March 14, 2022
The UAlberta programs’ tuition will increase by as much as 104% in some cases this Fall.
Alberta has increased tuition fees at their universities. Manitoba is consulting on tuition fee increases.
The next few years is going to see massive changes to funding and fees as the governments have cut back just as demographics hit university enrollment. PSE is on the cusp of being privatized.
Last year, the University of Alberta began a major restructuring in an effort to cope with massive cuts to provincial funding — an estimated 33 per cent of its operating grant or $216 million over three years starting in 2020.
Emmanuel Macron plans second push to reform French pensions if re-elected
Macron’s first attempt to simplify France’s 42 pension schemes and merge them into a single, fairer, points-based system led to protests from trade unionists and other workers in sectors such as public transport that enjoy the most favourable retirement plans. The planned reforms were finally suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left presidential candidate, said he was in “absolute disagreement” with the idea and recalled his plan to lower the retirement age to 60.
Last month, France’s Cour des Comptes, the official auditor, rebuked the Macron administration for excessive public spending and said the structural public sector deficit — excluding pandemic spending — was running at 5 per cent of GDP — two percentage points above the EU’s pre-crisis guideline of 3 per cent.
“Society will have a choice in this presidential election,” he said. “Do you want to still be able to finance protection for the French and investment for the French? We say yes. Do you think that should be done by raising taxes? We say no. So people will have to work more.”
Gustavo Petro sweeps Colombia election primaries
Ex-Marxist guerrilla campaigning to halt oil exploration wins leftwing primary
With just over 99 per cent of votes counted in the leftwing primary, Petro had taken over 80 per cent of the vote in a contest between five candidates. He will now go on to the first round of the presidential election on May 29 and most opinion polls suggest he is favourite to win.
He has pledged to wind down Colombia’s oil industry by halting all exploration, and said the country should focus on manufacturing and agriculture instead. Economists say the policy would have a huge impact. Fossil fuels generate about half of Colombia’s export revenue.
The 61-year-old has also pledged wholesale land reform, a wealth tax on the largest 4,000 fortunes in the country and the repeal of laws from two decades ago that liberalised the labour market.
US Inflation and Interest Rates
Inflation is rocketing in the US, but the real debate is about interest rate hikes. As CPI (year over year) rates reach 8%, there is little the central bank can do.
If longer-run inflation expectations rise, that means there could be more road to cover to get policy to a more neutral setting which neither speeds up nor slows down growth, even as the conflict makes the route harder to discern.
Just where the so-called terminal rate sits is up for debate. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reckons the Fed will stop hiking sometime next year with their benchmark at 3%.
“The policy path after this week is more uncertain,” said Anna Wong and Yelena Shulyatyeva of Bloomberg Economics. “The big question is: Will the Fed look through the oil-price shock.”
