Eric Mason is the Chief Financial Officer for the city of Quincy, Massachusetts, a TEDx speaker and Economist, overseeing a $350 million budget and $500 million debt portfolio. In this episode, we speak about taxation, education and affordable housing in the city of Quincy, and Mason's approach to economic policy.

Philip Cross is a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, previously having spent 36 years at Statistics Canada specializing in macroeconomics. He is the former Chief Economic Analyst at Statistics Canada, and was responsible for ensuring quality and coherency of all major economic statistics.

California's housing crisis is reaching its apex, with the state hitting homelessness rates nearly double that of New York. The housing crisis in the Golden State was spurred on by years of bad policies and underbuilding. The passage of two new bills, SB 9 and SB 10, hold promise for those keen to increase the availability of affordable housing. But not everyone is happy about the new construction these laws will allow.

Labor unions have been an essential part of building a safe, strong American workforce. But with the enaction of the National Labor Relations Act, The government eliminated essential checks on union power. Whilst a 2018 Supreme Court ruling resulted in a tentative step toward loosening government protections, there is still much work to be done if unions are to be subjected to proper oversight, to ensure they operate in the best interest of their workers.

This episode of The Economic Review discusses where the burden of corporate taxes actually falls.

In this episode of The Economic Review, I examined the possibility of HSA-expansion in healthcare reform. Highlights include:

-A look at how HSAs are beneficial to HDHP policy holders

-The current beliefs and attitudes of U.S. adults toward HSAs

-How HSAs could provide a bipartisan path to healthcare reform

-The effect expanding HSAs would have on the healthcare system, including decreased costs

Dr. Brian Lee Crowley is the founder and Managing Director of the ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, which is Canada's only truly national public policy think tank. He holds a doctorate in political economy from the London School of Economics and is a four time winner of the prestigious Sir Antony Fisher Award. It is truly my pleasure to welcome Dr Crowley to the show. 

We’ve seen plenty of downturn in the economy over the last year. Good news was at a premium with historic job losses and unemployment claims. Traditional jobs, office jobs, labor jobs; everyone suffered with inconsistency and uncertainty as it seemed like the normal lives they were used to would never come back. And when they needed some time off or a way to destress, they opened an app and turned to the gig economy.

Ending the filibuster is a bad idea. In 1787, during the Constitutional Convention, James Madison—who is often referred to as the Father of the Constitution—described the Senate as “a necessary fence” which would protect “the people against their rulers” and from “the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.” 

On Saturday, it was announced that the G7 had agreed to back a new 15 percent global minimum tax on multinational corporations. There are multiple problems with the G7’s latest proposal. Abroad, this would severely hamper the ability of developing nations to compete in the global marketplace.