The Conservatives apparently think that it is deeply intrusive for the state to count your bedrooms through the mandatory long form census. “Asked to explain why this matters to the core Conservative constituency, one senior Tory strategist said, on background: “It’s all about the nanny state. Why is it mandatory to tell the government how many bedrooms are in your […]
Read moreThe Honourable Tony Clement Minister of Industry House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Dear Minister Clement: Re: Labour Market Information and the 2011 Long-Form Census Questionnaire The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) requests that you, as the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada, revisit your decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census questionnaire. By discontinuing the long-form census and replacing it […]
Read moreI spoke yesterday at a well-attended pre G20 conference in Toronto organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto. My comments as part of a union researchers panel were based on a short paper I wrote for the Foundation on the need for a new labour market model , posted below. The other […]
Read moreThis article ‘More pay and more jobs: how Brazil got both’ by Paulo Eduardo de Andrade Baltar outlines how collective bargaining together with progressive government policies in the Lula years have improved the livelihood of many Brazilians. The minimum wage has risen significantly faster than inflation as have bargained wages, significantly raising pay at the bottom and middle. Increased spending […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on the turn to fiscal austerity on the part of the IMF, OECD and G20, it increasingly strikes me that there is a fundamental contradiction between G20 goals going into the Toronto summit. At Pittsburgh, the G20 called for a “Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth.” “We will need to work together as we […]
Read moreThis toughly argued lead article in Bloomberg Business Week on the BP oil leak disaster is a keeper – it sets out a very strong endorsement of the key regulatory role of government in curbing the dangerous excesses of capitalism. “This is a moment to think big and creatively. As distant as risky drilling rigs off Louisiana may seem from […]
Read moreThe CAW have released the preliminary results of a tracking survey following the fortunes of 2600 auto industry workers laid off in the early days of or even before the Great Recession. The major focus is on the services received at Action Centres providing some access to re-employment and training opportunities. Written by Sam Vrankulj of McMaster University, the study […]
Read morehttp://www.canadianlabour.ca/news-room/statements/global-unions-statement-g8g20-ontario-summit-take-action-jobs-sustain-recovery As G20 Leaders meet in Ontario, it is clear that the economic crisis that has wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of working people is far from over. Not only is the ’global recovery’ fragile and uncertain, but in the Eurozone the financial crisis has evolved into a wave of speculation against major currencies and sovereign states. The […]
Read moreIn line with a major shift in thinking at the OECD and the IMF on the most appropriate timing for “exit strategies” from fiscal stimulus, the G20 finance ministers dropped the usual call for continued stimulus through 2010 from their June 5 communique, and highlighted the need for more or less immediate fiscal consolidation. God knows what lies in store […]
Read moreThe Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) – the leading national voice of civil society international development and anti poverty organizations – appear to have lost the two-thirds of their funding which came from CIDA. This is yet another example of the Harper government refusing to fund independent research and advocacy. Over the last while, we have seen the effective […]
Read moreFurther to my recent post on the last Monetary Policy Report http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/05/11/the-bank-of-canada-and-the-recovery/ I cannot claim to be surprised that the the Bank of Canada has decided to begin to raise interest rates, albeit by an initial quarter point from extraordinarily low levels. They are also returning to normal overnight money market operations which will tighten credit to a degree. I […]
Read moreFurther to my earlier post on the IRPP pensions conference http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/05/12/still-more-on-the-pensions-debate/#comments an excellent (albeit highly complex) power point presentation by Michael Wolfson has recently been posted. It can be found in two parts on the IRPP web site at http://www.irpp.org/indexe.htm Wolfson, who now teaches at the University of Ottawa, recently retired from the position of Assistant Chief Statistician at Statistics […]
Read moreI’ve posted below an introduction and link to a short piece I wrote a while back for the Green Economy Network on possible job creation from the development of transit. A student will be doing some work in this area at the CLC this Summer and we would welcome any input or leads on the topic. Anyone interested in this […]
Read moreOver at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon has posted Michael Veall’s data, updating his past work on the rising income share of top income recipients (expressed as a share of market income declared by adults for tax purposes, and excluding capital gains.) Veall presented his main findings at the CEA meetings. The data were extracted by Statscan from tax data. […]
