The Globe and Mail has been producing some terrific videos on economics topics.  Okay, that's a bit self-serving, since Armine Yalnizyan and I were in a series on the future of manufacturing in Canada, but honestly, there are some gems here! I like two recent ones by Philip Oreopoulos: Why millenials aren't getting jobs and What Gen Y […]

A lot has been made on Elizabeth May's anti-wifi twitter comments yesterday (Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen has a nice summary).  What is far more concerning to me is the Green Party announcing a new anti-Smart Meter policy for British Columbia due to concerns about EMF radiation. This leads to a couple of questions:

I think this is a fairly obvious point, so I am a little surprised I have not seen it anywhere else. The raison d'être for eliminating the mandatory long-form census was privacy concerns.  As Tony Clement put it: "Do you believe the government should be asking you what time you leave for work in the morning?" […]

With a newborn at home, it is difficult to find the time or energy to do much outside of my day job (if it seems like I have gone AWOL, it is because I have).  In what spare moments I have, if I'm not watching old World Series games on iTunes, I am reading classic […]

Similar to yesterday's question, but this one involving a trade where the Red Wings sent the 24th pick overall to the Senators in exchange for the 35th and 48th pick.  The Senators would seem to do better with this trade than the Leafs, as the pick they receive is 2 picks lower (24 vs. 22) […]

I didn't get a chance to watch the draft yesterday, but I was getting updates via text message, including the following: Leafs acquire 22nd overall pick in 2011 from Ducks for 30th and 39th overall picks in 2011… It wasn't immediately obvious to me who got the better deal – the Leafs or the Ducks. […]

At 1PM today I am doing a chat on "The Future of Manufacturing in Canada", which my former students know is a favourite issue of mine.  You can access the chat here. Hope you all can make it! I am certain I'll be referencing a number of reports and resources in the chat.  In the […]

One of my less fun jobs at Nexreg is taking care of payroll.  This involves using the Canada Revenue Agency's very helpful Payroll Deductions Online Calculator. My only complaint with the calculator is that it is cumbersome if you would like to play around with the numbers.  Suppose I give an employee a $400/mth raise; […]

A fun question based on something one of my wife's doctors told me. It turns out the information I received from the doctor was likely incorrect, but the question the information is too good not to use, so I'm just going to pretend it is legit. Here goes: