So an outfit called the Board of Internal Economy, made up of politicians, has just held a behind-closed-doors, unrecorded hearing and will now judge and issue a secret ruling on whether a politician from another political party (former Bloc Québecois party leader Gilles Duceppe) violated vague, contradictory spending rules -- rules created by politicians who also interpret and enforce them.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the ruling cannot be appealed in court.

The Labour Force Survey for August showed that average hourly wages were up by just 1.4 per cent from a year earlier, the same low level of increase as was registered in July. Consumer price inflation was 2.7 per cent in July, a bit down from 3.1 per cent in June and 3.7 per cent in May, but it seems that we have entered a period of falling real wages.

The picture is not much brighter if one looks at average weekly earnings, a function of hours worked and hourly wages. Average weekly wages in both July and August were up just 1.7 per cent from a year earlier.

If this trend continues, it is likely to further undermine a weak recovery, negatively impacting upon consumer spending and perhaps serving as the tipping point to deflation of the housing bubble.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was unusually blunt on CTV's Question Period yesterday, saying he was worried about the possibility of another recession. (Finance Ministers are usually very cautious about using the "r" word, for fear that might worry consumers and bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy.) Maybe he had already seen today's quarterly GDP numbers from Statistics Canada, which give lots of reason to worry -- once you start poking around in the tea leaves.

The headline number seems healthy: real GDP growth of 3.9% (annualized) in the quarter. It doesn't take much investigation, however, to take the shine off that seemingly robust number.

The latest contrived showdown between Congressional Republicans and the White House is over what concessions the GOP will demand in order to increase the federal debt ceiling.

George Zornick of The Nation explains how the shakedown works:

Here is a link to the CCPA study we released yesterday, analyzing the determinants of business fixed non-residential capital investment spending in Canada on the basis of quarterly data from 1961 through 2010. It formally tests for the direct significance of corporate tax variables and finds no such evidence (in either univariate or multivariate analysis). There is still an indirect impact of tax rates on investment experienced via incremental corporate cash flow, but that indirect effect is weak and getting weaker.

Election Day is finally here, and control of the House and the Senate hangs in the balance. The differences between parties could not be more stark. Republicans have promised to repeal health care reform and slash government spending for social programs, all while preserving tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Some of the more radical ideas bandied about this election season -- by conservative candidates with a decent shot at winning -- include privatizing social security and eliminating the Department of Education.

Anti-tax ballot measures