#ottawa area Liberal MP for Nepean, Chandra Arya, is on CBC radio this morning, loyally defending Trudeau and trying to articulate his own position as an "economic right" believer.
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#ottawa area Liberal MP for Nepean, Chandra Arya, is on CBC radio this morning, loyally defending Trudeau and trying to articulate his own position as an "economic right" believer.
It's strange, given yesterday's schism with Freeland, who also articulated an "economic right" position.
It's the exact wrong time for "economic right", aka "austerity", cuts to govt spending and services.
Canada's economy is on the edge of recession with strong trade-risk headwinds. Austerity is for overheating.
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counter-cyclical fiscal policy is a very old economic lesson, going back to the 1930s, when they failed to perform it and dragged out a normal 18 month recession into a 9 year depression.
Austerity during recessions aggravate recessions. High spending during booms aggravates booms. So spend more during recessions, less during booms, the smooth out the peaks & valleys.
Very orthodox economics.
No boom is coming for #canada in the foreseeable future. Not the time for austerity.
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@johnefrancis I'm mad that this isn't common knowledge. I had never heard anything about this beyond the political talking points (i.e. lies) until I started working on my MBA.
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Mike NuanceRhymesWithOrangereplied to John Francis last edited by
@johnefrancis I dunno, they turned on the spending taps during covid, which was the right thing to do.
They may need to turn spending taps on again if these tariffs materialize.
I can see why Freeland would not be impressed with pointless Ford-style giveaways right now.
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John Francisreplied to Sean Kleefeld last edited by [email protected]
@SKleefeld politics is entirely detached from both orthodox and modern economics. "Economists" in the media are always pro-wealth neoliberal propagandists. They fund most of the "academic" programs and positions. Those bodies keep failing scientifically, but escape academic consequences. Like completely blowing the prediction 2008 global financial crisis.
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John Francisreplied to Mike NuanceRhymesWithOrange last edited by
@NuanceRhymesWithOrange yes, they did. But most of the spending went directly to the financial system... guaranteeing the incomes of commercial property investors. Can argue that almost none went to individuals, since most of what they received were EI payments that they were already entitled to anyway.
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@johnefrancis Aren't we better off using monetary policy to alleviate recessions? Fiscal policy tends either to spend money usefully but too slowly, or quickly but foolishly.
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@mpjgregoire my issue with monetary policy vs. fiscal policy is that monetary only enriches the financial system, particularly when using high interest rate policy to check a boom. We've just seen one of those. Great pain outside of the financial system. Good times for those holding newly issued high-interest riskless sovereign bonds.
Monetary policy is blunt and broad. Fiscal policy can target the right places and produce real improvements, not just better phantom financial system numbers.
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@mpjgregoire some parts of monetary policy might be quick, like cancelling a real-world investment to buy a shiny new high-interest riskless govt. bond. But in Canada's recent cycle, it took a long time for it to work into mortgage rollovers, plus a ~1y period where the increase in mortgage/housing costs due to monetary policy were a huge chunk of stubbornly high inflation. So slow and goal-defeating to some degree.
