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By The Ranting Canadian, on May 5, 2013, at 7:06 pm
I just saw that today, May 5, is the birthday of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), the German economist, historian, journalist and philosopher. I post this video in honour of the occasion. It’s a bit silly, and I’m not sure of the intentions of the creators, but I’ve been waiting for an appropriate occasion to share it.
I haven’t read any Marx in a very long time, other than passages that other people quote, but his writings are certainly still relevant today, especially in this era of economic collapse, ongoing exploitation of workers, growing inequality and top-down austerity measures.
Marx wasn’t (Read more…)
By Eric Pineault, on April 22, 2013, at 12:58 pm The IMF’s latest delivery of the World Economic outlook contains an interesting analysis of the current “non” recovery in terms of a divergence between fiscal and monetary policy, the first between restrictive and procyclical in nature and the second being accommodating and reinforcing a financial expansion. As argued here by the IMF economists who worked on this issue, the “great” divergence then is between a stagnating productive economy punished by austerity and a booming financial economy supported by quantitative easing and real low interest rates ? I’ve read here and there analysis of the divergence by a number of commentators, the (Read more…) and most interesting being this column by Gavin Davies in the FT,
and I’m wondering if this is what a “Financialized recovery” looks like.
I’ll be udpdating this post later with data on Canada, in the mean time here are 4 charts taken from the WEO report, . . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: Great Divergence or Financialized recovery ?
By The Ranting Canadian, on April 8, 2013, at 8:53 pm
This anti-Thatcher song is “We Rule OK” by the working-class Oi! band The Last Resort. Some right-wingers try to claim this band as one of their own, but that is not accurate. The Last Resort are patriotic and pro-working class, not Conservatives or fascists. Here are the lyrics.
We Rule OK
The government policies are out of handThey ain’t got a clue how to run this landMargaret Thatcher the stupid old bitchTakes from the poor and gives to the rich
She thinks we can’t see her planTo kill the spirit of the working class manMake (Read more…)
By The Ranting Canadian, on April 8, 2013, at 7:09 pm
In grade 9 or 10 French class, we had an assignment to write a page of text in French and accompany it with some graphics. I chose to write about the French Revolution, and for the picture, I cut out magazine photos of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney and used them to represent the French aristocrats getting their heads cut off by guillotines. I learned much later that my teacher reported this to the vice-principal, concerned that I was disturbed and violent. She was way off base, and when the vice-principal contacted my parents, they told him so.
. . . → Read More: The Ranting Canadian: In grade 9 or 10 French class, we had an assignment to write a…
By Jay Cables, on April 3, 2013, at 9:06 am It doesn’t require a Trotskyist or a laid off worker to tell you that capitalism isn’t working. Not only does it not work, it is destroying societies… it is destroying lives, incomes and empowering a tiny elite, who never seem to fail, go broke or go to jail. Well, when they do go broke governments bail them out with your money so they can continue their rapacious ways. It’s called capitalism – and it is in deep trouble.
Richard D Wolff is a professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he taught economics from 1973 to
. . . → Read More: drive-by planet: Capitalism is self-destructing: Richard Wolff on the ways
By The Mound of Sound, on March 27, 2013, at 11:01 am Britain’s Tory government is hoping desperately to avoid a “triple dip” recession on its watch. The Cameron government eked out a 0.1% growth for the three months ending March 1st, about as slender a margin as they come.
Recently, however, the British Isles have been plunged into a deep freeze that researchers are now attributing to atmospheric changes triggered by the loss of Arctic sea ice. Now it seems the cold snap could plunge Britain into yet another recession, the “triple dip.”
…amid reports of empty shopping malls, closed schools and factory shutdowns, analysts said the
. . . → Read More: The Disaffected Lib: Will Climate Change Drive Britain Back Into Recession?
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on January 16, 2013, at 10:51 pm Most Canadian kids don’t leave home without their mother telling them, “Don’t forget your jacket.” Always offering the reminder so her child doesn’t catch a cold. Canada may not have a mother looking out for us, at least on this continent, but Stephen Harper is a big boy and he should know better that in this cold global economic environment our country should be better insulated.
Protecting Canada from the worsening global economy would not mean staying home and reducing trade, it would mean the opposite, improving trade without being vulnerable to every cold breeze. In fact if Stephen
. . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Cold Conservatism & Canada Without A Jacket
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on January 1, 2013, at 10:46 pm “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin
The fiscal cliff in the United States did not just endanger its own country’s economy but the world’s, including Canada’s heavily dependent one. But in the American problem lies, at least partially, a Canadian solution: an estate tax.
