In my latest National Post column I ask whether Jagmeet Singh and other prominent Canadian politicians can possibly be the buffoons they appear to be, and answer sadly yes.
“The key to any good policy, Prescott summarized, was to make a commitment and stick to it. ‘What I am going to describe for you is a revolution in macroeconomics,’ Prescott wrote in the American Economist in 2006. The essay further distilled theories from a seminal 1977 paper by Prescott and Kydland, titled ‘Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans’... ‘You should not think in terms of controlling the economy,’ Prescott said in 2004. ‘That leads to bad outcomes. You should think in terms of committing to good policy rules.’… ‘Economists like simplicity. It’s one of our most endearing traits,’ he wrote in a 2006 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. ‘As soon as you complicate things by getting between a man and his intentions you create all sorts of distortions that are often suboptimal (and are the devil to model). Taxes excel at these shenanigans. And those distortions don’t end when the grim reaper comes calling. Ashes to ashes, dust to trust.’”
The obituary of Edward Prescott, who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics, in the National Post November 14, 2022
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say Justin Trudeau’s totally out-of-touch aristocratic remarks about borrowing via credit cards may finally bring him down politically.
Claiming a special French “right to idleness”, radical eco-feminist Green MP Sandrine Rousseau said hard work was “essentially a Right-wing value”.
The Telegraph November 14, 2022 [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/14/french-have-got-even-lazier-study-shows-vast-majority-happy/]; I trust she did not overstrain herself writing that admission disguised as a boast.
In my latest Epoch Times column I ask how it is possible that as the Canadian federal public service swells up like a dirigible, it can’t find someone to process expense claims from soldiers we sent to Poland then told to buy their own meals.
“As if to underline the national decline [in Britain in the 1970s ], every flailing industry flew the moth-eaten flag: British Steel, British Coal, British Leyland. They were all owned by the state – even the last, which was the national automobile manufacturer. The government had taken all the famous British car marques – Austin, Morris, Rover, Jaguar, Triumph – and merged them into one. That’s right: the government made your car. Or, rather, a man called Red Robbo did, when he was in the mood, which wasn’t terribly often.”
Obit of James Callaghan by Mark Steyn in The Atlantic Monthly June 2005.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the 2023 federal budget is exactly what you’d expect from people who think we can’t afford not to spend beyond our means in good times and bad.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say all the people who thought replacing the McGuinty Liberals with “Conservatives” would make a difference to Ontario’s big-government path have been sorely disappointed.