Here is an amazing multimedia article published by Bloomberg Markets Magazine in the U.S., that lists all of the individual banks which received financial assistance from the U.S. Federal Reserve during the 2008-09 crisis. It shows each bank’s peak borrowing from the Fed, the number of days they held the
Continue readingAuthor: Jim Stanford
The Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Petro-Recovery
Statsitics Canada released the third quarter GDP numbers today, and on the surface they seem pretty upbeat, considering all the doom and gloom lately. Headline real GDP grew at an annualized 3.5% rate. I predicted a few weeks back that there was no chance that the 3Q number would be
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Danger: Wage Deflation Ahead
The labour market is in much worse shape than the official 7.3% unemployment rate implies. The latest evidence for this proposition is today’s miserable report on employment and earnings from Statistics Canada. Further to Andrew Jackson’s post on today’s release, most media coverage of this report focuses on year-over-year measures
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Invisible Hand Has Failed Canadian Innovation
The Globe and Mail is running an interesting series this week on Canada’s miserable performance in business innovation and productivity. Here is the main page. Barrie McKenna’s long piece on Saturday set the stage. The “infographic” that went with the article included some interesting tidbits: Canada provides by far the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Inflation Targeting and the Crisis
Many long-held tenets of neoclassical orthodoxy have fallen by the wayside in the past 3 years, but perhaps one of the biggest dominos that is at least teetering precariously (if not fully tipped over) is the consensus that inflation targeting should be the exclusive focus of monetary policy. The policy
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What Do Banks Actually DO? Teach-In With Occupy Toronto
What do banks actually DO? Create credit out of thin air. Were Canadian banks bailed-out? Absolutely, to the tune of $200 billion. And they are still protected and subsidized more than any other sector of the economy. What must be done with these banks? Tax them, control them, and ultimately take them back. Those are […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Lisa Raitt’s Three Principles of Labour Law
Posted below is a slightly longer version of my column in today’s Globe and Mail regarding the Harper government’s highly creative approach to making up labour law on the run. Also posted is a graph showing the dramatic decline (of 95% or more) in the frequency of work stoppages in Canada since the mid-1970s. In […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What CETA Would Mean for Canada’s Auto Industry
Canadian free trade negotiators are going all-out to get a deal with the EU on a new free trade agreement. The Harper government wants a deal badly for largely symbolic and ideological purposes, to show that the free trade agenda is back on track under this “stable majority government.” Many valid concerns have been raised […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Occupy Together: It’s About Time!
Here is a Globe and Mail commentary I wrote after attending the wonderful Occupy Toronto protests on the weekend. The media keep going off about how this movement has no “central demand.” Go to a Tea Party event in the U.S. and see if you can find “one central demand.” That doesn’t stop them from […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Billionaires
Just in time for the “Occupy Bay Street” protest this weekend, Canadian Business magazine has come out with its annual listing of the richest 100 people in Canada. So in honour of the protestors and their noble cause (demanding more attention to the 99%, instead of the 1%), let’s peruse together the sordid details of […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why the Excitement About Debt?
Further to our recent discussions on this blog about the role of private finance and credit in our present crisis, we present a guest contribution from Ralph Musgrave, an economist in the U.K. National debts have risen recently, which has caused excessive and unnecessary consternation. The consternation is particularly unnecessary for countries which issue their own […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Private Member Bill on Union Financial Disclosure
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert tabled his private member bill in the Commons yesterday, calling for changes to the Income Tax Act to require unions (which are income-tax-exempt under the Act … duh! since they are, after all, non-profit organizations) to publicly disclose their financial statements. Here are a few quick points that came to mind in […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Who’s Bailing Whom? Challenging the Private Credit System
The time since 2008 has been a crucial historical moment for progressive economists to pull back the green curtain that surrounds the operation of the for-profit banking system, and expose that system for what it is: a government-protected, government-subsidized license to print money. The problem is, as soon as you start saying things like that, people […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: No Technical Recession, Not That It Matters
Today’s GDP numbers (a sprightly gain of 0.3% at basic prices in July) ensure that there will not be a so-called “technical recession” in Canada — at least, not yet. Economists have a perverted definition of “recession”, whereby it’s considered official only if real GDP declines 2 quarters in a row. That’s hilariously arbitrary. And […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: CCPA Comparison of 3 Ontario Election Platforms
Hugh Mackenzie of the CCPA has prepared a comprehensive comparison of the election platforms of the three major parties in Ontario’s election. It reveals an enormous fiscal “hole” in the Conservative platform, that will inevitably result in dramatic reductions in public spending if that party wins the October 6 election. The report, released yesterday, added […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Profile of Displaced Workers
There’s an interesting new research report from Statistics Canada, by Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Rene Morissette, and Marc Frenette, profiling the workers who were displaced in the recent recession, and comparing the outcomes to previous recessions in earlier decades (the downturns of the early 1980s and 1990s). “Workers Laid Off During the Last Three Recessions,” […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Tim Hudak’s Troubled Geometry
The Ontario election is in full swing, and the Conservative party’s campaign is guided by a platform booklet called the “changebook.” It’s an audacious manifesto for significant change in the policy and the philosophy of government in the province, mapping out a long agenda of measures to cut taxes, balance the budget, privatize government assets […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Auto Labour Costs and Auto Industry Recovery
I was recently invited to speak to the annual management briefing conference sponsored in Michigan by the Center for Automotive Research, a fine outfit which does the best research work in the continent on auto employment, workers, and skills. My slides are available here. My panel was addressing the current UAW negotiations with the Detroit […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: “Time to Reduce Exposure to Europe”
CBC National News reconvened their “Bottom Line” economics panel (including yours truly) last night to discuss the twin debt crises (Europe and America) that are currently roiling financial markets. Here’s the link to the webcast for aficionados. In the last segment, Pater Mansbridge asked all the panelists how the debt problems should affect individual Canadians’ personal […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: New CAW Film About the Economics of CETA
The CAW has just released a 20-minute video featuring none other than yours truly giving a short lecture about the economics of the proposed Canada-EU free trade agreement (a.k.a. CETA). This link takes you to the film, which can be downloaded for free and shown at information meetings or any other organizing events. The lecture […]
Continue reading