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1. Not fake, but misleading news on minimum wages

   CBC’s The National ran a very touching story this week about the hard choices faced by three Toronto men holding down minimum wage jobs. It was both empathetic and sympathetic. Good. We shouldn’t skimp on either for people who are worse ...

2. Is Canada’s latest NAFTA strategy too ‘insidious and crafty?’

   In Book IV, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations, where he enumerates the benefits of free international trade, Adam Smith leaves only a tiny role for governments. He says the United Kingdom should support its merchant marine because ...

3. Outlaw the taxes, not the tax escalators

   I hardly ever disagree with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which in its 27-year existence has been a clarion for fiscal sanity. But every once in a while my economist’s training makes me take issue with their single-minded dedication ...

4. How can people so smart understand economics so little?

   Everybody complains about the pace of change these days, but most people seem to adapt pretty well. One way things are different now is podcasts. They’re the medium of choice for more and more people while driving, exercising or, in my ...

5. The natural rate of unemployment—are we there yet?

   The economics profession is getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s presidential address to the American Economic Association (AEA), which Friedman (pictured above) delivered in Washington on December 29, ...

6. Half the world’s cargo ships sail empty—could there be an app for that?

   The last time I read about ballast was as a teenager learning Canadian history. Ships carrying furs or timber to Britain needed ballast coming back to Canada and ironware, rocks and people served that purpose nicely. The real money was ...

7. How StatsCan wants you to pay taxes till you drop

   That’s not quite fair. Or rather, it’s not at all fair. Statistics Canada’s employees presumably have their own views on whether taxes should be higher or lower. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as government employees, many favoured higher ...

8. The Watson family inequality crisis

   In our family, inequality has reached levels the CBC and Toronto Star would consider outright scandalous. There are four of us in the family and we are now, all of us, tax-filers—even if some of us file mainly to register for various ...

9. Is Boeing really committed to Canada as much it claims? I hope not

   I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of those Boeing commercials where the aerospace giant (headquartered in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.) tells us how committed it is to Canada. The ads began shortly after the U.S. International ...

10. Requiem for the C-series—Airbus now owns 50.01 per cent of Bombardier’s airliner dream

    National pride is a funny thing. We’re supposed to get a boost from the accomplishments of people we have never met simply because they share our citizenship. Taking pride in your own accomplishments I can understand, even if doing so ...