Politics
Alberta government continues with vague economic pronouncements
From the Canadian Press comes the announcement that the Alberta Government feels that it has the oilsands problem figured, since they announced that they have a 20 year plan. Directly from the Canadian Press:
The report says the energy industry should be required “to use best available technology” that is “economically achievable.” The fine print doesn’t [...]
Half or double - Alberta government employee salaries
Straight out of See, comes an article describing expectations for the new sitting of the Alberta Legislature. Tucked in near the bottom of the article is a paragraph describing a move by Harry Chase:
Social Workers: Harry Chase, the Liberal MLA for Calgary-Varsity, is calling for a review of the wages for social workers or other [...]
Strange names likely screw with your kid’s future
Do unusual names really affect future outcomes for your children? A study out of the States by David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee - First Names and Crime: Does Unpopularity Spell Trouble? - suggests that this might be true.
Their objective in the study:
We investigate the relationship between first name popularity and juvenile delinquency to [...]
White guys do not look all alike…
Catching up child development and behaviour related articles that I’ve seen and read over the past few weeks.
A study was recently published by Sophie Labrecht, Lara J. Pierce, Michael J. Tarr and, James W. Tanaka, from Brown University and the University entitled “Perceptual Other-Race Training Reduces Implicit Racial Bias“. The team attempted to:
…examine the relationship [...]
Thailand training tax incentives and unintended consequences
Recently in Thailand they passed an amendment to the tax code that I received as a note from our Smiling Albino accountant. In that note they said:
Please also note, that in line with Government Policy, with regard to educational seminars, you are entitled to deduct 200% as a company expense.
My gut said that it was [...]
Alberta Gov’t incentive “plan” sounds economically illiterate
As many of you know, there has been lots of recent discussion about Alberta’s competitive advantage compared to other regimes in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basic (WCSB), and other jurisdictions. Recently, a few reports have suggested that Alberta is the highest cost region in the highest cost basin in the world right now. There are [...]
Top 5 things I’d like to see Obama do
These are more pet issues that the world saving ideas that top other lists, but they’d make a significant difference in America and in it’s sphere of influence.
1. Trade with Cuba
The trade embargo has allowed a despot to drive his country into abject poverty, and kill thousands. Trade will increase - and would have increased [...]
Why the federal budget is poorly conceived…
Ok, ok, ok. I know it’s late and this topic has been pundited to death, but I figured I should throw my two dollars in here.
The Canadian Federal Government recently (last week) brought down the new budget. In it there seemed to be something for everyone, and like in the US it’ll take us, federally, [...]
Alberta royalties miss the point…
While there are a variety of other issues at play it seems that the Fair Share plan, since changed to the New Royalty Framework and most recently rebadged as the Alberta Royalty Framework, isn’t doing much to improve the prospects of the oil industry.
It’s like no-one pictured oil at less than $50/bbl when the Stelmach [...]
All the financial crisis blather is making economics reading boring…
We need more challenging and entertaining stuff like these (mostly from the recent AEA conference):
Dwight R Lee’s article entitled Should Government Reduce Inequality in Life Spans? with such swell quotes as:
Government transfers to reduce the gender gap in life expectancy would do little more than reduce improvements in both women’s and men’s life expectancies. For [...]
Global warming duds…
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy represented an article from the Melbourne Herald Sun entitled Top 10 Dud Global Warming Predictions.
While I would rank myself as a skeptic of global warming, especially of the histrionic man-bear-pig Al Gore variety, articles like this entertain me for reasons other than the debunking.
Global Warming, or Climate Change as [...]
Surprise! More competition serves consumers…
From a paper entitled How does access regulation affect broadband penetration?, the authors do a study trying to determine the type of regulation that provides for the highest acceptance of broadband internet access.
They compare three regulatory regime styles that in turn allow for:
single technology where resellers sell the same thing
single technology where resellers also can [...]
Madoff’s con won’t be fixed by regulations…
…only by improved personal responsibility.
To put things very simply, it wasn’t a lack of regulations that let Madoff run his scheme for as long as he did.
What allowed him to evade prosecution by current laws was merely a lack of due dilligence on the part of the investors in his “fund”. While most investments take [...]
Bush was a freemarket leader?
Since the market crash that followed the cratering of the property market in the US and elsewhere, many people have been shouting that this cratering proves that capitalism and markets don’t work. The contol-the-world types of both ends of the spectrum have trotted this one out, often for political expediency, but mostly because they seem [...]
Terrorism and lessons from Dubai
Short post since all the good content is on Bruce Schneier’s site.
In the latest Cryptogram, Bruce Schneier puts together 3 short articles on things we should keep in mind after the terror attacks in Mumbai. My favorites are:
Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats — terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our [...]
US Libertarians demonstrate why they are unelectable
An article titled The Left-Libertarian vs. Right-Libertarian Controversy is a clear example the kind nitpicking that makes the US libertarian movement marginal.
Libertarianism is generally defined as individualism, with clear property rights and minimal (but not zero) government - and is clearly an antonym of authoritarianism. A pretty simple definition. Getting into the line between left [...]