Read moreA lucid analysis from Andrew Watt, chief economist with the European Trade Union Institute “Angela Merkel may have got just about everything else wrong, but she was right to tell the German parliament that urgent action is needed to save the euro area, otherwise the future of Europe is at stake. Europe’s reaction to the sovereign debt crisis has been […]
Read moreErin has blogged before on variable EI coverage of the unemployed at the city level http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/09/28/employment-insurance-benefits-by-city/ and I have been aware for some time that coverage is relatively low in the giant Toronto CMA. Nonetheless, I was taken aback to find out that, in the most recent month for which we have EI and Labour Force Survey data (February, 2010), […]
Read moreI’m afraid I can’t find the report on the IMF website but this news story indicates IMF support for the new Australian tax on windfall mining profits. The obvious thought, if it’s good there, why not here? The Advertiser (Australia) May 17, 2010 Monday IMF backs super tax on nation’s big miners BYLINE: BEN BUTLER THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund has […]
Read moreThe IMF staff documents relating to the “bail out” of Greece make for scary reading. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2010/cr10110.pdf The scale of the economic contraction being imposed through this “solution” is staggering. On top of 2% contraction of real GDP in 2009, there will be a decline of 9% over the next several years, with 6.6% of that coming in 2010 and 2011. […]
Read moreLast week I attended what turned out to be an excellent pensions conference organized by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). It was a behind closed doors, Chatham House rules event which stops me from blogging too freely, but several of the presentations have now been posted to the IRPP web site. The audience was mainly policy wonks, […]
Read moreThe Bank of Canada’s most recent Monetary Policy Report  http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/mpr/pdf/2010/mpr220410.pdf forecasts quite a strong short-term recovery. However, it is projected that growth will begin to taper off from the middle of this year and slow to just a 2% annual growth rate by mid 2011. The recovery is being driven by government stimulus spending – which remains significant through 2010 […]
Read moreThe Canadian Bankers Association are deeply opposed to meddling with a pension system which they say is working just fine. Which is understandable, albeit self-serving, given their dominance of the high fee mutual fund industry and the significant profits earned on spreads between low interest GICs and bank lending. The banks do just fine out of leaving individuals without decent […]
Read moreA substantially revised version of my earlier blog post http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2010/03/01/beware-the-canadian-fiscal-model has been published as a Global Labour Column. It attempts to rebut Paul Martin’s prosletyzing in Europe on the virtues of his fiscal restraint program in the nid to late 1990s. http://column.global-labour-university.org/2010/01/beware-canadian-austerity-model.html
Read moreThe Greek crisis has prompted numerous commentators to remark on the dangers of a monetary union which has no common fiscal policy. From the perspective of euro members, the external value of the euro is threatened by large deficits and growing public debt in the so-called PIIG countries, notably Greece and Portugal. There is no effective mechanism in place to […]
Read moreG20 finance ministers released a communique last week, as did G20 labour and employment ministers. These are straws in the wind which tell us what is likely to take place at the June Toronto G20 summit. Not to put too fine a point on it, panic about the prospects for global capitalism has been supplanted by growing complacency. The meeting […]
Read moreA new book that looks interesting http://www.columbia.edu/~ma820/The%20New%20Press/Book%20reviews.pdf
Read morehttp://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/promoting.pdf This is quite an interesting and very timely paper from the ILO International Institute for Labour Studies, squarely directed to next week’s meeting of G20 labour ministers. As pressures to cut budget deficits intensify, it argues that job-centered spending measures can in fact reinforce fiscal sustainability while boosting employment. Austerity measures which raise unemployment today can lead to the […]
Read moreThere was some media coverage in the FT and the Guardian on a recent conference on this theme at King’s College, Cambridge, showcasing a new economic institute. A number of videos of presentations can be found here http://ineteconomics.org/ This venture is funded by Soros and includes many well-known progressive economists such as Stiglitz, Akerloff etc. I gather one point of […]
Read moreI have just returned from Calgary and the pension forum organized by Jack Mintz through the University of Calgary. Mintz was, of course, the author of a recent research report to the federal and provincial finance ministers which concluded that the status quo was basically working well, except for a modest proportion of middle income earners who may not be […]
Read moreHere former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson urges Greece to default rather than impose a swingeing austerity program. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/johnson6/English
Read moreI had the opportunity to meet late last week with the OECD Policy Mission to Canada – the folks who write the country reviews. These meetings are usually interesting and useful, though I find the OECD Economics Department to be ultra neo liberal in their orientation. Even so, I was a bit taken aback to read the following in their […]
Read more