This guest blog post has been written by Louis-Philippe Rochon. You can follow him on Twitter @Lprochon – Harper’s recent incarnation as an anti-terrorist crusader has caught many Canadians by surprise. Harper is spending considerable political energy beating the drums of war against terrorists, and introducing a far-reaching, and much
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The Progressive Economics Forum: Seccareccia on Greece, Austerity and the Eurozone
Over at the blog of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Ottawa U professor Mario Seccareccia has given an interview titled “Greece Shows the Limits of Austerity in the Eurozone. What Now?” The interview can be read here.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Responsibility for Housing
On Monday I gave a guest presentation to Craig Jones‘ graduate seminar class in Carleton University’s School of Social Work. My presentation sought to answer two questions: 1. Why should government play a role in creating affordable housing? 2. Which level of government is responsible? With those questions as a
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Low Oil Prices, Good or Bad for Canada?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you’re probably well aware that the price of oil has fallen dramatically, to less than $50 / barrel. What this means for Canada’s economic output & labour markets is not yet clear. But Stephen Poloz at the Bank of Canada has said that
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Louis-Philippe Rochon’s Top 10 Economic Predictions for 2015
Louis-Philippe Rochon has written a provocative blog post for the CBC titled “Top 10 Economic Predictions for 2015.” The post is available here.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Verhaege discusses how unchecked capitalism is changing our personality traits for the worse: There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is articulateness, the aim being to win over as many people as possible. Contact can
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Naomi Klein discusses how entrenched corporate control through trade and investment agreements will prevent us from making any real progress against climate change. And Cory Doctorow weighs in on the Cons’ FIPA sellout of Canadian sovereignty, while highlighting the NDP’s petition to stop
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Should Account-holders pay for High-Flying Bankers’ Misdeeds?
When the next big financial crisis hits the world economy, and Canadian banks are in distress — as they were during the 2008 financial crisis — the bank-using public will have plenty to worry about. As we saw earlier in this series, it’s hard to trust banks to protect our
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bob Hepburn writes that more Canadians approve of the idea of a guaranteed annual income than oppose it – even as the concept is all too frequently dismissed as politically unpalatable. And Stuart Trew points out that a majority of Canadians disagree with
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada Post: A Billion-Dollar Boondoggle?
One of the most frequently repeated claims in coverage of yesterday’s Canada Post announcement is that the Crown corporation is on track to lose a billion dollars annually by the decade’s end. This apprehended threat to taxpayers supposedly justifies the complete elimination of door-to-door mail delivery. The Conference Board made
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The rise of Bitcoin: and the challenge to the global domination of big money
The following article was written on October 25. I wanted to read it over once more before publishing it, then got busy with other things and forgot about it. In the roughly six weeks that have passed since the writing of this article, the Bitcoin prices have gone from roughly
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: US government shutdown, and other fairy tales and political theatre
I’m not sure what to make of the hoopla going on in the US right now. I’m inclined to think it’s all just political theatre, as Gerald Celente calls it, designed to distract the people from the real issues – the central one being, who controls the government and the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The deeper reasons for the “war on drugs”
There is a deeper reason for the war on drugs, which is the central reason for the policy, even outweighing profits from private prisons and seizure of property by law enforcement officers, both of which no doubt are also significant and strong motivations for keeping the “war on drugs” going.
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 readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses how a continued economic slump is combining with the Cons’ economic policies to destroy secure jobs in favour of precarious, low-paying work: Those making economic policy from afar may admire creative destruction. Those being destroyed rarely do. Here in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Senate and Bank Mergers
L. Ian MacDonald wrote a defence of the Senate in today’s Montreal Gazette. He makes the familiar argument that it provides useful study of policy issues. However, his first example is the 2002 Senate report supporting bank mergers. In the wake of the global financial crisis, we should be glad that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Nicholas Shaxson annihilate the claim that perpetually lowering corporate and upper-income tax rates offers any competitive advantage: Tax “competition”, it turns out, is always harmful. First, while people rarely move in response to tax changes – flighty financial
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Temporary Foreign Worker Scandal: RBC Issues “Open Letter To Canadians”
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: According to a list recently obtained by the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Royal Bank of Canada, (RBC) is one the thousands of Canadian employers fingered in the unraveling Temporary Foreign Worker scandal. The document shows that scandals at RBC and other high-profile employers are “just the
Continue readingLeft Over: Banks? Fuggetaboutit………
RBC replaces Canadian staff with foreign workers Axed employee blows whistle; federal government investigating By Kathy Tomlinson, CBC News Posted: Apr 6, 2013 5:31 PM PT This is going to sound like an unpaid ode to Credit Unions, so be it…in this case, because I know it best, VanCity…not only are
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Ever since the world economy started crashing in 2008, a lot of…
Ever since the world economy started crashing in 2008, a lot of news has been uncovered about Ponzi schemes, financial institutions ripping people off, crooked government bailouts, banks laundering money for gangs and terrorists, large-scale tax cheating, money hidden away in offshore numbered accounts, thefts from pension funds, politicians stealing
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