Economics ← Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes

Earthgauge News: Earthgauge Radio – April 17, 2018

Apr

18

2018

https://earthgauge.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/earthgaugeradio-forair-18-04-17.mp3 Edition #14 of Earthgauge News for the week of April 16, 2018. A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring stories from across Canada and around the world. Join me here every week or subscribe to the podcast. On the show this week: Palm oil is being banned by a major UK supermarket The 2 ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Reporter Was Right Before

Apr

14

2018

When someone is correct multiple times about major events, it’s worth hearing what they have to say about the latest unfolding. Trump’s Presidency is crumbling, and if Americans wake up, it won’t last long into next year.

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Don’t Make It Sound Like There’s More Than One Thing

Feb

26

2018

“recognize its own climate change efforts, such as carbon capture and storage. ” Effort, not “efforts”. There’s only been one effort made, and arguably the CCS project increases emissions since it’s an Enhanced Oil Recovery project that enables Cenovus to extract more oil which will be burned. Whether the net CO2 from CCS is a ...

Things Are Good: Walkable Towns are Economically More Productive

Jan

24

2018

Any visitor to a North American city knows that a lot of the geography is designed for single occupant car-based transportation. Anybody who’s spent months in any of these places knows that this car-focused design has been an unmitigated disaster. People are dying, the planet is being killed, and so many other problems stem from ...

Alberta Politics: Tim Hortons brew-haha shows how the fast-food industry doesn’t get PR, Economics 101, or what Canadians think

Jan

8

2018

PHOTOS: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne in a very old picture that has the dual advantages of showing her wearing a smile appropriate to the occasion being discussed and of having been taken by your blogger. Below: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analyst Michal Rozworski (Photo: Twitter), the late but actual non-iconic Tim Horton (Photo: Wikipedia), ...

Alberta Politics: New Year’s bitter Twitter attacks on fact-checking economists suggest UCP will try to make 2018 the Year of the Big Chill

Jan

1

2018

PHOTOS: University of Alberta economist and professor Andrew Leach. Below: Calgary-Fish Creek United Conservative Party MLA Richard Gotfried (Photo: Mr. Gotfried’s Facebook page), UCP Leader Jason Kenney, and University of Calgary economist and professor Trevor Tombe (Photo: U of C). New Year’s in Alberta blew in on a bitter winter wind. That was the weather. ...

In-Sights: From Erik Andersen

Dec

9

2017

In private emails, a number of people with expert economic knowledge exchange ideas about energy in BC. I get copies of some. This example, written by respected and retired economist Erik Andersen, refers to electricity markets in BC: This is a presentation of what’s called a “coffin corner”, running out of flying speed and altitude ...

The Common Sense Canadian: Swain: Building Site C would harm BC’s credit rating; cancelling it would not

Dec

7

2017

The head of the Joint Review Panel on the controversial Site C Dam, Harry Swain, is dispelling the notion that cancelling Site C would somehow harm BC’s credit rating. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, he warns: Terminating Site C means paying back the money that’s already spent in order to avoid another $10 billion ...

The Common Sense Canadian: Why approving Site C could sink NDP

Nov

29

2017

Illustration by Jonathan Ramos It’s getting down to the wire for the NDP-led government to announce its decision on Site C Dam. The corporate media and Big Labour’s big guns have been making a sales push to keep the beleaguered project alive, and many fear they could succeed. That would be the biggest mistake the ...

Alberta Politics: Is ‘compassionate belt tightening’ in Alberta just another sign of our worldwide neoliberal derangement?

Nov

21

2017

PHOTOS: The hopeful, celebratory crowd in front of the Alberta Legislature on May 24, 2015, as Premier Rachel Notley and her NDP Government were sworn in. Below: UBC geographer Dr. Jamie Peck and Ms. Notley. On Friday, Alberta’s New Democratic Party premier warned a meeting of rural municipal officials to brace themselves for cuts in ...

In-Sights: Economic challenges ahead

Nov

2

2017

This week, I’ve focused on the BCUC reports and will write more about Site C later. I also looked at Statistics Canada employment reports. I don’t put a lot of weight on month to month changes because the chance of statistical error is high but a little softness in job creation seems apparent. Labour market survey results ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: A gripping tale of lost Bitcoins

Nov

2

2017

I’m just glad this wasn’t me. You probably won’t be disappointed reading this tale of a man losing his Bitcoin recovery information, and the low-tech, and high-tech means he tries to recover them from the ether.

