The Progressive Economics Forum

The OECD on Why Manufacturing Still Matters

July 10, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

The OECDÂ have released a modestly interesting, highly empiricalÂ report on the changing nature of the manufacturing sector in advanced industrial economies.Â http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/17/37607831.pdf It speaks, somewhat tangentially, to the issue of whether “deindustrialization” should be of concern to policy-makers. As is well-known, the declining share of manufacturing employment has been pervasive across OECD countries since 1970… though the study finds […]

More on the Strange Economics of Temporary Foreign Workers

July 9, 2007 Andrew Jackson 4 comments

Further to my and David Green’s posts on the strange economics of temporary foreign workers .. http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2007/02/08/the-strange-economics-of-temporary-foreign-workers/ http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2007/06/28/the-economics-of-temporary-foreign-workers/Â it is strking to observe that such workers are NOT overwhelmingly concentrated in the Western provinces with well below average unemployment rates. In fact, data presented to an Alberta consultation on the program by the Alberta Federation of Labour show that almost […]

Genetic screening equals public health care

July 9, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

In a number of areas of health care, the rapid advance of technology may pose challenges to public systems, as technology tends to increase to costs associated with care by expanding both the realm of the possible and the number of people who can avail themselves of it (I review some cases of this in a CCPA paper). I argue […]

Regulating Foreign Ownership: A Split in Business Ranks?

July 9, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

One of the key contradictions of neo liberalism is between the ideology of free markets and limited government, and the reality that transnationals can and do seek to enhance their competitive position in the global order by presenting themselves to ‘their’ home states as champions of national economic development. This contradiction has been relatively subdued in Canada given the supine […]

Tax Subsidies to Private Equity: The Case of BCE

July 6, 2007 Andrew Jackson 2 comments

Today’s Globe and Mail (Report on Business, p. B4) reports that when (technically, if) BCE Inc goes private as a result of the sale to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan led group, interest-bearing debt will likely rise from $12 Billion to some $38 Billion, according to Chris Diceman of the Dominion Bond Rating Service.Â That would more than triple BCE’s […]

Labour Force Survey and Interest Rates

July 6, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

My assessment of todayâ€™s Labour Force Survey follows: Manufacturing Crisis Deepens â€¢ The loss of a further 31,000 manufacturing jobs in June pushed total manufacturing employment losses to 95,000 positions since the beginning of February 2007. Since employment in Canadian manufacturing peaked in November 2002, this sector has lost 308,000 jobs. Construction and Resource Employment Falls â€¢ In June, CIBC […]

The Bank of Canada and the Dollar

July 5, 2007 Andrew Jackson One comment

The Bank of Canada goes to great pains to tell us that they have only one goal – namely to keep inflation at the mid point of the 1-3% target range – and have no view on the appropriate exchange rate of the Canadian dollar except insofar as it relates to this one goal. This stance is more than […]

Book Review: Intent for a Nation

July 3, 2007 Marc Lee 4 comments

Vancouver political scientist Peter Pronzos emailed this review of Michael Byers’ new book, Intent for a Nation: â€œâ€¦so close to the United Statesâ€ By Peter Pronzos Book review of Intent for a Nation: What is Canada For? By Michael Byers Douglas & McIntyre, 248 pages, $32.95 When former Prime Minister Jean ChrÃ©tien bowed to public opinion and refused to send […]

Competition vs capitalism in Canada

July 3, 2007 Marc Lee One comment

An interesting story in The Tyee that picks up on evidence from the Conrad Black Trial (from a story in the GlobeÂ as blogged here), and runs with it. It is a telling insider story, one that nicely clears up the difference between the notion of competitive markets and the real world of capitalism and Big Media conglomerates: How Black […]

Who’s Better, Who’s Best

July 3, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

The Wellesley Institute blog compares and contrasts a recent CCPA publication with the World Wealth Report: Two days, two reports, two very different worlds The World Wealth Report 2007 released on Wednesday by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini reports that the very rich (so-called high net worth individuals â€“ HNWI) are getting even richer. And the forecast is the extremely […]

Livingstone on congestion charges

July 2, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

Writing an intervention in the NY Times, as NYC contemplates a congestion charge of its own, London Mayor Ken Livingstone makes the case based on London’s experience. A key success factor is the channeling of revenues from the tax into enhancing public transit, another example of offsetting regressive tax impacts on the spending side: … In 2003, London put in […]

Another Decade, Another 4.8%

July 2, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Itâ€™s great to have publications like The Western Standard keeping us on our toes. The following excerpt is from an article in todayâ€™s edition, “New Economy, Old Prejudices; Big Labourâ€™s jobs campaign flies in the face of employment and wage growth,” that does not (yet) seem to be available online: The CLC contends that Canada’s loss of a quarter-million manufacturing […]

Supreme Court ruling on collective bargaining

July 1, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

A dispatch by email from McMaster’s (and PEF member) Roy Adams on last month’s ruling: In a dramatic and entirely unexpected decision, the Supreme Court of Canada on June 8th “constitutionalized” collective bargaining in Canada. From its inception, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has had a freedom of association clause but in a series of decisions in the 1980s […]

Bruce Johnstone on TILMA

June 30, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

In todayâ€™s Leader-Post, Bruce Johnstone makes the same point as I did about the Saskatchewan Partyâ€™s reversal on TILMA: that it is intended to minimize the agreement as a potentialÂ election issue. He also makes the oft-heard argument that, since a couple of other “free trade” agreements allegedly worked-out fairly well, TILMA must also be pretty good. If the AIT was […]

