In normal times, economic news is filtered through bank economists. When the CBC wants to know what to expect from the forthcoming budget, it calls in one of a dozen or so Bay St. voices, who are economists paid to plead a case on behalf the financial world. When the National Post, or the Globe and Mail Report on Business want a take on current economic prospects, they call the economics department at one of the big five chartered banks, or a chief economist with the investment banking arm of one of the big five banks.

These are not normal economic times. World stock markets tanked on Monday. The U.S. housing downturn has American consumers, the world’s biggest importers, feeling poorer. U.S. corporate profits are expected to suffer as well.

A world-wide credit crisis has emerged from the U.S. credit crunch.U.S. banks are being bailed out by Asian and Middle Eastern investors, and other banks around the world, including Canada, swallowing losses from buying American asset-backed securities. The U.S. financial sector is expected to report more write-offs of bad debt.

A U.S. recession has implications for the world economy, including Canada. What is to be done?

Bay St. economists have called for interest rate cuts by our central bank. Banks borrow short, and lend long, pocketing the difference. Central banks adjust short-term rates, and when they go down, banks can take higher profits from long-term loans, bolstering their balance sheets.

The Bank of Canada reduced short-term rates on Monday, so they got the message from the bank economists, and helped out the big five. But reducing interest rates does not amount to fighting off recessionary forces.

The economy runs on spending by consumers, business, government and foreigners. In normal times when credit improves, spending improves. But Canada faces a downturn in exports to the U.S., fueling job losses at home, and provoking tightening of domestic consumer spending, which is followed by an unwillingness of business to invest.What is needed to fight a recession is spending. Loosening short-term interest rates is a passive act, when what is called for is action.

Targeted spending initiatives by government to promote industrial expansion, as called for by the CAW, and other labour bodies is the place to start. Canada’s industrial strategy has been free trade, and continental integration through NAFTA. The plunging U.S. dollar gives the U.S. significant advantages in Canada, and takes market share away from Canadian producers. Clearly we need to jettison the NAFTA approach, in favour of industry specific measures.

Thanks to years of continental integration, like the U.S. but unlike Western Europe, Canada is home to a large number of low wage earners. Raising low incomes is a most important strategy for dealing with recession. A national minimum wage hike makes economic sense, as does restoring social income levels that were allowed to decline through inflation and neglect. Increases in public pensions, student grants, and employment insurance are immediately turned back into spending to meet basic needs.

NAFTA brought no improvement to Canadian social programmes, which are inadequate when compared with Western Europe, especially for child care, urban transport, culture, recreation, and social housing. Public sector investment makes sense in off-setting economic decline.For the last thirty-five years Canada has been subject to a political cycle, based on what bank economists, advising governments on behalf of business investors, say is going on in the economy. For Bay St. we either are short of money (a government deficit) and should cut government spending; or we have too much money (inflation) and should cut government spending; or others have too much of our money (poor international competitiveness) and so we should cut government spending.

For recession fighting what we need is government spending, and government measures to promote consumer spending, and targeted business spending.

This is the economic news our mainstream media is not going to hear from Bay St.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...