I calculate that Canadian trusteed pension plans have probably lost about $50 Billion since the end of March due to falling share prices. RRSPs are probably down about  $30 Billion. As of March 31st 2008 (most recent data) 4.6 million Canadians belonged to trusteed pension plans, and 5.8 million belonged to employer pension plans of all kinds. Total assets of […]
Read moreA good op ed from the New York Times. I wonder why we are not discussing this issue here – the stock market meltdown combined with the growing difficulties of the real economy are going to have huge impacts on pension fund balances. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/opinion/27ghilarducci.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Op-Ed Contributor Save Pensions By TERESA GHILARDUCCI THE meltdown in the financial industry isn’t merely a […]
Read moreWith many economic pundits attacking Jack Layton’s proposed freeze on the corporate income tax rate at 2007 levels, it is worth noting that Layton has also proposed to extend the accelerated (two year) capital cost allowance on new investment in machinery and equipment. This latter measure is supported by the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, who heavily criticized the 2008 Budget […]
Read moreThe 110 page U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is certainly better than Paulson’s original 3 page proposal, but it falls so far short of what is needed that I wonder whether it will do more harm than good.  Despite its growth in size, it is still little more than a bail-out-come-swap financing deal for the  financial sector. The question […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson dismisses Jack Layton in today’s Globe and Mail, “How can voters take the NDP seriously? †The first substantive critique appears about halfway through the column: “the NDP has not provided any costing for their platform.†As has been widely reported yesterday and today, the NDP is releasing its costed platform tomorrow. Since the platform is not out yet, how […]
Read moreThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released a comparison of manufacturing output, employment, productivity, and unit labour costs in 16 different industrialized countries. Here’s the link: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/prod4.pdf This data confirms that Canada’s manufacturing industry is in the midst of a uniquely terrible crisis. Some commentators have suggested that the sharp decline in Canadian manufacturing is an inevitable and […]
Read moreMore clear headed analysis of the choices from Tom Palley http://www.thomaspalley.com/ Saving the Financial System Copyright Thomas I. Palley A friend told me the economist Charles Kindelberger had two rules for a credit economy. Rule one was everybody should know that if they get over-extended they will not be bailed-out. Rule two was if everybody gets over-extended they must be […]
Read moreI am thrilled to report that the Progressive Economics Forum has met our $50,000 fund-raising goal for an endowment fund to support the Galbraith Prize in Economics and Social Justice in perpetuity.  Thank you very much to those who helped out with this project.  A special thank you to Kevin Young who helped a lot with identifying potential donors, and […]
Read moreHere’s an interesting critique of the Fed – Treasury proposal, an op ed from the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/20/AR2008092001059.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Read moreThis piece by Tom Palley is interesting and a bit of a counter point to some other posts on this blog . He stresses the danger of populist opposition to “bailing out the bankers.” Tom’s blog is at: http://www.thomaspalley.com/?p=130 The Liquidation Trap The U.S. financial system is caught in a destructive liquidation trap that has falling asset prices cause financial […]
Read morePopulation health researchers, most famously and consistently Richard Wilkinson, have long drawn attention to the fact that the link between social class and health status is a gradient, such that an individual’s position in the class hierarchy is directly and causally linked to that person’s health status. It is not just that low income people are more likely to be […]
Read moreDuncan Cameron has an excellent – and disturbing – column on the still deepening financial crisis in rabble: http://www.rabble.ca/politics.shtml?sh_itm=14e122ab36db1c78ce34a64c243af494&rXn=1&
Read moreAs the debacle on Wall Street continues to unfold, how will it all affect the election up here? So far, Harper’s team is not “wearing” the uncertainty and insecurity that people feel regarding the economy, to nearly the extent that they should. I think that partly reflects the lack of concerted attack on economic issues from the opposition parties, and […]
Read moreSince Galbraith has appeared in two recent posts, a timely salvo came to me from Christopher Nowlin: I happen to think that Galbraith’s 1958 classic, The Affluent Society, speaks more loudly to today’s social, economic, political and environmental troubles in North America than it did to post WWII America’s. I even gave a public talk to this effect in April of this […]
Read moreThe Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) have just posted to their web site a fine and timely book, edited by Teresa Healy. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2008/09/ReportsStudies1960/index.cfm?pa=BB736455 The book consists of about 40 chapters dissecting the two and one half year record of the Conservative government across a wide range of issues – from jobs and the economy, to human rights, international issues, the […]
