The LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) is “an Ontario government enterprise and one of the world’s largest buyers and retailers of beverage alcohol.” Posters like the one below (Photo by: The Ethical Adman) can be seen in many LCBO
Regulation
The CRTC… Nazis?
OK. Obviously they’re not murdering people in genocidal ovens but they are being anti-competitive bureaucrats. The title actually comes from a conversation I once overheard on the bus. Some old guy was talking about phone companies to a young family.
The Mess the Bank Made… and Denies
Back in April, I reviewed a document called the “Financial System Reviewâ€, published semi-annually by the Bank of Canada. Due to the dire warnings contained therein, I thought it necessary to produce a more user-friendly summary of the information the
Let’s Celebrate, the Politicians Have Gone Home!
If you listen to the MSM, you’re likely aware that the premier of Ontario has shut-down the province’s legislature before the current session would normally terminate. Not only is it bad for Ontario, the MSM says, but it’s also bad
You Will Be Betrayed
Reprinted from Laissez Faire Today My neighborhood is filling up with political yard signs. Vote for this guy! Vote for that guy! I can’t understand why people are willing to give up precious real estate on their front lawns, make
Ohhh Henry on Free Trade and China
If the Canadian and Ontario governments had not wiped out people’s incomes and savings with taxation and inflation then they would not be placed in the position of having to decide whether to allow foreigners with higher savings rates to
A Portrait of the 2011 CMHC
Dear readers, it’s happened again. The federal government is once again revising its rules on mortgage lenders. The new revisions are mostly a repeat of the changes they made back in January 2011, and that I reported on in a
The Economics of Gambling
Just a few days ago the US Department of Homeland Security seized and shut down the Canadian sports gambling site www.bodog.com. Â Bodog did not have any American clients, and thought that they had removed all legal liability from US laws
Do Government Regulations Create Jobs?
The obvious answer is, of course, yes. If bureaucrats are put in charge of enforcing the latest and greatest scheme dreamt up by politicians deluded enough to believe themselves capable of utopian engineering, than employment rolls invariably increase. And when
Problem Solving and the Economy
While reading “Developing the Leader Within You” by John Maxwell, I was intrigued by the chapter dealing with problem solving. As I was going through it, it reminded me of what should be done to solve the problems with the
The Triumph of Hope Over Experience: Why Government Failure Should Be No Surprise
[Originally published in Le Quebecois Libre, August 15th, 2011, No 291] On the morning of Sunday, July 31, Montrealers awoke to a depressingly familiar scene: the city’s infrastructure crashing to the ground. This time, it was a 15-meter concrete slab
Just Another Case of Law Shirking by Desperate Politicians
As the Republican presidential candidate primary elections heat up, it looks like another case of “the law is flexible for me and not you” has made an appearance. From CBS News: FORT DODGE, Iowa – Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former
Whither “Regulation”?
The overwhelming majority of discussion on regulation – even from the libertarian camp – seems fundamentally confused about the very nature of regulation. We are constantly subjected to debates about how much regulation, what kind of regulation, whether regulation is
Libertarianism and Capitalism Don’t Mean Rugged Individuality
The political/economic blogosphere is abuzz over President Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kansas last Tuesday. Former Labor Secretary and professor in public policy at the University of California, Berkley, Robert Reich, was ecstatic over the speech: The President’s speech today in
Those Who Control the Past Control the Future
There’s a popular historical legend that goes like this: Once upon a time (for this is how stories of this kind should begin), back in the 19th century, the United States economy was almost completely unregulated and laissez-faire. But then
Banking Jargon 101
In case you’ve been living under a rock recently, you would have noticed that another major announcement from the world’s monetary authorities was released a couple days ago.[ref]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-30/fed-five-central-banks-lower-interest-rate-on-dollar-swaps.html[/ref]Â Markets everywhere rallied as investors gleefully piled in to just about every
New Bloomberg Info On Fed Bailouts
Last August, Bloomberg news released some uncovered details from its hard fought “Right to Know” request it launched against the Federal Reserve and its actions during the heat of the financial crisis. Though lauded with praise by numerous media outlets,
Forget Stimulus, Deregulate
Canada managed to escape the initial financial crisis, between late 2007 and early 2009, in better condition than its major global financial partners. It did so for a variety of reasons. Canada’s economy is by and large “freer†than that of the
Chairman of AIG Defends Wall Street Bailout
Stop me if you have heard this one before-”Wall Street needed bailed out or else the world economy would have gone over a cliff.” That’s it, end of story. The possibility that anything but grey skies and storm clouds waited
Taylorism, Progressivism, and Rule by Experts
[Originally published in the Freeman, September 2011, Volume 61, Issue 7] The Progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century—the doctrine from which the main current of modern liberalism developed—is sometimes erroneously viewed as an “anti-business†philosophy. It was
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