The following note also appears on Business Insider. I owe Paul Tulloch a hat tip for reminding me of these issues in a good comment on my last post. When Ontario’s Premier recently complained that Canada’s petro-dollar undermines manufacturing exports, many economists tripped over each other to counter that a
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David Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: No one who has been paying attention should be surprised by Harper government’s fake pension ‘crisis’
“Holy shit,” this old guy is asking himself, “what was I thinking when I voted for Stephen Harper?” Below, Prime Minister Harper himself, possibly not exactly as illustrated. Below that, Mr. Harper as he appears to people who haven’t been paying attention. Does it really surprise anyone that Prime Minister
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Deregulation: A Bad Idea Crosses the Atlantic
The Harper government announced today that federal “regulators will be required to remove at least one regulation each time they introduce a new one that imposes administrative burden on business.” At the risk of imposing a proofreading burden on communications staff, that sentence is missing the word “an.” I first
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: New study dispels myths about public sector pay
OTTAWA – December 14, 2011: There is no evidence the average pay of public sector workers in Canada is consistently higher than comparable occupations in the private sector, reports a new study released today by the …Read More
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Economics 101: The Reality of Canadian Capitalism
In More Academic Terms
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Mind the OECD Credibility Gap
Further to Toby’s post, the OECD report on inequality is well worth a careful read. It bolsters, through careful empirical and cross country analysis, two key arguments long advanced by the labour movement and progressive economists: – key trends in the labour market – widening wage disparity between top earners
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: Molly’sBlog 2011-12-06 00:25:00
CANADIAN POLITICS: THE RICH GET RICHER: Oh my, is this “news” ? During good times the rich pull ahead as they manage to grab the fruits of expansion. In bad times guess what ? They keep pulling ahead. Good or bad they will get their paws into the till. Here’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Toby Sanger posts about the OECD’s findings on inequality in Canada, with this particularly jumping out as to how much less progressive our tax system is now than it was two decades ago: Taxes and benefits play a smaller role in reducing inequality
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: OECD on Inequality
Following concern expressed by the IMF, the Conference Board and of course thousands of protesters around the world, the OECD has just released an extensive 400 page report on the problem of growing inequality: Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps on Rising. I haven’t read through it yet, and it
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Apocalypse Soon?
The OECD’s new assessment of the macro-economic situation makes for pretty grim reading. And their forecast of very sluggish global growth (just 1.6% for the OECD area in 2012) is based on an increasingly incredible view that the Eurozone will “muddle through”and experience only a mild recession. They do not
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: McGuinty’s Graph Misleads on Corporate Taxes
Further to Jim’s excellent critique of the Ontario Conservative platform’s graphs, I am similarly struck by the Liberal platform’s lone graph. “Cutting Ontario’s Taxes on New Business Investment in Half” (page 25) purports to show that corporate tax cuts are required to get the province’s “Marginal Effective Tax Rate” below the US and OECD averages. […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Trish Hennessy’s latest Numbers consist of a comparison between Canada and other OECD countries…featuring some great news on the social front:84Percentage of Canadians, on average, who report the highest communit…
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: New information, more reasons to protect the Internet in Canada
According to the OECD Communications Outlook 2011 report, broadband use in Canada is one of the highest among OECD members.
The OECD recently released new information regarding broadband use and costs among its 33 member countries, and judging from t…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Use University Research to Increase Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second World War, manufacturing jobs accounted for 26% of all Canadian jobs; by 2007, this figure had dropped to just 12%. And as I’ve […]
Continue readingA little perspective on GDP growth or does policy matter?
These are odd times. Not one policy seems to get floated these days which does not include in the tag line that it will be good for economic growth. And it is not just tax cuts for the rich or … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading.- In case we didn’t already have enough examples of the Wall government’s contempt for voting, James Wood notes that it’s dragging its heels on authorizing any enumeration before the official writ period. That fig…
Continue readingThe love which dare not speak its name
People who would want to avoid reading my dissertation or anything about neoliberalism but nonetheless would like to have some idea about what has been going on in the world of public policy and economic policy in particular ought to … Continue r…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada Doesn’t Deserve the Silver
It has been widely reported in the Globe and elsewhere that Canada ranks #2 in the just-released OECD Better Life Index, outstripped only by Australia. I am all for measures of objective and subjective social well-being that go beyond GDP as a measure of progress, and this OECD report offers up some useful information. But […]
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