PEF home page and weblog
The provincial election of June ended 15 years of Liberal electricity policy in Ontario. Anger over high electricity prices continued to be an election issue, contributing to the Liberal loss of power and official party status (reduced from 55 to 7 seats). The PCs have formed Government with 76 seats, while the NDP is official […]
Posted by Edgardo Sepulveda under asset backed commercial paper, electricity, energy, financial markets, fiscal policy, NAFTA, Ontario, Ontario election 2018, P3s, public infrastructure, regulation.
August 8th, 2018
Comments: none
My January and April posts on the Ontario electricity sector described how decisions by different Ontario governments gave rise to excess electricity generation with an inflated cost structure, leading to higher electricity prices. Here I discuss the latest development, the Liberal Government of Ontario’s proposed financial framework for its “Fair Hydro Plan” (FHP). In election […]
Posted by Edgardo Sepulveda under asset backed commercial paper, Canada, electricity, energy, financial markets, Ontario, privatization, regulation.
May 22nd, 2017
Comments: none
Under the headline “Canada Isn’t Rotten to the Coreâ€, the new editor of the Ivey Business Journal, Thomas Watson, attacked my book “Thieves of Bay Street†in his inaugural editorial. Although the book hit bookstores almost two years ago, and has faded from view, I found this assault so distorted to what “Thieves†explores I […]
Posted by Bruce Livesey under asset backed commercial paper, economic crisis, economic risk, financial markets, financial regulation.
January 3rd, 2014
Comments: 10
The CCPA today released my report: “The Big Banks Big Secret†which provides the first public estimates of the emergency funds taken by Canadian banks. The report bases its estimates on publicly available data from CMHC, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, as well as quarterly […]
Posted by David Macdonald under asset backed commercial paper, auto industry, Bank of Canada, banks, capitalism, corporate profits, economic crisis, economic risk, financial crisis, financial markets, financial regulation, free markets, global crisis, income distribution, inequality, recession, Role of government, Uncategorized.
April 30th, 2012
Comments: 36
This past weekend (March 31st), Sino-Forest Corp. announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. The Chinese-Canadian company, once the largest publicly-traded forestry firm on the TSX, collapsed under allegations it was nothing more than a sophisticated fraud and Ponzi scheme. Sino-Forest’s demise wiped out about $6-billion in shareholders’ value, making it a catastrophe on par […]
Posted by Bruce Livesey under asset backed commercial paper, Conservative government, financial markets, financial regulation, investment.
April 2nd, 2012
Comments: none
The 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 […]
Posted by Eric Pineault under asset backed commercial paper, pensions.
March 9th, 2009
Comments: none
There 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 […]
Posted by Arun DuBois under asset backed commercial paper, banks, monetary policy.
March 3rd, 2009
Comments: 11
The Canadian Bankers’ Association must be happy. They’ve somehow managed to convince pundits south of the border, and even a few here who really ought to know better, that they’ve somehow been able to weather the economic and financial storm with absolutely no help from the federal government. The most recent evidence for this position […]
Posted by Arun DuBois under asset backed commercial paper, banks, economic crisis, federal budget, fiscal policy.
February 14th, 2009
Comments: 4
Well. Finally. Some clarity. Sort of. Earlier this month, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney made appearances before the House of Commons Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce committee to discuss the Bank’s latest monetary policy report . Transcripts are now available and with a little reading-between-the-lines, they tell us a lot, […]
Posted by Arun DuBois under asset backed commercial paper, banks, economic crisis, financial markets, global crisis, interest rates.
May 19th, 2008
Comments: 1
What is going on out in Canada’s wild and woolly financial system? First, the Bank of Canada convinces the Department of Finance and the Conservatives that it “needs” expanded powers to purchase a broader range of securities (see my earlier post for why their arguments are not very convincing). And then, earlier this week, a […]
Posted by Arun DuBois under asset backed commercial paper, financial markets, monetary policy.
May 2nd, 2008
Comments: 3
Over the years, federal budget legislation has acquired the feel of U.S. omnibus bills (the Farm Bill is probably the quintessential example). To some extent, this is to be expected. Ever since the “disastrous” Trudeau era, the imperial Department of Finance has not-so-quietly re-asserted its domain over the federal bureaucracy. One manifestation of Finance’s power […]
Posted by Arun DuBois under asset backed commercial paper, banks, federal budget, interest rates, monetary policy.
April 10th, 2008
Comments: 1
The asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) debacle: who is to blame? According to the National Post , it’s everybody and nobody. I find myself in unusual agreement. While I don’t wish to see likely criminals let off the hook, a better approach out of this mess is to change the rules of the game. Last August, the Canadian […]
Posted by Wenonah Bradshaw under asset backed commercial paper.
April 9th, 2008
Comments: 3
I was on CBC’s The House this weekend on the US economy and its implication for Canada and the federal budget. My co-commentator was Chris Ragan, of McGill and CD Howe. We are in general agreement as far as diagnosis goes, though he seems more optimistic than I about Canada’s ability to stay clear of […]
Posted by Marc Lee under asset backed commercial paper, financial markets, US.
March 17th, 2008
Comments: 3
Randall Wray, in a paper for the Levy Institute, provides a nice history of the sub-prime debacle, and connects it to the economics of Hyman Minsky (whose name has resurfaced in the wake of the current connundrum) in Lessons from the Sub-prime Meltdown: This paper uses Hyman P. Minsky’s approach to analyze the current international […]
Posted by Marc Lee under asset backed commercial paper, financial markets, US.
January 7th, 2008
Comments: none
Where is Finance Minister Flaherty? by Doug Peters and Arthur Donner. (from today’s Toronto Star) (Doug Peters is the former Chief Economist of The Toronto-Dominion Bank and was Secretary of State (Finance) from 1993 to 1997. Arthur Donner, a Toronto economic consultant, began his career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of […]
Posted by Andrew Jackson under asset backed commercial paper, Uncategorized.
December 20th, 2007
Comments: none
The business pages are covering this rather arcane issue more and more intensively. The Canadian market for so-called non bank asset backed commercial paper or ABCP has more or less frozen up, leaving some $40 Billion in stranded assets. Much of this seems to be held by large pension funds and other large institutions, with […]
Posted by Andrew Jackson under asset backed commercial paper, financial markets, Uncategorized.
October 2nd, 2007
Comments: 3