The Progressive Economics Forum

A key issue arising from the proposed potash takeover is BHP Billiton’s musing about leaving Canpotex, the agency that has long marketed Canadian potash offshore. (Growing up near the railroad tracks in Regina, Canpotex train cars were a familiar sight.)
Perhaps BHP believes that it alone has sufficient clout to manage supply and negotiate overseas prices [...]

As sometimes happens, I started writing a comment on Jim’s excellent post and then realized that there was enough material for a new post. I agree with Jim that Ottawa’s $130-million settlement with AbitibiBowater deserves more attention, but I have been waist-deep in potash.
I think that my initial take on Abitibi’s NAFTA challenge still holds up pretty [...]

I have the following op-ed in today’s Regina Leader-Post. Below it is a table supporting my statement that “the mines that PCS owned in 1989 still account for 80 per cent of its potash production and capacity.”
Privatizing Potash was a Costly Mistake
The greatest tragedy in BHP Billiton’s $38.6-billion (U.S.) bid for the Potash Corporation of [...]

Last week, I was in Halifax at USW’s Ontario-Atlantic district conference. It was a great conference in a great city.
But having so many key people out of the office limited our response to BHP Billiton’s bid for the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. (Next time BHP launches a hostile takeover, it should better coordinate the timing [...]

Nine days ago, I posted about private non-financial corporations accumulating cash rather than investing in Canada. A week later, the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report (MPR) noted “the relatively high level of liquidity held by the non-financial corporate sector and weak investment” (page 19).
By my count, the document expresses concern eight separate times about anemic [...]

Since Stephen Harper and David Cameron seem to be on the same wavelength, and the UK thinks it can trash census and turn to isources like credit records for its information needs, the story below on privacy, from Alberta, may be of possible interest.
Report of an Investigation into the Security, Collection and Retention of [...]

There has been a persistent drumbeat in the American business press about corporations accumulating cash. The argument is that, while corporations are making solid profits now, they are not investing in the US for fear of anti-business policies in the future. Obama has allegedly spooked corporate America into hoarding cash rather than investing.
To test that [...]

Vale, the company against which my union has been on strike since July 2009, released its first-quarter earnings this evening. The release deflates Vale’s rationale for demanding labour concessions and confirms that the strike is hurting its bottom line.
The company wants to eliminate defined-benefit pensions for new employees and drastically reduce the bonus paid to [...]

Growing up in Saskatchewan, the oil and gas industry’s line was always that we had to charge lower royalties to compete with Alberta for investment. The provincial NDP government bought into that mantra and repeatedly slashed royalty rates, even as commodity prices took off during the past decade.
When Alberta’s Conservative government announced in late 2007 [...]

Michael Ignatieff sent an April Fool’s Day letter to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. It marshalled compelling evidence against more corporate tax cuts, but insisted that the Liberals still favour more corporate tax cuts:
In a study that KPMG describes as “the most thorough comparison of international business locations ever undertaken by KPMG,” it was demonstrated [...]

Last night, I went to sleep early before watching any coverage of the Liberal Policy Conference. This morning, a well-rested Erin Weir marched into the office with such purpose that I did not even look below the fold on The Globe and Mail’s front page. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I got an e-mail about [...]

Over at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon critiques the last federal NDP platform’s reference to “Canada’s wealthiest corporations” on the grounds that people, not corporations, own things.
But as Declan points out in several pithy comments on Stephen’s post, corporations clearly can and do own things. The corporations that own the most valuable things in Canada [...]

The Alberta government is reversing its modest increase in conventional oil and gas royalties. Albertans will now receive an even smaller fraction of the value of their resources. The saving grace is that the provincial government did not cut royalties on the oil sands, which are projected to provide more revenue than conventional reserves going [...]

I was out of town and away from the blogosphere during the recent controversy about TD Bank CEO Ed Clark’s “raise my taxes” comment.
As Terry Corcoran pointed out, CEOs are not actually proposing higher taxes on executive incomes or corporate profits. They are instead proposing to hike the GST, a tax that exempts all income in [...]

Vale, the company against which my union has been on strike since July of last year, released its fourth-quarter earnings this evening. This release deflates the company’s rationale for demanding labour concessions and confirms that the strike is hurting its bottom line.
Vale wants to eliminate defined-benefit pensions for new employees and drastically reduce the bonus [...]