Che Guevara was a murdering thug
Reason TV published a video about the celebrity impact of Che Guevara juxtaposing it with interviews by a Cuban-in-exile musician and a Chinese basketball player who played during Mao’s tenure.
The clearest point made in the segment is that people seem to very comfortable wearing clothing of mass murderers as long as they’re the communist brand [...]
Marking with red is aggressive
Queensland state government has published educational changes that pointedly suggest marking with red pen is aggressive and may harm the fragile egos of children. In addition to marking with more subdued colours, such as blue or black (likely to be culled for racist overtones), the guide also includes mandated peer reviewing and tutoring - of [...]
Alberta Liberals marginalize themselves for another 5 years
The results are in. The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) has again chosen to be sidelined in Alberta politics with the recent selection of Dr. David Swann as the new party leader. A real opportunity was lost by not selecting his primary opponent Dave Taylor whose passion is to bring the party more to the centre [...]
Canadians less likely to dole out bribes
Transparency International just released their Bribe Payers Index this week. It tracks the perceived propensity of various nationalities to pay bribes in foreign countries. The rankings are determined by polling almost three thousand executives from around the world with questions like:
How often do firms headquartered in (country name) engage in bribery in this country?
Basic stats:
Canada [...]
Alberta Liberal Party election watch
So the Alberta Liberal Party has 2 days left to vote to determine who the next leader will be to take on the perenially powerful Tories.
I’ve been lucky enough to be on the mailing lists of the three leadership hopefuls, and policy statements and positions have been showing up regularly. None of the information I’ve [...]
Followup to Federal Fiasco - my feelings
Since I’ve been a bit slack on my posts this past week, I missed following up on my political disaster review of last week with an entertaining and engaging blow-by-blow. Since I wrote previously, things happened roughly in this order - focusing on how generally inept Dion has handled this thing from the beginning.
Both McKenna [...]
Clamp down on petty infractions, but not if it’s an MP
As the CSM suggests, all the zero-tolerance, petty bureaucrats in the UK are allowed to push the citizens around, as long as it doesn’t begin to affect the lifestyles of British MPs.
Counterterrorism unit,
Officers didn’t just search the home of [MP] Damian Green – they arrested him, raided his office, and detained him for nine hours [...]
I aspire to write like Rex Murphy…
because of columns like this.
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addthis_title = ‘I+aspire+to+write+like+Rex+Murphy%26%238230%3B’;
addthis_pub = ‘tkuipers’;
Canadian political leaders - someone will lose face
I’ve avoided writing about the whole detent going in Ottawa, mostly because the whole thing has been making me utterly furious - almost apoplectic.
Recently, for the first time in 20 years I’ve become more politically active at all four levels of government that sit, some heavier than others, on top of us - federal, provincial, [...]
We don’t need no stinking property rights
From the Frontier Centre this week comes an article about the truly unstable state of Canadian personal wealth.
Stephanie Farrington found that 50% of Canadian’s wealth is tied up in property, will a large chunk of that sunk into primary residences. What makes this unstable, besides the current expectations of home price deflation, is that in [...]
Vote Dave Taylor
Just in case it got lost in my last post on the subject, I wanted it to be clear that Dave Taylor is the best bet the Alberta Liberal Party has to make changes and make it more effective and electable.
If you haven’t please ensure that you’ve sent your ALP ballot in with Dave as [...]
Niels Veldhuis says don’t blame greed
An excellent article (PDF) written by Niels Veldhuis of the Fraser Institute lays out solid description of the poor government incentives that significantly contributed to the recent market crunch. He does all of this while discussing the difference between greed and self-interest (one of my favourite topics) and why self-interest is truly what makes the [...]
National Geographic is poor with stats
… or at least with their headlines. From an article at National Geographic this week, comes this headline:
Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought
If this were true then the expected pH of the Ocean at about 8 would probably be acidic enough to eat through most anything. Though exactly what a 10 times increase in [...]
Toronto Mayor clueless on basic economics
David Miller - the seemingly basket-case mayor of Toronto - has decided to change the way they’re trying to discourage plastic bag use by Toronto citizens.
It seems that the original idea was to force supermarkets to pay their customers a dime for bringing in a reusable bag. The change was to instead have the stores [...]
Alberta Liberal Party votes - make it matter
The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) membership* is voting for a new leader coming up very soon. There are three men standing for the job: David Swann, Dave Taylor, and Mo Elsalhy.
The party has been an also-ran player in the province of Alberta for the past 8 decades, many times fading to single-digit seats in the [...]
The Canadian Human Rights Commission publishes report suggesting they were really really wrong
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), recently famous for the Mark Steyn debacle and other petulant garbage has published a report by Richard Moon, suggesting that the very controversial Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed forthwith. It goes on to say that the CHRC should get out of the business [...]
Turn the world economy around - legalize drugs
I was reading the Post blog today and came across a clip covering a smoke-in in Toronto. It reminded me of a conversation I had with some friends a couple of weeks ago.
Take general estimates of the Canadian drug trade - let’s assume about $18 billion/year. Now say that legalization and lower business risk would [...]
