“Are there still people who don’t understand that if you want to discourage an activity, tax it heavily, and if you want to encourage it, cut its taxes?”
Donald Coxe in Maclean’s September 20, 2004
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the main difficulty with ditching various terrible cabinet ministers is who’s going to replace them… and why.
“the saying, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.’”
Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle (without further attribution)
“A charitable view is that [Alan] Greenspan is what Karl Popper called a ‘historicist’ – one who believes the way people respond to incentives changes, so that economic models true last year are no longer true today…. But, what looks like an open and forward-looking mind may be, as Popper suggested, nothing more than a mind without bearings.”
Filip Palda in Ottawa Citizen March 17, 2000
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the EU mandating that all devices use the USB-C standard is a classic case of thinking just because something is annoying government should blunder in and mandate a uniform solution to one of life’s complexities.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the ongoing Canadian faith in government despite its incompetence on everything from navy caps to inflation brings its own punishment.
“As someone once said, the price of sheltering people from their own folly is to fill the world with fools.”
Link Byfield in British Columbia Report June 10, 1996
In my latest Epoch Times column I denounce the enduring capacity of politicians to be surprised by predictable developments and then unable to cope with them.