National Day of Mourning

Today is the National Day of Mourning for workers killed on the job.

In 2013, the WSIB says that 243 workers died and that there were 232,249 reported injuries. In the past 25 days alone, as we close in on the Day of Mourning, three more workers have died at Vale’s Copper Cliff smelter in Sudbury, a construction site in Ottawa and a plastics plant in Vaughan. — Ontario Federation of Labour Press Release

'There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job.'  — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty



Ontario Federation of Labour Day of Mourning Fact Sheet (PDF)

Dear Leader

Around here we like to celebrate how people use their literacy skills in creative ways.

We also talk about whether or not literacy workers have to speak the language of economists and technocrats in order to get policy makers to understand the complexities of literacy work and literacy learning.

In her satirical letter to the Canadian Revenue Agency where she talks to the Harper Government the way the Harper Government talks to the people of Canada, Susan Delacourt takes on the language of the technocrats.

This letter might not make much sense to those outside Canada but to those of us living in Harperville, much of this will ring true. I have copied the letter below and added some links so that people outside Harperville can understand life here. To read the full article on the Toronto Star, click here.

Dear Canadian Revenue Agency:

Enclosed please find my income-tax file for 2013 or, as I like to call it, my “economic action plan.”

Apologies in advance for errors in calculation, mistaken ambitions about how much I’m really in debt or misunderstandings with regard to the Income Tax Act. The fact is, I’m an ordinary Canadian, and it’s only “experts” and “bureaucrats” who really care about this complicated business of taxes and deductions. Hey, this is a democracy, and I’m free to disagree with what the Ottawa “elites” insist I owe this year, right?

I should also say at the outset that I haven’t provided all the details of my expenses and income, because, frankly, the government’s curiosity about my financial life seems a little, well, intrusive. Thanks, by the way, for relieving me of the task of filling out census forms. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to fill out these tax forms either.

As for records, I regret to inform you that I no longer keep detailed historical archives, thanks to cost-cutting here at home and the fact that we live in the Internet age and a paperless society. I could maybe Google something for you. I have, however, included some unrelated information you didn’t request in this income-tax file — some old parking tickets, a first-aid certificate I earned in the summer and the letter I sent out to friends and family with the annual Christmas cards. I call this my “omnibus” approach to filing income taxes: throw everything in one big envelope and get it rubber-stamped by the authorities in as little time possible.

Needless to say, as with your own omnibus budget legislation, no one actually has to read everything that’s in the envelope I sent you and, in fact, I’ll insist on some time allocation if anyone is caught lingering over details. We can let the courts sort things out down the road (and then blame them for being “activist.”)

I’ve also sent you some photos of my pets and people I’ve met on my travels in 2013. I get a lot of those from the Prime Minister’s website and emails, and thought that since you obviously like them I’d send you some of mine in return.

Given your preoccupation with all things financial, you may especially appreciate the “money shots,” as I believe they’re called. If you would like more “exclusive” access to my travel photos, just send me your email address and co-ordinates, and I’ll sign you up for my special friends-only newsletter.

Speaking of friends and money, I’m totally confused about how to report a big cheque I received this year from a guy at work, to help me pay what I owed you. Now that I think of it, I may have been told not to mention it to you. Since I have revealed the existence of this cheque, however, I’ll call it a gift to my fellow taxpayers and list it as a charitable contribution to Canada, eligible for appropriate deductions. There. You’re welcome. That’s settled. Let’s move on.

Should you have any questions about my personal economic action plan, feel free to file an access-to-information request with my associates, though I should warn you it may take several years to process or even acknowledge. You may also want to try to ask me directly at one of my rare Canadian Revenue Agency Availability Sessions, for accredited photographers only. I also have a newsfeed I call 24-7, in which you can learn everything about me I choose to tell you.

In case of a dispute over my taxes or personal accountability, I can offer you several somewhat helpful replies in advance. 1. “I’ve been perfectly clear.” 2. “I’m disappointed in the people who work for me.” 3. “Look over there! Justin Trudeau just said something.”

All the best for the next tax year,

Respectfully,

Your hard-working taxpayer.

Meritocratic Extremism

On Friday Carol Goar, amidst the accolades for the surprisingly departed Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance from 2006-2014), wrote about the Conservative policies that are working to stop young people from working.

