Monthly Archives: December 2005
Holiday halt
Since I’ll soon be caught up in a whirlwind of holiday activities with family near and not-quite-so-near, blogging will resume sometime in early January. Joyeuses fêtes
The Irish exception
In some circles (such as on the pages of the National Post), whenever the virtues of the Nordic model are cited, a standard riposte is "What about Ireland?" Well, indeed. When I was putting together the graphs for this post, I found that Ireland was quite literally off the chart.
Nordic Canada: The tax mix
The ‘Nordic model’ has many admirers, and I’m one of them. It appears to have the best of both worlds: the wealth that markets provide best, combined with the social programs that governments provide best. As I noted earlier, there’s no obvious tradeoff between these two objectives: we can have both, if we want. For […]
Can’t win for losing
A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Canada had a near-record $9.3b current account surplus in 2005Q3. Today, Statistics Canada announced that the net investment position deteriorated by $17b over the same period. The reason, of course, is the continuing rise of the CAD: The value of international assets fell to $1,001.1 billion, a […]
Howler of the day
The courier company UPS has filed a claim under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 against Canada Post, in which it claims that the government-owned corporation is using its profits from its first-class mail business – for which it has a government-mandated monopoly – to unfairly subsidise its courier division. Today’s Toronto Star – the connaisseur’s preferred choice […]
Too much change
When I was younger, I would occasionally get irritated waiting in line at a cash register while an older citizen sorted through a handful of coins to pay the exact amount. After all, it was faster to pay with notes and let the cashier – who had the various coins in a conveniently-arranged tray – […]
Alberta’s oil sands
Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser talks about Alberta’s oil sands: One of the reasons for interest in oil sands is the potential magnitudes involved. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates the ultimate volume of Canadian bitumen in-place at 2.5 trillion barrels, which if it could somehow all be extracted would be enough to satisfy by […]
Surprise! Foreign ownership is a good thing
Or at least, not as bad as we once feared. Foreign ownership has been a hot-button issue in Canada since, well, forever. In itself, foreign investment is a Good Thing of course, since it increases the demand for Canadian labour. But it is possible to imagine having too much of a good thing: foreign firms […]
The Toronto media notices the world outside the 416 and 905 area codes
The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson visits my old high school: Mr. Croswell is one of a half-dozen 18-year-olds graduating this year from Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute who have agreed to talk about the federal election and what it means to them. As it turns out, it means nothing to them. What does […]
The Conservatives propose cutting the GST
As was speculated earlier, the Conservative Party of Canada is proposing to cut the Goods and Services Tax rate from 7% to 5%. So far, the best reaction come from the University of Western Ontario’s Jim Davies, in this CBC story: "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," he said. Aside from minor quibbles about the number of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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