This past week, Jack Mintz issued a report (PDF) praising Ontario’s last provincial budget.
I like East Side Mario’s because it features both all-you-can-eat bread and all-you-can-eat salad. So, it is not surprising that a corporate tax-fighter would love a budget featuring both corporate income tax cuts and the removal of sales tax from business inputs. [...]

Vale, the company against which my union has been on strike since July, presented its third-quarter earnings this morning. These figures confirm that Vale does not need the concessions it has been demanding and that the strike is costing it significantly.
The company wants to eliminate defined-benefit pensions for new employees and drastically reduce the bonus [...]

Posted below is my Globe and Mail column this week raising questions about whether troubled companies can really “cut their way to viability.”
When companies face trouble, the knee-jerk response is always to cut back: close plants, reduce headcount, cut compensation.  Reflecting their shorter-term time horizon (and their consequent hunger for a faster payback), financial markets [...]

It has to be the single most successful lobbying effort in a long time. And no one will notice or care.  In Budget 2007, the Conservatives did something courageous and which tax experts had long called for : they proposed measures that would have denied firms a tax deduction on money borrowed in Canada, invested [...]

We are now into full blown Budget consultation mode, with MPs of all parties going through a bit more than the usual pretence of listening before the actual Budget is finally put to bed by the government a few days hence. For once, even the Conservative inner circle seem a bit unsure of [...]

Some coverage has suggested that the NDP’s platform costing was based on excessively optimistic projections. The Globe and Mail reported, “Like the Liberals, the NDP is basing its fiscal plan on the Conservative government’s 2008 budget projected surpluses, which are more than six months old and are widely believed to be too rosy in light [...]

My take on today’s second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) release follows:
Economy Shrinks, But Dodges Recession
Canada’s GDP was lower at the end of June ($1,327,118 million) than at the end of last year ($1,328,606 million). Although the Canadian economy is smaller now than it was two quarters ago, it is technically not in recession because it [...]

Was it just me or did others get a nagging feeling about the intent behind Air Canada’s surprise announcement of 2,000 layoffs yesterday?
The media coverage played along the lines of their press release, with a strong focus on the rising cost of fuel.  This is certainly an issue, together with the impact of the higher [...]

… says Paul Krugman. And I’m in a session at the CEA confence on Keynes where the original quote just came up.
Nothing new here to readers of this blog, but I like that Krugman is using his pulpit to deliver the message at a time when the Canadian government is on the verge of introducing [...]

Jim’s recent mini-study emphasized that profits now occupy gargantuan shares of GDP in the oil-rich provinces. He and The Jurist have noted the total disconnect between corporate profits and personal income in two of those provinces: Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. To explore this issue further, I have pulled some figures out of the recently-released 2007 Provincial [...]

On the anniversary of TILMA coming into force, nine national business associations and the professional association representing non-chartered accountants have demanded “bold action” on inter-provincial trade.
The press release alleges that “the emergence of new trade barriers threatens to further balkanize the Canadian economy” without naming a single “new trade barrier”. It repeats the unfounded claim [...]

Moore makes several accurate and entertaining points in today’s open letter. Although he stops short of officially endorsing Edwards, his final paragraph comes pretty close.
Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore
Friends,
A new year has begun. And before we’ve had a chance to break our New Year’s resolutions, we find [...]

At least 79% of the increase in Canadian non-residential investment this decade has come from the oil industry and governments.
Jim and others on this blog often note that, although corporate profits have ballooned, business investment has barely increased as a share of GDP. However, this fact means that business investment has grown along with GDP [...]

January 2 will be the 20th anniversary of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement’s signing. (Of course, the deal did not come into force until January 1, 1989, after the 1988 federal election.)
The leading lobby for this deal was the Business Council on National Issues, which has since been renamed the Canadian Council of Chief Executives [...]

The following Paul Krugman column confirms my general thoughts about American politics:
At one extreme, Barack Obama insists that the problem with America is that our politics are so “bitter and partisan,” and insists that he can get things done by ushering in a “different kind of politics.”
At the opposite extreme, John Edwards blames the power [...]