I have posted below a response by a senior Government of Caanda official to my earlier post on why the Canadian econmy is operating below capacity – the core subtance of which is to suggest that wages are too low to stimulate needed productvity gains. A somewhat usuual, out of mainstream response… > This was a nice note Andrew. I […]
Read moreAnother over the top tirade in today’s Globe from Neil Reynolds for whom “equality is the stuff of gulags and guillotines.” (Dion Gets it Wrong on Real Freedom. Globe and Mail. December 15.)  Mr Reynolds appears to be entirely unfamiliar with the best comparative empirical resarch on the topic, generally available from from the Luxemburg Income Survey (ww.lis.org)  which specializes in comparative […]
Read moreThere was a fair amount of media coverage of the new data on assets and debt from the 2005 Survey of Financial Security released by Stats Can last week (Daily, December 7); less so of the very useful companion research paper on wealth inequality by StatsCan researchers Morissette and Zhang published in the latest issue of Perspectives. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/11206/high-1.htm As noted […]
Read moreAs we head into the Christmas holidays and many of us look forward to spending some time away from work with our families, it’s worth noting that there is great inequality among Canadian workers in terms of access to paid vacation leave, and big gaps compared to other industrial countries. The statutory minimum in Canada varies by province, and is just […]
Read more(This note was prepared for a meeting of trade union economists with Paul Jenkins, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, to be held on Monday, December 11, 2006.) Introduction The Bank of Canada believes that the Canadian economy is currently operating “just above†capacity, justifying this week’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged despite a noticeable slowdown in economic […]
Read morehttp://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/609ENG%2Epdf Tax Fairness According to Canada’s New Government Ed Tamagno and Ken Battle, November 2006 Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s surprise announcement on October 31, 2006, shutting down income trusts was front page news across Canada. Little media attention, however, was given to other changes to the income tax system announced at the same time. These include two of particular […]
Read moreThe only surprise in the long-term economic strategy document unveiled by the Finance Minister today is its complete lack of balance. Everything corporate Canada and the right-wing think-tanks wanted is there in spades. What it lacks is any sense that the market economy must be regulated in the public interest to make sure that it works for working families. Consider […]
Read morehttp://www.upjohninst.org/publications/newsletter/TJB_1006.pdf In a major study for the Upjohn Institute, Timothy J. Bartik calulates the macro economic impacts of high quality universal preschool education for the US, based mainly on studies of the impacts of a well-studied, high quality program (the Chicago Child-Parent Centre program, a half day program for four year olds with 2 teachers per 20 children.) He estimates […]
Read moreThis is bad news indeed. Right-wingers are no strangers to the hallowed halls of the Department of Finance (Jack Mintz held this position in the past before heading off to the CD Howe Institute), but for my money Crowley is much more a Fraser Institute clone right-wing ideologue than credible professional economist. He has been a strong opponent of minimum […]
Read moreWe all suffer when greed is the creed http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1939867,00.html If you doubt the malign effects of big business out of control, consider Conrad Black’s downfall Will Hutton Sunday November 5, 2006 The Observer There has rarely been a better time to be a plutocrat. This is an unrivalled era in which both to acquire great wealth and keep it. Taxation […]
Read moreThe Conservatives are at it again. As reported in the Globe and Mail on October 31, federal Finance Minister Flaherty is reviving and polishing-up the Conservative Party’s ill-conceived election proposal to end taxation of individual capital gains if the proceeds are re-invested. Light taxation of capital gains compared to wages is undoubtedly a gift to the rich. In the 2003 […]
Read morehttp://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/agency/stats/final-e.html Here’s the link to the historical income tax data which some people asked for. The most recent year for which full data seem to be available is 2003 (or the links don’t work for 2004 tax year.) In an earlier post, I suggested that the “puzzling” excess of personal income tax revenue growth over personal income growth likely reflected […]
Read moreIn a joint statement issued on Wednesday, October 11, five Nobel Prize winners and over 650 other economists endorsed a statement urging a raise in the minimum wage. The statement asserts that a modest raise in the minimum wage (in the range of a $1.00 to $2.50 per hour), with future increases indexed to protect the workers’ purchasing power, “can […]
Read morehttp://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/jobs__economy/1021 Here’s the link to a paper we (the Canadian Labour Congress) released this week, and which was the background paper for an Ontario Federation of Labour conference. The recommendations are a work in progress among union economists, and comments on them would be welcome.
Read moreThis is a column by Kim Pollock of the Steelworkers (ex IWA) in BC re the recent US Trade Court Ruling. I was out of the country at the time, but it strikes me that the basic issue (an un-necesary softwood lumber deal) has been incredibly ignored by the mainstream national media. Our lumber industry is about to be hammered […]
Read morehttp://www.socialreport.msd.govt.nz/ This is worth a look as a serious attempt at an “official” social audit. A good selection of economic and social indicators, and what is interesting is that the report highlights some progessive benchmarks and targets, and some not terribly impressive performance. A brave government indeed, compared to our own.
Read moreAs noted in today’s Globe and Mail, income tax revenue growth is significantly exceding GDP growth, surprising Don Drummond of TD Bank. My guess is that current income growth is highly tilted to the very high end of the income distribution, where it is taxed at well above average rates. A quick glance at the revenue stats for the past […]
Read moreRecently in Paris for meetings between the OECD Economic Department and TUAC (the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD), I found my trade union colleagues concerned about the “downside†risks of an increasingly gloomy economic outlook. The OECD Economics Department believes that there will be a pronounced slowdown in the US – driven by the housing downturn. However, it […]
Read moreChallenges Facing the Canadian Manufacturing Sector – Interim Report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?COM=10476&Lang=1&SourceId=149639 This short report briefly analyzes some of the dynamics behind the manufacturing crisis, and summarizes policy recommendations presented to date (mainly by business associations.) It reveals some interesting tensions within the “business community.†The key factors behind the […]
Read moreAgainst the backdrop of fears of a slowing economy, today’s job numbers for the month of September are superficially re-assuring. The national unemployment rate is down slightly, from 6.5% to 6.4%, and total employment is up by 16,000. However, the fall in the unemployment rate is partly driven by a decline in the total work-force. Most importantly, there are signs […]
Read more This paper is a useful corrective to some of the more apocalyptic projections of looming generalized labour shortages in the US, Canada and elsewhere. One of Freeman’s key points is that we should not care about a decline of GDP growth, only about GDP per capita, and that we should focus more on increasing productivity than on increased labour supply. […]
Read moreA good piece from today’s Toronto Star by CCPA economist Ellen Russell on the erosion of federal fiscal capacity by recent tax cuts. Pressures to cut social spending are growing, compounded by a marked federal government shift to “security expenditure.” It’s a bit harder to figure out the best left response given that itt’s trickier politically to impose a tax […]
Read more“Canada’s New Government†says that it wants to focus on “the productivity agenda.†But they seem unable to look beyond partisan considerations to make the rather obvious link between investment in skills, and building a more productive economy. The previous Liberal government had just begun to slowly re-invest in worker training and adult learning after years of federal cuts, devolution […]
Read morehttp://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/good_society/good_society.pdf Compass has just published the first of three short books in an attempt to redefine the social democratic project in the UK. Highly critical of New Labour but strongly influenced by Scandinavian social democracy, Compass is advancing themes and policies which will resonate on the progressive left in Canada – a relentless focus on equalizing the life-chances of all […]
Read moreThe Economist (September 21 Print Edition) runs an article “The Limits of Solidarity” which attacks US Democrats for favouring union-friendly legislation. It concludes as follows: “After all, trade unions have obvious drawbacks as well as modest attractions. Whenever they win their members higher wage rises than in non-unionised firms, this money has to come from somewhere. If it comes from […]
Read moreWinners or Losers? Liberalizing Public Services Edited by Ellen Rosskam International Labour Office, Geneva 2006 New state of the art review, available upon request by emailing your name/address to: secsoc@ilo.org. Approx. 400 pages. Free of Charge. Available from ILO Geneva Public services are being liberalized world wide, opened to foreign service providers, often turned into private services through privatization, commercialization, […]
Read morehttp://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2006286.pdf This study, “Pension Coverage and Retirement Savings of Canadian Families, 1986 to 2003”, released by StatsCan today, highlights increased inequality of retirement savings at the family level. Unsurprisingly given increased inequality of both earnings and wealth, the top quintile of families are accumulating more retirement savings than was the case in the mid 1980s, while those at the bottom […]
Read moreProgressive economists should be disturbed about the cut to Statistics Canada’s Budget announced yesterday by Ministers Flaherty and Baird. The agency has to realize “operational efficiencies” amounting to $15 Million over two years – which may mean cancellation of one or two major surveys, or cuts to staff undertaking research and analysis. Despite the recent glitch in the CPI, StatsCan […]
Read moreThe following is from Roland Schneider of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. We live in curious times when the impeccably neo liberal OECD is positioned well to the left of the federal government on this issue. It goes without saying that trade unions across the OECD have been campaigning for accessible, affordable and high quality childcare in […]
Read moreNews of this recent corporate/ state/ military elite forum on deeper integration of North America is gradually trickling into the media, and being widely circulated on the internet. I don’t usually tend to believe that our collective future is determined by secret corproate conspiracies, but the fact that this event was completely ignored by the mainstream media is as staggering […]
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