Category Media
Why oh why, etc: Canadian edition
In which the Canadian business press goes out of its way to track down a meaningless piece of information, and interprets it in the worst possible way (h/t to true dough) : Bloomberg: Canadian Dollar Still Undervalued After Rally, Memorandum Says: The Canadian dollar is undervalued and doesn’t yet reflect the benefit to the country’s […]
Stanford watch: Let’s bring back mercantilism!
In today’s Globe and Mail, Jim Stanford is upset with plans to liberalise trade between Canada and South Korea. He thinks it’s a bad idea because Canada has a trade deficit with South Korea: Mr. Harper, the double-double set thinks your idea tanks: …There’s one federal initiative elbowing its way onto the political radar screen, […]
The Globe and Mail needs to hire someone who understands economics
The Globe and Mail likes to think of itself as Canada’s Newspaper of Record, but its coverage of economics falls well short of that standard. I’ve more or less given up on the biweekly column by the Canadian Auto Workers’ Jim Stanford, whose columns invariably take the form of a game of "spot the economic […]
Tuition: Ontario goes in the right direction
Yesterday, the Ontario government announced that it would lift the freeze on tuition fees that it had imposed two years ago, and that it would expand its program of aid for students from low-income households. Student debt is an important issue, but it doesn’t affect all students: only about half of those who graduate with […]
Bad economics: weekly roundup
Tuesday’s announcement of the 2005Q4 GDP numbers provides the background for this week’s entries. First up is Jim Stanford’s column in Monday’s Globe and Mail, in which he notes that profits have been growing strongly, but Unfortunately, the investment response to this inflow has been uninspiring, to say the least. Corporate capital spending has grown […]
GDP is a flawed measure of economic welfare. So what?
The Economist indulges in a bit of hand-wringing about the exhaustively-documented weaknesses of using GDP to measure economic well-being: It’s high time that economists looked at more than just GDP: Economists spend much time discussing how to boost GDP growth. The OECD itself drew attention this week to the widening gap between America’s and Europe’s […]
TorStar Bad Economics Watch: I
There may be worse papers than the Toronto Star when it comes to economics reporting, but since it’s the one I’m most likely to read, it’s the one that gets most on my nerves. The Bank of Canada raised its target rate for the fourth time in a row last Tuesday (here’s why), and the […]
Howler of the day
The courier company UPS has filed a claim under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 against Canada Post, in which it claims that the government-owned corporation is using its profits from its first-class mail business – for which it has a government-mandated monopoly – to unfairly subsidise its courier division. Today’s Toronto Star – the connaisseur’s preferred choice […]
The Toronto media notices the world outside the 416 and 905 area codes
The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson visits my old high school: Mr. Croswell is one of a half-dozen 18-year-olds graduating this year from Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute who have agreed to talk about the federal election and what it means to them. As it turns out, it means nothing to them. What does […]
An elegant summary of what ails GM
Courtesy of William Watson, in today’s National Post: Here’s the problem with General Motors. Would you buy a car, used or new, from a company that wrote the following sentence: "The Buick LaCrosse is conquesting sales at impressive rates … "? "Conquesting"?
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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