Another year, another dead Canadian tech giant. Blackberry was sold yesterday for scrap to the Toronto private equity firm Fairfax. The purchase price of $4.7 billion is essentially valued at its cash of $2.6 billion and the value of its patents. Blackberry’s active businesses are being valued at essentially nothing.
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The Progressive Economics Forum: Polozogistics: Nine Thoughts About the Choice of the New Bank of Canada Governor
1. He’s Number Two: Stephen Poloz was widely acknowledged in economic and political circles as the second-best choice for the top job at the Bank of Canada. So the surprise was not that he was chosen. The surprise was, Why Not Tiff Macklem? Will someone please find out and tell
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Weak Week for Canada’s Economy
On Tuesday, Statistics Canada reported that job vacancies have fallen to the lowest level recorded since it began collecting these figures two years ago. On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada projected growth of just 1.5% for this year. On Thursday, Statistics Canada reported that the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Austerity through infrastructure Cuts: Budget 2013
One the most amazing things about this budget is that one of its three focuses will actually be the opposite of what it’s touting. You’ll likely hear that $14 billion will be spent on infrastructure over the next 10 years (actually you may hear much bigger numbers but they just
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Boost the Minimum Wage, Boost the Economy
A version of this article appeared today in the Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab. (This version includes references to the debate plus charts and graphs from data specially tabulated from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. The data don’t include the self-employed.) President Obama put the idea of raising the minimum
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Albert Hirschman 1915-2012
Albert Hirschman died in December of last year at the grand old age of 97. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but I was an avid reader of his writings and much influenced by them. In the 1950s and 1960s, as the field of economic development emerged within
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: Earthgauge Radio January 24: Richard Heinberg on energy, climate change and the fragile world economy
Download: earthgauge-podcast-jan24-20132.mp3 This week on Earthgauge Radio, we launch a new series in which we will feature leading, influential thinkers who can provide some big picture context to the issues that we discuss on this program such as climate change, energy, economics, ethics, sustainability and development. We will kick off this
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Labour Market still weak: Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada released their January 2013 Monetary Policy Report. Of note, the Bank downgraded its growth expectation for 2013 to 2.0% from 2.3%, and expects the Canadian economy will not reach full potential until late 2014. Several key points in the January MPR reinforce what progressive economists have
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why The Income Inequality Deniers Are Wrong
This article was published in an abridged form today in the National Post. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/21/armine-yalnizyan-sorry-andrew-coyne-but-income-inequality-is-a-real-problem/ I like this opening better so I posted it here. You couldn’t have made it through 2012 without running into a story about income inequality. Chances are, it made you think about how you fit into
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: Reading Economic Health into the Recent StatsCan Jobs Data is An Exercise in Fantasy
Reading Economic Health into the Recent StatsCan Jobs Data is An Exercise in Fantasy Here’s the reality in that data: 1) As Derek Holt points out, there is no hours worked increase. That remains static. But it is hours worked that “drive incomes, not body count.” Holt speculates that the already
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Future: Low Growth West; High Growth East
China risingMartin Kettle has an interesting and disturbing article in today’s The Guardian, headed Austerity is here to stay, and we’d better get used to it:But we are going to have to get used to austerity. Because relative scarcity, and the nee…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Welcome to the Wageless Recovery
The Harper government likes to remind Canadians that we’ve done better than most developed nations in bouncing back from the global economic crisis. But digging into the data shows why many people might be having trouble cheering this news: wages have not kept pace with inflation, and new hires are
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: Conference Board of Canada: Economic Benefits of Tar Sands Hinge On Climate Inaction
Conference Board of Canada: Economic Benefits of Tar Sands Hinge On Climate Inaction (via Desmogblog) By 2035 operators in Alberta’s tar sands expect to produce 5 million barrels of the world’s most environmentally dirty and energy intensive oil per day. Current daily production hovers around 2 million barrels. According to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why Natural Disasters are Good for Capitalism
It’s been amusing today to listen to the pundits discuss the economic implications of Hurricane Sandy. Of course, we all know it closed the financial markets in NYC for two days. (That should lead to a sudden spike in productivity, by my reckoning, since millions of people stop looking at
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Briefs: Tax cuts don’t spur economic growth — study
The Ontario government has long believed that cutting corporate taxes will spur economic growth. A new six-decade study from the U.S. Congressional Research Services says that tax rates “have had little association with saving, investment or productivity growth.” The study … Continue reading →
Continue readingImpolitical: Tax cuts and economic growth
A new study in the U.S. is the latest to say that tax cuts do not positively relate to economic growth. David Leonhardt of the New York Times excerpts its conclusions in the Economix blog: The top income tax rates have changed considerably since the end of World War II.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Happy Crashiversary! Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Four years after Lehman Brothers collapsed, it’s time to take stock of things by asking a stock political question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Where you stand on the answer depends on where you sit. Many people, businesses and communities are still struggling to
Continue readingearthgauge: Earthgauge Radio July 26, 2012: Bill Rees and our ecological footprint
Download: earthgaugeradio-podcast-july26-2012-billrees.mp3 On Earthgauge Radio this week, I re-broadcast a full feature length interview I did with the renowned UBC ecologist Bill Rees, who was recently honoured with the prestigious Blue Planet Prize. Rees and Mathis Wackernagel are responsible for coming up with the concept of the ecological footprint, which
Continue readingearthgauge: Earthgauge Radio June 28, 2012: Rio +20 Earth Summit in review and the Emerald Ash Borer beetle
Download: earthgaugeradio-podcast-june28-2012.mp3 On Earthgauge Radio this week, we take a look at the recently concluded Rio +20 Earth Summit and we discuss Ottawa’s Emerald Ash Borer beetle infestation, which is becoming a growing problem in regions across North America. I have two interviews on today’s program: David Suzuki (courtesy of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Growth After Financial Capitalism
A thoughtful short essay by Wolfgang Streeck, concluding with a reflection on how extreme inequality gets in the way of a needed de-emphasis on crude economic growth.
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