Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category
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Stop celebrating capitalism and start celebrating sanitation for saving humanity
Thursday, January 16th, 2020
… things only truly got better… after ordinary people won the right to vote and to join unions that pushed for higher wages and helped secure public access to health care, education and housing… over the fierce objections of capitalists… it’s not capitalism but rather the forces fighting to curb capitalism’s worst excesses — unions and progressive political movements — that have improved people’s lives.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Government must step in to fix the gig economy
Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
The nature of work is changing. But that shouldn’t mean that jobs, particularly those for low-paid workers, just get worse and worse. Ontario needs to tackle the widening gaps in worker protections. If it doesn’t, companies in the gig economy and traditional sectors alike will continue to exploit loopholes — and their workers. A business model that relies on the exploitation of others is a terrible step backwards. It can’t be the way of the future.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
In search of a less partisan approach: Let’s use Conservative-agreed upon climate targets
Monday, January 6th, 2020
… nearly every province in Canada has cut emissions consistent with the Copenhagen goal. It is only due to increased emissions in Alberta and Saskatchewan that Canada is not on course to meet the cuts promised by the Alberta team in Copenhagen… The start of the new decade would be a good time to accept that we have a target, a national commitment
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The Legacy of Destructive Austerity
Sunday, January 5th, 2020
There are multiple explanations for the populist rage that has put democracy at risk across the Western world, but the side effects of austerity rank high on the list… If ordinary working families no longer believe that traditional elites know what they’re doing or care about people like them, well, what happened during the austerity years suggests that they’re right.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology
Posted in History | No Comments »
In the long arc of human history, 2019 has been the best year ever
Thursday, January 2nd, 2020
NYTimes.com – Opinion December 31, 2019. Nicholas Kristof Nicholas Kristof: I fear that the news media focuses so relentlessly on bad news that we leave the public believing that every trend is going in the wrong direction If you’re depressed by the state of the world, let me toss out an idea: In the […]
Tags: featured, globalization, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in History | No Comments »
Nobel winner: don’t just listen to economists with ‘stake in the system’
Wednesday, January 1st, 2020
The voices that do get heard tend to be “people who call themselves economists but are actually working for a bank or have a stake in the system the way it is” – a minority within a profession where views were actually “much richer and more sophisticated, much more ideologically diverse”… Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, published on 12 November by Allen Lane, is designed to “hold on to hope”
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, women
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Capitalism is the greatest force for human advancement that we have
Friday, December 27th, 2019
… four-fifths of starvation-level world poverty had been eradicated since the 1970s… What happened? It was globalization… It was free trade… It was property rights and the rule of law… I am not a radical. I will not tell you that we need no regulations. I will not say that we do not need reform… Find better ways to regulate it. Tax people more… If we let capitalism thrive, if we share it… then we can lift up the next two billion people together.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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Never mind the GDP. How are the people doing?
Saturday, December 14th, 2019
“Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is not success”… the movement toward a well-being index is a long-term, intergenerational program – completely in contrast to the short-term political frenzy that comes with chasing certain economic goals. As Ms. Sturgeon said, GDP “values activity in the short term that boosts the economy, even if that activity is hugely damaging to the sustainability of our planet in the longer term.”
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Liberals’ ‘middle class tax cut’ is not a tax cut at all
Wednesday, December 11th, 2019
What we are left with is a $6-billion handout to just about everybody except those who need it most. And all of it is borrowed. With the deficit already in excess of $20-billion and headed higher, the government is proposing to borrow another $6-billion annually, and give much of it to people in the top half of the social register… Unthinkable: Tax cuts for the rich! Maybe. But it sure beats handouts to the rich, doesn’t it?
Tags: budget, economy, featured, tax
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Employers keep breaking safety laws — and government enforcement isn’t stopping them, auditor general finds
Thursday, December 5th, 2019
“The ministry’s enforcement efforts are not preventing many employers from continuing the same unsafe practices,” the report says… The auditor general report also highlighted issues with the ministry’s enforcement capabilities: its information system, which informs inspection strategy, only contains details of 28 per cent of all business in Ontario — leaving “many workplaces uninspected.”
Posted in Delivery System | No Comments »