During tonight’s Hockey Night in Canada I got to see the new ads for Canada’s Economic Action Plan (OK, I think they are new; I don’t watch TV except for hockey). Now that it is October, I find it interesting to hear the government trumpeting the plan they tabled back in … when was that again? … oh, yes, January […]
Read moreThe province-wide revolt over BC’s looming Harmonized Sales Tax is reminiscent of protests a generation ago when the HST’s federal parent, the Goods and Services Tax, was born. The rationale for that shift was similar to that of the HST: to switch from an invisible tax paid by producers (the Manufacturers’ Sales Tax) that was passed on to consumers to […]
Read moreAs everyone knows, BC has a lot of trees. From a climate change perspective the nice thing about trees (forests, really) is that they suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In the jargon, forests are a “sink”, reducing CO2 emissions, rather than a “source” that contributes them. At least, that used to be the case. Thanks to some new […]
Read moreModels are often invoked when talking about climate change. Skeptics argue that the models are not sophisticated enough and are therefore wrong, which is technically true about any model, but other scientists argue that what has not been included in the models would make the outcomes in the future much worse. Still, the debate often sounds like one over how […]
Read moreAs someone deeply focused on climate change and the vast potential for bad things to happen in the future, the idea of peak oil strikes me a blessing. For the most part I have paid little attention to the nuances of peak oil arguments on the grounds that there is still so much of the black stuff in the ground […]
Read moreThe September BC Budget is a new look at a budget most have come to see as a fake. February’s budget was not passed through the legislature due to the May election, and up to E-Day the government maintained the fiction that it had a small-ish deficit of just under half a billion dollars. Since that time, the government has […]
Read moreThank you, Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper. I just finished the first leg of a long-contemplated kitchen renovation that got pushed over the top by February’s federal budget tax credit for home renovations. This year only! Act now before it is too late! The credit is worth a maximum of $1,350 per family if you spent a full $10,000 or […]
Read moreIn its first major economic policy announcement, the freshly re-elected BC Liberal government announced that it would be harmonizing the 7% Provincial Sales Tax (PST) with the 5% federal GST, as of July 1, 2010. What is striking about the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) of 12% is that it did not feature in the recent BC election in any […]
Read moreDuring the CEA meetings, I engaged in some provincial election talk with colleagues from Nova Scotia. I had just come off a brutal BC election campaign, in which the opposition stuck to a rather bland platform anchored in fiscal conservatism and axing the carbon tax. The NDP lost, and amid the subsequent soul-searching, leader Carole James just axed the axe […]
Read moreThe second half of 2009 is shaping up to be one of the most important periods for international policy development. Ever. The fragile state of the economy, which continues to throw up worsening data with each passing period despite more optimistic talk in the media, will continue to be top of mind. But the collective response to that other deep, […]
Read morePaul Davidson gave a great talk to the Progressive Economics Forum at the recent Canadian Economics Association meetings. Below is a teaser; the full talk is here. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS OF THE OPERATION OF A CAPITALIST ECONOMY: EFFICIENT MARKET THEORY VS. KEYNES’S LIQUIDITY THEORY by Paul Davidson, Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics Politicians and talking heads on television are continuously […]
Read moreThe biggest loophole in cap-and-trade systems, and greenhouse gas emission reductions more generally, is offsets. These are payments by those who produce GHG emissions for projects that reduce emissions somewhere else, so as to neutralize the originating emissions. Offsets have been criticized for not being easily validated – for example, by virtue of investments made in other countries, where outcomes […]
Read moreThe Globe’s Download Decade started out well but by the end turned into a propaganda arm for big corporate rights holders. Surprise, surprise. This issue is all about who gets what in the digital age, and for the most part it is the already super-rich pressing the case to maintain and increase their revenue streams in the future. To do […]
Read moreThe 2009/10 federal deficit is now projected to hit $50 billion, the largest ever in nominal terms. The media seem to be obsessed with the nominal number, even though Canada’s economy has more than doubled in nominal terms since we saw the previous record of $39 billion in 1992/93. If that deficit number holds (and it most surely will not […]
Read moreThe PEF will once again be hosting panels at this year’s Canadian Economics Association meetings, May 29-31 in Toronto. We are sponsoring a record nine panels, plus our AGM and a Keynote by Paul Davidson. On behalf of the PEF, I would like to thank the Canadian Economics Association for a small grant that facilitates our participation. I think the […]
