You can read all the gory details for yourself but here are the highlights from Don Drummond and the gang of economists at TD Bank:

• Over the next 12 months, home prices will have bottomed, the cost of funds to financial institutions will have fallen, the worst in institutional failures ...   more »

The ultimate irony of this blog post is that, within a few paragraphs of reading Nicholas Carr's diagnosis of the problem he and I apparently suffer from, I felt compelled to blog about it -- with video!... I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet.

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"Journalism is basically a simple game. It is about finding things out and telling other people about them. The finding out requires a variety of skills because those in power often prefer that we know only so much. Journalism is about holding such people to account, exposing their humbug and hypocrisy, the abuse of their power. This includes the control it gives them over the flow of information, the ability to bury the bad news, to spin and obfuscate. Good journalists must ask the awkward questions and question the answers, must dig to unearth and then explain, making comprehensible that which authority, by intent or verbal inadequacy, has left confused, incomplete or plain mendacious. Incomprehensible journalism is quite simply bad journalism, and therefore pointless.."   more »

CEOs of large U.S. corporations averaged $10.8 million in total compensation in 2006, more than 364 times the pay of the average U.S. worker, according to the latest survey by United for a Fair Economy. In 2007, the CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company received, on average, $14.2 million in total compensation, according to The Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. The median compensation package received was $8.8 million.   more »

"...the Canadian household sector is now overextending itself as much as the US or UK ever did, challenging the consensus view that Canadian lenders and borrowers have been far more conservative through the cycle. ..."    more »

Calgary Grit has a nice little roundup of Election 2008 as seen through the eyes of the country's editorial page cartoonists.

"Candidates running in the federal election are being challenged to take the 'I Believe in Open' pledge. The pledge, created by the non-partisan VisibleGovernment.ca, challenges candidates to commit to five key improvements in government transparency, including making campaign promises measurable, publishing their MP schedule on the internet, allowing public access to government scientific and survey data, and making it easier for Canadians to obtain government information....   more »

The crime issue is back in the news after Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans yesterday to change the Young Offenders Act. Among other things, the changes would have the effect of being able to lock up a 14-year-old for life.

Harper has another crime-themed announcement this morning during a ...   more »

For the second time in the campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper ventured to the back of his campaign plane for an informal chat with reporters.
He did it first on the very first day of the campaign, coming back for a chat before his jet took off for Quebec City....   more »

In the middle of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's press conference, two-and-a-half-year-old Elizabeth began to get fidgety.
She had been quiet and patient on the lap of her mother Marie-Ève Rivard for nearly half an hour while Harper announced some new tax breaks for families who are caring for relatives with ...   more »