McGuinty Budget Would Cut Over 100,000 Jobs
Last week, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union released an interesting report by the Centre for Spatial Economics on the economic impact of proposed provincial budget cuts. It provides a timely reminder that the public sector is a crucial component of the economy, with public spending also supporting many private-sector jobs.
The Centre for Spatial Economics concludes that the Liberal budget presented last month would subtract 0.6 from provincial GDP growth and eliminate 105,000 jobs (65,000 public and 40,000 private) in 2015. Removing over $20 billion from Ontario’s economy would in turn reduce annual provincial tax revenues by over $2 billion.
It’s worth noting that the economic cost of provincial austerity would be in addition to federal austerity, which is already having a visible effect in Ontario.
Erin –
This is tangential to your post but it does concern employment and likely has an impact on mfg centres such as Ontario.
The Guardian has an excellent article on Apple’s employment preferences and the manner in which this shifts jobs out of North America and creates greater returns for the investor class while hollowing out the middle class. URL :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/23/bad-apple-employ-more-us-workers
Anybody want to comment on Moody’s downgrade today? Here, I will-
Is it coincidence that 2 days after announcing a surtax on the rich, that the financial controllers of the world nailed Ontario with a downgrade? Albeit, one that it difficult to say what cost impact it will have (I am sure there will be a hike on the cost of borrowing for Ontario.)
Amazing how all this works out, a shadow banking system goes insanely off the cliff gets bailed and makes money during the bailing, and shifts the burden onto the public, school do not get built, hospitals lay off, public sector gets nailed, etc and then finally the bankers decide when the public goes after the rich, they make money off that as well.
Amazing system- if you have the cash. It is official democracy has died.
oddly enough we never question the fact that at the core of the global financial system we have a shadow banking system that has self regulated itself into permanent profit maximizing insolvency.
Without a regulator, or mark to market, or an ounce of sanity in terms of what leverage and sound finance should be built upon, the American banks are undoubtedly and remain, insolvent.
How can they not be, with a housing sector that has assets worth half of what they once were. Nobody but a few brave souls want to talk about this.
The question is- how do they get a way with doing what they are doing with our social safety nets and austerity?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/morgan-sandquist-finance-in-denial.html