EPI News Focus on Manufacturing With layoffs and cutbacks becoming routine, it is tempting to write off U.S. manufacturing as an anachronism. However, a new set of EPI reports shows that actually making things remains an essential part of the economy, and can continue to be a source of good jobs. Â The manufacturing sector supported 14 million jobs in […]
Read moreWith recession on everyone’s lips south of the border, how much longer can Canada hold out before we begin to feel the nasty effects in the Great White North? I am guessing that the Tories want to go to the polls now because they know the economy is slipping and they do not want to have to wear the downturn […]
Read moreThe latest from the Fraser Institute concludes that BC’s 2001 tax cuts spurred economic growth, investment and all other good things. To their credit, this is a far more sophisticated analysis than one usually sees from the Fraser. Rather than relying on the in-house talent, they farmed the work out to University of Alberta economist Bev Dahlby, known for advocating […]
Read moreToday, Statistics Canada revealed that our December 2007 merchandise trade surplus was the lowest one since November 1998. This fact is yet more evidence that the rise in energy exports has been smaller than the decline in exports from manufacturing and other sectors. The conventional story about high oil prices driving-up the loonie assumes that these prices have increased our […]
Read moreWith the US convulsed by massive defaults on household debt and a resulting banking crisis, the question of whether we are in anywhere near the same dismal state seems germane. The bank economists typically proclaim that all is well compared to the excesses south of the border, but that does seem a trifle self-serving given that they work for the […]
Read moreThe Tyee ran a piece by yours truly that is an edited-down version of my UCC Blues blog posts from last fall. David Beers did an amazing editing job on my reworked article: My Rich Kids Reunion UCC circa 1915. A tax-the-rich economist goes home to Upper Canada College. By Marc Lee Published: February 13, 2008 I don’t talk it […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson makes a remark in today’s column that you heard here first: Mr. Flaherty has been bragging that the second GST cut was clairvoyant, because it added stimulus for an economy now slowing. This observation is laughably bogus. The government did not see the slowdown coming. The second one-point cut was entirely political. To link it to today’s slowdown […]
Read moreConservative Senator Hugh Segal is actively promoting the very old new idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) and Senate Committe hearings may soon follow. I’m all for providing more money to low income families and would willingly scrap social assistance as we know it for something that is more generous and less punitive – and will concede that Segal […]
Read moreThe House of Commons Finance Committee has just released its pre Budget report and recommendations. There’s a lot of common denominator all party agreement here, including on some modestly useful items. The report focuses on the impacts of thr high dollar and on tax measures. http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=225139Â What I find perhaps most interesting – and rather disturbing – is the lack […]
Read moreThomas Palley has posted a good discussion of the relationship between economic theory and policy, which includes a useful taxonomy of contemporary economists.
Read moreToday’s job numbers are surprisingly strong given the alarming deterioration of the US economy. They are very likely to lead to a further rise in the dollar, a reluctance on the part of the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates any further in the near future, and even a quick election. But we should not lose sight of the fact […]
Read moreIn BC, with a Thone Speech next week and the provincial budget the week after, the speculation has been around what additional measures might be announced in relation to BC’s commitment to a one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (relative to 2007 levels) and 80% by 2050. A carbon tax figures among that speculation. Today, just in time […]
Read moreI just love the way “free markets” work. Here is a classic example of price “stickiness.” In Ontario I have the privilege of purchasing my gas from an independent supplier under a fixed term/fixed price contract, or at a fluctuating price from my distributor, Enbridge. The rational economist in me tells me that it should make no real difference whether […]
Read moreA lot of US progressives, including Dean Baker, and Larry Mishel from the Economic Policy Institute, are weighing in on the need for a significant fiscal stimulus package, in the range of 1% of GDP. http://www.epi.org/subjectpages/stimulus.cfm Citing – entirely reasonably – the need for measures which will have a quick impact on a slowing economy, these packages tilt to income […]
Read moreNeo liberal orthodoxy is crumbling in the wake of the ever-deepening manufacturing crisis. Witness yesterday’s call from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association for domestic procurement policies linked to major public investments in infrastructure and transit projects – long advocated by labour and derided by mainstream types as a return to dreaded “industrial policies.” As the CME point out, there […]
