This and that for your Sunday reading. – Haroon Siddiqui comments on the Cons’ tall economic tales. And Steven Chase and Greg Keenan note that workers are rightly fighting back against the Cons’ plan to sell out Canada’s auto parts industry and its 80,000 jobs. – Canadian Doctors for Medicare
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Left Over: Auto-Immune to Progress: Car Manufacturing Going South
Carmakers say adios to Canada as Mexico shifts into higher gear Mexico now makes more cars than Canada, a trend that’s not expected to change By Pete Evans, CBC News Posted: Jun 15, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jun 15, 2015 9:31 AM ET It’s deja vu all over
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada-EU trade deal will hurt Canada’s auto industry: study
by: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Press Release | May 28, 2014 OTTAWA – The proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will only exacerbate the Canadian auto industry’s recent decline, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The study, by Unifor economist and CCPA
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – PressProgress digs into the PBO’s report on tax giveaways to look at what Canada has lost from the Cons’ cuts to federal fiscal capacity – and how little has been gained as a trade-off: (T)he Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is
Continue readingLeDaro: Harper’s South Korea Trip
I am not against free trade per se, it has its benefits in expanding markets and bringing our world together. When people are trading with each other and making money, they are much less likely to wage war on each other. However, we should not uncritically accept free trade deals.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Economist
It started with a car accident in February, and the total loss of our 2004 Prius, which had only been ours for less than a year. We were quickly compensated for its market value and were in a position to buy another car, but we held off due to a
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Federal Budget 2013: CAW demands full national manufacturing strategy for Canada
By: Canadian Auto Workers Union | Press Release: Billions in new federal supports for Canadian industry is a partial, but important, step forward in assisting the country’s embattled manufacturing sector, said CAW President Ken Lewenza, in response to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget released today. In his budget, Minister Flaherty outlined the federal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Ed Broadbent comments on both the growing problem of inequality, and the one institution which can do something about it:Canada is not doing better. From 1982 until 2004, almost all growth in family i…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: CAW Major Auto Bargaining 2012: Lessons Learned
I am now finally emerging from the mental fog induced by the 24-7 triennial marathon otherwise known as “CAW major auto bargaining.” To close the circle, here are my thoughts in retrospect on the bargaining: how the union prepared for it, the issues at stake, the contents of the final
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: CAW Sets Sights on National Auto Policy as Chrysler Deal Ratifies
CAW members at Chrysler have approved a new collective agreement, voting 90 per cent in favour of ratification. Voting took place at a series of ratification meetings held Saturday September 29 and Sunday September 30 in Windsor, Brampton and Etobicoke, Ontario. The contract with Chrysler follows the pattern deal set
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Pratap Chatterjee discusses our new age of robber barons – and how the wealthiest CEOs get out of paying any tax at all on massive sums of money: The Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington DC thinktank, says that a chunk of the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Big Banks’ Big Secret
The CCPA today released my report: “The Big Banks Big Secret” which provides the first public estimates of the emergency funds taken by Canadian banks. The report bases its estimates on publicly available data from CMHC, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, US Federal Reserve, the Bank of
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: 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: 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 readingPaul S. Graham: Video: Yves Engler, cars, capitalism and catastrophe
I’m half-way through “Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the road to economic, social and ecological decay” by Bianca Mugyenyi and Yves Engler and I’m already regretting my decision, a year ago, to replace my aging Mazda with a brand new Kia Soul. I would have been better off with a bus pass and the […]
The Progressive Economics Forum: Use University Research to Increase Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second World War, manufacturing jobs accounted for 26% of all Canadian jobs; by 2007, this figure had dropped to just 12%. And as I’ve […]
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