Saturday, August 11, 2018

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ainslie Cruickshank reports on Grand Chief Stewart Phillip's call to prevent catastrophic climate change rather than devoting public money toward fossil fuel subsidies. And Eric Holthaus points out that the recent "hothouse Earth" report includes the recognition that it's not yet too late to return to climate stability with a meaningful push toward clean energy.

- But Emma McIntosh's report and David Climenhaga's post on climate change denialism within Jason Kenney's UCP offer a reminder that there are far too many people in and around the halls of power who won't even acknowledge the existence of a problem, let alone work toward a desperately-needed solution. And Alex Randall notes that neoliberal ideology has created extra barriers to concerted public action to solve climate change (or any other issue where the public interest comes into conflict with entrenched corporate power).

- Meanwhile, Zach Kaldveer examines how Donald Trump has pushed the U.S.' Environmental Protection Agency to take direction from corporations seeking free rein to pollute regardless of the resulting harm to the public.

- Don Pittis discusses some of the factors standing in the way of an inheritance tax in Canada - while noting that complaints seem to be largely based on a lack of awareness that other peer countries already have one.

- Finally, Rod Hick offers an overview of in-work poverty, while noting the need for far more work to assist people in escaping poverty traps.

Friday, August 10, 2018

Musical interlude

Eli and Fur - You're So High

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- David Moscrop makes the case for a long-overdue inheritance tax in Canada:
Over time, if left unchecked, capitalism facilitates the pooling of wealth — cash, property, business ownership, investments — among a select few. This is as true in Canada as anywhere else. That pooling implies not just the concentration of wealth but also the concentration of authority, influence, proximity to decision-makers, and all the other tactical tools it takes to get things done the way you want them done.

That concentration of power ultimately undermines democracy. When a small elite hog the wealth and the power, the rest of the people are either marginalized or shut out altogether.

The most obscene way that wealth is made is through large-scale inheritance. Passing along wealth facilitates the concentration of resources in the hands of the few, generation over generation. In Canada, inheritance is a serious problem that prevents not just equal outcome but even equal opportunity.
- Wanyee Li highlights how soaring housing prices in Vancouver have made it nearly impossible for middle- and working-class citizens to become homeowners. And Ryan Cooper points out the role social housing needs to play in building cohesive and functional cities.

- Nick Loenen discusses the value of an electoral system which encourages cooperation and genuine majoritarianism rather than artificially assigning absolute power to one leader with a minority of the total party vote.

- Meanwhile, in a prime example of how artificial majorities lead to abuses of centralized power, Mike de Souza exposes how the Libs allowed Kinder Morgan to raid the public treasury without keeping anybody informed of their plans. And David Sirota reports on Donald Trump's latest scheme to hand free money to banksters at public expense.

- Felice Frayer reports on a new study showing the connection between on-the-job injuries and opioid deaths.

- Finally, while the Saskatchewan Party tries to wish away its Global Transportation Hub scandal, Geoff Leo reminds us of just 20 of the outstanding questions about the fiasco while finding nobody willing to answer them.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Wednesday, August 08, 2018

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frank Rich writes that the lack of a meaningful response to the 2008 financial crisis has understandably undermined public confidence in the U.S.' future:
Everything in the country is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education, institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems, except Peak TV (for those who can afford it).

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Flattened cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jessica Corbett writes that Earth's atmospheric carbon concentration has reached levels not seen in 80,000 years, while Jonathan Watts reports on a new study showing that climate change may be pushing our planet toward a "hothouse" state which might threaten human life. The Daily Mail reports that the California city of Imperial recently saw the hottest rain recorded on record. And Simon Lewis writes that while it's not too late to avert the worst possible climate catastrophe, we need large-scale and immediate political change to do so.

- Meanwhile, Norm Farrell compares the virtually-nonexistent punishment for the corporate sector's deliberate environmental destruction to the lock-'em-up attitude being displayed toward environmental activists.

- The Economist's Bartleby writes about the constant stress facing American workers.

- Tuomas Maraja highlights the psychological benefits of receiving a basic income rather than heavily conditional welfare payments. Jessie Golem discusses the disappointment of having the prospect of financial security stripped away by Doug Ford's PCs out of nothing but contempt for people facing poverty and precarity. And Stephen Tweedale wonders whether the better path toward a basic income involves incremental benefits for everybody, rather than small-scale pilot programs which exclude most citizens.

- Finally, in the wake of John Tory's promise to use new strongman powers to impose austerity on Toronto, Heather Mallick offers a reminder that tax revenue is vital for a population to thrive.

