I’ve written a 750-word overview of the federal role in housing policy. The English-language version is here: https://nickfalvo.ca/canada-ten-things-to-know-about-the-federal-role-in-housing-policy/ The French-language version is here: https://nickfalvo.ca/canada-dix-faits-saillants-sur-le-role-du-federal-en-matiere-de-politique-du-logement/
Continue readingTag: Financial Regulation
The Progressive Economics Forum: Ten things to know about CMHC’s Insured Mortgage Purchase Program
In March 2020, the Trudeau government launched a new version of the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP). According to CMHC’s website: “Under this program, the government will purchase up to $50 billion of insured mortgage pools through CMHC.” Here are 10 things to know: 1. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What Impact will the 2019 Federal Budget have on Canada’s Housing Market?
I’ve written a blog post about what the recent federal budget means for Canada’s housing market. Points I make in the blog post include the following: -The budget contains several initiatives designed to make it easier for households of modest means to become homeowners. -Such initiatives are often framed as
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Novel Observations of Jean Tirole?
French economist Jean Tirole has won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on industrial organization and regulation, in particular his insights into oligopolies. “Who is Jean Tirole?, many non-economists and some economists are asking today. The MIT-educated, Toulouse-based professor is a key figure in the New Industrial
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Intellectual Dishonesty at the Ivey Business Journal
Under the headline “Canada Isn’t Rotten to the Core”, the new editor of the Ivey Business Journal, Thomas Watson, attacked my book “Thieves of Bay Street” in his inaugural editorial. Although the book hit bookstores almost two years ago, and has faded from view, I found this assault so distorted
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Glass-House Mortgages
A letter appears in today’s Globe and Mail in response to recent direction given by Minister Flaherty to private mortgage lenders over mortgage rates. The letter was written by Steve Pomeroy, one of Canada’s leading housing policy experts. Here is the full text of the letter: – Glass-house mortgages Twice
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Austerity Trap
Below is a recent editorial from the New York Times that does an excellent job of summarizing the failures of austerity policies. The NYTimes also published a very good analysis of how austerity measures have actually increased debt loads in many countries, instead of reducing them: “Despite Push for Austerity, European
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Household debt going from bad to worse
Canadians are now more indebted than either Americans or the Brits at the peak of their housing bubble. Statistics Canada today revised the national accounts. The result on the household debt front was that instead of Canadian households having a debt to disposable income ratio of 154, it has now
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: 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
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: BMO Professor vs. Bank Regulation
Last week, the C. D. Howe Institute was out with an op-ed contending that Canadian household debt is not worth worrying too much about: “There does not seem to be a strong case for restrictive regulation of consumer credit products, such as tight caps on interest rates.” The C. D.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Stock Market Swindles Galore
This past weekend (March 31st), Sino-Forest Corp. announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. The Chinese-Canadian company, once the largest publicly-traded forestry firm on the TSX, collapsed under allegations it was nothing more than a sophisticated fraud and Ponzi scheme. Sino-Forest’s demise wiped out about $6-billion in shareholders’ value, making
Continue readingRandom Ranting Raving and Ratings: The One-For-One Rule an Over-Simplified Approach to Regulations
President of the Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement Minister Tony Clement’s released their new One-For-One rule on Jan 18th. Put simply the press release is announcing that the federal government plans to treat regulations like trading cards. This means that regulators… ..
Continue readingGangster Capitalism: Same as it ever was?
If you are going to read one thing and just one thing on the financial crisis and how it is working itself out you need to read this blog post at naked capitalism: the one stop shop for understanding contemporary … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe irony of greed: The end game for Neoliberalism?
The global economy is in the toilet and the Boomers’ representatives are chanting: “flush, flush, flush.” Me? I am eating cigarettes and wine while admiring the remarkable consistency in the myopia of all of it. In the name of fisca…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Wageless recovery and the politics of austerity
The UNTCAD just published its annual report on Trade and Development, titled Post-crisis Policy Challenges in the World Economy. The report describes a two speed global recovery, showing how developing economies have come out of the crisis stronger then their developed European and American counterparts. There the author invokes the contradictory forces at work in […]
Continue readingThe Right Wing Commentariat is getting Desperate
JuysTerence Corcoran Just go read Terence Corcoran’s latest in the National Post. Never mind that the world was plunged into economic crisis by unregulated financial institutions; and near fully captured regulators never mind that by most accou…
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