Stephen Harper took aim at some of his "complacent" colleagues meeting at Davos for taking their prosperity as a given and focusing too much on "entitlements and services" that they cannot afford.

But he also fired a few shots across the bow at complacent Canadians who might have thought he meant it when he said cuts to programs such as pensions were not on his agenda.

"We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending," Harper told the blue ribbon crowd gathered at Davos. "We must do the same for our retirement income system."

The release of today's Monetary Policy Report from the Bank of Canada follows yesterday's announcement of no change in interest rates, the latest in a long series. It reminds me of an English County cricket match in which a batsman is politely applauded -- "very well not played, sir!" -- for doing absolutely nothing other than watch a potentially dangerous pitch fly by slightly wide of the wicket.

Tens of thousands of Americans rallied for jobs and justice at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. Organizers say that 175,000 people turned out for the One Nation Working Together rally, which was organized by labor unions, the NAACP, and other progressive groups. In an interview with GritTV’s Laura Flanders, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, a leader of the One Nation coalition, summed up the agenda: “Jobs, jobs, and more jobs.”

America isn’t working

The economy is terrible. Jobs are nowhere to be found. Wall Street bonuses are through the roof. But mainstream business journalism is still praising the con-men who created this mess, yet attacking anybody who takes real solutions -- like government spending to create jobs -- seriously.

Whatever corporate journalists say, the American economy will not recover until policymakers and the media acknowledge the mistakes of the past and move forward with a new economic agenda focused on middle-class prosperity, rather than financial evisceration by elites.

Creating jobs is key

Congress finally authorized an extension of unemployment benefits on Wednesday, providing a critical lifeline to families across the country and an absolutely essential boost to the economy.

But with the jobless rate hovering near 10 per cent, minimum measures like unemployment benefits shouldn’t be a source of controversy. Lawmakers should be debating big-picture jobs packages to get people back to work, not drips and drabs that keep a worst-case-scenario from getting unbearable.

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

President Barack Obama invited leading economic thinkers to a job creation summit on Thursday to help combat the worst unemployment crisis in decades. The stakes couldn’t be higher: If Obama can’t build momentum for robust legislation that will create jobs, the unemployment rate could remain in double-digits all the way through 2011.

On Friday, we learned that the U.S. unemployment rate officially broke 10% for the first time since the early Reagan years. This is about as bad as it gets for a modern, developed economy. No economic force takes a heavier toll on a society than rampant joblessness, and few personal setbacks take a deeper psychological toll than being out of a job for months on end. If Congress and President Obama don’t do something to create jobs fast, both are going to pay a hefty political price when next year’s mid-term elections roll around.