Category Everyday economics
We’re free up here too, eh?
Paul Krugman has recently taken aim at the rhetoric of the US right: From the enthusiastic reception American conservatives gave Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom,” to Reagan, to the governors now standing in the way of Medicaid expansion, the U.S. right has sought to portray its position not as a matter of comforting the comfortable […]
Can an element of danger make life safer?
photo from ncc.gc.ca In Ottawa-Gatineau, the standard rules of the road apply to recreational pathways. People cycle, roller-blade or walk on the right. Slower traffic keeps to the far right-hand side of the path. In theory, it's safe. Everyone knows which side of the pathway they are supposed to be on. Having a […]
Crime and Police
Statistics Canada has released its most recent report on police personnel and expenditures and notes that police strength measured as officers per capita declined in 2012 by 1 percent. Moreover, there has been a slight decline in police expenditures overall with spending in 2011 totaling 12.9 billion – a decline of 0.7 percent from the […]
The fantasy world of retirement planning
For complicated historical reasons, I hold $13,000 in a locked-in RRSP with Great West Life. A few days ago, I received a "Year-End Retirement Illustration", shown over the fold. I read it and thought "That's so bad, it's bloggable."
Can evolution save the elephant?
For centuries, elephants with large tusks have been targetted by hunters and poachers. The "unnatural selection" in favour of smaller-tusked elephants has resulted in a dramatic decrease in average tusk sizes right across Africa. Smaller tusks increase an individual elephant's probability of survival, by making him or her a less attractive target for poachers. But […]
Government Spending and Crime
I’ve been doing some data exploration on public sector spending and societal outcomes and have some preliminary results that have caused me to puzzle about what they might mean. I’ve been looking at annual data for OECD countries (33 countries) over the period 2000 to 2010 and the relationship between public sector size and crime […]
Financial Literacy Quiz
Today I'm trying to do some work with the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. This survey contains a test of financial literacy/knowledge, which I have reproduced below the fold:
Men: Nature’s Second Sex
Pity the poor male springbok. As soon as he reaches sexual maturity, he is pushed out of the herd by the dominant male. Alone on the plains, he is easy picking for lions, leopards and cheetahs. The best survival strategy is to team up with other young males and form a bachelor herd. It's safer, […]
Labour supply, lions and elephants
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they […]
Aspiring to asbestos
On the way back from the Zambezi river crossing, the driver told me of his life's ambitions: he wanted to be middle class, to give his children a good start in life, and to have an asbestos roof. In this country, he told me, there are two types of roofs: metal and asbestos. Asbestos is […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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