Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Many fear COVID-19 will cause social breakdown. But something quite different is happening
Saturday, April 4th, 2020
We are witnessing an extraordinary surge of solidarity. Suddenly the notion that the economy exists to serve people and not the other way around seems blazingly obvious. Suddenly the notion that we can accomplish more collectively than we could ever accomplish alone is beyond debate… The pandemic is not bringing about a world of crumbled institutions and adversarial individualism; that’s the world we seemed to be heading toward before the virus started its terrible work… Just look how governments and experts and we together are mobilizing.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Guaranteed basic income in a time of need
Friday, April 3rd, 2020
Milton Friedman, that leading apostle of small government and swaggering free markets, had something to say about new ideas. He succeeded in making his ideas seem like common sense. “Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around,” he said. The COVID-19 crisis offers the opportunity for Canada to stop merely discussing basic income. It’s time to get going with this common sense.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Trudeau just green lit a ‘basic income’ for Canadians
Friday, April 3rd, 2020
… a basic income will cost $43 billion annually to implement across Canada. If we factor in provincial income assistance – and get rid of this inadequate cluster of systems – we’re down to $23 billion dollars a year… Incidentally, that’s what we pay every year to make the Canada Child Benefit happen – and not quite half the cost of both the OAS and GIS… let this pandemic be a catalyst for permanent action to stabilize the lives of millions of Canadians and create a healthier, more equitable Canada.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Hitting Home: Hours And Wages Lost To Covid-19 By Location, Age, Income And Education
Thursday, April 2nd, 2020
Across the country, about 44 percent of households have experienced lost hours or layoffs due to COVID-19, with only one-fifth of the affected workers in those households fully compensated by their employer, and two-thirds receiving no coverage or compensation… While the CERB will provide financial support for those who fully lost their income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the wage subsidy will help reduce further lost hours and layoffs.
Tags: economy, jurisdiction, participation
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Ottawa steps forward as COVID-19 crisis puts provinces in desperate straits
Thursday, April 2nd, 2020
… temporary programs have a way of turning into permanent entitlements. Through the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, which pays suddenly unemployed workers $2,000 a month, “we might have backed ourselves into some sort of universal basic income,” … We may have accidentally federalized welfare… The problem with creating a basic income more or less by accident is that no one knows how to pay for it, or how it would adapt to regional realities.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Invest in colleges now to rebuild Ontario after COVID-19: OPSEU
Thursday, April 2nd, 2020
“It takes $4.7 billion to operate Ontario’s colleges… About $1.1 billion – almost a quarter – comes from international student tuition. As the government has cut funding, colleges have relied more and more on international students to make up the shortfall. With COVID-19, and without joint problem solving, that income will dry up – and so will college revenues. We’re looking at a postsecondary education catastrophe in the making.”
Tags: budget, economy, youth
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
They’re World War deficit levels, but not the biggest or the baddest yet
Wednesday, April 1st, 2020
The deficits being projected now look to be roughly 5 to 8 per cent of GDP… The 1984 deficit was 8.1 per cent of GDP, when the economy was recovering from the 1982 recession and interest rates paid on the national debt were high. But in those terms, the deficits are not on the scale of the Second World War, when military production and defence spending pushed the annual deficit to 23 per cent of GDP in 1943. A comparable deficit in 2020 would be nearly $500-billion… Canada has seen worse.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
Posted in History | No Comments »
Their work is keeping Canada safe. But they earn a fraction of the national average
Tuesday, March 31st, 2020
From food processing to warehouses to delivery services, the workers deemed essential to maintaining the country’s vital supply chain are significantly more likely to be low-wage and racialized compared to the rest of the labour market… “We have to really look at governments to respond in a longer term manner by increasing minimum wages, easing access to unionization, and increasing both protections and enforcement under minimum employment standards”
Tags: economy, Health, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
We can’t just pick up the pieces after the pandemic subsides – we need to keep them together
Monday, March 30th, 2020
… All governments are being affected by dramatic losses in revenues, but, as with a virus, the impact is not universally the same. Some economies are more robust than others. These issues cannot be allowed to fester. They will need to be addressed. So too the continuing inequalities affecting Indigenous people and communities as well as the homeless and others deeply marginalized now stare us in the face…
Tags: economy, globalization, Health, homelessness, ideology, Indigenous, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Coronavirus has shown us we were living in an economic fairy tale
Monday, March 30th, 2020
… in late 2008, something extraordinary happens. Instead of allowing the system to fail as capitalism calls for, governments bail out the system. By doing so, they save the same people that created the crisis in the first place, effectively guaranteeing their wins and socializing their losses.
The “real” value of your cash is destroyed as new money is created out of thin air and the system is bailed out… Everyone once again believes in the fairy tale.
Tags: economy, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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