OK this one is a bit nerdy, I admit it. I’ve been working on various popular education tools to go along with Economics for Everyone (my economics “textbook” for unionists and other activists), trying to make the material as accessible and entertaining as possible — and making it as easy as possible for local activists to sponsor their own courses. […]
Read moreThe main message in Statistics Canada’s release of 2009 investment intentions is that modestly higher public investment will partly offset sharply lower private investment. The glass-half-full perspective is that things would look far worse without the increase in public investment. The glass-half-empty perspective is that this increase will not be nearly enough to fully offset the loss of private investment. […]
Read moreAnti-trust lawyer David Balto, with the Center for American Progress, recently made the case against Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with LiveNation in testimony to the US Congress. The testimony also provides an excellent summary of Ticketmaster’s existing monopoly, some of which I excerpt below: Let’s be straightforward about one transparent fact: Ticketmaster is a monopolist and exercises that power to exploit […]
Read moreThe deal, unveiled yesterday by the Premiers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is not actually called PEAR, but PARE: Partnership Agreement on Regulation and the Economy. Like TILMA, it was signed pursuant to Article 1800 of the existing Agreement on Internal Trade to further “liberalize trade, investment and workforce mobility.” Unlike TILMA, it does not establish an enforcement mechanism […]
Read moreObama’s speech to Congress laid out an excellent agenda: substantial investments in renewable electricity, healthcare reform without delay, increased education spending, enforced limits on carbon emissions and the end of Bush tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000. However, there was one bug, which I fear the President may have caught on his recent visit to Canada: “creating tax-free universal […]
Read moreWhile the GM and Chrysler bailouts have prompted discussion of governments taking equity stakes in those companies, Business Week reports that Ford’s effort to restructure without government loans may make the United Auto Workers its largest shareholder. Henry Ford famously said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.†It seems unlikely that worker ownership is […]
Read morePEF member Salimah Valiani has written a report, released today by No One is Illegal, on the topic of temporary migrant workers in Canada, and a quiet but important shift in our immigration policies. The full report can be downloaded here and the abstract follows: This report elaborates the shift in immigration policy which began unfolding in Canada from the […]
Read moreBC’s recession and election together mean things are going to get nasty in the political realm. Already we seeing plenty of sneering commentary from our esteemed cabinet ministers. Consider this jibe from Colin Hansen, the Minister of Finance, in his annual address to the brethren of Sigma Chi: “I want you to think about one thing. Think about the opening […]
Read moreI am a great admirer of Arthur Donner and Doug Peters who have kept the flame of Keynesian economics alive in Canada for many years and regularly provide good progressive commentary. But I’m a bit out of sympathy with their column in today’s Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/590916 Their major argument is that Canada now faces structural deficits, and that tax increases […]
Read moreIt 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 it abroad, and used to […]
Read moreJim’s posting of his excellent Globe column prompts me to review Canadian labour op-eds, and responses to them, on the “Buy America” controversy. The CAW’s Ken Lewenza was first out of the gate, writing in The Financial Post (Feb. 3) that Canada should mirror Buy America with its own “Buy Canadian” policy. My National Post op-ed (Feb. 5) argued that such […]
Read moreThe downturn in global trade is stunning — a sure sign that this is no garden-variety slowdown we are experiencing. And in Canada’s case, the cyclical downturn in trade lies on top of a deeper structural change: our increased reliance on resource exports, which produced (via Dutch Disease mechanisms) a corresponding shift of output and employment into non-tradeables, and a […]
Read moreFile this one under “painfully ironic”: The Ontario Securities Commission (public agency charged with monitoring the behaviour of the stock market industry) recently advertized for a Senior Economist. Duties include collecting & interpreting data, monitoring developments in securities markets, helping Commission staff understand economic concepts, blah blah blah. The fun part is the compensation: competitive salary, benefits, and — here’s […]
Read moreConsumer prices fell by 0.1% between December 2008 and January 2009, reducing the annual inflation rate to 1.1%. Prince Edward Island joined the other two maritime provinces in having the dubious distinction of a negative inflation rate. This decline mainly reflected falling gasoline prices. Lower fuel costs were partly offset by higher mortgage-interest costs due to higher real-estate prices than […]
Read moreA year ago, in the 2008 BC Budget, a new tax was born. There was a hush over the House as its mother, the Finance Minister, prepared for delivery. The proud papa, the Premier, stood glowingly beside the new mom Carole and her baby tax, and basked in the glow of praise from climate scientists, environmentalists and policy wonks from […]
Read moreFaced with a nasty recession at its doorstep, the BC budget is uninspiring and underwhelming in its ambition. Overall there is little that actively plans for a recession, preferring instead a steady-as-she-goes budget, perhaps aimed at cultivating the image of responsible economic managers in a time of crisis. There are no tax cuts or drastic spending cuts, thankfully, but nor […]
Read moreAs has been widely reported, Ron Bloom from my union’s Pittsburgh headquarters will serve on President Obama’s Task Force on Autos. One might ask why a Steelworker is involved in crafting the automotive bailout. There are at least three reasons. First, during his previous career as a financier, Bloom developed significant personal expertise on the auto industry. Second, while working […]
Read moreIn today’s Vancouver Sun, Neils Veldhuis and Milagros Palacios act as yang to my yin on the oped page. Their pre-budget oped seems strangely distant from the day-to-day reality of a recession that is unfolding in BC and elsewhere. Their response could have been written two or five years ago: the solution is to cut taxes and spending, and all […]
Read moreI have an oped in today’s Vancouver Sun, juxtaposed against the Fraser Institute, unfortunately. I’d like to think mine is much more timely and appropriate given the current economic situation (I’ll get to theirs in a subsequent post). BC Needs an Action Plan to Fight a Nasty Recession On February 17 the BC government will table the province’s first recession […]
Read moreAh. For the good old days. When a Budget Implementation bill lived up to its, err, billing. You know, stuff from the budget was in the bill. Other stuff was dealt with in other bills where stuff could be properly debated. Nowadays, you never know what you’re going to get when you open your Bill C-10 goody bag. Take the […]
Read moreThe 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 is this editorial by Newsweek […]
Read moreThis afternoon’s news that the American stimulus bill passed without a single Republican vote in the US House of Representatives seems to validate Paul Krugman’s skepticism of bipartisanship. The Democratic effort to compromise with Republicans limited the amount of stimulus spending (as opposed to questionable tax cuts) in the package. If this constrained package proves insufficient, the Republicans will be able […]
Read moreI found this piece by David Harvey to be an absolutely brilliant and compelling analysis of just how difficult it will be to get out of this crisis, especially now that the global economy is visibly in free fall before our eyes. His argument is that there is no adequate political base in the US to sustain a solution radical […]
Read moreIt is so nice to see the backlash against Ticketmaster’s monopolistic practices. Two class action suits have been filed in Canada over the past weeks, and south of the border anti-trust alarm bells are ringing due to Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with Live Nation. Tickets sales have become something close to a natural monopoly, and as such should either have their […]
Read more(I prepared these as speaking notes for a workshop. They cover a lot of ground covered on this blog but they may be of interest.) The rapid descent of the global economy into what even the International Monetary Fund has begun to call a Depression will see very rapidly rising unemployment in Canada and around the world, likely to the […]
Read moreI just returned from the Steelworker Mecca of Hamilton-Burlington, where the Michael Coren Show is taped. It will be broadcast at 8pm tonight through the Crossroads Television System (CTS) on cable in Ontario and Alberta, and on satellite across Canada. Sarah Blackstock of the Income Security Advocacy Centre and I squared off with two Kevins, one from the Canadian Taxpayers […]
Read moreMartin Wolf of the Financial Times has written a pretty scathing critique of the new US Administation’s overhaul of the TARP program. I am increasingly convinced by Duncan Cameron’s argument that – in the US at least – the best way out is to nationalize the banks, run them as a public utility, and compensate the shareholders only if there […]
Read moreA standard objection to the Buy Canadian policy proposed yesterday by Canada’s largest industrial unions was that Canada enjoys a trade surplus. Such a policy would allegedly prompt foreign retaliation, erasing our current trade surplus and its contribution to aggregate demand in Canada. This morning, Statistics Canada reported that we actually ran a merchandise trade deficit in December, the first […]
Read moreA year after crunching the numbers and coming to the conclusion that an economic downturn spelled deficits, I got this hat tip in Maclean’s: It’s true that there was no consensus forecast, through most of last year, that saw Canada suffering a deep recession in 2009, and a return to staggering deficits in Ottawa. However, it’s false to suggest that […]
Read moreIt is amazing to see the charged responses to the idea of a made-in-Canada policy for procurement related to infrastructure stimulus spending. Perhaps it is just that all economists are supposed to accept free trade as the One True Policy. But what I am seeing are largely moral arguments for free trade in the abstract rather than an examination of […]
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