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Think Labour Cost Cuts “Saved” the Auto Industry? Think Again.
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
August 31, 12011
Implicit… is the assumption that high labour costs were indeed the reason why the Detroit Three got into trouble… The flip side is the corollary claim that the reason the companies have recovered… must be because they dramatically reduced their labour costs. Both assumptions are wrong. Labour costs were not the key problem in the Detroit Three’s crisis. And cuts in labour costs have not been the key reason, or even a major reason, for the subsequent improvement in their performance… Yet labour costs (and labour negotiations) seem to get 99% of the attention.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
There are bigger threats to our fragile recovery than the postal dispute
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Jul. 04, 2011
The government has indicated its willingness to interfere in normal contractual relationships between private parties, even dictating contractual outcomes, in the interests of preserving Canada’s economic momentum… Why is the government, so quick to intervene to suppress compensation for the humble folks who deliver our mail, standing on the sidelines while powerful people enrich themselves at the expense of our national prosperity? Perhaps it’s not the economy they’re concerned with after all.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | 5 Comments »
GDP Report: Awfully Weak Tea Leaves
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
June 1, 2011
Consumers and governments are tapped out, and their spending binge is over. Net exports are falling. Business investment is not nearly vibrant enough to pick up the slack. Where will future growth come from? Someone has to be borrowing and spending, for demand to expand and the economy to grow. All this should lead Mr. Flaherty (and provincial finance ministers) to fundamentally reconsider the austerity track onto which they are steering Canada’s fiscal policy. Merely by freezing government spending, Canada’s real economic momentum has been considerably undermined.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
For resource value, reject the helicopter model
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
May. 30, 2011
Natural resources are increasingly central to Canada’s economic trajectory. Our challenge is to maximize the positive spinoffs from resource developments, while minimizing the economic and environmental costs…. The Roil report is a careful and thoughtful attempt to come to grips with concrete challenges associated with Canada’s growing reliance on globalized resource sectors. It should be studied by policy-makers in all provinces.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Having Their Cake and Eating It Too
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
April 13, 2011
This study examines historical data on business investment and cash flow from 1961 through 2010, and, using econometric techniques, finds no evidence in the historical data that lower taxes have directly stimulated more investment. Business fixed capital spending has declined notably as a share of GDP and as a share of corporate cash flow since the early 1980s—despite repeated tax cuts that have reduced the combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate from 50% to just 29.5% in 2010.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | 1 Comment »
Not exactly an economic gold medal
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
Mar. 30, 2011.
The Conservatives’ drive for a majority is premised on positioning themselves as the best economic managers… In reality, however, the claim that things may be tough here, but they’re better than anywhere else, has never been statistically valid… Canada’s performance has been middling at best… among the countries that avoided bank failures, Canada’s performance has actually been subpar.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The fairy tale land called Equilibria
Friday, March 18th, 2011
March 14, 2011
Citizen columnist John Robson poked great fun at me recently with his “Economic children’s story” (March 5): a humorous fairy tale about a land where unions kill the goose that laid the golden egg, until taxpaying denizens (starting in Wisconsin) throw off the yoke imposed by overpaid teachers and garbage collectors. Of course, if workers were really paid in golden eggs, unions would never have been invented. Instead, unions were born in a less pastelhued world where workers fought even for the basics of survival. Employers and their think tanks have been complaining ever since…
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Boost the wage, help the worker
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
February 22, 2011
U.S. economists David Card and Alan Kruger found no reliable empirical evidence that higher minimum wages produce unemployment. But they found several benefits of minimum wages, including a “trickle-up” effect (whereby many non-minimum-wage workers also got raises); reduced turnover; and higher productivity… If demand for goods and services is chronically weak, increasing purchasing power (by boosting wages) can kickstart demand and thereby increase job creation… Minimum wages… should be increased gradually but steadily in the years to come.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Redirecting our rage at the real gravy train
Monday, January 17th, 2011
Jan. 17, 2011
In the 1930s, outrage at the pre-Depression extravagance of the rich, contrasting with the dislocation experienced by masses of Americans, sparked a decade of left-leaning foment. Government expanded income security, directly hired millions of unemployed, and actively supported a new generation of unions to fight for the common folk. Meantime, it reined in business excess through tough financial rules, anti-trust policies, and high taxes on the rich. This time around, there’s been plenty of populist anger – but (so far) it’s been steered in exactly the opposite direction
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality History | No Comments »
To manage health costs, invest in social well-being
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Dec. 8, 2010
For concrete physiological reasons, human health suffers when people are subjected to prolonged hardship, stress and disparity. The physiology of this connection involves many body systems, including the impact of stress and unhappiness on metabolism, hormone production, circulatory function and other systems… addressing the underlying social problems… can help to rein in health costs. Governments must therefore be holistic in their programming and budgeting, instead of obsessing on reducing one budget line without regard to how that may affect other expenses.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | 5 Comments »
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