How Much Will YOU Lose from OAS Deferral??
Announcing a bad policy 10 years in advance doesn’t make it a good policy. So the fact that the Harper government is giving people at least 10 years to prepare…
Jim Stanford
Upstream Supply Chain as Sector Development Strategy
My column in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail suggested that Canada implement a “Buy Canadian” strategy associated with major natural resource developments, with the goal of enhancing Canadian content in the…
More on Declining Labour Force Participation
As a supplement to the excellent (and more timely!) posts from Andrew and Erin this morning, let me add a few points on the most striking feature of today’s Labour…
Who Wants “Closer” Ties With China?
The Prime Minister’s trip to China last week sparked a flurry of media coverage regarding prospects for “closer” economic ties between Canada and China. Some even speculated that another free…
Caterpillar and the Investment Canada Act
There’s been some good public debate about the need for changes to the Investment Canada process in light of Caterpillar’s incredible actions in London. They showed up uninvited in 2010,…
Canadian Triumphalism Increasingly Bizarre
Prime Minister Harper went to Davos yesterday to sing Canada’s praises. No sooner had he finished reciting a long list of our national achievements, however, then he launched into a…
When Management Locks the Doors
Quick: what do U.S. Steel, Rio Tinto, and Caterpillar all have in common? They’re all enormous, flexible global companies, given carte blanche by the Canadian government to purchase important long-standing…
The Global Economic Crisis—Part 1
The 2007-08 financial crisis marked a major turning point in the world economy. From your perspective, why was the recovery so weak and why did economic stagnation continue to characterize…
Of Bailouts and Liquidity Shakedowns
Here is an amazing multimedia article published by Bloomberg Markets Magazine in the U.S., that lists all of the individual banks which received financial assistance from the U.S. Federal Reserve…
Canada’s Petro-Recovery
Statsitics Canada released the third quarter GDP numbers today, and on the surface they seem pretty upbeat, considering all the doom and gloom lately. Headline real GDP grew at an…
Danger: Wage Deflation Ahead
The labour market is in much worse shape than the official 7.3% unemployment rate implies. The latest evidence for this proposition is today’s miserable report on employment and earnings from…
Invisible Hand Has Failed Canadian Innovation
The Globe and Mail is running an interesting series this week on Canada’s miserable performance in business innovation and productivity. Here is the main page. Barrie McKenna’s long piece on…
Inflation Targeting and the Crisis
Many long-held tenets of neoclassical orthodoxy have fallen by the wayside in the past 3 years, but perhaps one of the biggest dominos that is at least teetering precariously (if…
What Do Banks Actually DO? Teach-In With Occupy Toronto
What do banks actually DO? Create credit out of thin air. Were Canadian banks bailed-out? Absolutely, to the tune of $200 billion. And they are still protected and subsidized more…
Lisa Raitt’s Three Principles of Labour Law
Posted below is a slightly longer version of my column in today’s Globe and Mail regarding the Harper government’s highly creative approach to making up labour law on the run.…
What CETA Would Mean for Canada’s Auto Industry
Canadian free trade negotiators are going all-out to get a deal with the EU on a new free trade agreement. The Harper government wants a deal badly for largely symbolic…
Occupy Together: It’s About Time!
Here is a Globe and Mail commentary I wrote after attending the wonderful Occupy Toronto protests on the weekend. The media keep going off about how this movement has no…
Canada’s Billionaires
Just in time for the “Occupy Bay Street” protest this weekend, Canadian Business magazine has come out with its annual listing of the richest 100 people in Canada. So in…
Why the Excitement About Debt?
Further to our recent discussions on this blog about the role of private finance and credit in our present crisis, we present a guest contribution from Ralph Musgrave, an economist…
Private Member Bill on Union Financial Disclosure
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert tabled his private member bill in the Commons yesterday, calling for changes to the Income Tax Act to require unions (which are income-tax-exempt under the Act…