The inability for Democrats and Republicans to prevent the fiscal cliff and the current uncertainty relating to the world’s largest economy is threatening the fledgling global recovery.
Canada, a country whose economy is always extremely vulnerable to external crises, is now only more so.
. . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: If A Fiscal Cliff Kills, Canada Should Tax Death
By Marc Lee, on December 5, 2012, at 4:19 pm As we close out 2012, BC finds itself in some precarious economic waters. To recap, a massive housing bubble that built up through the naughties (2000s) finally burst in 2008, feeding a financial crisis, as extremely loose (some would say fraudulent) lending practices pushed housing prices up to spectacular, never-seen-before levels, and created a plague of toxic mortgage-based assets. The inevitable collapse of that bubble triggered our current context of depression economics; that is, a major drop in the value of housing assets on the balance sheets of many millions, making people poorer and undercutting their other consumption (in the
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: State of the BC Economy
By Yappa, on December 4, 2012, at 12:44 am When we have a recession and there’s a call for stimulus, a lot of people – especially on the right – dispute the effectiveness of Keynesian economics. People like Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were so ideologically committed to small government that as we entered recession in 2008 they tried to cut spending… resulting in a threatened coalition and subsequent prorogation, with crisis averted only when Harper gave in to opposition demands to enact a stimulus package.
Throughout this recent recession, many on the right argued that deficit-cutting must be the priority. They didn’t care that the (Read more…)
By AppalledBC, on December 1, 2012, at 2:12 pm There’s every chance we’ll have at least a technical recession in the fourth quarter given these statistics: “The economy slumped to 0.6 per cent in the third quarter — below even the gloomy 0.8 consensus and about one-third what t… . . . → Read More: Politics and Entertainment: Canada’s economy in a stall, StatsCan reports
By Jay Cables, on November 16, 2012, at 1:24 am Millions across Europe turned out November 14 in an anti-austerity ‘day of protest and solidarity.’ The coordinated protests are happening at a time when Europe is headed back into recession as determined by economic indicators, although there have… . . . → Read More: drive-by planet: N14 anti-austerity ‘day of protest’ across Europe: pictures and video links
By Shawn Whitney, on November 2, 2012, at 10:38 am Remember how the Tories are the party you want to vote for in tough economic times because they’re great managers and willing to make the tough decisions? Remember all that stuff?
Yeah, well, the Tories are poking holes in the Canadian economy faster than the rest of us can bail.
Two figures tell the tale. The first relates to the government’s quiet austerity. At a time when, if anything, the
By CuriosityCat, on October 15, 2012, at 11:38 am Vicious circle?
Very interesting article which puts into numbers the cost of the financial meltdown and the recession:
In much of the industrial world, what started as a financial problem is becoming a structural one. If growth in the US and Europe had been maintained at its average rate from 1990 to 2007, gross domestic product would have been between 10 and 15 per cent higher today and more than 15 per cent higher by 2015 on credible projections. Of course, this calculation may be misleading because global GDP in 2007 was inflated by the same factors that created financial . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: This recession has cost you $12,000 per year
By CuriosityCat, on September 16, 2012, at 5:32 pm Seems American voters want more than simply I am not the other guy from their presidential contenders, even when the country is suffering from a deep recession with high unemployment, which should doom the incumbent president:
In their seminal book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff provide extensive data on the recovery time from financial crises with similar attributes to the 2008 collapse. They describe the patterns of events and the rationale for policy responses in detail, and their data suggests that the 2008 collapse is far from unique. . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Mitt Romney’s failure: The Recession is Not Enough
By Oh, on August 16, 2012, at 7:49 pm One of Canada’s enduring mythologies is that during the NDP reign in Ontario from 1990 to 1995 a whole plethora of woe was inflicted as the result of Bob Rae and his mismanagement. Most people point to the fact that during that time the deficit of Ontario increased quite a bit – this is true.
A common article for the Toronto Sun outlines this: Rae tripled Ontario’s deficit to $9.7 billion and raised taxes in his first budget in 1991, saying he was proud to fight the recession rather than the deficit.
But, to be fair, Rae was facing (Read more…)
By Andrew Jackson, on June 18, 2012, at 10:04 am Today’s Statscan release of income data for 2010 allow for a backward glance at the state of the recovery.