Read moreMost people I know do not watch TV in real time anymore but use bit torrent to download what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, and without commercial breaks. While charges of piracy have loomed over that activity, this practice is arguably legal right now in Canada – one of the purposes of last summer’s Bill […]
Read moreThree-peat. Hat trick. The media is full of jubilation for the re-election of the Campbell Liberals. But looking at the numbers, it was actually quite close: the BC Liberals got 45.7% of the popular vote, compared to 42.2% for the NDP. This slim margin validates the Angus Reid polling camp, which came closest on estimating the popular vote, compared to […]
Read moreIn a recent episode of The Simpsons, Monty Burns wins control over a professional basketball team and moves the franchise to Springfield. He then convinces the town to build him a new arena. On opening night, he tells the crowd: “Welcome to the American Dream: A billionaire using public funds to build a private playground for the rich and powerful.” […]
Read more… is from duMaurier, which in spite of its hot red packaging is making a bid to go green. The new ads (full-page in my local entertainment weekly, The Georgia Straight) read “new look. new approach. we have updated our packaging to help reduce its impact on the environment. small steps make the difference” and then, pointing at a hot […]
Read moreI signed the following open letter published in the Globe on the weekend. I cannot take any credit for organizing or writing the letter (hat tip to Ian Bruce of the David Suzuki Foundation). On the other hand, I can say that I have co-published with David Suzuki! It’s time to put the planet before politics May 9, 2009 In […]
Read moreWe all know about Alberta, but BC’s green image is increasingly, um, tarred by the expansion of the oil and gas industry, with tens of billions of dollars in new investment in the past eight years. And according to some, the best is yet to come. In today’s Vancouver Sun, David Collyer of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers makes […]
Read moreBelow is a dispatch on bond rating agencies from my former CCPA colleague, Stuart Murray: Here is some more grist for the blog. Bloomberg just published a very interesting and informative article on the role of the bond rating agencies in the current meltdown. http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=au4oIx.judz4&refer=home The pitchforks are out for Moody’s and S&P, as they gave glowing ratings for the […]
Read moreWith my oped last week on the NDP platform making me less than popular over at NDP HQ, today the Sun published my take on the Liberals’ platform, thereby guaranteeing that the list of Christmas parties I get invited to dwindles to next to nothing. BC’s Economic Challenges and the Liberal Platform By Marc Lee The BC Liberal platform features […]
Read moreCCPA Executive Director Bruce Campbell coordinated the following letter, published at rabble.ca, from a number of progressive economists (mostly academic and private sector, not from the trade union sector) about the growing risk of deflation in general and the federal government’s attack on auto workers in particular. Government pressure to cut wages will increase the risk of deflation It is […]
Read moreBC’s recession started in 2008. That is the upshot of today’s release of Statistics Canada’s Provincial Economic Accounts, which provides the first estimates of BC’s GDP for 2008. Unlike national data, which are provided quarterly and on a timely basis, we have to wait about four months to tally the various provincial beans. These numbers will inevitably be revised in […]
Read moreBack in the 2005 BC election, a proportional representation system, known as Single Transferable Vote, or STV, was put to the people. It was recommended as an alternative to the current First-Past-the-Post system that has delivered some unusual and uneven results in BC and other parts of Canada over the years. STV captured a majority of votes – a larger […]
Read moreBelow is an oped of mine that was done at the request of the Vancouver Sun and that ran in today’s paper. Unfortunately, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the last two paragraphs were cut off, leaving the oped hanging. I put them back in below, and have requested that the online version be changed. UPDATE: The online version […]
Read moreOne of the most striking contradictions in BC’s climate action plan is the oil and gas industry. Greg Amos in The Hook, quotes our “green” premier out on the campaign trail in the northeast: “Let me tell you what’s happened in the energy industry in British Columbia in the last eight years: thirteen billion dollars of investment,†Campbell told a […]
Read moreWith the BC election campaign now officially on, the carbon tax debate is back. Since the fall’s federal election, when the Prime Minister dropped in to beat up the carbon tax to solidify his support in BC, the carbon tax has dropped off the public radar, replaced by stories about the economic and financial crisis. Gas prices have also dropped […]
Read moreA year and a half ago I published an updated study on tax incidence in Canada. It found that the Canadian tax system is progressive up to the middle of the income distribution, then flattens out before becoming regressive at the very top. (Interestingly, a short piece on the US tax system by Citizens for Tax Justice just came out […]
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