I cannot say that I have ever wanted to quote Thomas Friedman. He has been such a booster for globalization, full of breathless praise for capitalism. I confess, I have never read any of his books for precisely those reasons. Someone gave me The World is Flat once and I could not stomach it, although I did love Ed Leamer’s […]
Read more(Additions made to this post since first posting.) The Prime Minister’s optimistic remarks about the prospects for Canada to get out of the recession faster than other countries just as the IMF and World Bank were announcing a Great Recession ring rather hollow (though, in truth, if I were in his shoes I would not be inclined to spread further […]
Read moreYesterday the CCPA released a new study on family income inequality in BC by yours truly, which reveals some disturbing statistics about family incomes over the past 30 years. The figure below summarizes our main findings. Among our other key findings: The gap between the wealthiest and the majority of BC families has grown dramatically over the past 30 years. […]
Read moreThe political crisis around the Caisse’s dismal performance continues to haunt the political scene in Québec. Urged to explain how up to 40 billion dollars might have been lost during his management Caisse ex-director Henri Paul Rousseau largely blamed the economic and financial crisis, factors beyond his control. Asked why and how the Caisse ended up with so much ABCP […]
Read moreAndrew Coyne takes on public pensions in the current edition of Maclean’s (which does not yet seem to be available online). He not only criticizes the Caisse de Dépôt’s lousy investments, but calls for doing away with the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans (CPP and QPP). Coyne’s secondary headline (and primary argument) is, “Compulsory plans like the CPP expose older […]
Read moreNot deficit, with a small d, but Depression with a big one. By now, everyone has come around to accepting that we are in a recession. Even though we have not had the rule-of-thumb two quarters of negative growth, rising unemployment, collapsing housing starts, drops in retail sales and so forth all tell us we are in a recession. Technically […]
Read moreIt has come to my attention that some economists claim that our sovereign federal government is more or less powerless to kickstart the economy because of our great dependence on the United States and therefore should do next to nothing: “Mr. Orr and other economists urged Ottawa to ignore pleas to boost stimulus spending further – a move that would […]
Read moreA guest post from Tom Walker: The economic case for shorter working time was made 100 years ago this August in Winnipeg by Sydney J. Chapman. It was the standard model accepted by the elite academic establishment – Alfred Marshall, A.C. Pigou, Lionel Robbins and J.R. Hicks cited it as authoritative. This was not some obscure “debate among scholars from […]
Read moreHaving dropped its overnight interest rate to 0.5%, the Bank of England also announced a package of quantitative easing, of some £75 to 150 billion worth: It will create £75bn and use it to buy government bonds (gilts) and corporate debt over the next three months to boost the flow of money in the economy. The Bank has been given […]
Read moreThe Liberals have promised to monitor the impact of the federal Budget through regular “report cards” on government performance. One key issue to look at is the adequacy (meaning inadequacy) of the EI program at a time of rapidly rising unemployment. The Budget did move very modestly on this front, adding five weeks to eligibility in each EI region, thus […]
Read moreLast week, the British Columbia government announced that its $2.5 billion public-private partnership (P3) deal for the Port Mann bridge expansion had failed and that it would now finance the project directly instead. Â Despite the failure of the P3 financier, Macquarie, to put together a deal the Province is still going to pay them for financial advisory services, which […]
Read moreThere has been much talk, of late, about the ineffectiveness of conventional monetary policy — i.e., lowering the target for the overnight interest rate to incite borrowing and hence economic expansion — and the need for monetary authorities to consider something more dramatic, like so-called “quantitative easing” — the active buying of government debt and other securities in the open […]
Read moreThe Canadian media didn’t pay much attention to this economic crisis before the stock markets plunged last fall, and that has continued to be a major focus. But this focus on the stockmarket and the mistaken perception that this crisis is all the fault of the U.S., is leading to the overly optimistic forecasts of recovery. There’s been very little attention […]
Read moreOne of the silliest leads to an economic story I have read in a long time is on the front page of today’s Globe under this headline: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090303.wreconomy03/BNStory/Business “It’s Not all Doom and Gloom: GDP’s Drop Suggests Recession Will be Short.” The huge drop in output last quarter is perversely seen by the writer and some supporting bank economists as […]
Read moreKudos to the Bank of Canada for significantly reducing its target interest rate from 1% to 0.5%. A month ago, it took the position that already-announced monetary and fiscal stimulus was sufficient to propel a swift economic recovery later this year. Today, in both word and deed, it acknowledged worsening economic conditions and the need for more stimulus. Why Not […]
Read moreNumbers Worse than Official Expectations Real GDP dropped by 1% in December 2008, as large a monthly decline as in the August 2003 blackout. The difference is that, whereas August 2003 was an aberration, December 2008 continues a worsening trend. During 2008 as a whole, the economy eked out 0.5% growth, which falls short of the 0.7% forecast by both […]
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