Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Shaun Richman reviews David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs – including the inevitable inference that there needs to be some means for people to be supported without having to seek out useless work: Much of the “bullshitization” of white-collar work is purely accidental, but Graeber
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michal Kalecki discusses how full employment shifts the balance of power from corporations to workers. Roland Kupers reminds us that inequality is a matter of policy choices – and that there’s broad public support to reduce the level we’re stuck with at
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – J.W. Mason reviews Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room with a focus on how damaging austerity was forced on Greece by other governments. And Jan Rovny comments on the need for Europe’s left-wing parties to adapt to the precarious economy and evolving social
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the growing gap between the Trudeau Libs’ “middle class” messaging and the self-perception of a growing working class in Canada. For further reading…– Ekos’ polling is discussed here, with detailed tables here (PDF).– The Libs’ 2015 platform is again here (PDF). And again, PressProgress discussed Bill Morneau’s message
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ben Steverman examines the unfairness of the U.S.’ tax system – which, like Canada’s, offers gratuitous giveaways to wealthy investors which force workers to pay more: Politicians have intentionally set tax rates on wages much higher than those on long-term investment returns. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis – Niki Ashton
As I’ve noted previously, Niki Ashton’s debate strategy doesn’t often seem to involve discussing policy at length. And that’s a shame, because she’s done more than any other candidate to raise (and propose solutions to) a broad range of issues. While Ashton has primarily emphasized her proposals for free tuition
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ben Casselman points out how corporate consolidation can produce harmful results for consumers and workers alike. Guy Standing discusses how we’re all worse off for the spread of rentier capitalism. And Mariana Mazzucato reminds us that an entrepreneurial government is a must if
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew applaud Wallonia’s principled stance against the CETA. And Joseph Stiglitz discusses the need to set up social and economic systems which actually serve the public good, rather than favouring corporate interests: Where the trade agreements failed, it was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Larry Elliott writes that the public is rightly frustrated with an economic model designed to shift money to those who already have the most – and that progressive parties in particular need to offer a meaningful alternative: The belief on the left was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
– Christopher Ingraham points out that while many luxuries are getting cheaper with time, the necessities of life are becoming much more difficult to afford:
Many manufactured goods — like TVs and appliances — come from overseas, where labor costs are cheaper. “International, global competition lowers prices directly from lower-cost imported goods, and indirectly by forcing U.S. manufacturers to behave more competitively, with lower prices, higher quality, better service, et cetera,” Perry said.
On the flip side, things like education and medical care can’t be produced in a factory, so those pressures do not apply. Compounding it, many Americans are insulated from the full costs of these services. Private and public insurance companies pay most medical costs, so there tends to be little incentive for individuals to shop around for cheaper medical care.In the case of higher education, the nation’s massive student loan industry bears much of the upfront burden of rising prices. To the typical 18-year-old, a $120,000 tuition bill may seem like an abstraction when you don’t have to start paying it off until your mid-20s or later. As a result, the nation’s college students and graduates now collectively owe upward of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.
“Prices rise when [health care and college] markets are not competitive and not exposed to global competition,” Perry said, “and prices rise when easy credit is available.”
Hence, our current predicament. We can afford the things we don’t need, but we need the things we can’t afford.
– Alex Usher notes how one of the same cost pressures applies in Canada, as universities losing public funding are squeezing students for massive tuition increases. And Lindsay Kines reports that the Clark government’s decision to make life less affordable for people with disabilities in British Columbia has led to 3,500 people giving up their transit passes.
– Natalia Khosla and Sean McElwee discuss the difficulty in addressing racism when many people live in denial of their continued privilege.
– Paul Wells comments on SNC Lavalin’s long track record of illegal corporate donations to the Libs and the Cons.
– Finally, Gerry Caplan points out how Justin Trudeau is dodging key human rights questions. And Mike Blanchfield reports that the Libs’ willingness to undermine a treaty prohibiting the use of cluster bombs represents just another area where they’re leaving the Cons’ most harmful policies untouched.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Robert Reich discusses how our economy is rigged so that the self-proclaimed risk-takers actually can’t lose:I don’t want to pick on Ms. Mayer or the managers of the funds that invest in Yahoo. They…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the contrast between a Saskatchewan Party platform (and government) dedicated to handing money to the people who need it least, and an NDP which plans to help where it’s most needed with what limited resources are left since Brad Wall wasted a…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Andrew Jackson argues that a federal infrastructure program can and should be oriented toward developing a skilled and diverse workforce, rather than rewarding free-riding contractors who don’t contribute to …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Hiltzik discusses how corporate apologists are trying (but failing) to minimize the existence and importance of income inequality. Lawrence Martin notes that the rest of Canada’s economic indicators are similarly signalling that Conservative dogma is of absolutely no use in the real
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Saskatchewan Party’s choice to turn the graduate retention credit into a purely political goodie rather than a program which could conceivably retain Saskatchewan graduates, while at the same time devaluing the very concept of education for its own sake. For further reading…– The province’s explanation (such as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – For those looking for information about today’s day of action against C-51, Leadnow and Rabble both have details. – Meanwhile, CBC reports that a professor merely taking pictures on public land near a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline site is already being harassed by
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Our Gift to Nova Scotia #nlpoli
As of March 31, 2014, Memorial University had an annual deficit of about $330 million. In 2013-2014, the annual cost of subsidising tuition for out-of-province students at Memorial was $112 million. The provincial government operation subsidy to the university has doubled since 2004. Those are a few of snippets from
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Means-test the rich, or another argument for eliminating tuition
Here’s an oversimplified choice for how to fund post-secondary education. Imagine you have two options for dealing with how people pay for post-secondary education: Universal free tuition, means-testing to see if you are rich enough to pay Universal tuition fees, means-testing to see if you are poor enough to not
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig discusses the radical difference between how Canadians want to see public resources used (based on the example set by governments elsewhere), and the determination of the Cons and their corporate allies to instead fritter away every dime of fiscal capacity the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Charlie Smith discusses – and then follows up on – Donald Gutstein’s work in tracing the connections between the Harper Cons and the shadowy, U.S.-based network of right-wing propaganda mills: In Harperism: How Stephen Harper and His Think Tank Colleagues Have Transformed Canada
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