Archive for the ‘Policy Context’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Public health-care solutions pay dividends
Sunday, January 16th, 2011
January 13, 2011
… B.C. is a better choice for enterprise than Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angles and other commercial centres, in part because of its public health care system… KPMG arrived at these rankings in part because public non-profit health care is a great deal for the private sector, as employers save considerably by not having to pay for most medical benefits… Ontario’s economic development agency highlights how the province’s health care system reduces operating costs… Toyota’s decision to select Ontario over other North American locations was based in large part because of public health care.
Tags: globalization, Health, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Flaherty’s choice
Monday, January 10th, 2011
January 10, 2011
A two-year stimulus package was introduced in 2009, which meant that the 2010 budget didn’t have much to say… The story in 2010Q2-2010Q3 isn’t one of Canada lagging behind so much as the other G7 countries catching up… So should we embark on a round of austerity to deal with the deficit? Well, no: the recovery isn’t really complete. Yes, total employment has recovered its pre-recession peak, but important series such as full-time employment, private-sector employment and hours worked have not.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The working rich [‘job creators’]
Monday, January 10th, 2011
January 9, 2011
… goodbye corporate fat cats, hello job creators… those new corporate tax cuts that seem so ill-timed given the large deficit, so unfair given increases in taxes for the middle class in 2011, are completely justified. They are not going to already richly compensated Bay Street fat cats but to job creators! …Three decades of unrelenting neo-conservative preaching have turned taxes into a dirty word, as left-leaning economist Hugh Mackenzie says, “to the point where even governments don’t defend government.”
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Look east and south: Witness the end of post-colonialism
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Jan. 8, 2011
… we are witnessing the end of the post-colonial era in politics and economics. In China, Brazil and a dozen other countries, the type of thinking known as “post-colonial” – defined as a stark choice between angry resistance or humiliating subservience – has simply ceased to matter in political and business relations… While post-colonialism clings on in Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe and a handful of other places, it has vanished from most of the world with amazing speed.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Call a spade a spade: capitalism
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Dec 21 2010
I am puzzled about the… identification of “corporate greed” as the cause of social and economic exploitation. It is merely the symptom of philosophical liberalism that fosters an economic practice that privileges self-regarding behaviour, which is expected to lead to public virtue…. by the mid-1970s… the Anglo-American liberal democracies had full confidence that they no longer needed the co-operation of organized labour… [and] went to work in attacking social programs and the right of workers to unionize their workplaces.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in History, Policy Context | No Comments »
Corporate greed is eroding foundations of a just society
Saturday, December 11th, 2010
Dec 11 2010
Across the country, corporations are engaging in an unprecedented series of lockouts of their employees, demanding that workers’ standard of living be reduced… Hard-working families are seeing their standard of living undermined by the actions of CEOs whose salaries count in the millions or tens of millions… The 21st century corporate culture demands that pension plans be gutted, benefits weakened and jobs outsourced wherever possible. The immense greed that fed the global financial markets has seeped into the core values of Canadian business.
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Lessons from the recession
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
November 16, 2010
The Conference Board of Canada has a new book out Tuesday, Crisis and Intervention Lessons From the Financial Meltdown and Recession. The book is a compilation of post mortem reflections by the private think tank’s economists about the recent crisis. Among the dominant themes is that governments still have a vital role to play…. Here’s a quick rundown of board’s key findings:
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The Ins and Outs of Foreign Investment
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
Nov. 12, 2010
Instead of continuing to wordsmith an Act that has almost always been a rubber stamp, we should undertake a more honest and wide-ranging examination of the pros and cons of foreign investment. And the starting point of that examination should be a review of where we stand right now… If foreign investment enhances the real capacity of our national economy (by adding real capital investment, technology, and export opportunities that we wouldnt have had otherwise), then its a no-brainer: we clearly benefit. But for the most part, thats not the kind of foreign investment weve been getting lately.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Economic woes a sign of decline
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
Oct 22 2010
… almost overnight, government is being seen as a potential source of national bankruptcy rather than the source of national prosperity… [due to] huge budget deficits… the solution of deep spending cuts, even if correct, itself creates a whole new problem. Less government spending means less economic activity and, as a consequence, less tax revenue and so a larger deficit… the Japan Syndrome… it responded to hard times by cutting back and got itself locked into a straitjacket of slow growth, high unemployment, low tax revenues and, as a consequence of all that, a high debt.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Recession and the failure of the left
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Oct 09 2010
Today’s economic slump is routinely compared to that of the 1930s. But the most striking difference is political. The Great Depression gave a boost to both labour unions and the left. This time, the opposite is happening… unions tend to be viewed as bastions of privilege, latter-day versions of medieval guilds that exist only to protect the lucky few. Indeed, unions have become bastions. The roughly 30 per cent of Canadian workers who still belong to unions enjoy better pensions and benefits, higher wages and more paid holidays than the 70 per cent who do not… Unions cannot thrive when they represent only a minority of workers.
Tags: globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Recent Comments