Serge Halimi: Europe’s wakeup call – Le Monde diplomatique – English editionWhen the balance that keeps labour and capital in relative equilibrium gets trashed (or more likely in this context, sold off to private investors), the political and so…
Continue readingTag: economic crisis
Northern Reflections: The Children’s Hour
Ezra Klein cuts to the chase in today’s Washington Post. The White House wanted $400 billion in revenues, and John Boehner knew he couldn’t get the deal through the House:But you can’t get a deal unless you can get the votes. And what’s been clear …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: How Little Wisdom
Paul Krugman has a right to be pessimistic. The powerful elites on both sides of the Atlantic suffer from group think. And, instead of proving the truth of the old adage, “great minds think alike,” they offer a vivid illustration of the flip side of th…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Arbitrate This!
Does anyone else find it odd that a free-market-worshipping government can happily leap into the fray to micro-manage a labour market outcome (deciding, for example, that postal workers must get 1.75%, not 1.9%, in the first year of their new contract), yet pleads powerlessness when it comes to interfering with market outcomes that are genuinely […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: International Journal of Labour Research
The new issue of the International Journal of Labour Research (edited by Canada’s own Pierre la Liberte ) entitled “Crisis: Causes, Prospects and Alternatives” is now available. The issue takes a critical look at policies that led to the 2007-08 crisis and considers alternatives to orthodox policies both North and South. It features articles by […]
Continue readingA rotting fruit that does not give vent to its own demand?
Given we seem to be stuck in fairly heady economic times it seems worthwhile to me to put out another post on the subject of employment, labour force growth and unemployment. In this post I am going to revisit the … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Best Books on the Economic Crisis
With the Summer reading season at hand, here is a short list – in no particular order – of the best books I have read over the last couple of years on the roots and implications of the Great Recession – essential reading for all progressive economists. John Cassidy. How Markets Fail: The Logic of […]
Continue readingRedBedHead: A View From The Volcano: Report From Greece
This is a fascinating interview from the British Socialist Worker Newspaper on what’s going on in Greece. All we’re really getting is the maneuverings and panic of the politicians and the bankers. This interview with a socialist gives a flavour of what…
Continue readingRedBedHead: China or Greece: Which Is The Next Lehman Brothers?
Back in 2007, when the US Fed let the 100-year old Lehman Brothers investment bank go belly up, it was like a blasting cap that blew apart the global economy. While there was some recover last year and early into 2011, the global economy – and the econ…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Greek Meltdown: People vs Banks
Forget the riots in Vancouver by angry hockey fans, things are really on the boil in Greece. After a year of austerity measures that have all but killed the economy and which have driven down living standards substantially, the government is coming bac…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is Capitalism Terminally Ill?
Today (June 15th) the Toronto Star broke news that the NDP was planning to drop the term “socialism” from its party’s platform. This was a mere formality of what had been in existence for decades: the party hasn’t been “socialist” in any shape or form for a very long time. On the very same day, […]
Continue readingRedBedHead: Today’s U.S. Economic News: This Parrot Is Dead
The jobs report is out and like all of the other economic indicators, it shows that the US economy is going nowhere fast. The whole of this year has been about watching the optimism that started the year turn sour bit by bit as the remaining effects fr…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Tories’ Bankrupt Brains
“I see, said the blind man to the deaf dog, who wasn’t listening anyway” is a phrase that comes to mind reading reports of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s press conference on the economy. Generally speaking we expect governments to do more to s…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Return Of Stagflation?
Those of us around in the 1970s will remember the term stagflation – a combination of economic stagnation and inflation that created a conundrum for bourgeois economists: do you move to rein in inflation by tightening credit and imposing wage and price…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Exiting from the Crisis
“Exiting from the Crisis: Towards a Model of More Equitable and Sustainable Growth” is a new book (over 270 pages) now available on line. This volume of essays from global trade union leaders and economists is the product of the Global Unions Taskforce on a New Growth Model, a joint project of the Trade Union […]
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Wall Street Triple-Penetration
The Young Turks have ran a number of stories on how major investment banks have gamed the US and global economic systems. In the video presented below, they discuss how major investment bankers (e.g., Goldman Sachs) have effectively triple penetrated their investors and the global oil market, which affects all of us by driving up […]
The Progressive Economics Forum: Good Jobs For All
The policy paper to be presented to the CLC Convention next month is now posted on our web site and is well worth reading.
http://www.canadianlabour.ca/sites/default/files/pdfs/policypapergoodjosen.pdf