Even young people Ottawa counts as “employed” are struggling. Almost half work part-time and don’t earn enough to live on. They’re not using the skills they acquired at great personal expense. Their contracts may or may not be renewed. (emphasis mine)

She cites changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program and Employment Insurance, federally induced tuition fee hikes and the fact that employers are no longer held responsible for job training as factors that exacerbate the ways that globalization, outsourcing and recessions make jobs hard to come by.

Why do Conservatives hate youth? Cynically one could posit that it is because youth don't vote (unless, of course, you tell them they can't) so there is no return on investment in keeping youth happy. The theory is that it makes more sense for Conservatives to keep the people who brought them to the dance - employers, bankers, corporate tycoons - happiest. And if that means throwing non-voting,Tory-hating youth under the bus, so be it.

But what about all the ways that youth are expected to support the huge wave of baby boomers who are crashing into retirement? If the youth aren't working, who is going to pay for the medical treatments for all the rich old people who do vote Conservative? Could this Conservative government be that short sighted?

We know that in a pander for votes they started this administration willing to trade short term gain for long term pain, so maybe the theory is true. (More here.)

Whatever the reason, Conservative policies are working to increase income inequality and to shift the balance of who is paying for the social contract.

Then I read this book review about Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty's theory is that income inequality, created and supported by Conservative policies, is going to be the thing that kills capitalism. So much for return on investment.

Piketty seems to have taken over Milton Friedman's supremacy in the economic discourse, and hooray for that. It will take the current Conservatives, forged in the Calgary School, a while to catch up but perhaps other political parties will take note.

That left-wing kook, Mark Carney, has long lamented the fact that tax breaks do not encourage capital owners to invest those savings into enterprises that create jobs.

In his book, Piketty describes the reasons why. The short story is that we are at the point in the cycle of capitalism where you get richer owning stuff than building stuff.

Anyone with the capacity to own in an era when the returns exceed those of wages and output will quickly become disproportionately and progressively richer. ... Our companies and our rich don't need to back frontier innovation or even invest to produce: they just need to harvest their returns and tax breaks, tax shelters and compound interest will do the rest.

Capitalist dynamism is undermined, but other forces join to wreck the system. Piketty notes that the rich are effective at protecting their wealth from taxation and that progressively the proportion of the total tax burden shouldered by those on middle incomes has risen. ...

As a result, the burden of paying for public goods such as education, health and housing is increasingly shouldered by average taxpayers, who don't have the wherewithal to sustain them.

Wealth inequality thus becomes a recipe for slowing, innovation-averse, rentier economies, tougher working conditions and degraded public services. Meanwhile, the rich get ever richer and more detached from the societies of which they are part: not by merit or hard work, but simply because they are lucky enough to be in command of capital receiving higher returns than wages over time.

There is a glimmer of hope here. Piketty claims that a collective action will fill the innovation gap.

The lesson of the past is that societies try to protect themselves: they close their borders or have revolutions – or end up going to war.

Let's hope we don't have to go to war but that movements such as Occupy and Idle No More continue to reshape the mainstream conversation and that politicians start proposing policies that will reshape capitalism.

The leader of the federal Liberal party refutes claims that he is one of those "more detached" rich who benefits from inherited rather than merited success,

"I've heard people are struggling and I've talked a lot about the kinds of solutions we need," he said. "I'm going to continue to work hard on that,"

but he did just name his most recent child Hadrian so maybe not :)

Piketty says that an economist's job is to make things that seem inconceivable conceivable.

Hugh Segal has been a lone voice in Canadian politics proposing basic income but that idea is gaining currency worldwide as a way to alleviate poverty AND to save capitalism.

In Switzerland, the government and business leaders scared voters into rejecting the wage cap but perhaps this idea will take hold somewhere soon as people realize that the threat of businesses leaving your jurisdiction because of legislated restrictions on their contributions to the public good is really no threat at all.

Onward to the inconceivable.

Further reading:

A Guardian interview with Thomas Piketty posted after I wrote this is here.

When Jim Flaherty resigned as Finance Minister, Maclean's posted some charts that showed some things that happened during his tenure.

Paul Krugman also wrote a review of the book, Why We’re in a New Gilded Age, and an opinion piece, The Piketty Panic.

Thomas Piketty's Capital: everything you need to know about the surprise bestseller (Guardian)