Photo by Kate Gottli
For years now, governments, including our own, have been demanding austerity measures, cutting health, education, social and cultural programs – all justifying this hacking by claiming the…
Continue readingAuthor: Bruce Livesey
The Progressive Economics Forum: The CBC – the Corporate Broadcasting Corp.
A new scandal blew up at the CBC this week when the website Canadaland published an exposé charging that Amanda Lang, the broadcaster’s senior business reporter and host of The Exchange, tried to sabotage an investigative story the CBC produced about abuses committed by the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Andrea Horwath’s Debacle
I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud when I saw election results. I almost spat a mouthful of my breakfast across the room. Almost nobody expected Ontario’s Liberals to win a majority, least of all the NDP’s Andrea Horwath. Her decision to pull the plug on the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: NDP Sectarianism Returns with a Vengeance
You have to wonder what Andrea Horwath was thinking. By bringing down the Ontario government a week ago and launching an election as a result, the NDP risks opening the door for the provincial Tories reclaiming power. Which would be a disaster for working people across the province, let alone
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin
More than one critic has noted that Russia doesn’t manufacture anything the world wants (a knock that now can be laid against Canada, especially since the dramatic fall of Blackberry and the bankruptcy of Nortel). Think about it: what product (or brand name) does Russia produce which people covet? Cars,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why France’s Economic Problems Matter
I’ve had the good fortune to live in France for the past 10 months on a year-long sabbatical and therefore been able to witness firsthand the travails of the Socialist government as it wrestles with the country’s economic woes. Indeed, the unpopularity of president Francois Hollande was exposed a couple
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Tony Blair and the Corporatization of Social Democracy
Tony Blair, by any sensible yardstick, is a douchebag. Recently, The Guardian, under the headline “Toxic”, detailed Blair’s “downward spiral”. This included the revelation that he may have been having an affair with Wendi Murdoch, the now ex-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Blair was once good pals with Murdoch
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Intellectual Dishonesty at the Ivey Business Journal
Under the headline “Canada Isn’t Rotten to the Core”, the new editor of the Ivey Business Journal, Thomas Watson, attacked my book “Thieves of Bay Street” in his inaugural editorial. Although the book hit bookstores almost two years ago, and has faded from view, I found this assault so distorted
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The NSA Scandal is all about Economics
Back in 1998, I wrote a lengthy investigative feature for The Financial Post about Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), and its post-Cold War role. You can read it here: http://circ.jmellon.com/docs/pdf/trolling_for_secrets_economic_espionage.pdf The CSE and its sister signals intelligence agency in the US, the National Security Agency (NSA),
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How Offshore Tax Havens Destroy Governments
Last fall, Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis published in his magazine Hot Doc a list of 2,000 wealthy Greeks who were hiding taxable savings in the Geneva branch of HSBC. The list had been furnished years earlier by the then French finance Minister Christine Lagarde to the Greek government, who did nothing
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Niall Ferguson’s Latest Idiocy
As I discussed in an earlier post, Niall Ferguson, the Harvard historian and author of numerous bad books about economics, is prone to writing and saying completely ignorant things, making one wonder about the intellectual heft of so-called academic “stars” who populate our institutions of higher learning. The latest bit
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Just How Stupid is Niall Ferguson? Very Stupid.
“But the real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever. I’ve got a brain! I would rather be called a highly intelligent historian than a gorgeous pouting one” – Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, Sept. 2011. One of the predictable habits of the mainstream media is
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: On Being Sued by Conrad Black
Last week, Conrad Black launched a $1.25-million libel lawsuit against me, Random House of Canada and its editors over four sentences in my book “Thieves of Bay Street” that discuss his case. You can see the National Post article here about the suit: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/22/conrad-black-suing-publisher-for-1-25m/ While I won’t argue the merits
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Travels in Harperland
On my recent book tour to promote “Thieves of Bay Street” I have journeyed to Alberta, Montreal and Ottawa. In so doing, I have gotten a taste of the Canada which Stephen Harper and his merry band of Tories are trying to forge. In Calgary, I arrived in time for the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: My Guest Appearance on Lang & O’Leary
As part of promoting my book “Thieves of Bay Street” last week I was booked as a guest on the Lang and O’Leary Exchange, CBC’s one-hour daily business show. Admittedly, I am not a regular viewer, although I have seen enough of Kevin O’Leary to recognize he embodies the worst of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Stock Market Swindles Galore
This past weekend (March 31st), Sino-Forest Corp. announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. The Chinese-Canadian company, once the largest publicly-traded forestry firm on the TSX, collapsed under allegations it was nothing more than a sophisticated fraud and Ponzi scheme. Sino-Forest’s demise wiped out about $6-billion in shareholders’ value, making
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Rise of the Casino Economy
I was on a road trip recently, driving through the American south, and ended up coming face to face with the economics of gambling. The friend I was travelling with is a professional poker player, making his living at casinos all across the US. He used to work as an
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada – The Petrotyranny
The revelations over how the federal Tories used a robo-calling firm (or firms) to contact voters in possibly 30 or more ridings during last year’s election – misleading them about where polling stations were located – is just another example of the Harper government’s undemocratic tactics. This is on top
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is Labour Doomed?
Last week (Feb. 2nd) I drove up to London, Ontario, to shoot some film footage of the locked-out workers picketing outside the Electro-Motive Diesel plant for a documentary I am working on. The company, the only one to make locomotives in Canada, is owned by Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Jack Layton and the Politics of Anger
My wife and I (and our dog Charlie) attended Jack Layton’s memorial service in downtown Toronto yesterday along with thousands of other mourners. It was a moving, emotional, soulful and remarkable ceremony, a testament to a fabulous human being’s honourable political legacy and his fundamental decency as a person. It’s tragic that just when Jack […]
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