Read moreLynn Williams, former International President of the United Steelworkers, has posted an excellent speech on a major American blog. Although the title refers to rebuilding the labour movement, the text touches upon many of the broader policy issues discussed on our blog: how to design a stimulus package, rising inequality, public healthcare, the economics of minimum wages, international trade agreements, […]
Read moreThe International Energy Agency requires member countries to maintain emergency oil reserves in case oil imports are temporarily disrupted. Canada was exempted from this requirement because we are a net oil exporter. However, the current pipeline system and NAFTA’s energy chapter limit our ability to supply eastern Canadian consumers with western Canadian petroleum. Western Canada’s vast oil exports to the […]
Read moreA week ago, John Edwards ended his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Although it’s unfortunate that he is out of the running, he succeeded in shifting the race onto a more progressive track. His campaign pinned-down the two leading candidates in favour of implementing universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage, providing economic stimulus, getting out of Iraq, and re-evaluating […]
Read moreYesterday, I attended the Poverty Olympics, held in the heart of the Downtown Eastside, aka Canada’s poorest neighbourhood. It was a wonderful few hours of well-orchestrated political satire. There were opening and closing ceremonies, a torch ceremony, a new mascot (Itchy the bedbug), and of course, events (the poverty line high jump, the welfare hurdles, the broad jump over bedbug-infested […]
Read moreAlberta’s economy looks ever more like a runaway train. Climate change raises the prospect of needing to slow this train down, something that would be advisable even if rising temperatures were not reaping havoc, because the boom has made labour scarce, housing even scarcer, and created a number of other social and environmental problems. With the difficulty of keeping up […]
Read moreOne of the big challenges in reducing greenhouse gas emissions comes from transportation. Here in BC, for example, transportation accounts for 40% of our annual emissions. Of that more than a third (14% of the total) is from personal transportation. So any serious emissions reduction plan has to eventually come to grips with cars. To date, the low-hanging fruit has […]
Read moreGiven the storm clouds on the horizon, and the prospect of a slowdown/recession, one of the more interesting aspects of fiscal policy has to do with automatic stabilizers. As the economy turns, revenues will fall and expenditures on income support will naturally increase, driving the budget towards deficit and thereby propping up demand just as it is needed. The question […]
Read moreWith the recent turmoil in the markets, and the words “slowdown” and “recession” all over the news, the biggest danger is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Consumers slow spending based on concerns about what comes next, and businesses put the brakes on new investments based on perceived soft demand. This could drive the economy into recession, and given the […]
Read moreFrom today’s Observer – http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2247583,00.htmlÂ
Read moreCheck out this brilliant video on You Tube, everything you need to know about finance and the sub prime crisis. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=long%20johns%20sub%20prime&search=Search&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&spell=1Â
Read moreOn the intersection between climate change and inequality, Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute nails it in this post: Climate Fairness  Climate change is a universal menace, threatening hardships for everyone. But it’s not an egalitarian menace: everyone will not suffer equally. Perversely, those people and nations least to blame for causing it are most vulnerable to its impacts. […]
Read moreKeith Reynolds from CUPE has done some extensive FOI requests about the BC government’s contracts with the Conference Board of Canada to prop up its push for the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (see this previous post and also see here, here, here and here for additional background on the Conference Board’s “methodology”). In the latest batch of […]
Read moreThe Nordic Model blog posted this summary of a paper by one of the grand-daddies of Danish flexicurity (blog comments in italics, followed by the text): When Per Kongshøj Madsen, one of the fathers of the flexicurity Danish model, from the CARMA centre of the University of Aalborg, writes an excellent synthesis about flexicurity and the Danish model. You will […]
Read moreHere is a challenge for you: find me a quote from Jim Flaherty during or just after the release of the October Economic and Fiscal Update where he says the tax cuts in the EFU were a stimulus package because of worries about an economic slowdown in Canada. I’d love to see that because here is the latest spin: Federal […]
Read moreMy Alternative Federal Budget technical paper from last week seems to have single-handedly re-inserted the word “deficit” into Ottawa’s policy lexicon after a decade’s absence. A couple good columns have come out repeating the main premise of my paper (see Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star and Frances Russell in the Winnipeg Free Press). And every story that raises the […]
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