The just-released 2011 ILO World of Work Report is a must read for progressive economists. Released on the eve of the G-20 meetings, the report underlines the gravity of the current global employment situation and warns of the need to put job creation first if we are to avoid a very extended period of high unemployment and rising incidence of […]
Read moreInequality of well-being among families with children is increasing at an even faster rate than income inequality, according to a new study by Peter Burton and Shelley Phipps, “Families, Time, and Well-Being in Canada”. They find that total family working hours have increased for most families, but not for those at the top of the income spectrum who have been […]
Read moreGovernments around the world are heading down a path to economic suicide. So said Nobel Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, to hundreds of well-heeled financiers and decision-makers who paid a bundle to hear him in Toronto. With a voice as gruff as gravel, and an energy bristling with urgency, he told governments in Canada and […]
Read moreYesterday’s strong earnings report from the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan confirms what this blog and the NDP have been contending: even modestly increasing Saskatchewan’s extremely low royalties on hugely profitable potash mines could fund substantially better provincial public services. The Saskatchewan Party still refuses to review potash royalties. In a well-timed column, Greg Fingas developed the theme that this gift […]
Read moreThe Euro deal at least averted an immediate banking crisis and induced temporary market euphoria, but it is not going to provide a lasting solution to the euro sovereign debt crisis because it will block any lasting recovery for the euro economy. It is worth reading the text of the deal, which represents a major victory for the European “austerians.” […]
Read moreI don’t have much new to add to what is surely the key economic issue of the hour beyond pointing to useful commentary by Larry Elliott in the Guardian and Martin Wolf in the FT. I think Wolf is right that the key to resolving the crisis is to make the ECB the backstop for euro area sovereign debt, just […]
Read moreThis summer I put our household through an energy efficiency retrofit. I was working on a research paper on energy efficiency, and then both the BC and federal governments announced new funding for their retrofit programs, so I engaged in some direct action research, staring with an energy audit of our home (more in part one). Over the summer I […]
Read moreFollowing up on my post on wealth and income of the top 1%, Eric Pineault wrote to add some data on financial wealth distribution for Canada. He had a research assistant comb through microdata from Statcan’s Survey of Financial Security from 2005, and notes: “the 1% richest (all households are classed according to net worth rather then income) hold 22% of […]
Read moreRegarding the NDP platform’s reliance on additional potash revenue, columnist Murray Mandryk asks, “What if potash tanks as it did in 2009?†Of course, budgets are necessarily based on assumptions about future commodity prices. Saskatchewan Finance estimates that each dollar of change in the price of oil alters provincial revenues by $20 million (page 35). So, if a barrel of […]
Read moreSaskatchewan’s two major parties have unveiled their election platforms. The NDP’s fiscal plan is to collect higher potash royalties and reinvest the proceeds in public priorities like healthcare, education and housing. Columnist Murray Mandryk notes the spectre of Erin Weir. The NDP has expressed a willingness to discuss sharing resource revenues with First Nations. The Sask Party criticizes the NDP […]
Read moreA research paper published by the Canadian Breast Cancer Network underlines that the economic costs of cancer are huge due to a lack of supportive public and workplace policies. As they say ” we may think of breast cancer as a health condition, but it is also an economic condition.” Based on surveys of former patients, they find that the […]
Read moreAlbeit in a highly nuanced way, the IMF has called on the G-20Â to temper short-term fiscal austerity now that the global economy “has entered a dangerous phase.” In their submission to the October 14-15 meetings of G-20 finance ministers, the IMF call for medium-term fiscal consolidation plans to “create more policy space for near-term support to growth and employment, […]
Read moreThe banner headline, in block capitals, on the front page of yesterday’s Regina Leader-Post was “SASK. PARTY HAS FIVE-POINT HEALTH PLAN.†That’s accurate reporting, as far as it goes. The Saskatchewan Party did announce a healthcare plan featuring five points. It would have been similarly accurate to report that this announcement was accompanied by a six-page backgrounder. However, it would […]
Read moreOne thing I really like about the Occupy movement is that it reclaiming mental space. I’m thinking of the overt focus on the riches gained by the top 1%, and of naming and shaming capitalism. Two are one and the same, of course. It is in the top 1% that we find the capitalists – those who own large chunks […]
Read moreCanadian free trade negotiators are going all-out to get a deal with the EU on a new free trade agreement. The Harper government wants a deal badly for largely symbolic and ideological purposes, to show that the free trade agenda is back on track under this “stable majority government.” Many valid concerns have been raised about the implications of a […]
Read moreI expect some folks who oppose the Occupy movement will weigh in on merit – that the top 1% are deserving of their riches because they include people who pay a lot of wages and salaries for ordinary folk. That is, the story of hard-working, risk-taking entrepreneurs who should not be punished for being successful. I don’t really have any […]
Read moreIn a week when business lobby groups are appearing before the House of Commons Committee on Finance and calling for more tax breaks, the federal R&D Panel appointed a year ago released a very good report saying Canada’s very generous system of R&D tax incentives haven’t been effective and what we need instead are more direct grants to spur innovation. Not only […]
Read moreI hung out a while yesterday at the Vancouver Occupation, and was impressed with their efforts at radical democracy. Many in the mainstream press have been quick to pile on for how time-consuming decision-making can be under this model, but perhaps they have not spent enough time in legislatures and committee meetings and public consultations. Democracy takes time, so what? […]
Read moreHere is a Globe and Mail commentary I wrote after attending the wonderful Occupy Toronto protests on the weekend. The media keep going off about how this movement has no “central demand.” Go to a Tea Party event in the U.S. and see if you can find “one central demand.” That doesn’t stop them from being politically influential. Their power […]
Read moreIt is no secret that times of high unemployment and precarious work are especially tough for new and recent entrants to the job market, notably young workers and recent immigrants. The latter were especially hard hit in the recession and slow recovery of the 1990s, when new immigrants had great difficulty finding decent jobs and it took longer and longer […]
Read moreThe Saskatchewan NDP is proposing to collect higher potash royalties and save a portion of the proceeds in a new Bright Futures Fund. The NDP has also expressed its willingness to negotiate with First Nations about the possibility of resource revenue sharing. The right-wing Saskatchewan Party strangely claims that the NDP’s plan “would plunge the province back into 1980s-style budget deficits.†[…]
Read moreThanks mostly to the superb campaigning by international development, poverty and environmental activists, there’s been remarkable progress in getting Europe to introduce financial transactions taxes, aka the Robin Hood Tax. Â Â Last month, the European Commission presented a proposal for a broad-based financial transactions tax in all 27 members states of the European Union. At a rate of 0.1 percent […]
Read moreJust in time for the “Occupy Bay Street†protest this weekend, Canadian Business magazine has come out with its annual listing of the richest 100 people in Canada. So in honour of the protestors and their noble cause (demanding more attention to the 99%, instead of the 1%), let’s peruse together the sordid details of Canada’s ultra-rich.
Read moreIn case you had any doubts where the escalating attack on Canadian unions is coming from, check out the web site of the Canadian Labour Watch Association. The Labour Watch site provides detailed information and advice to individual workers and employers on how to fight unionization drives and how to decertify existing unions, including by providing a list of legal […]
Read moreWell, we know, but these Charts tell an incredible story. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
Read moreBusiness-school professor and economist Nouriel Roubini earned his nickname Dr. Doom by repeatedly predicting the chain of events that would cause the global economic house of cards to fall down. Yesterday he laid out the economic dilemmas that are triggering a global Occupy movement and concludes: “Any economic model that does not properly address inequality will eventually face a crisis […]
Read moreYesterday, the Saskatchewan Party claimed that the provincial NDP’s plan for 30 additional primary healthcare clinics would cost $840 million. It has since removed this goofy press release from its website, but here’s a screenshot. The Sask Party multiplied the Saskatoon Community Clinic’s $7-million annual provincial cost by 30, and then multiplied that total by four years ($7 million*30*4= $840 […]
Read morePrime Minister Harper’s op ed in the Globe today on his hopes for the Cannes summit is disappointing, even if the content comes as no surprise. His focus is on the danger of a relapse into a global recession precipitated by a worsening of the European financial crisis. This is indeed a hugely important issue which the EU will have to […]
Read moreI have an opinion piece out on Access Copyright, English Canada’s longtime copyright middleman. I argue that Access Copyright is a bit like the Blockbuster Video of Canadian university libraries—once indispensable, and now almost obsolete (largely due the Internet). Within a year from now, it’s possible that no Canadian university will still have day-to-day dealings with the organization. The piece provides […]
Read moreThis is not the stuff of usual protests. Over the past month, a little idea from a Vancouver outfit has mushroomed into a cross-continent movement. Occupy Wall Street, kicked off by Adbusters in July and coming to Toronto this weekend, has already spread to 70 American cities and is going global as protestors challenge society to rethink how the economy […]
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