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After months of wrangling, EU energy ministers finally approved the first ever cap on gas prices, which is scheduled to come into force in February. The aim of the measure is to curb the crisis that has been rocking Europe over the past year as a result of gas and energy prices surging to unprecedented …

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I hope you’re enjoying your holidays. Even though I had promised to myself that I would take a break, I couldn’t avoid writing about the latest #TwitterFiles drop, where journalist David Zweig shares what he found when looking at what the Twitter archives had to say about the “content-moderation policies” employed by the company throughout the pandemic. …

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Trump posted a video of McCarthy thanking the former president on his social media platform Truth Social, captioning it: “Thank you Kevin. It was my great honor.” In the video, McCarthy, who was elected House speaker just past midnight Saturday morning after a historic deadlock, said he doesn’t “think anybody should doubt [Trump’s]  influence” and that “he was with me from the beginning.” McCarthy said he talked to Trump Friday night, as the former president and 2024 GOP hopeful helped him secure a victory—four GOP House members that had voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Andy Biggs (Ariz) in the fourteenth round instead voted “present” in the final round, reducing the threshold needed for a victory. Trump had suffered an embarrassment earlier in the week when many hardline conservatives—formerly Trump’s greatest supporters—ignored his call to support McCarthy after the fourth round of voting on Wednesday to avoid an “embarrassing defeat.” Photos from the chamber also showed Rep.

Can I just say how impressed I was with the Democrats during that long Bataan Death March? Not that they had to do much except clap for Hakeem Jeffries over and over again but still, their unity and calm behavior really helped illustrate for the whole country what a circus freak show the right has become. This is how it’s done.

Inflation is on the run Not that this has penetrated the news media which just today was running scare stories about the price of eggs. But it’s real. This is from economist Alan Blinder: Maybe we should start the new year with some good news: Inflation has fallen dramatically. No, that’s not a prediction; it’s a fact. With one month remaining in 2022 (in terms of available data), inflation in the second half of the year has run vastly lower than in the first half. In fact—and this is astonishing—it’s almost back down to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Even more astonishing, hardly anyone seems to have noticed. Yes, there’s a catch or two or three, to which I’ll come back. But first the good news: Over the past five months (June to November 2022), inflation has slowed to a crawl. Whether measured by the consumer-price index, or CPI, which most people watch, or the price index for personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, which the Federal Reserve prefers, the annualized inflation rate has been around 2.5% over these five months. Yes, you read that right.

The federal government has announced it is prepared to pay wages subsidies of up to 75% of employee wages for all private businesses and other employers, including non-profits, partnerships and charities that expect a 30% drop in revenues, up to a maximum of $847/worker per week and $11,011 over the three months.  The previously announced 10% wage subsidy was only available [...]

The legendary Prof. Harry Glasbeek of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University has penned the following commentary on how the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing and reinforcing the deep flaws in our economic and social order. It ends on a hopeful note: the people will demand better, when the immediate health crisis has passed. Prof. Glasbeek is the author of [...]

Canada’s most prominent progressive economist has passed. He will be sorely missed. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/mel-watkins-a-life-well-lived

In March 2020, the Trudeau government launched a new version of the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP). According to CMHC’s website: “Under this program, the government will purchase up to $50 billion of insured mortgage pools through CMHC.” Here are 10 things to know: 1. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is a federally-owned crown corporation. Many of us know [...]

Modern Monetary Theory or MMT has crept in from the academic margins to become an influential doctrine in progressive policy circles in the United States. Both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders drew on the ideas of MMT to shape their ambitious public spending platforms. MMT has been cited as one way to fund a Green New Deal, in combination with [...]