Read moreIn August 2008, ordinary Canadians were squeezed by rising annual inflation and slowing annual wage growth. The decline in consumer prices from July to August 2008 (-0.2%) was smaller than the normal seasonal decline in prices between these months. (On a seasonally-adjusted basis, Statistics Canada estimates that consumer prices rose 0.2%.) Compared to last month, the annual inflation rate edged up […]
Read moreBack in June, we co-awarded the first John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics to Kari Levitt and Mel Watkins. Unfortunately, there was a snag with the transcription of Kari’s lecture and she had to recreate it. We now have the text and have posted it below. So congrats once again to both Kari and Mel for their outstanding contributions to […]
Read moreThe Liberals released a “costed” platform today. http://www.liberal.ca/platform_e.aspx There’s a lot to like here in terms of the Liberal Party’s programmatic commitments to child care , support for manufacturing investment, green job creation, public health care, student aid, basic infrastructure, dealing with poverty, and so on – but I stand by my earlier argument that they can’t balance the Budget, […]
Read moreHere’s a statement from the Secretariat of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) http://www.tuac.org/en/public/e-docs/00/00/03/13/document_news.phtml The dramatic events on the US and global financial markets in the past days – the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America and not least, the government bailing out of AIG, the largest insurer in the […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail is carrying a report today on a possible Canada-EU trade deal, suggesting that negotiations will be launched shortly after the election. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080918.wtrade18/BNStory/International/home Described as a negotiation of deep economic integration, “the proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA by encompassing not only unrestricted trade in goods, services and investment and […]
Read moreI’m afrtaid you are going to have to pay for it, but this is an excellent review – from the current issue of the New York Review of Books – of what loooks to be an excellent book on the state of the American working class. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=21798 Time for a New Deal By Jeff Madrick The Big Squeeze: Tough Times […]
Read moreWe all know the Conservatives are the “rational economic managers,” right? After all, their tax cuts, free trade agreements, and tough-love social policy are all motivated by the need to free the entrepreneurial beast within us, and allow us to pursue our natural proclivity to truck and trade with wild abandon. The productivity of the free market is the common […]
Read moreHarper today announced that he would include self-employed workers in EI for purposes of paid maternity and parental leave. Extending such EI coverage is a good idea, and Quebec has already done this through a provincial adaptation of the EI program which requires a separate provincial premium rate. In Quebec, partcipation by the self-employed is mandatory so they all contribute […]
Read moreNow that Elizabeth May is set to join in the televised election debates, her party’s platform will come under greater scrutiny. There is much to like in it – especially a major investment program in energy efficiency, alternative energy, public transit and so on. Her commitment to seriously dealing with climate change and creating a new economy and new jobs […]
Read moreAs the federal political parties begin to make promises of new spending or tax cuts, the question arises as to how much fiscal room is available to Canada’s next government.The short answer is that the Conservatives and Liberals have locked themselves into the same fiscal box, and only the NDP has the room needed to make new commitments. As Erin […]
Read moreIt has to go down as one of the most modest reponses to the manufacturing jobs crisis one could imagine. On Friday – literally on the eve of the election call -Â Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg announced that four Ontario EI regions – Huron, Niagara, Oshawa and Windsor – will be added to the list of high unemployment regions […]
Read moreMargaret Wente (“For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls”, today’s Globe) argues, based on a new book by Charles Murray that “educational romanticism has led us to believe that every student can become at least average, and that the right teaching strategies can close the achievement gap.†Some people are just dumb, and there’s not much that can be done about […]
Read moreThe August employment numbers seem modestly positive, but only in comparison to July’s ruinous numbers. Canada’s labour market weakened severely during the summer of 2008. The Employment Numbers in Context The creation of 41,000 private-sector jobs in August replaces fewer than half of the 95,000 private-sector jobs lost in July. The loss of 24,000 public-sector jobs in August wipes out […]
Read moreFor a third consecutive announcement, the central bank’s communications department reused the headline, “Bank of Canada keeps overnight rate target at 3 per cent.” This repetition implies that central bankers have not perceived a fundamental shift in the balance of factors considered since they last changed interest rates four and a half months ago. In fact, much has changed in […]
Read moreI have long subscribed to Challenge magazine, a generally progressive and accessible US economic journal which I recommend highly to readers of this blog. Individual articles can be downloaded, for a fee of $25. The current issue has an excellent piece by the LSE’s Robert Wade on the current financial crisis, which he sees as rooted not just in financial […]
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