http://simonarcher.ca Commentary and Research on Law and Political Economy Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:07:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Some folks ahve said it for ages, but They said it about a year ago, Their soon-to-retire bankers are saying it, and historians not normally persuaded have agreed, and their erstwhile leader Iggy has finally said what no other electable government dare say: the time has come to raise government ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=650 This is probably my favourite leveraged synergy, value-added, convergance premium, blah blah of the year. FT reports that the Association of British Insurers suggests that advisor fees in corporate restructurings are sufficiently high as to reduce overall value from the deals, and are, in their phrase, akin to deadwight losses. ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=648 There is a sort of debate developing, it seems, among experts in retirement income systems. Last December, Jack Mintz (U Calgary) and Bob Baldwin (Informetrica) both produced long reports on the adequacy of retirement income in Canada, and broadly speaking both concluded people are saving enough to meet their income ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=643 In the past when the value of the loonie has increased, we have heard that this harms the Canadian economy as a whole because exports become relatively more expensive for others (but on the other hand, imports cheaper). For a traditional analysis, see today's Globe. We're told that this time it ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=641 CBC has a morning radio business affairs reporter, Michael Hlinka. He provides one explanation for recent Canadian bank profits: a domestic carry trade using (quasi) public money. Thast is, they borrow from the BoC at very low rates, as a part of the BoCs policy for injecting liquidity into the ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=639 First, we had a recovery of bank and near-bank balance sheets, in no small part aided by public and near-public lending to them. Then, we have very recently seen the revival, in fits and starts, of the non-plain-vanilla security issues, such as securitized Greek debt, some more exotic corporate paper: Link. Then, ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=636 About a year ago the Certified Chartered Accountants of Canada performed a useful public service and put together a series of metrics measuring household debt and the ability to pay it in Canada. In large part the data showed that credit -- particularly consumer credit, but to some degree mortgage ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=623 The recent spate of bank profit announcements has confirmed that the sector -- in Canada anyway -- is well out of the recessionary woods. Link. The related spate of bonus announcements confirms that we have collectively turned a blind eye to the role of financial sector compensation in the two ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=621 David Rosenberg properly identifies the consensus on economic reporting as over-stated and probably wrong (he calls it "hilarious"), Link. It is relevant to note again and again, because the GlobePost ecoreporters seem incapcable of internalizing the point: we are told the prmiary if not sole source of demand in the North ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=619 We are about a year into "green shoots" now, and while stock indices appear to have recovered somewhat, broader indicators of well-being are less, well, green. We have heard a couple of times about how job losses slowed in the end of 2009, and the rate of unemployment crept down very ... http://simonarcher.ca/?p=615