Economics

Free Trade's Heavy Cost

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Free trade and open markets are great ideals. These principles, over the last few centuries, but especially since World War II, have created tremendous wealth, particularly in the developing world. But free markets were made for human society, not the other way around.  read more »

Green Dreams, Inflationary Realities

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Global policy and politics, particularly in the high-income world, have been obsessed with dreams of a green economy. Imposing ever-more rigid methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the way to “save the planet” is almost unchallenged in the media, academia, and corporate boardrooms of the developed world.  read more »

Gavin Newsom Won’t Save the Democrats

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Burdened with a decomposing President and a clearly overmatched Vice President, the Democrats are on the hunt for a saviour. For many in the party, Gavin Newsom, the 54-year-old perfectly coiffed Governor of California, seems like the perfect solution.  read more »

The Labor Crisis and the Future of the Heartland

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While topics like “The Great Resignation” and “the labor shortage” have gained traction in popular discourse, much of these discussions overly simplify trends that have been brewing for decades.  read more »

Why Millennials Are Dropping Out

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With inflation soaring, trust in governments plummeting, and the global economy teetering on the brink of collapse, one might expect to see the masses out in the streets, calling for the heads of their rulers. But instead of rage and rebellion, we mostly see apathy. Rather than getting radicalised, people are dropping out.  read more »

Europe's Entrepreneurial Paradox

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When mapping the concentration of superentrepreneurs in the world, we find a paradox in Europe. Half of the top-ten countries with the most superentrepreneurs are found in Europe, yet Europe is far behind the US and Canada when it comes to high-end entrepreneurship. Another perhaps surprising fact is that gender equal Europe has a particularly strong deficit of women superentrepreneurs.  read more »

Deteriorating Housing Affordability in Canada

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The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has released the 2022 edition of Demographia Housing Affordability in Canada.  read more »

Economists Don't See Flyover Country and Whole Economy Pays the Price

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We’re used to getting the short end of the stick out here in Flyover Country, whether it’s from a lack of regular news-media attention or from our vastly inequitable share of investments by venture capitalists.  read more »

The Bureaucratization of American Leadership

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In newsletter #63 I discussed the managerial revolution, or the way that we transitioned from an entrepreneurial capitalist system dominated by owners to a bureaucratic system dominated by managers and technocrats spanning the public and private sectors.  read more »

The Cost of Biden's Racialism

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Joe Biden may have once bragged about his cooperative relations with segregationists, but he still arguably owes more to African-American leadership and voters than any politician in recent history.  read more »