Frum goes to town on the legacy of Pierre Trudeau. Pierre Trudeau took office at a moment when commodity prices were rising worldwide. Good policymakers recognize that commodity prices fall as well as rise. Yet between 1969 and 1979 – through two majority governments and one minority – Trudeau tripled federal spending. In 1981-82, Canada [...]
United States
The Lost Generation
America’s lost generation The world has seen a number of lost generations in the past century. Gertrude Stein first coined the term in 1920s in reference to the Europeans who grew up during World War I, but it’s most recently referred to Japanese youth who grew up during that country’s recession in the 1990s. In [...]
When do you stop spending?
Jim Flaherty said today that he would spend to defend Canada from another recession. Under questioning from opposition MPs, Flaherty said for the first time that the Conservative government would move in with another round of stimulus spending if the world economy suffers a double-dip recession. “We would obviously do what is needed” if there [...]
A Primer on the U.S. Debt Ceiling
A great primer from the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. What happens if we don’t raise the debt ceiling but continue to pay interest on our bonds? This is an option known as “prioritization.” The Bipartisan Policy Center released a reportattempting to think through how this would work in practice, as it has never been attempted [...]
Ten Trillion & Counting
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE. PBS has an exceptional program on the U.S. national debt and it’s implications for the future of not only the United States but for much of the world. It’s staggering how the Bush administration took politics over economics every single time. As former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil said, [...]
The deficit we imagine vs. the deficit we have
The New York Times is reporting on the deficit and debt ceiling fight that is happening right now. Eventually, the country will have to confront the deficit we have, rather than the deficit we imagine. The one we imagine is a deficit caused by waste, fraud, abuse, foreign aid, oil industry subsidies and vague out-of-control [...]
One in seven Americans is living in poverty, Census shows
From the Washington Post One in seven Americans is living in poverty, the highest number in the half-century that the government has kept such statistics, the Census Bureau announced Thursday. Last year was the third consecutive year that the poverty rate climbed, in part because of the recession, rising from 13.2 percent in 2008 to [...]
1983: The Brink of Apocalypse
An interesting full length documentary by Channel 4 about how close the west and the Soviet Union came to nuclear Armageddon in 1983. Reagan’s rhetoric, $1 trillion in defense spending, Pershing II missiles, the new cruise missiles, a breakdown in Soviet detection technology (high altitude clouds set off Soviet early warning satellites), the American invasion [...]
Note to Self:
If I am ever on the run and fearful of extradition to the United States, don’t have my lawyers taunt the District Attorney’s office for lack of effort in having me extradited. Roman Polanski’s attorneys helped provoke his arrest by complaining to an appellate court this summer that Los Angeles County prosecutors had made no [...]
More Stimulus?
Paul Krugman feels we need a bigger stimulus package. Since the recession began, the U.S. economy has lost 6 ½ million jobs — and as that grim employment report confirmed, it’s continuing to lose jobs at a rapid pace. Once you take into account the 100,000-plus new jobs that we need each month just to [...]
Happy Canada Day
To celebrate I’ll quote Malcolm Gladwell talking about what he learned about the United States. In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. [...]
