For the longest time, I have been pondering the timidity of successive governments to be on anything but the good side of the corporate titans who walk among us. Certainly, we sometimes hear brave words that are scripted from the world of political theatre, but when the metal hits the
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Erin Prater reports on research showing how long COVID may be traced to excessive pruning of connections in the brain. Faye Flam highlights why anybody who’s been infected will need to be on the outlook for stroke symptoms. And Norman Swan warns of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes about the growing recognition that COVID-19 may have severe and long-term effects on the brains of people who get infected, while Hannah Devlin reports on research showing it may also have systematic personality effects on younger people. And Nam
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ian Hilton talks to several progressive economists about the opportunities for change as we manage and emerge from the coronavirus crisis. And Andre Roncaglia de Carvalho writes about the importance of state planning in charting our future course. – Nav Persaud and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac offer a stark look at the plausible worst-case scenario for a climate breakdown over just the next thirty years. And Zarah Sultana argues that in the UK (as elsewhere), we need to demand transformative politics to respond
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ajit Zacharias, Thomas Masterson and Fernando Rios-Avila study the economic well-being of U.S. households, and find a stagnant standard of living including a falling base income for the median family. Josh Bivens and Ben Zipperer confirm that in the past few decades, workers
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Brian Wakamo notes that Kirsten Gillibrand is pushing for postal banking in the U.S. as an alternative to predatory lenders in underserved communities. – Glen Hodgson discusses the rising fiscal costs of climate change – even as the Trudeau Libs plan to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: 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
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dick Bryan argues that the minimum wage should reflect the financial risks faced by low-wage workers, while Nick Day offers some lessons in successful economic activism from the $15 and Fairness movement. And Yasemin Besen-Cassino points out that gender-based pay inequity starts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Ritika Goel writes that good jobs lead to all kinds of ancillary benefits to both the health of workers, and the strength of the overall economy: We are in a time of increasing part-time, casual, temporary and contract work, with less access to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Owen Jones writes that excessive reliance on corporate profiteers is the reason why the UK’s trains don’t run on time. And Nora Loreto argues that postal banking is needed (among other reasons) to rein in abuses by Canada’s biggest banks. – Shannon Daub
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rutger Bregman writes that the most extreme wealth in our economy is based on rents rather than productivity: In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Erica Johnson reports that the problem of bank employees being pushed to fleece customers (legality be damned) is common to all of Canada’s major banks. And Lisa Wright reports that the result will be a national investigation. But it’s appalling that it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bessma Momani writes that Donald Trump’s plan to leave the U.S. at the mercy of unregulated financial markets figures to cause another crisis comparable to – or worse than – that of 2008: Nearly 10 years ago, the U.S. financial industry was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roy Romanow writes about the dangers of focusing unduly on raw economic growth, rather than measuring our choices by how they actually affect people’s well-being: At the national level, the picture that emerges over the past 21 years is a GDP rebounding post-recession
Continue readingWe Pivot: You Probably Already Support Postal Banking Too
CUPW, the union for Canada Post workers, has had some innovative ideas lately which the Harper and Trudeau governments are, not surprisingly, not too keen on. Both governments pursue a neoliberal privatization agenda. Public services like CBC and Canada Post provide no profit layer to companies because they exist as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:The E…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
– Armine Yalnizyan writes that the response to the European Commission’s finding that Apple has dodged $20 billion in taxes may tell us all we need to know about the relative power of governments and corporations:
The EC is also investigating state support received by Amazon and McDonalds in Luxembourg, a tax haven. Expect more costly court battles about the appropriateness of laws and systems of governance.Since the 2008 economic crisis, giant corporations have gone from being “too big to fail” to “too big to pay.”But as the big tax avoiders get feisty, so too are voters. The Panama Papers have made people aware of the hypocrisy: when those with deep pockets don’t pay, everyone else pays more. Governments are legitimately worried about their finances, and more focused on tax fairness than in decades. But as corporations both fight and rewrite the rules, occasionally cash-starved, debt-ridden nations are being enlisted to support their agenda.The Apple story is huge. It could presage the end of tax competition, as nations co-ordinate attempts to combat absurd levels of tax-dodging. Or it could signal growing dominance of corporate power over state power. High stakes, to be sure, in the evolution of 21st-century globalization.
– Meanwhile, Allan Sloan discusses how Mylan’s profiteering in ratcheting up the price of EpiPens has been paired with glaring tax avoidance. And the NDP points out the conspicuous lack of any public benefit from the Libs’ and Cons’ track record of corporate tax slashing in Canada.
– Alex Hemingway writes about the costs of privatizing public infrastructure. And Thomas Walkom highlights the Libs’ options in reviewing Canada Post’s future – which include taking an obvious opportunity to better meet a large number of social needs through a postal banking system.
– Bloomberg View rightly argues that fossil fuel subsidies are about the dumbest possible type of public policy. And Samantha Page offers another reason why that’s so by pointing out the devastating health effects of oil and gas production and distribution.
– Finally, Simon Enoch offers a much-needed warning to the rest of Canada as to what Saskatchewan faces with Brad Wall in power.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Paolo Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo study (PDF) how the economic conditions an individual’s youth influence enduring values – and find that the experience of an economic shock tends to lead to a greater apprec…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Owen Jones interviews Ha-Joon Chang about the foreseeable harm caused by the UK’s austerity, as well as the false claims used to push it. – The Stoney Creek News rightly argues that Canada Post should move toward pos…
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