Stopping TILMA at the Fourth Meridian

June 29, 2007 Erin Weir 4 comments

Count me among those pleasantly surprised by the right-wing Saskatchewan Partyâ€™s rejection of TILMA, a complete reversal of its previous position. I think that labourâ€™s extensive participation in the legislative-committee hearings helped toÂ convince the Saskatchewan Party that (1.) there is significant opposition to signing TILMA and (2.) there are genuine problems with the agreement. During the first week of hearings […]

KPMG on Corporate Taxes

June 29, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

On Wednesday, The Globe and Mail ran the headline, “Taxes Are Falling, But Not Here: Global Business Tax Rates Are Dropping, But Canadaâ€™s Remain High, KPMG Report Finds,” immediately above a table showing Canadian corporate taxes to be within the lower half of G8 countries. Today, The Globe printed the letter from yours truly that is pasted at the bottom […]

The Taxpayers Federation Releases the Reins of Power?

June 28, 2007 Erin Weir 3 comments

Further to my previous post, todayâ€™s Ottawa Citizen reports that Walter Robinson is stepping down as Larry Oâ€™Brienâ€™s chief of staff.

Cameron: Why the WTO talks have collapsed (again)

June 28, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

The WTO talks have collapsed. Wait, did I not report that last year? Alas, talks are never really over, the Doha Round never really “dead” as reported in the papers. Just stalled. But as Cameron points out in his rabble.ca column (thanks to Duncan and rabble for sharing columns with RPE), this recent impasse has a lot to do with […]

Mel Watkins on Foreign Take-overs

June 28, 2007 Andrew Jackson One comment

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=6c433a24-f12a-4584-9706-9f123ded8234 A good piece from today’s Ottawa Citizen. I’ve been similarly struck by the concern re foreign state involvementÂ in our resource sector, combined with evident lack of concernÂ about loss of domestic control of resourceÂ development. Whether we would get that fromÂ greater Canadian capitalist ownership of resource companiesÂ as opposed toÂ more public owneship and regulation is a […]

The hidden costs of homelessness

June 27, 2007 Marc Lee Leave a comment

are high, according to a new report, summarized by Gordon Laird in the Toronto Star: According to a new report from the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy, homelessness is costing Canadian taxpayers $4.5 billion to $6 billion a year. Canada in 2007 collectively spends more managing homelessness than it spends on international […]

Manufacturing and Construction

June 26, 2007 Erin Weir 4 comments

Recent commentaries from CIBC and Export Development Canada argue that the manufacturing crisis is not eroding job quality. Both note that a surge in construction employment, added to the relatively few new jobs in non-renewable resource extraction, nearly equals the number of manufacturing jobs lost in recent years. As emphasized on the front page of yesterdayâ€™s Financial Post, this argument […]

PEF session on taxation and social democracy

June 26, 2007 Marc Lee 3 comments

Stephen Gordon’s presentation from our PEF “taxation and social democracy” session at the CEA meetings is now online at his blog, here. The other presenters on the panel were Andrew Jackson, Erin Weir and Marion Steele. I was the discussant for the session, so I will take Stephen’s cue and jot down some of the things I thought most noteworthy […]

Private Equity and Casino Capitalism

June 24, 2007 Andrew Jackson Leave a comment

http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?article1231Â Brussels, 21 June 2007: Launching a new report â€œWhere the house always wins, Private Equity, Hedge Funds and the new Casino Capitalismâ€ the worldâ€™s peak trade union body, the 168 million-member International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), today issued a global warning to pension funds over investment in private equity and hedge funds. At its biannual General Council meeting, top […]

Lawsuits Galore

June 22, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

While the Saskatchewan governmentâ€™s decision to take the federal government to court over Equalization has captured more headlines, the Saskatchewan government is also helping to finance legal action against the federal government’s handlingÂ ofÂ the Canadian Wheat Board: Sask. backs CWB lawsuit The Leader-Post (Regina) Thursday, June 14, 2007 Page: D1 / FRONT Section: Business & Agriculture Byline: Angela Hall A group […]

What Did the IMF Say?

June 22, 2007 Erin Weir One comment

Under the headline “IMF Admonishes Canada,” theÂ Financial Post reported on Wednesday: The IMF added its voice yesterday to the growing chorus of observers urging Canada to undertake a 21st-century overhaul of its financial system, saying it should create a single securities regulator, open its banking system to foreign competition and mergers and tear down interprovincial trade barriers. . . . […]

Alberta Opposes Rate Hike

June 21, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

Relatively high inflation in Alberta seems to be the only justification for raising Canadian interest rates. In this context, it is tremendously significant that the Government of Alberta itself opposes increasing rates. Of course, higher interest rates imply a higher Canadian dollar. Alberta sells oil and gas, the prices of which are denominated in US dollars. As the Canadian dollar […]

CIBC and Oil Royalties

June 21, 2007 Erin Weir Leave a comment

More fascinating stuff from that CIBC report follows: While many of the big names in the mining and metal processing industry have been spoken for, there are even larger capital inflows potentially still ahead in the energy sector. Thanks to the oil sands, and a still laissez-faire attitude towards ownership of those resources, Canada represents anywhere from 50-60% of the […]

Marxists at CIBC?

June 21, 2007 Erin Weir 3 comments

The following excerpt is from the much-reported study released by CIBC last week: The Bank of Canada, eying an economy operating above its non-inflationary speed limit, will welcome the dampening influence of an even stronger currency on both economic growth and inflation. A couple hundred thousand additional factory job losses, while far from derailing domestic economic growth, might be a […]

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