Monthly Archives: October 2006
Oil sands graph of the day
Courtesy of the Oil Drum: Between now and 2020, production from the oil sands is likely to increase by about 2 million barrels per day – almost the equivalent of the arrival of another Venezuela on the world market. I’ve been trying to get a handle on the effects that the development of the tar […]
Collateral damage from the yuan peg
According to the Financial Times, US papers are looking to China for newsprint: The newsprint that will roll over the presses of the Orlando Sentinel some time next month may not look any different to the paper’s readers. But it will have endured a fairly tortuous journey – from a port in China, across the […]
My financial career
When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me; the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me; everything rattles me. The moment I cross the threshold of a bank and attempt to transact business there, I become an irresponsible idiot. I knew this beforehand, but my salary had […]
The NHL’s real problem: bad cost-benefit analyses
It turns out that Don Cherry was right all along – too many Europeans play in the NHL: IIHF study backs up Cherry’s beliefs: The IIHF study found that the majority of Europeans drafted by National Hockey League clubs between 2000 and 2006 did not make an impact either at the professional or minor-pro level. […]
Canada’s shrinking stock market
The Financial Times reports on a series of high-profile foreign takeovers of Canadian companies: This is getting serious: on current trends Céline Dion might be the only Canadian icon left. Many others are being picked off by foreigners. This year’s disappeared include Canada’s oldest corporation, the Hudson’s Bay Company; its two biggest nickel miners, Inco […]
Dealing with a terms of trade shock
The most important graph from the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report (pdf): The shift in the terms of trade plays a leading role in the story of the the Canadian macroeconomy over the past five years. Deputy Governor Pierre Duguay’s speech last August puts it this way: "The substantial rise in real commodity prices […]
A new US policy for dealing with population growth?
US teacher exiled to Canada after sexual abuse conviction Now, we in Canada make it a point to not mimic American traditions whenever possible. For example, we don’t have a Statue of Liberty. But if we did, I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t read "Give us your poor, your tired, your convicted sex offenders…" And […]
The Toronto Star gets a mulligan
When I read this inane editorial, I was determined to get medieval on the TorStar editorial board’s behind. But then I got caught up in the National Post’s ‘nopigou‘ schtick, and I lost heart. Even though they’re kinda dim, the Toronto Star does mean well.
Nonsensical nonpigovianism
In which the National Post’s Terence Corcoran crawls out on a limb and starts hacking it off behind him: We open with his ‘Join the nopigou club‘ column, in reaction to Greg Mankiw’s campaign for higher gasoline taxes in the US. This column is greeted with a rather laconic reply from Mankiw, and a certain […]
Economists as politicians
André Boisclair made his début as the leader of the opposition Parti Québécois in the Quebec legislature yesterday, and it occurred to me that both opposition parties in Quebec now have leaders with at least some sort of training in economics: Mario Dumont of the ADQ has a BA from Concordia, and André Boisclair was […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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