Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Crawford Killian writes about the dangers of becoming unduly relaxed about a new COVID wave (with particular reference to South Korea's experience). Bruce Y. Lee notes that Austria has reinstated mask mandates based on its belated recognition that it couldn't afford to abandon public health measures. And Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon reports on a push for improved case reporting and transparency in New Brunswick, while David Shield reports that the lone source of ongoing reporting which Scott Moe hasn't been able to squelch is showing an explosion of transmission driven by the BA.2 Omicron variant. 

- Meanwhile, Zak Vescera reports on the growing number of children being born with syphilis and/or HIV in Saskatchewan as the Moe government ignores the need for prenatal care. 

- William Barber writes that the participation of poor and marginalized voters is a must for any remotely democratic system. 

- Lindsay Owens highlights how businesses are engaging in blatant price-gouging while falsely blaming inflation and other economic factors. Abe Asher discusses how the fossil fuel sector is taking its cue from anti-BDS laws to try to stifle any climate action based on holding corporations responsible for the damage they're doing to our planet. 

- Finally, in a column which is obviously relevant to how we view recent developments in Canada, John Harwood discusses how Obamacare has become an accepted fact of life in the U.S. even among the Republicans who once railed against it. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Bruce Arthur warns against letting up in our effort to fight COVID-19 just when a substantial victory is in sight. And Stephen Reicher, Susan Michie and Christina Pagel offer their take on the needed response to the emergence of more dangerous COVID variants - including a couple of recommendations which tragically will almost certainly be ignored in Saskatchewan:

Fourth, given the growing evidence regarding aerosol transmission and hence the critical role of ventilation as a means of mitigation, adequate ventilation should be a criterion for commercial reopening, along with an enhanced inspection regime and grants available for improving ventilation, both in businesses and in the home.

Fifth, we need clear and consistent public messaging to communicate the changing risks from covid-19 along with clear guidance on how people can identify and reduce those risks in their own lives. There is a particular need to avoid the mistakes of summer 2020 when people were urged to return to offices (even when they were able and willing to work from home) and go to pubs as their “patriotic duty.” This creates a sense of “it’s all over” and encourages people to lower their guard.

- Meanwhile, Caitlin Owens examines the social predictors of vaccination rates (and their consequences for the U.S.' hopes of controlling COVID-19). 

- Emma Knight highlights Canada's mediocre results in providing for maternal health. And Chantal Braganza rightly argues that it's time to fix a crisis of care work - and to do so without expecting mothers to bear the additional burden.

- Amanda Peacher points out how public housing should be seen as desirable rather than a poorly-funded option of last resort (with Vienna as a prime example). But Luke Ottenhof reports that Doug Ford is focused instead on ensuring that tenants are unable to organize or to document his system of rubber-stamped evictions to provide even more leverage to landlords.

- Alan Rappeport reports on lobbying by U.S. banks to prevent the repayment of loans on behalf of black farmers who have faced historical discrimination. And Anand Giridharadas talks to Mariana Mazzucato about our ridiculous fetishization of businessmen at the expense of the public good - including through the needless promotion of philanthrocapitalism.

- Finally, Thomas Piketty writes that it's both possible and desirable to work toward a basic income, job guarantee and universal capital inheritance to ensure both a reasonable standard of living and genuine opportunities for all. 

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Anis Chowdhury refutes the theory that top-heavy tax cuts have anything to do with economic development:

Cross-country research has found no relationship between changes in top marginal tax rates and growth between 1960 and 2010. For example, during this period, the US cut its top rate by over 40 percentage points and grew just over 2 percent annually. Germany and Denmark, which barely changed their top rates at all, experienced about the same growth rate.

Thus, tax cuts will not magically improve economic growth. Instead, the government should focus on building economic capacity with new investments in infrastructure, research and development (R&D), education, and anti-poverty programs. As the IMF has recently observed, the impacts of public investment are greatest during periods of low growth. This view has also been endorsed by recently outgoing Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens.

Investments in education produce a more skilled workforce, raising earnings and spurring innovation. A worker with only a high school education is twice as likely be unemployed as one with at least a bachelor's degree. An extra year of school is correlated with a significant increase in per capita income.

There are also gains associated with investments in early childhood education. The earlier the intervention, the more cost-effective, which is why policymakers have focused on preschool. Children who attend early high-quality care and education programs are less likely to engage in criminal behaviour later in life and more likely to graduate from high school and university. Reducing the cost of preschool also effectively increases a mother's net wage, making it more likely she will return to the labour market.

Spending on effective social programs provides immediate benefits to low-income families and can enhance long-term economic growth. The increased income security contributes to better health and increased university enrolment, leading to higher productivity and earnings. Similarly, nutrition assistance programs improve beneficiaries' health and cognitive capacity. Research shows similar positive impacts of housing assistance programs.

- Meanwhile, Jessica Deahl comments on the impact of insufficient child care options on working families. And the Star calls for a long-overdue end to federal policy which leaves indigenous women to give birth without maternal health supports. 

- Mark Hume argues that British Columbia's economy has focused far too long on unsustainably exploiting the natural environment. And Jessica Shankleman and Christopher Martin highlight the futility of relying on fossil fuels when solar power stands to be the cheapest and most environmentally-friendly energy source around the globe within a decade.

- Nicola Davis reports on new research showing that it's possible to identify a disadvantaged cohort based on brain health (and intervene to produce far better long-term outcomes) in children as young as 3 years old.

- Finally, Charles Hamilton discusses Saskatchewan's undue focus on breach offences, along with the costs it imposes on the public and on offenders alike. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your weekend.

- Daniel Goleman writes about the role of wealth in undermining empathy:

(I)n general, we focus the most on those we value most. While the wealthy can hire help, those with few material assets are more likely to value their social assets: like the neighbor who will keep an eye on your child from the time she gets home from school until the time you get home from work. The financial difference ends up creating a behavioral difference. Poor people are better attuned to interpersonal relations — with those of the same strata, and the more powerful — than the rich are, because they have to be.

While Mr. Keltner’s research finds that the poor, compared with the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions, in general, those with the most power in society seem to pay particularly little attention to those with the least power. To be sure, high-status people do attend to those of equal rank — but not as well as those low of status do.

This has profound implications for societal behavior and government policy. Tuning in to the needs and feelings of another person is a prerequisite to empathy, which in turn can lead to understanding, concern and, if the circumstances are right, compassionate action.
...
Since the 1970s, the gap between the rich and everyone else has skyrocketed. Income inequality is at its highest level in a century. This widening gulf between the haves and have-less troubles me, but not for the obvious reasons. Apart from the financial inequities, I fear the expansion of an entirely different gap, caused by the inability to see oneself in a less advantaged person’s shoes. Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.

- Stephen Maher writes about the Cons' continuing problems with Stephen Harper's first set of patronage Senate appointments - which look to have arisen largely about of the perception that anybody sufficiently well-connected to be appointed would be above answering to the mere general public. And there's an echo of that theme in Kate Heartfield's discussion of the Cons' battles with Elections Canada as well.

- But when it comes to kicking the powerless while they're down, it's hard to top the Cons' thumb in the eye of war rape victims and child brides who need access to abortion as a means of remedying the human rights violations they've suffered - or the denial of health care to refugee claimants.

- Finally, the CP reports that Alberta isn't done trying to shut non-oil baron voices out of any environmental assessment of the tar sands.