What is most striking is that – following two years of flat income growth in 2008 and 2009 – there was no meaningful economic recovery for most Canadians in 2010. Median earnings (half earned more, half earned less) were slightly down (from $29,300 to $29,100) and median income after tax of economic families of two persons and more was up a mere $100, from $65,400 to $65,500. This is somewhat surprising given that 2010 was marked by a modest fall in
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: Incomes Flat in “Recovery Year” of 2010
By Laurence Miall, on May 11, 2012, at 6:13 pm
It is the year 2040. China is the world’s dominant economic power, while North America’s decline has forced most of its citizens into degrading and menial jobs. In Toronto, two “silk-gatherers” collect and sell “spiz,” the remnants of secretions from giant arachnoids. Other jobs of the future include “digital janitor,” “baby-maker” and “human spam.” Such is the premise of a new Canadian film, Ghosts With Shit Jobs, premiered this week in London, England, and produced for only $4,000.
Is this “lo-fi sci-fi” the future of Canadian filmmaking? If the Harper government gets its way, corporate entertainment or art-on-a-shoestring
. . . → Read More: Art Threat: Ghosts with Shit Jobs – Is this $4,000 “lo-fi sci-fi” the future of Canadian Filmmaking?
By David Macdonald, on April 30, 2012, at 11:10 am 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 Canada, as well as quarterly reports from the banks themselves.
The conventional narrative about the performance Canada’s big banks during the financial crisis goes as follows: while American banks bet heavily on sub-prime real estate and had extensive shadow bank holdings, Canadian banks did not.
However, the details
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: The Big Banks’ Big Secret
By Obert Madondo, on March 24, 2012, at 9:33 am For many families in Canada, income security is an elusive dream, according to a new study released by the Vanier Institute for the Family. The report, The Current State of Canadian Family Finances, shows that income inequality is increasing. Canadian … Continue reading →
By redtory, on March 19, 2012, at 8:11 pm Unlike his two immediate predecessors who unwisely allowed themselves to be negatively defined by relentless campaigns of character assassination from the Conservatives, Bob Rae is making it clear that he’s not going to sit idle and simply allow attack ads by Harper’s mufti-million dollar smear machine to go unanswered. Instead, he’s determined to set the record straight (as he sees it), hit back and fight fire with fire…
As with the video noted in a previous post, this seems to be indicative of a more confident and aggressive communications strategy emanating from the LPC – one that has been sorely
. . . → Read More: Red Tory v.3.0.3: Defending “Rae Days”
By Iglika Ivanova, on March 4, 2012, at 11:32 am Last Monday, BC teachers held a Day of Action in communities across the province to protest the BC government’s decision to legislate a contract and put an end to their collective bargaining process. I was invited to speak to teachers at the Surrey rally, where I had the opportunity to share some of my analysis of the BC Budget (which readers of the PolicyNote blog are familiar with) and debunk some myths around the economic and fiscal context in which the teachers’ bargaining process is taking place.
It was an honour to show support to teachers in my adoptive country
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: BC isn’t broke: putting teacher bargaining in perspective
By Nick Falvo, on January 8, 2012, at 5:50 pm December marked the three-year anniversary of Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. While I believe there is much to celebrate, much remains to be done.
The Strategy surprised a lot of observers, especially in light of the fact that it was announced in December 2008, just as Ontario was entering a recession. Its focus was almost exclusively child poverty, and, at full implementation (i.e. 2013), it will result in $300 million in new annual spending. This is equivalent to 0.3 percent of total provincial spending in Ontario, which is roughly $100 billion.
One stated goal of the Strategy is to
. . . → Read More: The Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy
By AppalledBC, on January 2, 2012, at 12:55 pm Cuts for cash: it can only spur mangers to propose even deeper cuts. Only a nasty neoliberal would use the profit motive to conduct what is supposed to be a rational, considered appraisal of departmental services and staffing needs in the Public Service. And how much is the per diem fee for the consulting firm? $90,000, as I recall. Think about how smugly hypocrtical this exercise really is too: who cut the GST by 2%, obviating a simple source of tax revenue, who blew the Liberal surplus, and who ran up the PS by 33,000 employees and wages by $5
. . . → Read More: Politics and Entertainment: Cuts for Cash: Think about how absolutely appalling and hypocritical this tactic is
By AppalledBC, on December 3, 2011, at 5:42 pm These remarks of Paul Krugman could easily apply to Canada, for it is essentially homeowners with their massively extended debt load who have bumped our debt to GDP ratio up to 203%, and we too require expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to support the Canadian economy. We won’t be getting them from Flaherty or Carney, of course, the latter after all linked to the vampire squib in NYC. I fear all three jurisdictions slowly but inevitably descending down the pot-holed road of recession towards the sink hole of depression. ”The combination of austerity-for-all and a central bank morbidly obsessed with . . . → Read More: Politics and Entertainment: descending down the pot-holed road of recession towards the sink hole of depression
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