Archive for the ‘Policy Context’ Category
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Buffett misses mark
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug 16, 2011
Already the highest-income taxpayers — about 5% of taxpayers — pay almost 60% of U.S. income taxes. The bottom half of the population pays only 3%. So any tax increase imposed on high-income earners should be in areas where some, like Warren Buffett, are paying far less than other wealthy individuals. Warren Buffett’s 17% tax rate results only because he gets a large number of breaks that other wealthier Americans, like doctors, cannot use… The United States needs major tax reform… U.S. income taxes are complex, inefficient and highly unfair.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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What wealth can be found in the public sector?
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug 16 2011
… why the private sector “doesn’t have a lock on wealth creation”… the approach stems from a misconception that the public sector is an expense and only the private sector can create wealth… “Clean, potable water is a form of wealth… Quality public schools are a form of wealth. It doesn’t become wealth creating only when you privatize it… Moving services from the public to the private “isn’t wealth creating, it’s wealth shifting”… Right now, governments are focusing on cuts instead of how to increase revenue through bringing “fairness into the tax code”.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Pension lessons for Canada from Down Under
Monday, August 8th, 2011
Aug 07 2011
The Australian “superannuation” system offers a way to move the financial burden of retirement away from the hurly-burly of workplace negotiation and to largely remove the threat of retirement poverty… As well as voluntary savings and a means-tested government pension similar to the Canadian OAS, Australia has an earnings-based pension system called “superannuation” that covers virtually all full- and part-time workers. The contributions are mandated by law and are paid solely by the employer… Employees are free to top up these contributions but are under no obligations to do so.
Tags: ideology, pensions, privatization, rights, standard of living
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Sure Cure for the Debt Problem: Economic Growth
Sunday, August 7th, 2011
July 30, 2011
… there is, in theory, a happy solution to our debt troubles. It’s called economic growth. No need to raise taxes or cut programs. Just get the economy growing the way it used to… But… in the 1950s, the United States didn’t have Medicare. The population was younger, and Americans didn’t live as long… While it may be difficult or impossible to grow our way out of debt, the G.D.P. figures… suggest that we could quite possibly shrink our way into bankruptcy. The austerity measures that Congress is debating would almost certainly slow growth further. That, in turn, might actually worsen the debt problem — the exact opposite of what their proponents suggest.
Tags: economy, ideology
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America’s fiscal mess offers long-term opportunities for Canada
Friday, July 29th, 2011
Jul. 29, 2011
In the longer term, the U.S. fiscal mess offers Canada opportunities to improve its comparative position – but only if Canada invests in the minds of its people and its competitive infrastructure… an extra dollar spent on education and research will be a dollar well spent, in comparative and competitive terms, provided the teachers and professors don’t grab most of the new spending. An extra dollar spent, say, on even more health care will do nothing for Canada comparatively or competitively.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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New rules for executive pay
Monday, July 25th, 2011
Jul 22 2011
…Canadian Securities Administrators — the umbrella group including 13 provincial and territorial securities regulators —Friday unveiled new rules on executive compensation, beginning in October… Requiring the boards of publicly-traded companies to show they’ve considered the risks of how much they’re paying their executives, such as whether the CEO’s pay packet is so high that their personal interest isn’t aligned with the shareholders’. Also, companies must now disclose the fees they’re paying to outside compensation firms.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Today’s Tories look a lot like Liberals
Friday, June 24th, 2011
Jun 24, 2011
… the federal government continues to spend more than $1-billion, mainly in direct grants to businesses. What do we get for that money? It’s hard to tell. None of them provide the number of jobs created with the money, or the amount sales have increased in the companies supported. All have rather nebulous performance targets… This is what economists call an “infra-marginal investment” — one that would have taken place anyway… even when jobs are created, federal studies have shown that they are few in number and that costs per job created are high.
Tags: budget, ideology, tax
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Ottawa develops workplace mental-health standards, but stops short of legislation
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Jun. 16, 2011
The development of a national standard comes at a time when employers are under increasing legal pressure to provide healthy workplaces, even as the personal and financial cost of mental health rises in Canada. A report released in October found that over the past five years, damages awarded for workplace mental-health injuries have increased by 700 per cent… The standards are intended to lay out specific tools and guidelines for employers to assist workers struggling with illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Tags: economy, mental Health, rights, standard of living
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The jobs crisis
Monday, June 13th, 2011
Jun 13, 2011
… the central objective of national economic policy until sustained recovery is firmly established must be increasing confidence, borrowing and lending, and spending… it is a false economy to defer infrastructure maintenance and replacement, and instead take advantage of a moment when 10-year interest rates are below 3 percent and construction unemployment approaches 20 percent to expand infrastructure investment. It is far too soon for financial policy to shift toward preventing future bubbles and possible inflation and away from assuring adequate demand.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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Against Learned Helplessness
Sunday, June 5th, 2011
May 29, 2011
…there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing… As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, standard of living
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