Monday, August 06, 2018

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Brian Nolan examines the relationship between inequality and median incomes in developed countries, and concludes that there's little basis to view inequality as an inevitable outcome of international forces:
Globalisation and technological change are often portrayed as exogenous forces sweeping across the rich countries, inexorably driving up inequality and forcing workers to accept wage stagnation (and often less security) if they are to hold on to their jobs. Instead, the variation in country experiences shows how much institutions and policy responses matter to how these forces – themselves subject to human agency rather than God-given – play out in the job market and affect household disposable incomes. Wage-setting institutions clearly have a critical influence. The Belgian combination of wages indexed to inflation, collective agreements covering most workers, and a high minimum wage underpinned significant wage growth across the distribution. In Australia, the extension of collectively negotiated employment terms and conditions over much of the work force, together with a very high minimum wage, play a key role. By contrast, the remarkably poor earnings performance of the UK over the last decade is in a context where wage bargaining has become individualised.

Broader welfare state institutions also play a critical role in levels and patterns of employment. Countries with reasonably strong income growth over recent decades have generally combined some increase in real wages with a rise in the overall employment rate and especially female employment. Recent UK and much longer US experience shows, however, that rising female employment when combined with very weak real wages still equates to stagnating living standards. The welfare state is also key to whether the costs associated with increasing women’s employment are borne by the families themselves or socially, with implications for their welfare generally missed by current metrics. Furthermore, countries have made very different choices with respect to the regulation of employment contracts and conditions, offsetting or accelerating the effects of forces making work more precarious.

Country contexts really matter, and policy responses must be framed in light of the institutional point of departure and distinctive challenges each country faces. Promoting economic growth and ensuring that its benefits are transmitted to middle and lower income households need equal attention; redistribution can be strengthened, while wages generated in the market remain fundamental. The current political salience of inequality and stagnation provides a window of opportunity for a fundamental reassessment of how growth and prosperity are being pursued; the US experience should not however dominate in the search for explanations and effective responses. 
- And Salvatore Morelli studies (PDF) the shape of income concentration around financial crises, concluding that market shocks don't have any lasting effect in equalizing income unless paired with meaningful public policy changes.

- John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto point out how privatization and financialization set Puerto Rico up for the humanitarian disaster resulting from Hurricane Maria.

- Alexi White warns that the Doug Ford PCs are likely just getting started in slashing programs needed to support the most vulnerable people in Ontario. And Alissa Tedesco, Jon Herriot and Katie Boone discuss how Ford's attacks against basic social benefits will endanger the health of the public at large, while Farrah Merali notes that the PCs' threats to safe injection sites similarly stand to end lives to accomplish nothing more than political posturing. 

- Finally, Zack Beauchamp reports on new research which examines terminations arising out of public commentary at U.S. universities, and finds both that any concern about speech is overblown, and that it's left-wing speech that's actually more likely to result in reprisals.

Sunday, August 05, 2018

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne writes that there's no reason to turn Donald Trump's giveaway to the rich into an excuse for similarly destructive policies in Canada:
If tax policy levers need adjusting, there is a more effective and sophisticated approach that can be taken, rather than a swinging a machete through the corporate tax rate. Walmart doesn’t need a tax break.

For example, targeting tax incentives to those who need the support in order to invest in machinery, productivity and wages makes for smarter policy. It’s ironic how those who argue against universal social programs have no problem supporting universal tax cuts for corporations. No matter the problem, it’s their panacea.

Why give tax cuts to corporations stockpiling cash on their balance sheets? Why give them to corporations socking away billions in global tax havens rather than investing the capital in Canadian jobs and wages? Why give them to companies who are going to make certain investments anyway?

It is bad policy and it depletes much needed revenues to invest in priorities like child care, more affordable or free post-secondary education, better health care and green transit.

And it is leading to a place where researchers predict in the next 10 to 20 years, corporate taxes will be a thing of the past unless massive collective action is taken. That’s how effective corporations have been at convincing governments to do their bidding.
- David Climenhaga argues that progressive governments need to begin acting at least as decisively as conservative counterparts, rather than allowing policy to drift in the wrong direction. And Ian Bailey reports on some of the worker-friendly developments in British Columbia under John Horgan's NDP government.

- J.W. Mason's review of Quinn Slobodian's Globalists discusses the history of neoliberalism as a philosophy favouring the use of state power to reinforce existing inequalities in income and wealth.  And Drew Brown notes that if anything has changed in the relationship of the uber-rich to the rest of us, it's their explicit intention to disengage from humanity as a whole.

- Jason Furman discusses how work requirements and other access barriers to basic social programs serve solely to hurt poor families without accomplishing anything positive.

- Craig Scott writes that Doug Ford's trampling of municipal democracy in Toronto might well violate fundamental constitutional principles.

- Finally, Andre Picard comments on Canada's Epipen shortage, while noting that it fits into a larger pattern of essential medical products having fragile supply chains which leave public health at risk.