Below is an edited text of Monbiot’s lecture to the Royal Society of Arts: By George Monbiot, June 2004 Without global democracy, national democracy is impossible. If you don’t believe me, take a look at what has happened to Luiz Inacio da Silva. Before he became president of Brazil, Lula promised to transform the way his country was run. The […]
Read moreBUSINESS WEEK, JUNE 18, 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_25/b4039001.htm COVER STORY By Michael Mandel The Real Cost Of Offshoring U.S. data show that moving jobs overseas hasn’t hurt the economy. Here’s why those stats are wrong Whenever critics of globalization complain about the loss of American jobs to low-cost countries such as China and India, supporters point to the powerful performance of the […]
Read moreFrom my morning e mail – bold added. <<Picture (Metafile)>> Le français suit On behalf of Chummer Farina, Director General, Policy and Sector Services Branch, Industry Canada Dear Sir or Madam: I am pleased to invite you to the Global Value Chains Conference to be hosted by Industry Canada on September 25-26, 2007. This by-invitation Conference is expected to involve […]
Read moreAn article on the end of militant anti-globalization protests may seem odd given what happened at the G-8 meetings, but the following piece is interesting nonetheless: IMAGES Julie Oliver, the Ottawa Citizen Police in riot gear move up Elgin Street during the 2001 protest at the G20 summit. Taking it off the streets; Where did the anti-globalization movement go? In […]
Read moreHere’s a communique (posted about 9 pm) from Peter Bakvis of the Global Unions office in Washington who has been closely observing this fiasco. One wonders if Canada is caving along with the Bushies or will stand as the last defenders of this nepotistic ultra neo con.., (And you read it here first — was it a coincidence that Paul […]
Read moreAll economists are always in support of “free trade” all of the time, right? Some interestings conversations are happening in the econo-blogs about international trade theory and reality. First, I love how Dani Rodrick is challenges the conventional wisdom on international trade: One of my favorite stylized facts about development is contained in the graph below, which comes from a […]
Read moreWhat follows are the Chair’s conclusions from the G8 Employment Minister’s Conference in Dresden. I post this as an expample of the current conventional wisdom of social and labour market policy (which has changed a bit for the good in the wake of the most recent OECD JObs Studay) and as an aide memoire that Canada signed on to a […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot summarizes the case for a world parliament, drawing on a new campaign being launched this week. I’ve always thought this to be a far-sighted and much-needed, if politically impossible, idea. Dare to dream, I suppose. Perhaps by the time I die the world will have something like a truly global parliament. (And if they could have those levitating […]
Read moreEveryone knows globalization is an irresistible worldwide process enveloping every economy, including Canada’s, in its market-driven tentacles. Right? Wrong. In fact, since 2000, Canada’s economy has been curiously de-globalizing before our eyes. The importance of global markets to our employment and production has been diminishing, not increasing – and at a remarkable pace. Year-end GDP numbers for 2006, recently released […]
Read moreCanadian Aid Performance Declines in 2006: The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released preliminary statistics for ODA for 2006 and Canada is near the bottom, tied with Australia for 15th position among 22 donors.  At 0.30% of our Gross National Income (GNI) in 2006,  Canada is down from 0.34% in 2005. In both years, Canadian aid, along with other […]
Read moreBudget 2007 made interest on funds borrowed in Canada to finance foreign business operations nondeductible from Canadian corporate taxes. Finance Canada suggested that this arcane reform would raise relatively little revenue and, initially, business barely seemed to notice. More than a week after the budget, a Globe editorial and a Financial Post op-ed criticized the change as a huge ‘tax […]
Read moreI’ve pasted below an excellent column from the Toronto Star by Carol Goar. The CLC’s analysis of the issue and policy prescriptions are avaialable from: http://www.canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Salimah_Valiani/1117 As I’ve noted earlier, its pretty hard to square the “shortage of Canadian workers” story from employers with the avaialable data on (flat) wage growth. There are clearly some shortages of specific skills (eg […]
Read moreMonday’s federal budget will certainly reaffirm the corporate-tax reductions already scheduled through 2011 and may announce further reductions. Between 2001 and 2004, the federal government reduced its corporate-income-tax rate from 28% to 21% and began phasing out its corporate-capital tax. It has committed to eliminate the corporate surtax and reduce the corporate-income-tax rate to 18.5% between 2008 and 2011. These latter reductions […]
Read moreYesterday, Finance Canada released “Tax Expenditures and Evaluations 2006.” The tax-expenditure figures confirm Andrew’s suggestion that the partial inclusion of capital gains now costs the federal government about $3 billion per year of forgone personal taxes: the 2006 projection is $3.1 billion. This partial inclusion cost an additional $3.4 billion of forgone corporate taxes that year. By comparison, the research-and-development […]
Read moreIn case you missed it, last year UCLA’s Ed Leamer did an excellent critique of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. He plays cat and mouse with Friedman’s use of the term “flat”, offering up a review of economic theory and empirical evidence related to the theme, while making some pretty funny jokes at Friedman’s expense. The full pdf, which […]
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