For decades it was a criminal offence to charge more than 60 per cent annual interest on a loan. It still is, unless it is a "payday loan." Following pressure by provincial governments and the NDP, payday loans were made legal in Canada. Payday loans can't exceed...
Regulation
Fining A Mother For Sending An “Unbalanced” Lunch Shows The Need For Common Sense
A rural Manitoba woman was recently fined $10 for sending her two kids to daycare with a lunch that was deemed nutritionally unbalanced according to Canada’s Food Guide. The meal included roast beef, potatoes, carrots, an orange and milk. To comply with provincial...
Govt should curb its love of regulation
Editorial, New Zealand Herald, December 2, 2013 In themselves, the Government's proposed amendments to the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act contain a reasonable degree of common sense. What can be wrong with changes that aim to reduce the risk of children drowning? And...
Isaac Asimov on Price Gouging
Every time a natural disaster strikes in North America, reports emerge of retailers increasing prices in some locations. This, of course, is generally prohibited, and leads to public shaming. There are, however, good reasons why price gouging needs to happen. The most...
Featured News
Let’s Celebrate Reaching Global Population of Eight Billion
Recently, the United Nations estimated that the population of Planet Earth had reached eight billion souls. Despite the chatter of the highly subsidized climate doomster complex this is quite an achievement - it certainly indicates that the carrying capacity of our...
China’s “Truckers’ Convoy”
Anti-lockdown protests are now taking place across China - the Chinese equivalent of our Truckers’ Convoy. The protests are a reaction to the brutal policies that literally lock people in their apartments, when even one infection is detected. As in Canada, when...
Study Cites Privatization In Productivity Gains
By removing the influence of government on their operations, the sector is now better able to base its decisions on sound business practices, rather than political expediency.
Do Not Let The ‘Cure’ Destroy Capitalism
As governments continue to determine how many restrictions to place on markets, especially financial markets, the destruction of wealth from the recession should be placed in the context of the enormous creation of wealth and improved well-being during the past three decades. Financial and other reforms must not risk destroying the source of these gains in prosperity.
Thank You for Our Taxi Monopoly
Taxi regulation is a textbook example of the public choice economics concept of dispersed costs and concentrated benefits. The behaviour of the taxi industry at a recent policy breakfast regarding taxi deregulation in Calgary illustrated this example well.
Regina Taxi Regulations: Quit fiddling and cure the disease
Canadian cities like Regina should discard their license caps and fare controls in favour of quality controls, since the regulatory process has proven it does not serve the public interest over successive decades.
The Role of Taxis in Urban Transportation
The weight of evidence argues for opening up the taxi market to competitive delivery, and reducing regulation to safety, customer service and the dispatch system. Winnipeggers deserve a taxi service that the status quo is not delivering and that fine-tuning a failed model will not provide.
Rome and the Great Depression
Monumental sums for bailouts. Staggering increases in public debt. Concentration of power in the central government. A mad scramble by interest groups with endless claims on the treasury. Demagogic class warfare appeals. These things ring familiar in the ninth year of 21st century America just as surely as they dominated the ill-fated Roman welfare state of two millennia ago.
Deregulate City Taxi Industry, Report Suggests
Deregulation of Calgary's taxi system would create new jobs in a time of economic downturn and help stranded people hail a cab much faster, says a study by a Saskatchewan think-tank. Study author David Seymour of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy argues cabs are...
Drive For More Cabs Hits Skids
But critics of the industry, and those seeking to break into the business, say there should be more freedom for new entrants to make a go of it. They say it will create better efficiencies, better service and perhaps lower costs.
Will The Real Christina Romer Please Stand Up?
One big problem with the Romers’ research, which they acknowledge, is that in their model one tax cut of a given magnitude is identical to another tax cut of the same magnitude. It doesn’t matter, in their model, whether the tax cut comes from a tax credit or from a cut in marginal tax rates. But, of course, it does matter.