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…
Jim Stanford
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…
Who’s Bailing Whom? Challenging the Private Credit System
The time since 2008 has been a crucial historical moment for progressive economists to pull back the green curtain that surrounds the operation of the for-profit banking system, and expose…
No Technical Recession, Not That It Matters
Today’s GDP numbers (a sprightly gain of 0.3% at basic prices in July) ensure that there will not be a so-called “technical recession” in Canada — at least, not yet.…
CCPA Comparison of 3 Ontario Election Platforms
Hugh Mackenzie of the CCPA has prepared a comprehensive comparison of the election platforms of the three major parties in Ontario’s election. It reveals an enormous fiscal “hole” in the…
Profile of Displaced Workers
There’s an interesting new research report from Statistics Canada, by Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Rene Morissette, and Marc Frenette, profiling the workers who were displaced in the recent recession, and…
Tim Hudak’s Troubled Geometry
The Ontario election is in full swing, and the Conservative party’s campaign is guided by a platform booklet called the “changebook.” It’s an audacious manifesto for significant change in the…