What follows are comments from a roundtable discussion held at the University of Ottawa on January 28, organized by Mario Seccareccia, and which featured participation from Marc Lavoie, Louis-Philippe Rochon, Mario Seccareccia, Slim Thabet and Bernard Vallageas. Parts 2 and 3 will follow in subsequent blog posts. – Marc Lavoie
Continue readingTag: financial crisis
Political Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: In and out of crisis with Sam Gindin
Today’s podcast is a feature interview with fellow political economist Sam Gindin. I interrogate Sam about the political economy of the present: the exit from the 2007 crisis, the role of states, austerity, the place of finance and the possibilities of resistance. Download: podcast-140314-sam-gindin.mp3 Sam Gindin is a left political
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What happened to the recovery?
(The following is slightly adapted from a short piece on page 3 in the new issue of Economy at Work, the quarterly publication I produce for CUPE, which also covers a lot of other relevant issues.) It’s been a little over four years since Canada’s economy bottomed out in mid 2009. While
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Trickle Down Would Work If It Weren’t For The Sponges At The Top
This piece was first published in the Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab. Five years after a global economic crisis unleashed chaos on markets everywhere, income inequality has become an inescapable political and economic issue, in Canada as elsewhere. That’s because of mounting evidence that the increasingly skewed distribution of gains from economic
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Taxing the Imagination #nlpoli
What is it about the provincial Conservatives and income tax? Kathy Dunderdale rabbited on about it last fall and again in January. Last week, the provincial Conservatives were at it again, with a private members resolution in the House that praised the government for cutting taxes and for not raising
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Rentierism at the national and sub-national level #nlpoli
_______________________________________________ This is the third in a four part series on the current financial crisis the provincial government is facing. The first instalment – “The origins of rentierism in Newfoundland and Labrador” – appeared on Tuesday and the second – “Other People’s Money” – appeared on Wednesday. _______________________________________________ A rentier
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Other People’s Money #nlpoli
_______________________________________________ This is the second in a four part series that offers an interpretation of the current financial crisis the provincial government is facing. The first instalment – “The origins of rentierism in Newfoundland and Labrador” – appeared on Tuesday. ______________________________________________ As much as people imagine a great difference between
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Origins of Rentierism in Newfoundland and Labrador #nlpoli
______________________________________________ Over the next four days, SRBP will offer an interpretation of the political underpinnings of the current financial crisis. This series goes beyond the immediate to place recent events in both historical and comparative, international perspective. The first two instalments briefly describe so9me characteristics of the political system and
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Hobson’s Choice #nlpoli
The provincial Conservatives love to spend public money. That doesn’t sound very conservative and it isn’t. Politically, the provincial Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador are more like Republicans than the Progressive Conservatives who used to run the province in the 1980s. American Republicans like to cut federal taxes and jack
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Wrong Tool #nlpoli
About two thirds of the people in the province who file tax returns earn less than $35,000 a year before taxes. It’s the kind of detail that you cannot banish from your mind when you read about the politically popular economist Wade Locke. The guy who directly and indirectly helped
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: A Manufactured. Right. Here Mess #nlpoli
The Premier, the finance minister, and their favourite economist are talking about tax increases, layoffs, and spending cuts. They are talking about cuts and layoffs at a time when the provincial government has more money coming into its accounts than any government in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador before
Continue readingWhy the Wall Street gang aren’t in jail
Many Canadians (and many more Americans) ask the eminently reasonable question, Why aren’t the bankers who precipitated the financial collapse of 2008 in jail? The damage they inflicted on the U.S. alone was immense: a loss of $11-trillion of personal wealth and 5.5 million jobs, and the foreclosure of over
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Dead Money
Kudos to Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney for raising the profile of the over $500 billion Canadian corporations are holding in excess cash surpluses and not investing in the economy, which garnered front page coverage (and kudos to the CAW for inviting him to speak.) It’s not the first
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Broadening the Bank of Canada’s Mandate
Yesterday, Mike Moffatt took to The Globe and Mail’s “Economy Lab” in response to my suggestion that the Bank of Canada should moderate the exchange rate. (Perhaps his motive for encouraging me to seek the Saskatchewan NDP leadership was to get me as far as possible from the levers of
Continue readingNunc Scio: Yes, there are more than one: David Harvey’s “The Crises of Capitalism”
An incisive analysis of the financial crisis. I’m sure many of you will disagree, but this is not a perspective that can be easily dismissed.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: On Being Sued by Conrad Black
Last week, Conrad Black launched a $1.25-million libel lawsuit against me, Random House of Canada and its editors over four sentences in my book “Thieves of Bay Street” that discuss his case. You can see the National Post article here about the suit: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/22/conrad-black-suing-publisher-for-1-25m/ While I won’t argue the merits
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: US family net worth crushed by financial crisis
The US Federal Reserve today released its triennial examination of incomes and net worth of American households in the Survey of Consumer Finances. It shows the crushing effects on net worth of a housing and financial bust unparalleled since the great depression. The shocking results of this study overviewed in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Complete details of 2008-09 Bank Support
Readers of this blog will have hopefully read my report “The big banks big secret” which examines the $114 billion that Canada’s banks received during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Its major finding was that at some point three of Canada’s five big banks had received support worth more than their market capitalization,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: From Financial Crisis to Stagnation
I am enjoying Tom Palley’s new book – and would post an enthusiastic review except for the fact that I have been unable to find the time to finish it. Certainly a very clear-headed take on the fundamental economic – and political – transformations that will have to take place
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Big Banks’ Big Secret
The CCPA today released my report: “The Big Banks Big Secret” which provides the first public estimates of the emergency funds taken by Canadian banks. The report bases its estimates on publicly available data from CMHC, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, US Federal Reserve, the Bank of
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