This and that for your Thursday reading. – Mariano Zafra and Javier Salas offer a handy visual aid as to how COVID-19 spreads indoors – showing that masking is a valuable partial solution, but that effective ventilation can significantly reduce community transmission. And Jessica Wong reports on the results of
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jason Markusoff discusses Jason Kenney’s race to the bottom as he uses a pandemic as an excuse to sacrifice yet more public money and workers’ rights to corporate freeloaders. – Richard Cannings points out how inequality is a drag on our economy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michelle Girash and Chandra Pasma write from personal experience about the uncertainty COVID-19 creates for workers. Bryan Borzykowski notes that the needed extension of the CERB through the summer has merely delayed the approach to a cliff for people who have rightly relied
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Dylan Matthews writes about the growing body of evidence showing that minimum wage increases boost pay for lower-income workers while having no effect on the availability of jobs. And Paul Karp and Amy Remeikis report on new research challenging the explanation for reducing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Emilie Prattico comments on the need to move past an economy that generates billionaires and widespread precarity in order to ensure that collective problems can be meaningfully addressed: While the public has never been as outspoken in its support of urgent and ambitious
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Glen Pearson discusses the glaring gap between what citizens actually value, and what gets done by the governments they elect through distorted political systems: This past weekend, I wrote a column for the London Free Press, in which I stated the following:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Somini Sengupta writes that the extreme heat experienced so far in 2018 shows how ill-prepared humanity is for the climate change it’s causing. And the Economist offers a warning that the oil industry can’t realistically expect past prices to continue to apply
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Peter Gowan discusses UK Labour’s push for greater social control over economic development. And Rainer Kattel, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins and Simon Sharpe set out a useful framework to evaluate policies which are intended to shape markets rather than merely attempting to fix
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Glen Pearson makes the case for transcending cynicism in our politics, including the choice to stay involved once an election is done. And Ian Welsh reminds us that our definition of property is socially establi…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jim Stanford examines what Canada’s federal election says about our attitudes toward economic choices: (P)rogressives need to advance our own economic agenda, to fill the vacuum left by the failure of the Conservative vision. The modest infrastructure spending and small, temporary deficits
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Den Tandt and Jonathan Kay both point out the willingness of conservative (and Conservative) supporters to brush off the obvious misdeeds of their political leaders. And Glen Pearson rightly concludes that the responsibility to elect deserving leaders ultimately lies with voters: We
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Murray Dobbin recognizes that there’s more at stake on the federal political scene than merely replacing the Harper Cons – and that the most important debate may be found within the NDP. Meanwhile, Tim Harper is concern trolling on that front, demanding that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Glen Pearson theorizes that inequality will be the defining theme of the current political era. Tavia Grant and Janet McFarland document the extreme (and continually-increasing) disparity between the top 1% and the rest of the world. And Eduardo Porter writes that education
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Debbie Chachra discusses why an effective government is a necessary element of civilization – and why charity can’t fill in the gap: Taxes aren’t the only way to pay for civilization, of course: community groups, charities, and churches also contribute. But I
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson rightly questions Greg Mankiw’s faith-based assertion that increasing wealth accumulation is based solely on merit and contribution to society rather than hoarding and rent-seeking. And Martin Lobel highlights a few of the distortionary policies that have served to exacerbate inequality in
Continue readingImpolitical: Pearson on Fantino
Glen Pearson writes about the Julian Fantino appointment as Minister of International Cooperation, the ministry that oversees Canada’s international aid efforts. He highlights the qualities that those involved in the aid portfolio possess: • A natural compassion • A willingness to cooperate with others in the field • A deep
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dana Flavelle and Rachel Mendleson both cover Lars Osberg’s study on the harmful effects of inequality. But let’s highlight the key conclusion from the original source: (T)he continuation of a divergence in income growth trends necessarily creates changing flows of consumption and
Continue readingThe Equivocator: The Liberal Party Launches New “Supporters” System (Along With a New Round of Leadership Speculation)
On Wednesday the Liberal Party of Canada launched its new “supporter” class. I was proud to support the constitution amendment that lead to this at the biennial convention at the beginning of this year. With this came a number of articles in Canadian newspapers speculating as to who is going
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