Yet the bottom line remains: Without smart growth’s land rationing policies, the severe escalation in home prices would never have reached such absurd levels. But the disaster in the highly regulated markets will be with us for years. The smart growth spike in housing prices turned what might have been a normal cyclical downturn into the most disastrous financial collapse since 1929. Now the taxpayers are being asked to bail out the mess that smart growth advocates, no doubt inadvertently, have created.
Year: 2008
Regulations Are at the Root of U.S. Housing Mess
As Congress and the Fed administer aid to financial institutions that ignored the history of past cycles, policy makers around the country must change regulations that are targeted at aesthetically displeasing urban sprawl, but create harmful price volatility.
Worst Among Equals? (PowerPoint Slides)
PowerPoint Slides from the Meeting for Policy Experts Seminar releasing the 2008 Canada Health Consumer Index.
Rabbit In The Hat
The problem, of course, is that this process is repeated over and over again in all kinds of government transfers and “investments”, and the Canadian taxpayer ends up paying nearly 40% of his income in miscellaneous taxes. In return, he gets bad services, stupid subsidies, and a pile of regulations, controls and prohibitions.
Featured News
Energy Inquiry Shows the Problem and the Way
If a public inquiry found that hundreds of millions of dollars was being funnelled by foreign entities to undermine Canadian industry, should we conclude there is nothing wrong? Remarkably, the public inquiry’s final report into anti-Alberta energy campaigns did the...
Why Millennials Prefer DIY Investing
One-third of Canadian millennials prefer going solo when it comes to managing and investing their money. Online financial education and tools are changing the rules of the game and threatening to affect financial advisors how emails affected mailmen. A recent poll...
The Myth Of The Level Playing Field
Frankly, an "in-and-out" scheme sounds quaintly titillating. But a possible in-and-out scheme run by the Conservative party in the last federal election promises to dominate question period and national news coverage for the next week or two, perhaps longer. Elections...
Frontier Centre for Public Policy Report Highlights the Seven ‘Habits’ of Successful Governments
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy releases a report outlining seven ‘habits’ the Alberta government should implement to increase its effectiveness in supplying services to Albertans.
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Governments
This report identifies seven areas where the new provincial government, Members of Legislative Assembly, and staff, should review and reform existing government policy measures.
Food Shortages: Think Big
However, just as livestock are eating the food that would have been consumed by poor Africans, so Americans are running their SUVs on it. One SUV tank of biofuel uses enough grain to feed an African family for a year.
New Zealand’s Maori Show The Way For Native Populations
Maori are culturally more homogenous than Canada’s indigenous peoples. And they’ve never had a system of reserves. They have integrated into the broader community. Nor do they receive large transfer payments from the New Zealand government.
Internet-Savvy Families Desert Cities For Coast
With rapid communications and internet access becoming available in rural areas, many are favouring “the simple life” and are emmigrating from urban centres.
More Transparency
Billions of dollars are pouring into municipalities in GST rebates; gas tax rebates and for infrastructure renewal from federal and provincial coffers without adequate oversight, controls and transparency.
Tuition Freeze Continues Post-Secondary Degradation
Political posturing and “optics” have again taken precedence over sustainability and good governance.
Report Analysis Suggests Ways to Improve First Nation Outcomes
The Centre’s background paper, Indigenous Peoples from an International Perspective: How is Canada Faring? and written by Joseph Quesnel, used the report’s results to determine how First Nations in Canada could do better.