It is the policy that dare not speak its name. For the better part of the last 20 years, the idea of a guaranteed annual income (GAI), a government funded unconditional annual income floor below which no family or individual can fall, has been met with ridicule, dismissal, silence and, more often than not, legislation that does the exact opposite […]
Read moreA recommended article by Paul Krugman on US inequality trends appears in the Rolling Stone Review of Economics, The Great Wealth Transfer.
Read moreAs we head into the Christmas holidays and many of us look forward to spending some time away from work with our families, it’s worth noting that there is great inequality among Canadian workers in terms of access to paid vacation leave, and big gaps compared to other industrial countries. The statutory minimum in Canada varies by province, and is just […]
Read moreEric Reguly on the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance and Big Oil, from today’s Globe: Oil sands may be federal Tories’ Achilles heel … For the opposition parties, the beauty of the oil sands is that you can point to them. The visuals are appropriately disturbing. You can see the gaping holes in the earth, you can measure the water flows, […]
Read moreA letter to the Prime Minister from Scientists For A Healthy Environment, which doubles as an effective critique of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act: Dear Prime Minister, We are writing to encourage your Government to make significant improvements to Canada ‘s overarching pollution law, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). Canada has a growing pollution problem that is a threat […]
Read moreI balked at purchasing some tickets this weekend because of the rapacious service charges of Ticketmaster. The cost of the tickets was already pretty high, at $38.50, but that just seems to be the going rate these days. Generally, I do not begrudge the escalating cost of live performances because artists make most of their money this way, and the […]
Read more(This note was prepared for a meeting of trade union economists with Paul Jenkins, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, to be held on Monday, December 11, 2006.) Introduction The Bank of Canada believes that the Canadian economy is currently operating “just above†capacity, justifying this week’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged despite a noticeable slowdown in economic […]
Read moreIt seems to me that, compared to an international free-trade agreement, TILMA provides none of the potential benefits (i.e. tariff reductions) and all of the costs (i.e. regulations harmonized to the lowest common denominator and businesses suing governments). As Marc noted below, the Government of BC claims that TILMA could add $4.8 billion to provincial GDP. A Government of Quebec […]
Read moreBC and Alberta signed a new agreement earlier this year to reduce interprovincial barriers to trade. The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) is due to go into effect in April 2007. Apparently Saskatchewan and Ontario are now considering signing on as well. While it is widely believed in business circles that there exist large barriers to trade within […]
Read more“Canada’s New Government improves protection against hazardous chemicals” says the press release. This item fits in the “ounce of prevention” file, but is also another one for the “opportunistic Harper government” file.On prevention, Canada has been slowly getting its act together with regard to the growing evidence that thousands of untested and unregulated chemicals in the environment are connected with […]
Read moreAnother piece for the “ounce of prevention” file. Poverty, homelessness and crime in BC have gotten bad enough that business leaders are starting to call for action. Thus far, the call has been more cosmetic, as in “get these bums out of my doorway” and “panhandlers are bad for tourism”, but it is a start, I suppose. Now the Premier’s […]
Read moreThe Vancouver Sun’s Harvey Enchin comments on Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s net debt elimination plan, pointing out some nuances in changed accounting practice around the concept of “net debt”: When Finance Minister Jim Flaherty vowed to wipe out Canada’s net debt by 2021, many people heard something else. They thought he had made a pledge to pay off the […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail is running a series on homelessness in BC (at least, in its BC edition). Mark Hume reiterates the case for supportive housing arrangements to get people off the streets into a place where they can stabilize their lives. It would be highly advisable for senior governments to get back into the housing game, as the market […]
Read moreToday my boss walked in with a notice from his child’s daycare that fees were going up because the Tories have cancelled the Early Learning and Child Care transfer (and the BC government is not picking up any slack in spite of its multi-billion surpluses) – the fee increase eats up his family’s new “child care allowance” cheque and then […]
Read moreStatistics Canada has released results of the latest wealth survey (Survey of Financial Security, or SFS), covering the 2005 year (previous survey was for 1999, and prior to that, 1984). This makes for an interesting comparison, as the 1999 results came at a time when stock markets were bubbling, whereas by 2005 the bubble had shifted to real estate. One […]
