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By Greg Fingas, on May 14, 2013, at 9:48 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- Karl Nerenberg reports on the House Finance Committee’s hearings into income inequality in Canada, featuring a few familiar themes which we should hear far more often from our policy-makers: “I would make all tax credits refundable, including the current non-refundable ones,” Boadway recommended, and then went further, “I would condition many of them to income, the way we condition the GST credit. I would enhance disability tax credits and make them available to all provincial disability recipients.”
On tax breaks for upper income Canadians and corporations, Boadway prescribed tough medicine: “I (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 11, 2013, at 12:35 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Armine Yalnizyan makes the case as to why wealth equates to far too much power in Canada: The problem is not that the wealthy are too powerful. The problem is that, with rare exception, as their power has increased, it has not been matched by an increase in their sense of responsibility. On the contrary, the wealthy have been using their power for decades to reduce their responsibilities to anyone but themselves.
The litany, en bref: Taxes are too high. Governments are too big. There are too many rules. Workers feel way too (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 9, 2013, at 9:31 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- George Monbiot writes about the absurdity of the right-wing choice to promote inequality in the name of competition among the wealthy when the ultimate results are worse for everybody: The capture by the executive class of so much wealth performs no useful function. What the very rich appear to value is relative income. If executives were all paid 5% of current levels, the competition between them (a questionable virtue anyway) would be no less fierce. As the immensely rich HL Hunt commented several decades ago: “Money is just a way of keeping score.”
(Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 8, 2013, at 9:41 am Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Linda McQuaig discusses Stephen Harper’s class war: Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such a public outcry since the temporary foreign worker program was exposed as a mechanism by which the Harper government has flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign workers, thereby suppressing Canadian wages in the interests of helping corporations.
Apart from this clumsy fiasco, the Harperites have been adroit at keeping their anti-worker bias under the radar. Instead, they’ve directed their attacks against unions, portraying them as undemocratic (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 5, 2013, at 11:41 am Assorted content for your Sunday reading.
- Aviva Shen looks at Monsanto’s history of regulatory capture – with the recent “Monsanto Protection Act” serving as just a minor example in a long list of control over U.S. law: Monsanto insists that its revolving door is in overdrive because Monsanto employees are simply the best qualified for positions in these agencies, who certainly don’t hold onto their loyalty to the company in their new roles.
Yet it’s hard to ignore how Monsanto has benefited from these connections. The USDA has never denied a single application for Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops. (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 3, 2013, at 9:59 am Assorted content to end your week.
- Arthur Haberman argues that our universal public health care system helps contribute to a more democratic society: There is something that political philosophers — those like Tocqueville and Mill in the 19th century — have come to call living democratically. By this it is meant that voting is but a small part of what being in a democracy is about. It also includes volunteering in small ways to make our communities better, participating in decisions about what happens to your town or your neighbourhood, judging your fellow citizens by the quality of their (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 2, 2013, at 9:45 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Ed Broadbent takes a look at how our tax system can combat inequality in more ways than one: The Broadbent Institute is presenting proposals Tuesday to the Finance Committee of the House of Commons. Our primary recommendation is that Canada establish as a goal the provision of a basic income-tested guarantee to all citizens through a fairer personal income tax system.
The tax/transfer system equalizes income in two important ways. First, progressive income taxes mean that the affluent pay a higher percentage of income than middle and low income earners. Second, these (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 2, 2013, at 9:22 am Here, on how increasing inequality at the top of the income spectrum is creating a real disparity in opportunity affecting both middle-class and lower-income children.
For further reading, see Sean Reardon’s column (or better yet, his study) discussing the U.S.’ experience in detail.
By Greg Fingas, on April 30, 2013, at 10:47 am There’s been no lack of past commentary (from myself and others) on how income splitting is about as regressive a policy as one could possibly design – and I won’t repeat it for the moment other than to say that the supposed “compromise” offered by Jack Mintz only goes a step further in ascribing zero value to a stay-at-home spouse.
But it is worth pointing out Lib MP John McKay’s participation in yesterday’s PR stunt – explained by the bizarre claim that the issue is one that we should “de-politicize” income distribution and tax policy.
Simply put, the issue (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on April 30, 2013, at 9:49 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- We shouldn’t be surprised that the corporate sector is reacting with contrived outrage to the Cons’ tinkering with a severely flawed temporary foreign worker program. But Jim Stanford points out what it would take to actually move labour standards upward rather than including Canadian workers in a race to the bottom: (T)he Harper government is now moving to avert a political disaster in the making. Advance coverage in the Globe and Mail indicates its proposed changes will include a new fee for temporary foreign worker permits, and requirements that employers promise to (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on April 29, 2013, at 9:45 am Assorted content to start your week.
- Lynn Stuart Parramore discusses the epidemic of wage theft by U.S. employers: Americans like to think that a fair day’s work brings a fair day’s pay. Cheating workers of their wages may seem like a problem of 19th-century sweatshops. But it’s back and taking a terrible toll. We’re talking billions of dollars in wages; millions of workers affected each year. A gigantic heist is being perpetrated against working people: they’re getting screwed on overtime, denied their tips, shortchanged on benefits, defrauded on payroll, and handed paychecks that bounce like rubber balls. A (Read more…)
By Obert Madondo, on April 24, 2013, at 7:05 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) argues that, without change in public policy, it’ll take Canada 228 years to close its yawning gender gap. The study, titled Closing Canada’s Gender Gap, examined Canada’s progress in closing the gap between men and women over the [...]
The post Gender gap leaves Canadian women “leaning in” for the next 228 years, says study appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Greg Fingas, on April 24, 2013, at 6:54 pm Boy, it’s reassuring to see the Sask Party lamenting the unfairness of a 15-fold difference in treatment between groups of landowners.
I’m sure they’ll be getting to Saskatchewan’s contribution to the 235-fold difference in salary between CEOs and the rest of us any day now.
By Guest Blog, on April 24, 2013, at 5:20 pm By: Andrew Jackson | Broadbent Institute Admirers and detractors of Margaret Thatcher can agree that she will be remembered as one of the key political architects of our times. Along with her soulmate, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, she broke decisively with the post-war Keynesian welfare state and ushered in the still-enduring age [...]
The post Thatcherism: A grand, failed economic experiment appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By The Mound of Sound, on April 24, 2013, at 2:19 pm The Great Recession of 2008 devastated broad swathes of the population of the developed world. Foreclosures, unemployment, insolvency, homelessness, the gamut of economic misery. For most but not for all, not for some.
A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that the first two years of the recovery were Manna from Heaven for those who had already cemented their capture of both economic and political power, the richest of the rich. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the United States.
During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth (Read more…) households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.
From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the . . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: It’s a "No Lose World" Once You Have Captured the Political Process
By Greg Fingas, on April 23, 2013, at 9:40 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- The Broadbent Institute’s “Union Communities, Healthy Communities” report discusses the significance of the labour movement in achieving positive social outcomes. And Rick Smith concurrently writes that the right’s attacks on unions represent a solution in search of a problem: (W)hen unions are strong, the gains that they make for their members in terms of decent wages and benefits spill over into non-union workplaces. In the face of Canadian conservatives trying to portray unions as some kind of impediment to economic growth and productivity, actually examining this empirical evidence is instructive.
Economists agree (Read more…) the rapidly rising share of all income going to the top 1% in the US and Canada since the early 1980s is explained in significant part by declining unionization. US-style de-unionization would clearly make Canada a much more unequal society than is already the case.
And . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 22, 2013, at 9:56 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Paul Adams rightly points out that there’s no inherent value in centrism merely for the sake of centrism – especially when the spectrum of choices is itself shaped by decades of distorted assumptions: (T)he reality of modern politics is that the muddled middle is no answer at all to the issues facing us. On economic and social policy, what divides Canadians is their attitude towards three decades of market-liberating policies that have weakened our middle class, increased inequality, corroded social programs, undermined the ability of working people to negotiate a living wage, and (Read more…) us all more vulnerable and insecure.
There is certainly a discussion to be had about how quickly and by what means these policies should be moderated, revised or reversed — and issues of priority, pace and technique may divide the Liberals and the NDP.
