This morning, the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education hosted a Bay Street breakfast meeting with Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board of Canada. Jim serves on the Foundation’s Board of Directors, but could not make today’s session. So, Armine and I ended up having breakfast with Tories at Torys. (Some other participants may not have been Tories, but I […]
Read moreMurray Mandryk, CanWest’s seasoned Saskatchewan political columnist, has been writing some pretty sharp columns on potash. In particular, he questions excessively low resource royalties: . . . the messaging from Energy Minister Bill Boyd that his government wouldn’t touch oil royalty rates (even when it was selling at $150 a barrel), and the potash companies should get most anything they […]
Read moreA week ago, Paul Krugman wrote that Japan’s stable if sluggish economy and low unemployment could start looking pretty good compared to the Voodoo economics advocated by US Republicans. The counterintuitive case for Japan as an economic model just became more compelling with the Bank of Japan’s intervention to lower the yen. As reported on the front page of today’s […]
Read moreConcerns about the prospect of BHP Billiton leaving Canpotex have prompted a backlash of hand-wringing about Canpotex’s very existence. For example, The Globe and Mail featured an editorial earlier this month that began by suggesting, “Canadian policy-makers should reconsider the status of Canpotex.†But it concluded, “In practice, unwinding Canpotex would be no simple matter. Moreover it would be a […]
Read moreI appreciate a compelling headline, but “The Walls that Divide Us†in today’s Globe and Mail is way over the top. For building the myth of “internal trade barriers,†Barrie McKenna’s column should have been entitled, “Another Brick in the Wall.†Three claims are especially questionable. First, “A recent back-of-the-envelope calculation by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute puts the tally of internal trade […]
Read moreTotal employment reportedly increased by 36,000 in August. This increase was entirely driven by 68,400 more jobs in educational services, which simply offset a decline of 65,300 in July. In other words, the educators that Statistics Canada counted as being “unemployed†in midsummer are now “employed.†So, today’s Labour Force Survey confirms that July’s release was less bad than it […]
Read moreLinda McQuaig puts the heat on Ontario’s public-sector compensation freeze in today’s Toronto Star. Her excellent column begins by noting that the federal government has fended off proposed financial-sector taxes on the grounds that Canadian banks did not cause the global financial crisis. But Canadian public-sector workers, who are even less responsible for the crisis, are expected to make a […]
Read moreJim and I responded somewhat differently to Tuesday’s GDP release. Jim’s Globe and Mail column suggested that it was especially bad: “We’re clearly heading for stagnation at best, and quite possibly another ‘double dip’ downturn.†I perceived a ray or two of hope and told The Toronto Star: “I’m not predicting a double dip.†While I think that we actually […]
Read moreMichael Hlinka is the notoriously libertarian daily economics reporter on CBC Metro Morning (the flagship morning radio show in Toronto). Our paths have crossed before; see my previous commentary: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/07/11/another-economics-journalism-is-possible/ Michael’s segment on September 1 (in conversation with host Matt Galloway) focused on the Statistics Canada GDP release. It was a sensible and largely uncontroversial discussion, with Michael taking a […]
Read moreA 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 without Canpotex. But other […]
Read moreI 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 Saskatchewan (PCS) is […]
Read moreLast 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 with interested unions.) Nevertheless, […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported that the implementation of Harmonized Sales Tax in Ontario and British Columbia helped drive the national inflation rate from 1.0% in June to 1.8% in July. By comparison, the Bank of Canada’s core inflation rate (which excludes tax changes and volatile items) edged down from 1.7% to 1.6%. However, annual inflation rates are not the […]
Read moreDon Tapscott nails it in his commentary in today’s Globe and Mail. Everyone wants to see and not be seen. That’s getting less possible, even for the most guarded individual. Today’s zeitgeist is Google, and the Google Zeitgeist is transparency. The push-back — and every thesis has its antithesis, as all you Hegel fans out there know – comes from […]
Read moreJack Boan retired from the University of Regina’s economics department before I began studying there. Although I never had the privilege of taking a class from him, I received a medal named in his honour. Recently, I was pleased to see Dr. Boan zing the Harper government with a couple of letters to the editor. He had one in Friday’s Globe […]
Read moreMy union was among many organizations listed in opposition to the senseless census decision in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail editorial. Three organizations were listed as supporting it. The Fraser Institute and National Citizens’ Coalition have understandable motives for wanting to eliminate the mandatory long form. First, there are libertarian “privacy†concerns. Second, depriving the government of reliable census data would […]
