Monthly Archives: November 2006
“All economic news is bad”
Andrew Coyne reminds us of Easterbrook’s Law: Easterbrook’s Law [is] named for the American journalist Gregg Easterbook, who first conclusively proved that all economic news is bad: all news means change, and all change, no matter how broadly beneficial, makes some people worse off — who are invariably the focus of media attention. The Toronto […]
“To you from falling hands we throw / The torch”
I’m generally cynical about petitions, and doubly so for internet-based ones, but this one deserves all the support we can muster: "We the undersigned feel enormous gratitude for the sacrifice made by all the Canadian Armed Forces through the ages in defence of this country and its values; acknowledge the very special nature of the […]
How to borrow money
The process is quite easy, provided you borrow enough. Have you ever, dear readers, had occasion to borrow money? Have you ever borrowed ten dollars under a rigorous promise of your word of honor as a Christian to pay it back on your next salary day? Have you ever borrowed as much as a million […]
How much damage can the Democrats do to free trade?
For some reason that I don’t fully understand, the last few days have seen any number of commentators opining about the anti-free-trade leanings of many Democrats. Jacob Weisberg’s column in today’s FT is representative: Free trade is the real election casualty: As a result of this year’s election, it now seems unlikely that the new […]
When the minimum wage bites
The ‘old minimum wage research’ – summarised here – found that the effect of an increase in the minimum wage on employment was significant. The ‘new minimum wage research’ – à la Card and Krueger – found that the effect was not significant. When the idea of increasing the Quebec minimum wage to 10$/hr was […]
Why the common language of North America is not French
When Samuel de Champlain in 1603 sailed up the St. Lawrence River and agreed to support the Algonquian Indians at Tadoussac against the aggression of the Iroquois, he could not foresee that the petty strife between those two apparently insignificantly hordes of ‘savages’ would one day decide the fate of New France and of the […]
Flawed discounting of the Stern report
Max Wilkinson has a go in the Financial Times, complete with an over-the-top headline: Stern’s report is based on flawed figures. The issue is Stern’s choice of using a discount rate of 2-3% a year to discount the future costs of global warming: [T]he actual figure used by Sir Nicholas seems to have been between […]
A good decision on income trusts
The federal Conservatives’ decision to eliminate income trusts has generated a certain amount of fuss (even The Economist noticed), especially in the form of sharply reduced share prices for companies that had structured themselves to take advantage of the tax breaks they provided. Much of the media coverage about the pros and cons of income […]
The NDP and the minimum wage
The Ontario NDP has introduced a private member’s bill to increase the Ontario minimum wage from $7.75/hr to $10.00/hr, and its cousins in Ottawa have proposed a $10/hr minimum wage for workers under federal jurisdiction. The question is: why? We know that the link between those who earn the minimum wage and those who are […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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