Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category

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Time to put the capita back in GDP per capita

Thursday, March 7th, 2024

The more societies set the stage to maximize their macroeconomic potential, the more they can make the impossible possible…the challenge isn’t about finding a better metric; it’s about putting the focus on the capita in GDP per capita. Because money doesn’t make an economy. People do. They — we! — are the true measure of an advanced economy.

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What Brian Mulroney got wrong on free trade with the U.S.

Tuesday, March 5th, 2024

Mulroney, Reagan and Thatcher sang a siren song. Get governments out of the way! Let the market rule! Economic globalization, with its program of free trade, privatization and deregulation and everyone would benefit. Corporations surely did… And Canadian CEOs did too… the richest CEOs are paid 246 times more than the average worker.

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The private sector housing experiment has failed: Ottawa must now step up on social housing

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024

… some are quick to tell us… that governments should simply incentivize private sector developers and remove “red tape.” But our research shows no evidence this will work… There are many strategies needed simultaneously to address housing affordability. The expansion of social housing supply is one. But calls are all too often ignored by governments turning to the private sector for low-cost quick fixes that continue to fail those in greatest need.

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Cure for the Public Debt Pandemic: An Economic-Principles-Based Fiscal Anchor

Friday, February 2nd, 2024

… we don’t have a textbook fiscal policy but rather a counter-recession and pro-expansion debt policy… over a business cycle, the net accumulation of public debt should be equal to the value of income-generating investments. This anchor would fluctuate with changes in business conditions but would guide policymakers to maintain the tight relationship of its two parts over time… We can call this anchor “net economic public debt.”

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Canada unveils new restrictions on work permits for international students, spouses

Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Starting on Sept. 1, the federal government will stop issuing postgraduate work permits to international students who graduate from programs provided under so-called Public College-Private Partnerships, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said… “I’m not the minister of post-secondary education underfunding. I’m the minister of immigration. Clearly in the last decade or so or even longer, post-secondary institutions in Canada have been underfunded by provinces.”

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Don’t Blame Carbon Pricing for Affordability Challenges

Monday, January 1st, 2024

With the latest data, we find that the gradually increasing indirect taxes, including carbon taxes, have caused overall consumer prices to be only 0.6 per cent higher in October 2023 than they were in January 2015… The effect of carbon pricing on rising food prices is even smaller, accounting for the indirect effects of carbon taxes… Carbon pricing is definitively not to blame for affordability challenges.

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Financed by Canada, medical breakthrough helps Big Pharma, not global poor

Thursday, December 14th, 2023

Canadian taxpayers played a key role in funding the technology that made mRNA vaccines possible. Yet Canadian authorities took no steps to ensure that the resulting vaccines would be made accessible to people who needed them rather than simply becoming enormous profit-generators for Big Pharma… Today’s system, which prioritizes private profits and intellectual property rights, is in sharp contrast with the system in place for six decades when Canada had publicly-owned Connaught Labs.

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Federal government’s new fiscal guardrails ‘helpful’ for monetary policy: Macklem

Thursday, November 23rd, 2023

The fall economic statement made new commitments on how the federal government will approach its finances, including setting a goal to keep deficits below 1 per cent of the GDP beginning in 2026-27… The governor said Canada has two advantages today compared with the 1970s. The first is that people expect inflation to come back down in the long run; the second, that the Bank of Canada responded forcefully this time with aggressive rate hikes.

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Canada poised to create public company registry to curb financial secrecy

Monday, November 20th, 2023

The new registry will require companies to publicly disclose beneficial ownership information of federally registered companies — a move experts say will help expose criminals and tax cheats who anonymously create companies or purchase property… Panama Papers dataset, revealed how Canada had emerged as a popular tax haven, touted by corporate service providers as a “reputable” destination to hide wealth.

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Levelling the playing field: The case for a federal ‘anti-scab’ law

Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

Despite corporate objections to the contrary, anti-scab laws can play an integral role in improving union-management relations… it would force employers to focus on reaching negotiated settlements rather than strategizing over how to best undermine and antagonize union members exercising their right to strike. 

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