Author Archives: wciecon
Headline juxtaposition du jour: Canadian auto sector edition
Two items on my google news page: GM to lay off 700 more workers in Oshawa: General Motors of Canada Ltd. is laying off 700 more workers at its Oshawa, Ont., operations, the Canadian Auto Workers union said Friday. The layoffs at the car plant will take place in February. Further down: Toyota opens second factory […]
October may have been the peak. Now what?
An ugly LFS report: employment fell by 71,000 – the sort of report we haven't seen since the last time we were in recession. And no commodities boom is going to come save us this time. It's time to do something - but not just anything. The cutbacks in the Harper government's economic update were clearly wrong-headed, […]
The Bank of Canada’s Assets
When I was writing my last post, on commercial and central bank solvency , I wasn't sure whether it was worth posting, because maybe everybody already knew this stuff. But I decided to post it anyway. Now I'm glad I did. I got some good comments from JKH, which opened up a new avenue to […]
Do private sector forecasters have an incentive to produce good forecasts?
John Palmer at EclectEcon asks "What if bad forecasting led to losing one's job?": [I]f I were making forecasts for a financial group or a private firm, one would expect I would lose my job if I made consistently bad forecasts. There was a time when the Department of Finance would make its own projections […]
When irrational panic becomes the new normal
Jack Mintz followed up on his op-ed column with a question-and-answer session on the Globe and Mail's website. The points he made would be familiar to readers of this blog – Canada is not the United States, we are not in recession (although the odds that we will be soon are much better than even), […]
Two perspectives on commercial and central bank solvency
I start a bank. I have zero capital. I borrow $100 and lend $100. What is the net worth of my bank? Looking at the balance sheet, the answer is simple and obvious: assets $100, liabilities $100, net worth = assets minus liabilities = $0. But looking at the income statement we may get a […]
Just who is supposed to build the new infrastructure?
It would appear that the issue of whether or not the federal government should be increasing expenditures on infrastructure could determine who will form the government in the next few weeks. But just who is supposed to build this new infrastructure? As I noted earlier, unemployment in the construction sector is at an all-time low. […]
Does Canada need a Fiscal Stimulus? – Discuss
My own view, for what it's worth, is that Canada does not need a fiscal stimulus right now, but there's a possibility it might need one soon, so the government should get everything ready to introduce one as quickly as possible, but not pull the trigger quite yet. My preferred fiscal stimulus would be a […]
On the timing, size and form of an eventual fiscal stimulus
The federal government released its economic update yesterday. Some things were silly: the nickel-and-dime budget cuts are at best pointless, and are much more likely to be counter-productive. One of the benefits of getting public finances under control was supposed to be that we wouldn't have to play these games. And the proposal to cut […]
Monetary policy and durable goods deflation
In a recent post, Nick made an important point about the story we tell when we explain why deflation is a bad thing. If prices are falling, people will delay purchases, which reduces aggregate demand, which induces more rapid deflation, which reduces aggregate demand even more as the economy circles the drain. But to make […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments