduce poverty. It also creates a more equitable environment for society as a whole.
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(I)t follows fairly obviously from the above that the US should be making large outlays on social welfare that it currently is not making. While other wealthy countries apparently view their inhabitants as part of a society with universal needs, the US largely leaves its people to fend for themselves.

- Elizabeth McIsaac writes that social assistance should be a key point of comparison for Ontario voters in this year's election. And David Pfrimmer points out that the federal Libs are again kicking the can down the road rather than putting any meaningful resources into fighting poverty.

- Meanwhile, Peter Martin reports on new research estimating the cost of Australia's tax giveaways to the rich at $68 billion per year. And Andrew Leigh notes that the current government's plan is only to make matters worse - even in the face of opposition from four out of five citizens.

- Marshall Steinbaum, Eric Harris Bernstein and John Sturm study (PDF) the economic and social harms resulting from corporate monopolies.

- Jia Tolentino highlights the perversity of a gig economy which treats the eradication of "life" from any attempt at work-life balance as a plus. 

- Finally, Ian Capstick offers a worthwhile read on the dangers of looking at politics solely through a partisan lens - particularly to the extent the result is to limit empathy toward political competitors.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Reaching cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Wallace calls out the Ontario Libs' track record of consistent cuts to health care and other vital public services (with the exception of election-year promotional items). And Tom Parkin contrasts that pattern against Rachel Notley's protection of public services from the cuts threatened by her competitors.

- Meanwhile, Andre Picard writes about the need to deal with social inequalities in order to bring a long-overdue end to tuberculosis in Canada:

The rate of tuberculosis among the Inuit is 300 times higher than among Canadian-born non-Indigenous Canadians not because they are more susceptible to illness, but because they lack adequate housing, malnutrition is commonplace due to a lack of affordable food and scant employment opportunities mean too many families have trouble making ends meet.

Going forward, we cannot underestimate the size of the challenge. But the way to tackle public-health problems is with precise goals and concrete plans and, to its credit, Ottawa is taking that approach.

...

Dealing with chronic housing problems, punishingly high food prices and financial challenges in the part of Canada with the fastest-growing population is going to require much more money and visionary plans that extend well beyond tackling one disease by 2030.

TB is a symptom of social inequity. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate what reconciliation means in practical terms.

The litmus test for success will not be if the bacterium stops spreading, but whether the conditions that have allowed it to spread for so long disappear.

- Eryk Bagshaw highlights the tens of billions of dollars Australia loses every year by electing not to get full value for resource extraction.

- Finally, Laurin Liu examines the new wage gap facing young workers. And Gaby Hinsliff points out that organized labour and citizen activism is already shaping a gig economy which to date had done little but make work more precarious.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Vanessa Brcic offers some observations on the connection between poverty and health, including the importance of ensuring marginalized people are treated with respect:

The economic argument for poverty reduction is clear, but we see in health care what is more plainly obvious and compelling: the argument for human dignity. The deeply colonial, broken and inaccessible “poverty policing” that occurs in the current welfare and disability support systems have negative health impacts. Various papers and reports describe the impact of discriminatory systems, which for too long have perpetuated the shameful trend of labeling the poor and marginalized as undeserving. I invite anyone who believes that any person is undeserving of food, housing, or opportunity to thrive and contribute to contact me for a conversation: let’s talk.
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A fair income program must not allow governments off the hook for, or take the place of, other universal programs that patients depend on for their health (pharmacare, primary care and mental health), for their families (child care, elder and caregiver support, and housing), and for belonging (community and cultural programs, and so much more). If we dare look beyond a four-year political term, these public programs are cost-saving and economy-boosting measures. Further progressive policy (such as fair taxation and increasing private sector accountability for social and environmental externalities) can also help with this.

Support for people marginalized by current policies of oppression and colonization must include person-to-person support. People must be seen, heard and respected. Systemic change—including essential public services and basic income support—must provide the foundation for this support so that people can live with dignity, rather than systemically endorsed shame and isolation.

- Nicole Mortarillo reports on new research showing that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch includes 16 times more plastic waste than previously known. And Graham Readfearn points out the World Health Organization's concerns about large amounts of plastic in tap and (especially) bottled water.

- Meanwhile, Julia Belluz reports on the U.S.' use of NAFTA to try to prevent Canada and Mexico from warning citizens about unhealthy food.

