The Asian century has arrived. Just as China is now the world’s manufacturing center, India is fast becoming the main provider of its office services. India’s GDP was $800 billion in 2005 and has grown 8.1% a year since 2003 (a rate second only to China’s) and 6% a year since 1991.
With a population of 1.1 billion, India is the world’s fourth largest economy and, since 1986, the country’s middle class has quadrupled to about 250 million people. Per capita income has increased from US$1,178 to $3,051 since 1980.
Economy and economic indicators
Twelve years under the rules of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, has had a perverse impact on the distribution of income, wealth, and political power across the continent. A new three-country report shows that NAFTA has not lived up to its promise of better jobs and faster growth for Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Instead it has promoted an integrated continental economy with rules set by and for the benefit of the political and economic elite.
Nova Scotians thought they had put the issue to rest in the plebiscite less than two years ago. Yet here we are with Sunday shopping once again on the front pages.
The plebiscite confirmed the majority of Nova Scotians, including small retail business owners, don’t want Sunday shopping. But rather than accept the will of the people, business leaders and big retailers have continued in their campaign to get rid of restrictions on shopping on the premise that it is only a matter of time before Nova Scotians see the error of their ways – resistance is futile.
In the late 1960s and throughout the first half of the 1970s, Canadians became increasingly concerned about the already high and rapidly increasing level of foreign ownership in Canada, which had reached over one-third of all non-financial industry corporate assets and over 37.4% of all revenues.
If you agree with the case I’ve made that almost all our most pressing social, economic, and environmental problems are caused and perpetuated by unbridled corporate power, the obvious question that arises is: how can that horribly misused power be tamed? How can the barbaric economic system spawned by that power be civilized?
Inside this special edition on labour and employment:
The Erosion of Employment Standards
Who's Up, Who's Down: Labour and Capital in BC
Paying our Public Servants: The New Bargaining Mandate
Children in the World of Work
Federal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale recently launched the Liberals’ election campaign with the release of a mini-budget and a refurbished policy platform. The "plan for growth and prosperity" presents the Liberals’ agenda to increase productivity, which is supposed to lead to prosperity for all Canadians.
Increased productivity means a more efficient economy that produces more with fewer costs/resources. If the benefits are distributed fairly, this could contribute to a shorter work week, provide more resources for social programs, and decrease the strain on the environment.
China’s economic ascent over the last two-and-a-half decades has been nothing short of astounding. It now has the fastest-growing large economy in the world, having increased by an amazing 9% a year since 1979, a historical record. As one U.S. newspaper put it, “The world has never seen a nation as big as China rise as far and as fast as China has in the last 20 years.”
For years now, provincial governments have complained about a “fiscal imbalance” in reference to Ottawa’s ongoing surpluses while many provinces have been running deficits. But recent times have also highlighted another fiscal imbalance that is much more divisive to Confederation: Alberta’s oil-filled coffers.