Politics and Entertainment: Inform your “fiscally conservative” friends please of this astounding failure

#neoliberalism Under Flaherty the #cdnecon since 2006 has been a debt-fuelled financialized one only with little real production, productivity, or significantly increased employment to drive demand. Credit card debt has gone from $35.6 billion in February 2006 to $77.4 in February 2012, a staggering 117% increase.  Mortgage debt has gone from $672.5

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Politics and Entertainment: To begin the process of democratizing the economy step 1 is to restore the banks to their status as public utilities

More at The Real News This is Part 2 of a three part discussion with James K. Galbraith and Leo Panitch on whether any sort of New Deal is now possible in America. This segment crystallizes for me the difference between Keynesian reformers like Galbraith and Krugman, say, and revolutionaries like Panitch. Galbraith  continues to have faith in

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Politics and Entertainment: To begin the process of democratizing the economy step 1 is to restore the banks to their status as public utilities

More at The Real News This is Part 2 of a three part discussion with James K. Galbraith and Leo Panitch on whether any sort of New Deal is now possible in America. This segment crystallizes for me the difference between Keynesian reformers like Galbraith and Krugman, say, and revolutionaries like Panitch. Galbraith  continues to have faith in

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Politics and Entertainment: To begin the process of democratizing the economy step 1 is to restore the banks to their status as public utilities

More at The Real News

This is Part 2 of a three part discussion with James K. Galbraith and Leo Panitch on whether any sort of New Deal is now possible in America. This segment crystallizes for me the difference between Keynesian reformers like Galbraith and Krugman, say, and revolutionaries like Panitch. Galbraith  continues to have faith in regulation and the government institutions that are capable of controlling economic and financial policies, claiming in effect it’s just a question of reform, of having the right personnel in those institutions and a reasonable government in power. Panitch recognizes that the problem isn’t a mere issue of personnel or government.  It’s a structural problem because these institutions are embedded in Wall Street, maintaining the financialization of the economy and undermining thereby a real industrial economy based on supply and demand. These institutions in fact serve Wall Street. 
What we need, Panitch argues – and I  could’t agree more – is to begin the process of aggressively democratizing the economy. The first step would be to restore banks to their status as public utilities, for it is the oligarchical control of banking corporations with their destructive neoliberal policies that is the root cause of all our social and economic malaise. 
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Politics and Entertainment: A 516.7 billion increase in personal debt and 140 billion in federal debt since Flaherty took over

#cdnecon An Appalling Performance from a Finance Minister. » Whatever economic movement we’ve had has been fuelled by essentially personal debt, an astonishing  516.7 billion increase since 2006, at a staggering 165% debt to disposable income ratio. Only #banksters and the investor class benefit from such a financialization of the economy. And we’re 140 billion deeper

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Politics and Entertainment: A 516.7 billion increase in personal debt and 140 billion in federal debt since Flaherty took over

#cdnecon An Appalling Performance from a Finance Minister. » Whatever economic movement we’ve had has been fuelled by essentially personal debt, an astonishing  516.7 billion increase since 2006, at a staggering 165% debt to disposable income ratio. Only #banksters and the investor class benefit from such a financialization of the economy. And we’re 140 billion deeper

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Politics and Entertainment: A 516.7 billion increase in personal debt and 140 billion in federal debt since Flaherty took over

Whatever economic movement we’ve had has been fuelled by essentially personal debt, an astonishing  516.7 billion increase since 2006, at a staggering 165% debt to disposable income ratio. Only #banksters and the investor class benefit from such a financialization of the economy. And we’re 140 billion deeper in federal financial debt since Flaherty took over with a net debt balance of 650 billion and a stagnating global economy – the effects of which will be hard to escape since, lacking a diversified domestic economy,  all our economic growth eggs are in export markets and in particular commodities – namely oil and mining. The classic neoliberal agenda has failed miserably. Time for Drummond, Hyder, O’Leary and Co. to wake up from the dream.

 

Where is the $14-billion from the GST rate cut now? #cdnpolisoa.li/MOQwOlB
— barrie mckenna (@barriemckenna) March 25, 2013


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Shorter Waldmann on Yglesias and monteraism

The long version is here.   Apparently Mr.. Waldmann was tricked into reading Matt Yglesias on monetary policy.  Waldmann’s observation goes something like this in short from: Hey Matt you have been consistently wrong in your predictions on the power of monetary policy, if fact your predictions have been so wrong

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Is Heterodox Economic Pedagogy Flawed?

  I won’t bury the lead.  Yes I think heterodox pedagogy is critically flawed at least at the popular and undergraduate levels.  Yesterday I had the fortune of bearing witness to a exchange between a sociologist and an economist.  Both are well published and respected within their respective fields.  Predictably,

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Politics and Entertainment: Premiers Goal to Increase CPP both Pragmatic and Desirable

Flaherty said Friday the federal government is concerned about increasing CPP contributions at the current time because it would slap an additional financial burden on employers during fragile economic times, potentially threatening their ability to hire workers. The federal government can’t unilaterally change the CPP; amending it requires the backing of two-thirds of the provinces representing two-thirds of the population. “This is not the time to put another burden on employers and dampen employment prospects for Canadians. That’s my view. Not everyone agrees with that view,” Flaherty told reporters Friday in Ottawa.


Notice that Flaherty’s concern is the employer, the boss, the corporation, not the worker and certainly not the average Canadian whom most of the premiers actually want to help: “It is estimated six in 10 Canadian workers in the private sector have no private pension plan, while approximately only one-third of Canadians make contributions to registered retirement savings plans.” So far the premiers outnumber Flaherty and have the constitution on their side, and their goal is both pragmatic and desirable given the other pension options.
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