- Finally, Kate Aronoff writes about the difficulties advocates have faced in pursuing even first steps toward combating climate change in the U.S. And Robson Fletcher and Brooks DeCillia discuss how Jason Kenney and other right-wing politicians have muddied the waters on climate policy - and how the few measures they're occasionally willing to tolerate are particularly inefficient.

Musical interlude

Big Wreck - Come What May

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Owen Jones discusses the need for wealth taxes as part of any plan to meaningfully reduce economic inequality:

Much is made of income inequality, and rightly so. Labour’s 2017 manifesto, which proved the tombstone for a neoliberal political consensus that has prevailed for a generation, pledged modest rises in income tax for the top 5% and in corporation tax. Those proposals, while welcome, did not go far enough. On taxing wealth, there is a far greater lack of ambition. This may smack of a lack of gratitude: “Come back when you’ve written a manifesto that buried New Labour’s acquiescence to neoliberalism,” a Labour staffer could justifiably respond. But even if it was the most radical manifesto of my lifetime, that does not mean it was radical enough, given the multiple social crises confronting us. It was a start. Wealth inequality, after all, is about twice as great as income inequality. While wealth inequality fell in the decade following 1995, that trend has since shuffled into reverse. And, according to the Resolution Foundation, while wealth has more than doubled as a percentage of the economy since the 1980s, we still raise only 4% of our tax from it.
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So what are the solutions? The first is a radical overhaul of property tax. When a mass movement of civil disobedience and protest in the early 1990s succeeded in defeating the poll tax – in which all households paid the same amount regardless of their economic circumstances – a new council tax came into force. Not only is council tax calculated on valuations that are now more than a quarter of a century out of date, but it is also profoundly regressive. According to the Resolution Foundation, in some areas it has become almost a flat rate, like the despised poll tax. Labour did, in fairness, pledge to review council tax and business rates and to consider a land value tax, but with no firmer commitment than that. The party needs to commit to either a land value tax or at least to an overhauled property tax – one levied as a percentage of current property values, for instance.

Then there’s inheritance tax. The inheritance tax paradox is that it is the most progressive and fair tax of all – arguably it is a tax on the class system – and yet is the most reviled, probably because it is hard to separate from the loss of a loved one. One suggestion floated by the Green party is to replace it with a levy on the recipient, rather than the deceased donor – that would make it harder to caricature the charge as a “death tax”. Portes goes further: why not replace inheritance tax with a principle that any money received from any source is treated as income unless it can be proven otherwise, whether it’s a £10,000 gift from a grandfather or £10,000 left in his will.

And then there’s capital gains tax: Labour promised to reverse Conservative cuts to it, but why not go even further? The IPPR’s commission floats other possible game changers, such as establishing a British sovereign wealth fund, much like Norway’s. One of the many tragedies of Thatcherism was the shameful waste of North Sea oil revenues as it built a fractured society, in contrast to the more prosperous and equal social-democratic Norway, where the state owns nearly 60% of wealth and 76% of non-household wealth. There’s also the proposal to give workers stronger shares in the ownership of companies, and the creation of workers’ ownership funds – as well as a monthly pay cheque employees would also get an annual dividend. We should go even further: why not an annual wealth tax on the top 2% or 5% of households?
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...(I)f Labour wishes to enact a truly transformative programme it may have to raise wealth taxes on, say, the most affluent quarter of society. This is certainly fraught with political risk. Yet consider the challenges: a struggling NHS, public services under strain, an ageing population, a national housing crisis, creaking infrastructure. If a new Britain is to be built, Labour will surely have to be more ambitious.

- And Marc Lee argues that British Columbia's new tax on empty homes represents at least a step in the right direction. 

- Meanwhile, Emily Stewart examines how the Republicans' tax scam has served only to make inequality worse in the U.S.

- Meagan Day points out how a few private operators are making a killing abusing the needs of health care systems - including by exploiting their own supply failures to raise prices. And CBC reports that misguided attempts by past Alberta PC governments to outsource operations to Carillion have resulted in the province having to funnel money into a failed corporate entity to maintain basic infrastructure.

- Finally, Noah Smith highlights how non-compete agreements not only damage the bargaining power of the workers bound by them, but also undermine economic development generally. And Terry Gerstein rightly criticizes Donald Trump's plan to make sure that employers who get caught stealing wages  are no worse off for taking money out of the hands of their workers.