Last Thursday the Bank of Canada warned against the obvious: condos are overpriced and this poses a risk to the whole economy. The BoC singled out the Toronto market, noting that the country’s largest city also hosts the largest number
Economics 
Should Canadians Welcome a Strong Dollar?
How worried should Canadians be about a strong dollar? There are two ways to look at the question. Canadians that import goods – as is the case of the common Canadian consumer – should welcome the strong dollar. Cheap Chinese
About Us So-Called “Bubble Mongers”
Even if at a slower pace than before, house prices in Canada continue to climb. The average house price in Canada now stands at $388,900, up 3.7% over the past year. Looking at more statistically refined barometers, the MLS House
Bangladesh Tragedy
Reprinted from LewRockwell.com he Bangladeshi people have suffered from a spate of fires and building collapses in textile factories. In the first few months of 2013, these tragedies have killed some 1100 garment workers. The victims were in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
Tax Havens: a Symptom of Bad Policy
One of the major issues to be discussed by the participating countries of the G8 Summit taking place this week is the issue of offshore tax havens, where business owners find ways to hide their assets in order to avoid
The Paradox of Imperialism
Reprinted from Mises.org The State Conventionally, the state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics. First, it is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction). That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict,
The Calgarian Advantage – Low Taxes or Zero Taxes?
In Alberta, property taxes are everything. Since the province levies a flat income tax of 10% and has no sales tax, property taxes are a vital part of the government’s budget. Recently, the Alberta government raised the property taxes of
The Rise and Fall of the Dollar
Reprinted from Mises.org Over the last century America’s money—the dollar—has come to dominate the global monetary system. It is used not just by Americans, but in other countries, in the global black market, and by importers and exporters. And it
E.J. Dionne and Libertarianism
Last week, a writer at the dying publication Salon attempted to take libertarianism down a notch by casually noting the philosophy has never been implemented on a grand scale in any modern country. Libertarians, in their endearing penchant for rabble
Taxation Without Representation is Alive and Well
Taxation without representation is a powerful phrase. It is one that sparked one of the most important revolutions the world has ever seen. Consequently, one would hope that governments would have learned the lesson that extracting taxes from people who
A Substandard Golden Rule
Reprinted from LewRockwell.com The gold “price rule” denotes the monetary reform proposal put forth in various forms by a number of supply-siders, including Arthur Laffer,[1] Robert Mundell,[2] and Jude Wanniski.[3] Laffer’s detailed formulation of the proposal also served as the basis of the
Debating the Legality of Prostitution
Later this week, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments in a constitutional challenge of our prostitution laws. As an experiment, I endeavor to answer this question using a method made famous by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa
What’s So Special About Economics?
Unlike what is commonly believed, economics is not about money, or profit, or investments, or capitalism, or wages, or unemployment or stocks and bonds or about any other buzzword you may have heard or read in the media. Yes, economics does study
A Tutorial on Money, Gold and Inflation for Paul Krugman
Reprinted from MurraySabrin.com In his New York Times column, “Lust for Gold” (April 12), Paul Krugman embraces once again monetary inflation as one of the ways to create prosperity, one of the longest enduring myths in economics. By disparaging gold
Cell Phone Socialism
Last Friday, an asteroid spanning nearly two miles in length passed dangerously close to Earth. Dangerous in the astrophysics sense actually means 3.5 million miles. Still, the close-call sent shivers down the spines of experts who warned that a rock
The Great White Short
Short selling stocks is a decent way to make money if you know what you’re doing. Vijai Mohan, founder of San Francisco-based hedge fund Hyphen Partners LP, claims to be one of these people. He’s shorting Canadian banks much to
What’s Wrong with Quantitative Easing?
Since the crisis erupted in 2008, the new buzzwords in central banking have been “quantitative easing”. The Federal Reserve embarked on a series of them, with the most recent one colloquially termed QE∞ to denote the open-ended nature of its
The Fatal Flaw at the Heart of Modern Economics
Reprinted from LewRockwell.com We are visiting our children in the US before heading to Europe for the summer. Last weekend was spent with son Henry in La Jolla, California. Henry is working with Rick Rule’s investment firm in Carlsbad. Now
Dear Future Student of Austrian Economics
Every once in a while, I get an e-mail from an undergraduate student asking where in Canada he or she could pursue a graduate degree in Austrian economics. While no economics department in Canada offers such a degree, there are
Does Innovation Require the Patent Office?
Reprinted from Laissez Faire Today Two years ago, I spoke to a gentlemen who had started and sold four companies. He was currently working on a new project that sounded very promising (for all I know, he has already sold
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