What’s wrong with $70 an hour?
There seems to be a bit of angry-meme competition on the web amongst commentators with respect to how much a GM employee costs - currently circulating at about $70/hour.
James Surowieki was the first I read, stating:
… you only get to that number if you include all of the costs G.M. is paying for retired workers. [...]
British clown music a danger to the public, especially children
I know that I seem to be picking on British public policy quite often, but it’s just so easy. From a link off the Reason Brickbats page comes this astounding obtuse abuse of civic power.
Zippos Circus clowns were banned from playing musical instruments because the Birmingham City Council told them the music contravened the Licensing [...]
UK says littering should maybe not be considered terrorism
In a landmark psuedo-decision the national government of Britain has decided to stop equating littering with terrorism. It is now safe enough to litter since the government has suggested that surveillance tools and regulations used to attempt to stop terrorism are a bit much when it comes to more mundane offenses - offenses such as [...]
Saskatchewan high school to nix fails
Saskatoon High School, Nutana Collegiate, under auspices of Principal Shirley Figley is considering not putting failing grades on student report cards, replacing sub-50s with an incomplete or no mark. Figley says:
…teachers don’t want their students to fail… [and] We don’t need to degrade the student by giving them a number
Based on what I’ve read about [...]
King Charles? Nay says I
So Canada has been a constitutional monarchy since inception in 1867. Through that there have been kings and queens with actual influence and those that mostly faded away. I’d suppose that QE II has skated the fine line between the two general possibilities - facing impending irrelevance with grace, good breeding, and poise …
… Unlike [...]
From today’s Financial Post
A couple of well penned paragraphs in the business section showed up in the Post today.
The first was a reprint of an editorial from the WSJ talking about the potential nationalization of the auto industry (read: Big 3):
A Detroit bailout would also be unfair to other companies that make cars in the U.S. Yes, those [...]
Remembrance Day 08
While war is certainly nothing that I’d wish for, for me my family, my friends or most anyone, I believe that at times war is necessary. There have been certain wars in the last 100 years that have been necessary though I’d presume, given my readings of history, most have been avoidable.
November 11 was established [...]
O’Rourke on how “the movement” blew it
P.J. O’Rourke writing in the Weekly Standard as usual delivers in a libertarian bent with highly engaging and only slightly hyperbolic prose. Writing about how the US conservative movement (in my parlance: libertarianism) blew it over the past many years. I aspire to write as cleanly and here are a few choice quotes:
“After the events [...]
2 for 1 better than half price
The Guardian reports that Broadspeed.com significantly improved sales by changing their tactic from half-price to two-for-one:
Empson said: “It was amazing. We had been trying to sell those cars online at half price for nearly a month and they were selling, but it was nothing special. But when we made the deal two-for-one, we got 22,000 [...]
TRoC explicitly supports Quebec separatism
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy* released an email with a variety of articles showing that the Bloc Quebecois would be utterly sidelined without public campaign cash. Here’s some tidbits from the various articles:
“Without federal financing, the separatist party would likely have been unable to mount a serious campaign in the 2008 election.” concludes [...]
And again DST debunked
Daylight savings time (DST) shifts, and especially the debate on it drives me nuts. It’s been shown many times that the logic used by its proponents is spurious at best. And another study (PDF) by Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant proves quite nicely that DST is crap, or at least ineffective:
Our main finding [...]
Read today
Michael Shermer continues his Folk … series with an easy to read installment on Folk Numeracy, covering statistics and confirmation bais.
Thomas F Cooley writes in Forbes about the need for Barack Obama to reaffirm US support for NAFTA.
Rwanda decides that French is no longer going the primary education language in the country - noting that [...]
Boozing and baby
A new study in the International Journal of Epidemiology suggests that having a couple of drinks a week during pregnancy isn’t the danger that some politicized folks would have you believe. What’s quite interesting is that in the past it’s been quite difficult to find studies that looked at (the likely majority of) women that [...]
The US election
It’s getting close to the end of the campaign, something I’ve been looking forward to for the past many many many months. Mostly it’ll be good to see the end of all the caterwauling, whining, whinging and substance-free attacks the candidate teams and their media posses are making on each other.
Unlike the fatuous Brad DeLong, [...]
Anti-drug ads increasing use?
In a study by Robert Honik to be published in the American Journal of Public Health the effects of White House $1 billion, mandated anti-drug advertising is show to be ineffective or worse:
…the Congressionally-mandated evaluation showed the 12.5-18 year old youths who reported seeing the advertisements more often were actually more likely to intend to [...]
Free markets and morality
It’s taken me far too long to read through them but the Templeton Foundation’s conversation entitled Does the free market corrode moral character? gathered together a variety of philosophers of different stripes to comment. Most of the commentators seemed to support that idea that free markets are at least morality neutral or if not morally [...]
Accidents causing death…
The Economist has a nice table showing the likelihood of death by a variety of mundane and more unusual accidents. The stats, derived from the US National Safety Council, show that:
you’re 52 times more likely to be poisoned than drown in the bath;
falling will kill you 56 times more often than electrocution and;
your more [...]
