Monthly Archives: October 2011
Revisiting the Sustainability of Post-Secondary Education
I decided to try and dig a little deeper on the issue of the sustainability of post-secondary education spending in Canada by looking at the numbers in real per capita terms and by province. As I mentioned in my earlier post, while fiscal sustainability is a term generally used in the health care policy debate, […]
All Chuck Norris really needs is stamina
This is my fourth and last Chuck Norris post. I'm getting bored with the metaphor too. But there is something many people missed in my last posts. It's important. Andy Harless explains it in his post. I'm going to explain it my way. Suppose Chuck Norris keeps on fighting for an NGDP level path target […]
How many Canadians are losing and finding jobs?
A couple of weeks ago, I noted that as far as I could make out from available data, rates of job creation returned to pre-recession levels more than a year ago. This time, I'm going to try to get a handle on the gross flows on the other side of the market – that is, in […]
Isn’t Chuck Norris American?
He doesn't need to apply for a Green Card to do the same work in the US that he's been doing outside the US. Why can't he work in the US too? The US and Japan do not have inflation targeting central banks. Nobody knows what they are targeting, because they don't say. Canada, Sweden, […]
The unwanted gift
Before markets existed, people used gifts to save and invest, to exchange goods and services, and to pool risk. Lark Rise to Candleford, Flora Thompson's portrait of 19th century British village life, describes a gift exchange – and its underlying logic – in detail. Each year every family in the village bought and raised a […]
Did God overinvest in Land?
I had a short argument with Greg Ransom a couple of months back. Greg won. But actually, I wasn't really arguing with him. I was on his side to begin with, though it did help me clarify my views. Question. "What is the economic difference between capital and land?" If you answered: "People made capital […]
Why is canine cataract surgery so expensive?
In Ontario, a opthamologist is paid $441.95 per eye for cataract surgery. In Ottawa, the cost of canine cataract surgery is about $4,000. (I cannot give you an exact price, as the Ontario Veterinary Medicine Association's suggested fee guide is not available to non-members). Why do opthamologists charge more to repair a dog's eye than a human's eye?
E(NGDP) level-path targeting for the people of the concrete steppes
"But what concrete steps will the Fed actually take to raise Nominal GDP? Can anyone tell me that?" I must have heard that question a hundred times over the last couple of years. And a dozen more times in the last day, ever since Paul Krugman endorsed the proposal to target NGDP. I always imagine […]
Canada’s Provincial Debt Divide
The release of the 2011 Federal Fiscal Reference Tables is a good opportunity for me to refresh myself with an assortment of public finance statistics. What caught my attention this year was the evolution of the east-west divide in provincial public debt.
China and the Eurozone
My knowledge of what's happening in China is very slight. But from what I've been reading over the last few months (like this today), it sounds worrying. Others may have noticed this parallel, but just in case you missed it, I'm going to make it. Compare China vs the US to Spain or Ireland vs […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments