The New York Times reports on the inequities generated by global warming below. The April edition of The Atlantic also featured a story on the same theme, but it was really poorly done. While the article makes a few interesting observations of what might happen in different parts of the world, Gregg Easterbrook, from Brookings, was more inclined to treat […]
Read moreLance Freeman of Columbia University argues against congestion pricing: The Equity Considerations of Congestion Pricing Getting stuck in traffic is fast becoming one of those necessary evils that everyone complains about but seldom does anything about it. Or at least anything that seems terribly effective. Neither additional road building nor public transit seemed to have had a major impact on […]
Read moreLast week, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund published a legal analysis on the environment and TILMA. Below is an excerpt from the press release, and the full document is here. This is an important analysis as BC’s point man on the file, Colin Hansen, has been claiming that the environment has been set aside as a “legitimate objective”. April Fools’ […]
Read moreOver at Wired, Leander Kahney comments on this week’s deal between Apple and EMI to sell EMI’s catalogue free of digital rights management (DRM): How Steve Jobs Calls the Tunes Steve Jobs’ new partnership with EMI to sell music without copy protection is a lesson in how to wield power in the digital age. Carefully and strategically, Jobs set up […]
Read moreThe authors of this paper address the relationship between (overly rigid) intellectual property laws, in copyright and patents, and externalities (spillovers), with a rethink of the assumptions driving the economics. Spillovers MARK A. LEMLEY Stanford Law School BRETT M. FRISCHMANN Loyola University of Chicago – Law School Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 321 Columbia Law Review, Vol. […]
Read moreAir travel is a beast for the climate change file, one that is going to be difficult to tackle as we move ahead. For consumers, it is deeply entrenched as a means of getting around the globe, and may be particularly hard to reduce because it would require strong international collaboration. In Monbiot’s book Heat, he argues we need to […]
Read moreThe “uh oh” file is growing, as the next IPCC report comes out this Friday. In it are more graphic descriptions about what warming could mean for the planet and by region. Scary stuff that will hopefully take our governments to the next level beyond recognition and half-measures to something more meaningful. Below are some previews from the Toronto Star […]
Read moreA jury is supposed to be comprised of one’s peers, but Conrad Black’s “Peers” are in the House of Lords and among the global elite. Naomi Klein reports on the class dimensions of jury selection at the Black trial (hat tip here): Class War in Conrad’s Court by Naomi Klein During the jury selection process at the Conrad Black fraud […]
Read moreJoseph Stiglitz compares Europe and America in his latest column. Message to Canada: like the EU we should not be lulled by conservatives’ obsession with GDP per capita differentials. Europe’s success points the way to better world IN some quarters, pessimism dominated the recent celebrations marking the European Union’s 50th birthday. Unease about the EU’s future is, of course, understandable, […]
Read moreWith a surplus that has swelled in recent months to around $13 billion, the Conservatives may be once again contemplating income splitting for next week’s federal budget. The annual cost is high at $5 billion, but this is a perfect wedge issue for Canada’s New Harperment, reducing the size of government while giving most of the tax benefit to its […]
Read moreSome notes by yours truly on the BC economy, based on a presentation I gave this past weekend: As a provincial economy, BC is relatively small and resource-dependent. Over past decades, there has been a growing divide between the “two economies†of Greater Vancouver (plus the provincial capitol in Victoria), with a more diversified and service-oriented economy, and the rest […]
Read moreMathematically, we are all related through our common ancestors. This is because of the power of 2 – that we each have two parents, four grandparents, and so forth back as far as you can go. Assuming no in-breeding, and an average of 20 years per generation, this works out like this: by 20 generations past (approx. 400 years ago), […]
Read moreI went to a lecture last night be Anthony Downs of the Brookings Institution. His main insight that I am still dwelling on is that traffic congestion is an inevitable outcome of the way we have organized our urban societies. And as long as we have successful and vibrant cities, there will always be congestion – at least, as long […]
Read moreWe have been picking on copyright a lot recently, but we should not neglect patents, that other arm of “intellectual property”. Like copyright, patents confer monopoly power. They have little to do with a “free market” but everything to do with real-world capitalism. In his monthly column, Joseph Stiglitz makes the case against patents with a focus on pharmaceutical drugs. […]
Read moreFrom the keynote speech delivered by Paul Krugman at the Economic Policy Institute’s recent conference on The Agenda for Shared Prosperity: A History of America’s Disappearing Middle Class By Paul Krugman …One thing I’ve been noticing on multiple debates in public policies — climate change is another one — is there seems to be an almost seamless transition from denial […]
Read moreEric Reguly sizes up the trial of Conrad Black. Added to the news that the British House of Commons voted to change the House of Lords to a 100% elected body, things are not going well for Lady Slatternly’s lover: If he’s afraid, it doesn’t show If Conrad Black fears for his freedom, his reputation, his wealth (what little […]
Read moreThe Economist so fetishizes “free trade” that it eagerly swallows TILMA without bothering to do any fact-checking. The way this is framed below, you would think people in BC are cheering that they will finally be able to buy Alberta oil. As for evidence, the article points to the Fraser Institute, who has not done any research on the topic […]
Read moreOur politicians are obsessed with tax cuts. The next election will now feature the battle of the tax cuts, with the Canada’s New Harperment pushing for more GST cuts (and who knows what other plans to reduce the size of the federal government) versus Dion’s plan for more personal and corporate income tax cuts. Meanwhile, poverty and homelessness will continue […]
Read moreAnnouncing the Center for the Applied Study of Economics & the Environment, a new US grouping of progressive economists. Here is their manifesto: Real People, Real Environments, and Realistic Economics The wealth and power of humanity in the 21st century could be used to create a far better world. We write as economists who are troubled by environmental degradation and […]
Read moreJohn Ibbitson leaps to the defence of the US entertainment industry and their bid to hold back the tide of history. It is not clear at all what harms are being caused by the existing Copyright Act and why it should be fixed to make rich US entertainment corporations even richer. To channel Dean Baker, copyright laws are an interference […]
Read moreThe story below was the banner headline piece on page one of today’s Vancouver Sun, and is a perfect choice for the “we told you so” file. Three years ago, after being awarded the 2010 Olympics, our BC Solutions Budget (and in subsequent editions) made many of the same points as the Olympics Housing Roundtable’s soon-to-be-released report. This report, and […]
Read moreRichard Parker of Harvard probes the legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith, perhaps in anticipation of the Progressive Economics Forum’s soon-to-be-inaugurated John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics (at the Canadian Economics Association meetings in Halifax this June). From the Post-Autistic Economics Review: Does John Kenneth Galbraith Have a Legacy? … I think it would behoove all of us today to attend, […]
Read morePublished in The Tyee, as Divided, We’re Falling: Book Review of Dimensions of Inequality in Canada Edited by David A. Green and Jonathan R. Kesselman UBC Press ISBN 0-7748-1208-7 August 2006 http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=4518 Review by Marc Lee A poll last Fall by Environics for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that three-quarters of Canadians felt that the gap between rich […]
Read moreBC’s Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen has been waving around at every opportunity a study by the Conference Board of Canada that allegedly demonstrate the benefits the deal will bring. When the report was finally released to the public this past January, Erin Weir and I were so shocked at how shabby the research was that we wrote a paper […]
Read moreAnother teaser from James Galbraith, who will be joining us at the Canadian Economics Association meetings to inaugurate the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics, and will also be presenting on a panel on inequality. His presentation might go something like this: Bush’s beltway boom By James K. Galbraith The rise of the Democrats brings some much-needed attention to […]
Read moreSomething rotten in the state of Denmark? Here’s an interesting take on Copenhagen’s recent youth riots. Anarchy in the DK Jakob Illeborg Copenhagen is burning. For four days the downtown area of the Danish capital has looked like a war zone. At least 690 people have been arrested, many of them younger than 18. As I write, Copenhagen is still […]
Read moreThe Guardian on Livingstone’s latest for the city of London: Cleaning up the Big Smoke: Livingstone plans to cut carbon emissions by 60% · Londoners given 20-year target to go green · Flights could drastically affect success of campaign David Adam and Hugh Muir Tuesday February 27, 2007 The Guardian A detailed plan to slash London’s carbon emissions by 60% […]
Read moreYesterday, the CCPA released a study on inequality filled with statistics about how life has changed for families with children. John Ibbitson shrugs his shoulders and responds with a polemic. He provides some “balance” by trashing right-wing think tanks, too, but in typical Ibbitson fashion provides not a shred of evidence for anything he says. Here’s the column and some […]
Read moreAdam Frucci at Gizmodo has it out for the Recording Industry Association of America, the good folks who like to sue teenagers and students in order to protect their lucrative oligopoly. This nonsense may soon be coming to Canada if changes to the Copyright under contemplation in Ottawa win the day (introduced initially by the Liberals but also supported by […]
Read moreThere is an astonishingly large underclass in the world’s richest nation: Gov’t estimates 754,000 homeless people By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press The nation has three-quarters of a million homeless people, filling emergency shelters through the year and spilling into special seasonal shelters in the coldest months, the government said Wednesday. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated there were […]
Read more