But first, both parties . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 20, 2013, at 5:13 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Daniel Cohn theorizes that the only real problem with RBC’s outsourcing of Canadian jobs is that they called attention to the government policies which facilitated that outcome. But for those of us who think there’s actually a problem with an economy designed around minimizing wages and employment, Susan McIsaac and Matthew Mendelsohn offer some suggestions to turn the tide. And Tavia Grant points out that the Cons’ preference for cheap, disposable foreign labour might help employers, but certainly doesn’t produce positive results for Canada as a whole.
- In the same vein, Andrew (Read more…) discusses how the last great set of attacks on workers in the name of economic efficiency proved an utter failure in producing any policy outcome other than increased inequality: Thatcherism did not provide an enduring solution to the problem of how to attain stable growth. Business profitability was . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 17, 2013, at 9:31 am Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Thomas Walkom points out that banks are far from the only corporations who are conspicuously moving jobs offshore to the detriment of Canadian workers and citizens: Unions are being ground down; wages are being ground down. Jobs are being ground out of existence. With the economy so weak and foreign competition so fierce, domestic firms find it harder to expand.
For many, the only solution is to squeeze their workers.
Before the Great Recession, goods moved easily across borders. So did capital. But what’s new about this slump is that labour has become
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 13, 2013, at 7:56 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Thomas Walkom offers an insider’s look at outsourcing: Arlene says any outsourcing scheme begins with the institution’s senior management. Usually, she says, the aim is to transfer about 60 per cent of the affected jobs — often in back-shop areas like information technology — to India where wages are a fraction of those paid in Canada.
The remaining 40 per cent, which generally require more local support, are outsourced to third-party firms in Canada. They in turn, subcontract the jobs to individual Canadians. The aim here, Arlene says, is to not only to . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By The Arbourist, on April 11, 2013, at 8:03 am Inequality is going to kick our ass if we don’t take measures to rectify the imbalances in your societies. The topic of this video is interesting; the presenter not so much. I recommend watching the video if you have a keen interest in how our world is working, but do not expect to be actively ‘entertained’.
Filed under: Politics Tagged: Capitalism, Inequality, The RSA
By Greg Fingas, on April 6, 2013, at 10:54 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- The Star makes the case for a serious crackdown on offshore tax avoidance: Thanks to a spectacular data leak Canadians are getting a glimpse into what some have dubbed the “black hole” of globalization: The $20 trillion or more in unreported income thought to be stashed in offshore tax havens by the world’s richest people to avoid taxes. It’s not a pretty sight.
At a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is struggling to eliminate a $26-billion deficit and when governments around the world are starved for resources, the seismic leak to
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 4, 2013, at 11:17 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- John Greenwood and CBC News both report on the offshore tax avoidance being revealed through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. And Susan Lunn observes that Canada’s federal parties are all at least paying lip service to the issue – though of course the Cons’ cuts to tax enforcement speak louder than their spin.
- Meanwhile, Paul McLeod notes that income inequality will also receive at least some much-needed attention in Parliament. And Danyaal Raza’s discussion of the damage done to public health by inequality looks to offer one important point worth
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 2, 2013, at 10:56 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- George Monbiot proposes a basic income as one of the great ideas needed to challenge corporatist orthodoxy: A basic income (also known as a citizen’s income) gives everyone, rich and poor, without means-testing or conditions, a guaranteed sum every week. It replaces some but not all benefits (there would, for instance, be extra payments for pensioners and people with disabilities). It banishes the fear and insecurity now stalking the poorer half of the population. Economic survival becomes a right, not a privilege.
A basic income removes the stigma of benefits while also
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 1, 2013, at 9:50 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Lori Theresa Waller provides her own take on the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights’ study on labour rights and inequality: In the 1970s, all provinces used the simple card check system, whereby an employer must legally recognize a union if the majority of workers sign membership cards. Since then, B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia have moved to requiring that workplaces also hold a vote before the union will be legally recognized.
…Studies have found that the additional requirement of holding a vote decreases the success of union organizing drives
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
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