Re Regulating Finance
http://www.tuac.org/en/public/e-docs/00/00/03/91/document_doc.phtml This is a very useful discussion/policy paper from Pierre Habbard of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. Executive...
View ArticleObama’s Bank Bail Out
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has written a pretty scathing critique of the new US Administation’s overhaul of the TARP program. I am increasingly convinced by Duncan Cameron’s argument that –...
View ArticleWarning: Credit Card Use May be Harmful (to Your Country’s Income Distribution)
Ah plastic. What’s not to love? Convenient? Check. Light in the pocket? Check. Monthly bill summaries? Check. Free short-term credit? Check (provided you pay your bills in full, on time). Benefits...
View ArticleBonds, lame bonds
Below is a dispatch on bond rating agencies from my former CCPA colleague, Stuart Murray: Here is some more grist for the blog. Bloomberg just published a very interesting and informative article on...
View ArticleBank Mergers – The Left was Right
My personal theory as to why the Canadian banking system survived the great global financial crisis relatively unscathed is that calls by the big Canadian banks in the late 1990s to allow mergers were...
View ArticleWhat’s in Play at Pittsburgh?
The London G-20 summit last fall may go down history as the meeting that saved the world. That’s a huge exaggeration of course, but leaders did agree to a program of co-ordinated monetary and fiscal...
View ArticleTowards a SAFER Financial System
The good folks at PERI at U Mass Amherst led by Gerry Epstein and Jane D’Arista have just launched a new web site so theirr useful work on why and how to reign in finance can be easily accessed....
View ArticleTransactions tax on the front page
I was surprised to see the IMF highlighting the potential virtues of a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) on the front page of its website. The Bloomberg news service earlier had a good story about on...
View ArticleFox Guarding the Henhouse?
From the “fox guarding the henhouse” category comes news that the Bank of Canada has appointed Tim Hodgson, CEO of Goldman Sachs’ Canadian subsidiary, to be a special advisor for the next 18 months on...
View ArticleFinance Capital Turns Parasitic
In an announcement that largely went unnoticed last week, U.S. Steel said it plans to close down the blast furnace at Stelco’s Hilton Works in Hamilton, Ontario. Hilton Works was once the main...
View ArticleMight the proposed new federal securities regulator weaken regulatory oversight?
The front page of today’s Globe and Mail reports the latest chapter in the federal attempt to create a national securities regulator. (Premiers push back against national securities regulator plan)....
View ArticleRevenge of the Debt Zombies — or —“What are Banks for Anyway?”
What are banks for? Typically, banks are described as intermediaries that take deposits and lend them out, earning what is called net interest margin on the gap between what is paid on the savings and...
View ArticleFrom Wall Street to the White House
Sometimes the crudest forms of Marxist analysis of the relationship between class and politics make the most sense. Read this scorching commentary by Simon Johnson – the former IMF Chief Economist...
View ArticleA Call for Capital Controls
Today, the Global Development and Environment Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies released the following statement signed by more than 250 economists, including a couple of Progressive...
View ArticleFinancial Illiteracy
The Report of the Task Force on Financial Literacy is all that one would have expected from one co chaired by the CEO of Sun Life Financial and the Chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns. There is hardly a...
View ArticleWageless recovery and the politics of austerity
The UNTCAD just published its annual report on Trade and Development, titled Post-crisis Policy Challenges in the World Economy. The report describes a two speed global recovery, showing how developing...
View ArticleStock Market Swindles Galore
This past weekend (March 31st), Sino-Forest Corp. announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. The Chinese-Canadian company, once the largest publicly-traded forestry firm on the TSX, collapsed...
View ArticleBMO Professor vs. Bank Regulation
Last week, the C. D. Howe Institute was out with an op-ed contending that Canadian household debt is not worth worrying too much about: “There does not seem to be a strong case for restrictive...
View ArticleThe Big Banks’ Big Secret
The CCPA today released my report: “The Big Banks Big Secret” which provides the first public estimates of the emergency funds taken by Canadian banks. The report bases its estimates on publicly...
View ArticleComplete details of 2008-09 Bank Support
Readers of this blog will have hopefully read my report “The big banks big secret” which examines the $114 billion that Canada’s banks received during the 2008-09 financial crisis. Its major finding...
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Household debt going from bad to worse
Canadians are now more indebted than either Americans or the Brits at the peak of their housing bubble. Statistics Canada today revised the national accounts. The result on the household debt front...
View ArticleThe Austerity Trap
Below is a recent editorial from the New York Times that does an excellent job of summarizing the failures of austerity policies. The NYTimes also published a very good analysis of how austerity...
View ArticleGlass-House Mortgages
A letter appears in today’s Globe and Mail in response to recent direction given by Minister Flaherty to private mortgage lenders over mortgage rates. The letter was written by Steve Pomeroy, one of...
View ArticleIntellectual Dishonesty at the Ivey Business Journal
Under the headline “Canada Isn’t Rotten to the Core”, the new editor of the Ivey Business Journal, Thomas Watson, attacked my book “Thieves of Bay Street” in his inaugural editorial. Although the book...
View ArticleThe Novel Observations of Jean Tirole?
French economist Jean Tirole has won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on industrial organization and regulation, in particular his insights into oligopolies. “Who is Jean Tirole?, many...
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What Impact will the 2019 Federal Budget have on Canada’s Housing Market?
I’ve written a blog post about what the recent federal budget means for Canada’s housing market. Points I make in the blog post include the following: -The budget contains several initiatives designed...
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Ten things to know about CMHC’s Insured Mortgage Purchase Program
In March 2020, the Trudeau government launched a new version of the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP). According to CMHC’s website: “Under this program, the government will purchase up to $50...
View ArticleCanada: Ten things to know about the federal role in housing policy
I’ve written a 750-word overview of the federal role in housing policy. The English-language version is here: https://nickfalvo.ca/canada-ten-things-to-know-about-the-federal-role-in-housing-policy/...
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