Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category
Economic growth tops the priority list for Canadian policymakers — here’s why
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
We should be making room for measures of personal and collective well-being other than GDP. But we also need economic growth — not just so we can consume more, or generate more revenue for governments, but so we can take better care of one another… growth could include better housing, better food and better health care, or even a better defence posture. And it need not require consuming more natural resources.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Ottawa puts up $50M in federal budget to hedge against job-stealing AI
Sunday, April 21st, 2024
“There is a significant transformation of the economy and society on the horizon around artificial intelligence”… Some jobs will be lost, others will be created… AI is an issue “across sectors, but certainly clerical and customer service jobs are more vulnerable… two types of skills it makes sense to focus on in retraining — computational thinking, or understanding how computers operate and make decisions, and skills dealing with data.
Tags: budget, economy, participation
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Liberal budget hits a home run on housing, but plays small ball on care economy
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024
Here are three ways federal small ball could deliver big results without big spends in the coming months: Child care Workforce Deals… with a focus on workforce attraction and retention… tracking trends in the investments occurring in our long-term care, child care and health-care sectors… examining ways of putting new guardrails on public funding… Care services such as child care, long-term care, medical or dental community clinics can be a built-in feature of new housing and infrastructure developments.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, housing, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
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Carbon pricing is good for the climate and affordability
Saturday, April 6th, 2024
To keep the planet livable for humans and most other life forms, we can’t keep burning fossil fuels, which are becoming scarce and costly… Climate-related damage to everything from agriculture to human health also drives up costs for everyone… This is no time to get rid of effective policies, or even water them down. Those attacking the carbon levy with false and misleading information offer no alternatives, especially ones as cost-effective as carbon pricing.
Tags: economy, Health, standard of living
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To solve the housing crisis, we must get government building housing again
Saturday, April 6th, 2024
Following the end of the Second World War, the federal government built or funded hundreds of thousands of nonmarket homes. But in the 1980s and 1990s, Conservative and Liberal governments pulled back… Nonmarket housing is not something that we should pursue instead of an increase in private sector construction… But the private sector alone — even freed of zoning — can’t provide relief to Canadians crying out for help… We need the government to get back into building housing.
Tags: housing, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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Our cost-of-living crisis: In just three years rent has doubled, groceries are up nearly 40 per cent. There are solutions
Sunday, March 24th, 2024
… a new model of economic governance… would… strengthen the social safety net with universal basic income (UBI) and “living wages,” which pay workers according to the cost of living in their localities… Bottom line: The cost-of-living crisis is real, will not go away on its own, and threatens to stoke social unrest… there are solutions to it
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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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.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living
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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.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
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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.
Tags: homelessness, housing, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
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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.”
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology
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