Image from Wikimedia Commons Modern Monetary Theory or MMT has crept in from the academic margins to become an influential doctrine in progressive policy circles in the United States. Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders drew on the ideas of MMT to shape their ambitious public spending platforms. MMT has
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The Progressive Economics Forum: The Fiscal Deficit, Modern Monetary Theory and Progressive Economic Policy
Modern Monetary Theory or MMT has crept in from the academic margins to become an influential doctrine in progressive policy circles in the United States. Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders drew on the ideas of MMT to shape their ambitious public spending platforms. MMT has been cited as one
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Mel Watkins
Canada’s most prominent progressive economist has passed. He will be sorely missed. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/mel-watkins-a-life-well-lived
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Mel Watkins: A Life Well Lived
Political economist, activist and professor Mel Watkins (1932-2020). Image created by Krishna Lalbiharie. Mel Watkins, who passed on April 2, was a wonderful human being, a friend and mentor, the leading left economist of his or indeed any generation in Canada, and, not least, a committed democratic socialist and political
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why Keynes was a socialist
In an important new book Keynes Against Capitalism: His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2019) James Crotty argues that Keynes was a socialist who advocated a much more radical economic agenda than most mainstream economists and political analysts realize. Based on a very close reading of Keynes’ work, Crotty
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Taxing Wealth to Create a More Equal Canada
This is a longer, wonkier version of a piece I wrote for National Newswatch. As part of a broader fair tax agenda, Jagmeet Singh and the federal New Democratic Party have proposed a wealth tax. This is intended to fight obscene and rising levels of economic inequality by limiting the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Plausible Socialism
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Between Dystopia and Democratic Socialism
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Socialism For Realists
I recommend reading Sam Gindin’s paper “Socialism for Realists” to be found in the current issue of the relatively new socialist journal, Catalyst. Sam spent most of his working life as a union economist and assistant to the President of the CAW, and writes often with Leo Panitch, most notably
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
Book Review Adam Tooze. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. Viking. New York. 2018 The global economic crisis is now more than a decade old, and is far from definitively behind us. Indeed, many fear, with good reason, that the recent, uneven and lethargic global recovery
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Value Creation vs Value Extraction in Today’s Economy
Book Review Mariana Mazzucato. The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. Allen Lane. 2018. The playwright Oscar Wilde quipped that a cynic is a person who “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” As Mariana Mazzucato argues in her important and stimulating new
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How to Measure and Monitor Poverty? LIM vs LICO vs MBM.
The federal government has promised to launch a Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy in the coming weeks or months on the basis of now completed consultations with Canadians and the still ongoing deliberations of an advisory committee. As part of this process, there has been discussion about which poverty or low
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Budget Fails to Crack Down on Private Corp Tax Shelter
The federal Budget changed the rules a bit re the taxation of passive investment income in private corporations, but falls well short of what was promised in terms of extra revenues and more tax fairness. The “small business” lobby helped the wealthy big time. http://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/andrew_ajackson/wealthy_get_off_lightly_from_budget_2018_changes_to_the_private_corporation_rules
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Stock Market Jitters
The real problem is the absence of a sustainable growth model. My latest Globe ROB column.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Working Poor and the Working Income Tax Benefit
Here is a short research paper I wrote for the Broadbent Institute. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/broadbent/pages/7073/attachments/original/1519312305/Canada’s_Working_poor_and_the_Working_Tax_Benefit_-_Report.pdf?1519312305 And here is a short summary: The Liberal government have promised to make progressive changes to the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) in next week’s budget. Let’s hope that they deliver. The increased insecurity of work and
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Smooth Sailing Ahead For the Global and Canadian Economy?
The consensus forecast of just about everybody – the IMF, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, the Canadian banks – is that Canada will share in a global recovery from the stagnation which followed the financial crisis of a decade ago. All of the major economies – the US, the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Extreme Wealth Inequality Persists
There was little or no media coverage of the release of data on the distribution of the wealth of Canadians in 2016 last week, perhaps because there has been little or no change since the last Survey of Financial Security in 2012. The top 20% of Canadians own 67.3% of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Private Corporation Tax Loophole and the Ultra Rich
The 2017 Economic and Fiscal Update provides some detailed data (see pp. 51-53) on who will be impacted by the government’s plan to limit how much passive investment income can be earned in a private corporation. Income from investments held in a private corporation is taxed at a lower rate
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Unwarranted Gloom and Doom: The IMF on Canada and NAFTA
To read the media today, one would think that NAFTA is a keystone of Canadian prosperity and that renegotiation could lead to a national economic disaster. That view has already been rebutted in a report by Scott Sinclair for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He finds that a reversion
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The NDP and Old Age Security
NDP leadership candidate Jagmeet Singh has proposed (with few details) to reform the current Old Age Security system by integrating Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS.) “A Jagmeet Singh-led government will implement the Canada Seniors Guarantee to ensure that no Canadian senior has to live in
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