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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Apr 16

Biggest non-story in #Budge2024 is the deficit. Fcst hardly changed from last year, despite new spending on several initiatives. That's partly cuz of new $$ from the capital gains change (which is great). But mostly cuz revenues keep outpacing pessimistic forecasts. #cdnecon /2

Those forecasts are still deliberately pessimistic, leaving room for positive surprises before the 2025 election. Conservatives who've invested so much in attacking govt for running bigger deficits will be disarmed. A smaller deficit does nothing to help with cost of living. /3

But direct help with necessities of life (dental care, drugs, child care, disability benefits, student lunches, PSE student loans/grants) will make an incremental difference. Most Canadians will receive something from one or more of those programs. /4

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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Apr 13

Not the worst thing to fear this awful day, but important anyway: get ready for another burst of oil-led inflation. Orthodox central bankers will claim the only thing to do is keep int rates higher, for longer--punishing workers further for a crisis they didn't cause. /2 #cdnecon

Can we learn from the Feb 2022 price shock, and stop profit-led energy inflation (which quickly spread into the broader economy) before it starts? Here's my Dec'23 @TorontoStar column with ideas for how to prevent another oil-led inflation outburst: . /3thestar.com/business/anoth…

The idea of regulating strategic prices (like energy) to stop inflation from getting going (rather than dragging down the whole economy to stop it later), first ridiculed, is now widely accepted (even by places like the Bundesbank), thanks to work by @IsabellaMWeber & others. /4

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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Mar 29

Carbon-tax fever is reaching a peak, as April 1 (when both the price and the rebate payments increase) approaches. So I'm re-posting my review of gasoline prices in calendar 2023. Key takeaway: the ups and downs of gasoline prices can't be ascribed to carbon pricing. /2 #cdnecon

Gasoline ended '23 5₵/litre lower than it began, despite a higher carbon price (worth about 3₵/l, offset by CAIP rebates). The ups & downs of oil prices are dominated by oil companies & futures markets, not carbon prices. The 2022 oil price surge added 40x more to gas prices./3

The federal Clean Fuel Reg (which Poilievre derided as a second carbon tax) had no lasting impact either. In fact, Cdns who followed Poilievre's advice to gas up before July 1 to avoid this 'tax' actually lost a few bucks (cuz prices *fell* afterward): . /4centreforfuturework.ca/2024/01/03/rev…

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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Dec 31, 2023

On this last day of 2023, let's look back at the path of gasoline prices (the most volatile major component in 🇨🇦's CPI) over the yr. According to GasBuddy, the avg price today is $1.39/litre. That's 5₵ cheaper than a year ago, but it followed a long, winding road. #cdnecon /2

Of course, the ups and downs of world oil futures markets are the major reason for this roller-coaster (even for gasoline extracted, refined & consumed here in 🇨🇦). What's striking is the irrelevance of Cdn fiscal & climate policies to the path of gas prices over the year. /3

The backstop carbon price rose $15/t April 1. The new Clean Fuel Regulation came into effect July 1. Conservatives claimed both would send gasoline costs soaring. But their impact (small for the carbon price, non-existent for the fuel reg) was swamped by global price turmoil. /4

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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Nov 28, 2023

Wow. It's probably a good thing Michelle Bullock was 7000km away from 🇦🇺 (in HK) when she said all this:
* Households "are actually in a pretty good position"
* Interest rates concerns are "a lot of noise from the general public" [...more]
@ComminsP /2

/2theaustralian.com.au/nation/shopper…

* High housing prices are "helping people feel a little bit more wealthy"
* Households are "doing fine" & "managing quite well"
* Households have "large savings buffers" & "they're largely still intact"
* Per capita consumption is falling, but "nevertheless it's strong enough"
/3

All this from the person working hard to ensure that at least 662K Australians (4.5% of the current labour force) are unemployed at all times.
Central bankers really don't live in the same world as the rest of us.

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Jim Stanford

@JimboStanford

Oct 10, 2023

Very encouraging news that @UniforTheUnion has reached a tentative agreement with GM Canada after a half-day work stoppage: . This is an important reminder that pattern agreements do not fall from the sky: it takes power to maintain a pattern. #canlab /2unifor.org/news/all-news/…

Pattern bargaining used to be more common in 🇨🇦 private sector bargaining. Over past decades companies succeeded in destroying the practice in most sectors--allowing them to whipsaw workers against each other in the same industry. In this case, GM needed a push to swallow it. /3

In auto, the pattern sets core economic benchmarks that apply to all firms. My guess is there were two key reasons GM resisted the pattern that was set at Ford:
A. GM has a far higher retiree/active ratio, so the new retiree health benefit Unifor won is more expensive at GM.
/4

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