Good coverage in the Globe for the CLC’s calculations on the huge negative impact of high management fees on investment returns from RRSPs and the like, as opposed to the low cost CPP. Does anybody out there find the investment fund industry response (we are providing good advice) convincing? If
Continue readingAuthor: Andrew Jackson
The Progressive Economics Forum: Mind the OECD Credibility Gap
Further to Toby’s post, the OECD report on inequality is well worth a careful read. It bolsters, through careful empirical and cross country analysis, two key arguments long advanced by the labour movement and progressive economists: – key trends in the labour market – widening wage disparity between top earners
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Next Euro Debate
An astute piece from Andy Watt. He thinks that we shall indeed soon see what markets are anticipating – the long deferred grand bargain, in which the ECB backstops euro bonds (thus averting a banking and sovereign debt crisis), in return for which euro countries agree to much enhanced surveillance
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Apocalypse Soon?
The OECD’s new assessment of the macro-economic situation makes for pretty grim reading. And their forecast of very sluggish global growth (just 1.6% for the OECD area in 2012) is based on an increasingly incredible view that the Eurozone will “muddle through”and experience only a mild recession. They do not
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Corporate Tax Evasion on a Global Scale
This new study from Education International looks interesting. “This EI study follows on from a previous study published in March 2010 by Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy organisation promoting transparency in the international financial system, estimating that current total deposits just by non-residents in offshore and secrecy jurisdictions
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Towards a Wage-Led Recovery
A new issue of the International Journal of Labour Research has been published “While a lot of attention has been deservedly given to the financial roots of the current economic crisis, the role of wages as a cause to the crisis as well as a solution to the current economic
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: On Good Authority
I was quoted in the House of Commons question period yesterday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. “Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I know the NDP bandies about numbers with respect to jobs, so I thought I would seek some authority about their numbers. I went to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Update on Falling Real Wages
I’ve blogged on this before, and continue to be surprised by the lack of attention paid to the significant ongoing decline of real wages. Falling wages are a key indicator of a very soft job market, and have the potential to undermine still quite strong household spending. Today’s Statscan release
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Unequal = Indebted
The IMF find that rising inequality is a key driving force behind balance of payments problems and domestic instability in developed countries. “what unites the experiences of the main deficit countries is a steep increase in income inequality over recent decades, as measured by the share of income going to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How the NDP Can Win
With the NDP leadership debates soon to get underway, I thought I would post some thoughts on what themes and issues the party should be emphasizing To form a majority federal government, the NDP will have to make another big leap, from 30% to about 40% of the popular vote,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: More on Mowat and Winners and Losers from EI
Further to my post yesterday on the Mowat report on EI, I looked up the most recent rates of unemployment for the 58 EI regions. In the current regionally differentiated system, which Mowat wants to replace with a single national system, these unemployment rates are those which determine the level
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Mowat Centre and Employment Insurance
The Mowat Centre final report on Employment Insurance (EI) released today has won a fair bit of media attention, and will serve to deepen the national debate over Canada’s most important income security program for working age adults and families. The Task Force has commissioned and published a number of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Inflation-Control Target
So, the 2% inflation target has been renewed as it now stands. (Take that, House of Commons Finance Committee, which is holding hearings on the issue next week.) The background report from the Bank of Canada is pretty self-congratulatory, though it does somewhat revise the current regime to underline the point that monetary policy also […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Souvenirs de Cannes
I was in Cannes last week with CLC President Ken Georgetti for the G20 Labour Summit. (I know, tough job.) This event was arranged by the International Trade Union Confederation with the support of the French Presidency of the G20. Our group as a whole, consisting of labour leaders from the G20 countries and leaders […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Long Way from Plan B
The best one can say about today’s Economic and Fiscal Update is that it signals some very slight flexibility amid changing circumstances. The Minister said “We will not be bound by ideology when it comes to making decisions to keep our economy strong and protect Canadians, their financial security and their jobs. We have responded […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Recovery Demands Increase in Labour’s Share
The just-released 2011 ILO World of Work Report is a must read for progressive economists. Released on the eve of the G-20 meetings, the report underlines the gravity of the current global employment situation and warns of the need to put job creation first if we are to avoid a very extended period of high […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Families, Time and Well-Being
Inequality of well-being among families with children is increasing at an even faster rate than income inequality, according to a new study by Peter Burton and Shelley Phipps, “Families, Time, and Well-Being in Canada”. They find that total family working hours have increased for most families, but not for those at the top of the […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A New Round of Euro Austerity
The Euro deal at least averted an immediate banking crisis and induced temporary market euphoria, but it is not going to provide a lasting solution to the euro sovereign debt crisis because it will block any lasting recovery for the euro economy. It is worth reading the text of the deal, which represents a major […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Euro Crisis
I don’t have much new to add to what is surely the key economic issue of the hour beyond pointing to useful commentary by Larry Elliott in the Guardian and Martin Wolf in the FT. I think Wolf is right that the key to resolving the crisis is to make the ECB the backstop for […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Economic Impacts of Breast Cancer
A research paper published by the Canadian Breast Cancer Network underlines that the economic costs of cancer are huge due to a lack of supportive public and workplace policies. As they say ” we may think of breast cancer as a health condition, but it is also an economic condition.” Based on surveys of former […]
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