We must come to terms with the crisis before the crisis— the steady rise in very insecure and low paid work which leaves far too many individuals and families one pay cheque away from disaster.
Falling effective rates of tax on corporate profits have greatly undercut government revenues, with no overall economic gain.
The real fiscal choice in the election is between tax cuts which deliver small benefits to many, or ambitious investments in public services which deliver a much bigger and fairer bang for the fiscal buck.
A Green New Deal in Canada will be a much more powerful tool for good job creation if twinned to an industrial strategy. But this will require a government prepared to push the limits and challenge the current rules of the game.
Without policy interventions that are based on data and a solid understanding of the issues that need to be addressed, inequality will continue to grow as millennials age — impacting future generations and their economic outcomes.
Green New Deal architects need to bring together the political coalition they need to be the change they want.
Canadians—and people of all nations—must ask themselves at what point does the concentration of economic power threaten, not just a couple thousand jobs in Oshawa, but the very basis of our sovereignty and democracy?
The global economy has to be seen, not so much as a set of discrete national economies trading with each other, but as a vast “macro financial” web of corporate balance sheets and financial flows.
The next financial crisis is coming, sooner more likely than later. And Canada has no reason to be complacent, given its own vulnerabilities.