Read moreThe World Distribution of Household Wealth, by James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff, was released by the World Institute for Development Economics Research. A Canadian (and a former prof of mine at Western – Go Mustangs!) is the lead author. The full paper is available here. The extended press release doubles as the report’s summary: […]
Read moreThe CCPA released today a study by Osgoode Hall tax professor Neil Brooks and York’s Thaddeus Hwong called The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation: A Comparison of High and Low-tax Countries. The study compares 50 indicators of social and economic performance. The full study is available here and a condensed summary follows: Tax levels in Canada have always […]
Read moreWas that ever an exciting Liberal leadership convention. It is rare for Canadian politics to get that interesting. Now the fun really begins. Dion would appear to be a good choice. Rae was too smear-able over his time as Ontario Premier; Ignatieff too much a political neophyte and would have had his foot in his mouth during a battle with […]
Read moreIt was a ho-hum announcement, and I don’t know if it generated much media coverage in Canada or not. But last week the Bank of Canada and the Dept. of Finance announced another 5-year extension (to 2011) of the current inflation targeting regime (keep total year-over-year inflation within a point above or below 2 percent, using the core inflation rate […]
Read morehttp://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/609ENG%2Epdf Tax Fairness According to Canada’s New Government Ed Tamagno and Ken Battle, November 2006 Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s surprise announcement on October 31, 2006, shutting down income trusts was front page news across Canada. Little media attention, however, was given to other changes to the income tax system announced at the same time. These include two of particular […]
Read moreOn October 31, Finance Minister Flaherty announced that pension income could be divided between spouses for tax purposes. More recently, he mused about allowing spouses to divide all income for tax purposes. This latter proposal would benefit an affluent minority at the expense of important public programs and create a disincentive for women to engage in paid employment. Income splitting […]
Read moreFrom the Edmonton Sun: Tory leadership contender Ted Morton says Alberta should cut the amount it contributes to federal transfer payments so it can build more roads and sewers for an influx of workers. Speaking on an Alberta radio talk show (Rutherford-CHQR-CHED), Morton says it makes no sense for Ottawa to pay out employment insurance to keep workers in Atlantic […]
Read morePaul Krugman is in the bears’ camp for 2007 (thanks to Economist’s View for posting NYT Select content): Economic Storm Signals … Before I explain what the bond market is telling us, let’s talk about why the economy may be at a turning point. Between mid-2003 and mid-2006, economic growth in the United States was fueled mainly by a huge […]
Read moreI admit to enjoying weather porn. When a huge rainstorm came to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, I just had to put on the 6 o’clock news to see the visuals. And then there was the snowstorm (oh, baby). Of course, the thrill of seeing Mother Nature’s wrath is generally better when it is not you – a thought […]
Read moreFrom a New York Times story by Ben Stein: In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, […]
Read moreThomas Palley and William Greider add two (more critical) obituaries for Milton Friedman. Both make the distinction between Friedman as a professional economist and as a public intellectual: Milton Friedman: The Great Conservative Partisan Milton Friedman died on November 16, 2006 at the age of 94. Without doubt, Friedman was one of the most influential (perhaps the most influential) economists […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot has a new book out on solutions to global warming. In contrast to the Stern Review, Monbiot’s read of the science is that a much more drastic plan is required if we are to avoid a runaway climate change scenario. His focus is on the UK, but many of his ideas are amenable to Canada as well. The […]
Read moreI visited China for two weeks earlier this month, at the invitation of the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing. I gave a series of lectures on economics and labour relations to several classes of bright, eager, and surprisingly free-speaking graduate students. China’s economy has been growing at about 10% per year for over a decade, and the […]
Read moreThe only surprise in the long-term economic strategy document unveiled by the Finance Minister today is its complete lack of balance. Everything corporate Canada and the right-wing think-tanks wanted is there in spades. What it lacks is any sense that the market economy must be regulated in the public interest to make sure that it works for working families. Consider […]
Read moreOnce again the Tories opportunistically use for their own gain what should be an honest update to the public about the country’s finances. OK, the Liberals did that too, but that does not make it right. Along with the Economic and Fiscal Update 2006 comes Advantage Canada, the Tories’ blueprint for prosperity. If the metaphor is tennis, this document makes […]
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