Monthly Archives: September 2008
Why aren’t there more stories like this in the MSM?
An economics lesson for Stephen Harper (and everyone else, come to that), in which Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner gives Greg Mankiw a call. It's a clear and readable explanation of the economics of climate change policy, in 800 words or fewer. And all a journalist had to do was call an economist and ask […]
Campaign memes I don’t understand
1. The "Green Shift" is complicated and difficult to understand. It's not. Seriously. How hard can it be to figure out? Carbon taxes up. Other taxes down. End of story. It's much easier to understand than the cap-and-trade models of the other two parties. 2. Stephen Harper is the most credible leader on economic issues. […]
On systematic biases of Canadian polling firms
Now that the federal election campaign is underway, we're being bombarded with polls. One of the questions that preoccupies me these days is the extent to which there are systematic differences between the results produced by the various polling firms. Here is a graph of the reported estimates for the lead of the Conservatives over […]
Climate change policy and the Conservative-NDP Axis of Dimwits
For reasons I'm going to explain shortly, the Conservatives and the NDP are unlikely allies in the debate on climate change policy. I'll be ripping into the idiocy of their positions pretty hard, so in order to balance what follows, I'm going to make a separate point as a sort of disclaimer. For more than […]
Quebec is better governed than the US. Why shouldn’t the market price its bonds accordingly?
There's been a certain amount of hilarity (here, here, and no doubt elsewhere in the English-speaking media) about this story: Tim Backshall, chief strategist at Credit Derivatives Research, said the price implied that the US was more likely to default on its obligations than Japan, Germany, France, Quebec, the Netherlands and several Scandinavian countries. Traders […]
The NDP’s manufacturing obsession
Alternate title: "Dear Jack Layton: The 1970's called – they want their economic policies back." After the last election, I entertained the belief that the NDP was finally on track to come up with sensible, reality-based progressive policies and become a serious contender for power. I am sorry to report that this belief was apparently […]
Just when you think that Conservative tax cuts can’t get any dumber…
… they surpass themselves. Tories to cut diesel, jet fuel excise taxes: Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is promising to cut federal excises taxes on diesel and aviation fuel in half over four years. Mr. Harper is pledging to cut the tax by 2 cents — taking it to two cents per litre from the current […]
Destination: deficit
Eighteen months ago, I posted a brief history of the federal budget surplus, based on data up to the end of fiscal year 2005-6 – that is, up until the Conservatives took power. At the time, I said: After ten years of surpluses, we can perhaps breathe a little easier. The debt is less and […]
US voters have a date with destiny. Canadian voters have an appointment with the dentist.
And so it begins. The federal election campaign will be nasty and brutish, but at least it will be short. Economics and the economy are likely to be major themes of this election, so there will be more posts about Canadian politics than usual over the next few weeks.
Why the US GDP numbers aren’t so good, and why the Canadian GDP numbers aren’t so bad
The recent GDP numbers from both sides of the border are somewhat puzzling: How can strong US GDP growth be reconciled with all the other bad news about the US economy? How can weak Canadian GDP growth be reconciled with all the other really-not-all-that-bad news about the Canadian economy? Here are a couple of graphs […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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