You would think Ontario would have learned it’s lesson by now. The rules of economic activity in the era of globalization changed everything and created the race to the bottom, and now peak oil combined with globalization has created the race to the most cost efficient bottom and Ontario doesn’t get it.
Continue readingTag: economy
Here in sensible Ontario, we tax the rich
So as expected, the McGuinty Liberals compromised with the NDP on the 2012 Ontario budget, applying a surtax to those who earn more than $500,000 a year, in order to fend off another forced election in a no confidence vote. Of course, the aloof Conservatives under Tim Hudak will still vote against the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading. – As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I’ll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath’s call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – In an excerpt from the Occupy Handbook, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells discuss how a right-wing obsession with exacerbating inequality led to the U.S.’ disastrous response to the 2008 crash: How did America become a nation that could not rise to the biggest
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Supply when demanded: Why the free market can’t address peak oil
A friend of mine has to close their business. It’s a fresh business that was founded during the stimulus boom. It’s a green business, which took advantage of the government’s stimulus measures aimed at green conversions for homes. It’s a business which is now no longer profitable since these measures
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it’s gone too far. So here’s McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP’s proposal for a slight increase in income tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades – with the former seeing a “picket fence” growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a “staircase” effect (aside from an utterly
Continue readingCanadian Trends: #abdb8 barely touched what may be Alberta’s most important issue
I’m pretty disappointed. For a province that relies on energy for revenue: I heard a lot about surpluses and very little about revenue. I heard even less about the elevated cost of living that revenue depends on. There is clearly a lack of understanding on what the problem Alberta is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin comments on the growing resonance of inequality as an issue for Canadian voters. But the most telling sign may be less the Ontario NDP’s steps to highlight the need for more progressive taxation (as Martin recognizes), but the McGuinty Libs’
Continue readingwRanter.com: Attacking public sector workers is a bad idea
During economic downturns, people have a tendency to turn on one another. We blame victims and eat our own. I’ve been alive long enough to have seen it more than once before. It’s wrong, but I get it. The urge to help one’s fellow human during times of trouble gets
Continue readingbastard.logic: Dueling Ledes (Compare & Contrast), Redux
AP video, Feb 15, 2011: A recent [US] government report states the terrorist threat from Canada is greater than from Mexico, and that only 50 kilometres of the border is adequately patrolled. CBC News, today: Major job cuts at the Canada Border Services Agency could undermine national security and public
Continue readingbastard.logic: Dueling Ledes (Compare & Contrast)
TorStar, March 20th: Schools, hospitals and popular burger restaurants such as Hero’s and Lick’s are part of a suddenly massive beef recall over fears of E. coli contamination. The G&M, today: Veterinarians and other inspectors responsible for food recalls and ensuring the safety of Canadian meat are among the hundreds
Continue readingArt Threat: That’s a wrap? – Killing Saskatchewan’s film tax credit is economic nonsense
The cast from InSecurity. The TV show will no longer be produced in Saskatchewan. With the announcement of the axing of the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit, we are effectively telling the rest of the film-producing world that Saskatchewan is closed for business. It’s a commonly known fact that film
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Flaherty, you’re not making any sense
So this article here just came to my attention. I have written a few different articles about debt and our housing market lately. On March 21st I published “Canada and the fine line between reality and lies“. On the 29th I published “All that matters is the math – but
Continue readingTrashy's World: No! Really???
No way! Can’t be true! Before a long weekend??? C’mon! You’re pulling my chain!!! Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to end your day. – Boris sums up the Cons’ budget message to poor Canadians. David Macdonald assesses the Cons’ impact on jobs – with -70,000 not exactly looking like a positive number. Trish Hennessy frames the Cons’ plans as death by a thousand cuts, while Paul Wells
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Alison nicely debunks the Cons’ latest Robocon talking points. Paula Boutis offers her own suggestions to strengthen Elections Canada in investigating vote suppression. And Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that the Cons have been working on funneling federal money through a
Continue readingPop The Stack: Conservative Budget Shows Us What is Important to Them
A common response from many pundits on the recent Conservative budget seems to be: sensible, dull, uncontroversial. David Frum recently published his analysis and went a bit further asking whether or not this budget definitively proves that Canada is the “best-governed country in the advanced democratic world”. He thinks it does. His question is especially
Continue readingPop The Stack: Conservative Budget Shows Us What is Important to Them
A common response from many pundits on the recent Conservative budget seems to be: sensible, dull, uncontroversial. David Frum recently published his analysis and went a bit further asking whether or not this budget definitively proves that Canada is the “best-governed country in the advanced democratic world”. He thinks it does. His question is especially
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Karl Nerenberg reported on Marc Mayrand’s Robocon testimony, featuring some much-needed discussion of what can be done to improve the Canada Elections Act to ensure fair elections rather than creating an incentive for electoral fraud: Mayrand fretted to the Committee that there are
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