Read moreBetween May and June, consumer prices decreased in both absolute and seasonally-adjusted terms. As a result, the annual inflation rate fell to 1.0%, about half what it had been at the start of this year. One province, Manitoba, actually slipped into deflation. The Bank of Canada’s core rate edged down to 1.7%. Monetary Policy Inflation’s continuing decline begs the question […]
Read moreFor the first time in eight months, the number of Employment Insurance (EI) recipients increased in May. We already knew from the Labour Force Survey that unemployment had increased by just over 8,000 in May. It is good news that EI expanded by the same amount because it implies that those who became unemployed that month received benefits. However, it […]
Read moreThere seems to be a consensus that the Bank of Canada will raise its target interest rate tomorrow. I thought that last month’s rate hike was premature, so I see no reason for another hike this month. The argument for higher interest rates is that they are needed to ward off future inflation (even though inflation is currently below the […]
Read moreSHEESH! I’ve never seen anything like this, have you? My fave – Kelly McParland’s Full Comment, at the bottom. Hilarious and right on the money. THURSDAY CLIPPINGS “NEWS HOUR FINAL†Global BC and Global Ontario Broadcast Date: Thursday July 15 2010 The Harper government says it’s making changes to the census based on widespread privacy complaints but as Shirlee Engel […]
Read moreThere 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 story, I looked at […]
Read moreWhenever the stock market falls, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow reliably blames the Obama administration’s allegedly anti-business policies. But when the market was rising on Obama’s watch, Kudlow generally did not talk about it. On tonight’s show, he took a different tack. He repeatedly asserted that the market has recently rallied not only on strong corporate profits, but also because Tim Geithner announced (on […]
Read moreThe front page of today’s Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition) proclaims, “Supercorp is dead.†The story goes on to note, “many government insiders have suggested that opponents of a potential deal got too much of a head start on framing the issue.†Indeed, this blog got a head start framing the issue back in December, when The Globe reported that […]
Read moreThis morning, Statistics Canada reported that employment jumped by an incredible 93,200 in June. But the total number of hours worked actually declined. In effect, less work was divided up between more workers. (By contrast, a similar employment jump in April corresponded to a large increase in hours worked.) Less Unemployment: A Central Canadian Story The advantage of dividing less […]
Read moreA recent letter from economists nicely summarized the two main theoretical arguments in favour of the HST: “Businesses, large and small, will face lower administrative costs from complying with one sales tax system instead of two. Lower business costs, especially on capital equipment, will encourage investment and economic activity.†Both arguments make sense in a stylized model of replacing retail […]
Read moreBrian Lee Crowley used to run the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. Through the new Macdonald-Laurier Institute, he is now (to paraphrase ZZ Top) not only bad, but also nationwide. So far, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has released two papers. I missed the first one in March. The second paper, released on Monday, is entitled Citizen of One, Citizen of the […]
Read moreI could not make head nor tail of the unsourced numbers in last week’s National Post editorial on the Canada Pension Plan (CPP): If workers were able to take the more than $3,000 they and their employers pay into CPP on their behalf each year and invest it in a conservative private fund, at the end of their working lives […]
Read moreIn his column today in The Guardian, Will Hutton is the latest pundit to suggest Canada’s example from the mid 1990s is the right way to tackle austerity. Hutton’s aim is true. He knows the current proposals for balancing the books will unleash “the needless squandering of [British] lives.” In his effort to point to a more sensible path he makes […]
Read moreToday’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures for April indicate essentially no change in the number of Canadians receiving benefits or in the number filing claims. To put these flat EI numbers in context, April was the strongest month yet of labour-market recovery. Indeed, it saw the largest percentage increase in employment since August 2002. In one sense, today’s numbers confirm what […]
Read moreOn Monday, Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) was on TV expressing outrage that doubling the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) would entail mandatory contributions equal to 20% of earnings. Her logic is that a self-employed person currently contributes 9.9% of pensionable earnings. That figure doubles to 19.8%. This argument misses a couple of points: Employees Pay Half […]
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