Posts in Economics
Taking the easy way down

In my latest National Post column I say “This government doesn’t do hard” could become our new national motto as a vast cast of characters across the executive, legislative and judicial branches avoids thinking about difficult choices from COVID to national security and the budget.

Words Worth Noting - June 2, 2021

“Revenge really does feel good… The [then just-published] Swiss brain-imaging study reveals how we draw satisfaction from teaching strangers a lesson when they have behaved badly... As the journal Science puts it, the study reveals what goes on in Dirty Harry’s head when ‘he succinctly informs a norm violator that he anticipates deriving satisfaction from inflicting altruistic punishment.’”

Ottawa Citizen August 27, 2004

Words Worth Noting - May 6, 2021

“For it is the nature of the many to be ruled by fear rather than by shame, and to refrain from evil not because of the disgrace but because of the punishments. Living under the sway of their feelings, they pursue their own pleasures and the means of obtaining them, and shun the pains that are their opposites; but of that which is fine and truly pleasurable they have not even a conception, because they have never had a taste of it.”

Aristotle Ethics