Generally, Chinese urban planning policies have been a substantial contributor to the nation’s rising wealth. It is to be hoped that the advice of the western planners will continue to be respectfully listened to and largely ignored.
Year: 2008
Stimulus You Can Believe In
We know that stimulus can generally come in two forms, direct government spending or tax reform. We also know that spending, especially well-thought-out and appropriate spending on infrastructure, takes time to plan and even more time to implement.
Food For Thought
Many people think that Canada’s high standing on the recent PISA tests means that Canadian students are doing well academically. But there is more to this story than meets the eye. In fact, the PISA tests say nothing about advanced academic learning – like, say, the ability to read sophisticated text or explain E=MC2. Rather, the tests measure how well students can use very simple arithmetic and literacy skills to solve everyday problems.
Moving on Through Hayek
Hayek’s insights into the reasons for government failure remain as relevant to economic and social policymaking today as they were to exposing the catastrophic defects inherent in socialist central planning more than half a century ago. His ideas do not provide ready-made solutions for economic and social problems. But they do offer basic principles to help us set realistic policies and to cope with the difficulties inherent in creating institutions and regulations that will achieve their objectives.
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
Are We Ailing from Too Much Deregulation?
Many journalists claim that the U.S. economy since the late 1970s has been very free, with little regulation; that this absence of regulation has caused markets to fail; that there was a consensus in favor of little regulation; and that, now, this consensus is fading. On all these counts, the reports are false. Specifically, the U.S. economy has not been free since before the New Deal of the 1930s.
Subsidizing Business is No Way to Build an Economy
It seems like only yesterday -- in fact, it was April 2007 -- when the Conservative government announced $900 million in federal assistance for Canada's aerospace industry, with most of the money destined for Quebec. Not enough. In his grilling of the government last...
Old Roman Politic Should be Bygone
Why funding stadiums is not a legitimate role for government.
The Financial Crisis In Context
The financial collapse was not the long expected and inevitable collapse of a corrupt system. It rather can be attributed to two primary and very concentrated causes. Both causes could have been avoided with skillful regulation: one would have required more regulation, the other less. Finally, both causes were American, pure and simple.
Chalk or Cheese?
Unlike the obvious difference between those two items, Canadian municipalities often mix up two very different accounting categories—operating and capital expenditures. The result is that an educated reader is left to guess about municipal financial statements.
A Bad Climate Trade-off
Leaders in Poznan are talking loudly of the need to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, but until they put their trade policies where their mouths are, it will be just a lot of hot air.
Can We Afford More Wind Power?
PowerPoint slides which accompanied the speech by David Grant at our December 10th, 2008 Breakfast on the Frontier in Winnipeg. This is best viewed concurrently (in a separate window) with the speech audio (see related items below). View PDF version of slides
From Rhetoric to Reality on Public Transport
People tend to adopt those products and practices that make their lives better. For those few (in the national context) who work in the largest downtown areas, transit makes their lives better. For those working elsewhere, cars do.
Governments Already “Stimulate” Business
Governments have spent $182 billion on corporate welfare over 12 years. That’s “stimulus” enough.