This weekend, the runner-up party in the recent Greek election, Syriza, seemed to rule out joining with New Democracy and PASOK to give them a majority in parliament. Instead, Syriza cheekily invited a smaller rival left-wing party, Democratic Left, to drink from that poisoned chalice in their place.

At least in the short term, this looks like excellent political hardball on the part of Syriza. They either get to go into opposition in the new parliament while their opponents further discredit themselves. Or there will be another election in June, in which Syriza seems positioned to make further gains -- perhaps enough to form a government.

Syriza then proposes to apply the same hardball approach to the European Union and to the International Monetary Fund.

A federal budget has just come out that will reduce unemployment to 6 per cent, close tax loopholes, repair cities and institute a forward-looking green strategy.

It is not Jim Flaherty's budget. We will only get that on March 29.

This one is the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) and it comes from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The CCPA has been in the alternative budget business for 17 years now.

The Centre undertakes this detailed, labour-intensive exercise in an effort to show, each year, that Canadians have evidence-based fiscal policy options.

There is nothing inevitable -- ordained by the infallible logic of economic science -- about the government of the day's prescriptions or forecasts.

The just-released 2011 ILO World of Work Report is a must-read for progressive economists.

Released on the eve of the G20 meetings, the report underlines the gravity of the current global employment situation and warns of the need to put job creation first if we are to avoid a very extended period of high unemployment and rising incidence of precarious work. It emphatically calls for demand side measures to create jobs, along with job-friendly labour market policies.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's op ed in the Globe and Mail yesterday on his hopes for the Cannes summit is disappointing, even if the content comes as no surprise.