In my latest National Post column I see worrying parallels between the federal Liberals and King James II on raising revenue without real Parliamentary consent.
"In their political arrangements, men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time. With regard to futurity, we are to treat it like a ward. We are not so to attempt an improvement of his fortune as to put the capital of his estate at risk." Edmund Burke An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs
"First, incentives matter to all human behaviour.... Like it or not, individuals will undertake more of an activity if the costs of that activity are reduced; this holds as much for bureaucrats as it does for profit-maximizing owners of firms." Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, Free Market Environmentalism
In my latest National Post column I say it's amazing how little attention we give to cybersecurity given the stakes in today's "connected" world.
"A trend is a trend is a trend, but the question is will it bend? Will it alter its course, through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?" Sir Alec Cairncross, former chief economic adviser to the British government, quoted in The Economist August 10, 1991
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." "Stein's Law", named for economist Herb Stein (cited by Robert J. Samuelson in National Post January 1 1999)
In my latest National Post column I express dismay that yet another expansion of a social program, in this case EI, cost more than expected because paying people to do something caused more of them to do it. Of all things.