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: “Flabbergasting”

Oct

16

2017

“Flabbergasting” If you need to hear every Conservative talking point repeated without a thought in the world, try the Regina Chamber CEO’s take on CTV: “Nation building” “tidewater” “energy independence” “What’s in the best interest of the country” “a lot of money that comes from the United States that fuels these environmental groups” “Stand up ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: More Vague First World Problems

Sep

22

2017

I made a large purchase last week Tuesday, and have had problems paying for it. Oh, I’ve got the money, I mean I’ve had some difficulty sending it to the seller. I put a deposit down instantly over the phone by credit card, that was easy enough, but sending the bulk of the funds due ...

Things Are Good: Learn Economics for Free in the Most Effective Way

Sep

19

2017

Economics is a large field filled with nuance – and assumptions. One of those assumptions is that environmental concerns and inequality are secondary to that of economic concerns. These assumptions are questioned in a new course prepared by an international team of economists called the core team. Their work is available for anybody around the ...

Things Are Good: Capitalism Will End, Celebrate What Comes Next

Sep

13

2017

The damage that wealthy bankers did to the economy back in 2007/08 is still with us, and that has led to a whole generation questioning the validity of modern hyper-capitalism. That same germination witness ongoing environmental destruction and the erosion of labour rights (amongst a litany of other ills) all for the goal of getting ...

Susan on the Soapbox: How Truth Dies

Sep

3

2017

The UCP leadership race just began and already we’re being asked to choose between two conflicting versions of the truth. Jason Kenney says Brian Jean is a poor financial manager because Jean created a $337,000 deficit in the UCP caucus budget–apparently Jean embarked on a “massive hiring spree” to run a “shadow leadership campaign” at ...

Dead Wild Roses: The Focus Group – What I learned about my fellow Canadians

Aug

21

2017

The first rule of focus groups or research groups is quite simply this. If you say yes to one, then you shall forever be on the call list of every research company that has ever existed. And they do call quite often. Extrapolating from the frequency that I receive offers, people who are ...

A Puff of Absurdity: On Fascist Movements and Free Speech

Aug

18

2017

Some people are upset because Ryerson cancelled a panel discussion featuring Faith Goldy, of Rebel Media, who openly expresses the belief that Muslims are a problem in our country. A Ryerson spokesperson said, “After a thorough security review, the University has concluded that Ryerson is not equipped to provide the necessary level of public safety ...

A Puff of Absurdity: Inconceivable! His Dinner with Chomsky

Aug

16

2017

Wallace Shawn sat down for a chat with Noam Chomsky, and here’s what they talked about – slightly abridged and loosely quoted (for clarification purposes) with links. It’s a great recharge for activists! Shawn – Many people are shocked to see the president is now a cruel, brutal, greedy type of a man, and this ...

A Puff of Absurdity: The Plight of the Millennials

Aug

10

2017

Further explanation here. First, a bit about statistical norms and the normal distribution. In social sciences, for something to be considered a statistically significant characteristic of a group, it just needs to be present in about 68% of the population, or one standard deviation from the norm. There’s tons of variation in the other 32%, ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Wind Will Be Cheaper Than Natural Gas

Jul

25

2017

Will be? Naw, it has been for years. Still, SaskPower is building another 350MW of natural gas to go online in 2019, while building far less than 300MW of wind power by then. They’ve a target of 50% renewable generation by 2030, and still wind is far less than 5% of the grid total. Clearly ...

The Common Sense Canadian: NDP must name & shame or catch the blame – Don’t let Libs off hook for disastrous record

Jul

24

2017

Former BC Liberal Premiers Christy Clark (Kris Krug/Flickr) and Gordon Campbell (Province of BC/Flickr) One of the biggest mistakes Barack Obama made was not doing more to expose George W. Bush’s disastrous financial record as president. As a result, he was quickly blamed for America’s “Great Recession” though everything that set it in motion occurred ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: More Small Town Banks Closing in Saskatchewan

Jul

10

2017

"Those people that sit with their pointed heads and their pointed pencils and tell us and take … the bank away from us — https://t.co/TYFDdJosUx — Saskboy (@saskboy) July 9, 2017 “they don’t think about what goes on in these small villages. All they can see is $ & cents & that’s it,” she said.” ...

Things Are Good: Booming Business Boast Sustainability

Jun

28

2017

Business that adapt to climate change are more likely to be successful in the coming years, and business that basically cut their carbon footprint to zero will thrive. This is the thinking behind a growing field that helps companies reduce their consumption and waste while increasing their profits. With the likelihood of global warming reaching ...