While Milton Friedman preaches the gospel of the free market and free trade, he ignores anything that interferes with the beauty and metaphysical elegance of his ideology. Warren Buffett – by contrast – practices the trade of business in the real world. Buffett uses the term “economic moats” to describe a company’s ability to maintain … Read more
As of 2021, approximately 74.1% of Canada’s union members work in the public sector. This is significantly higher than the private sector, where unionization rates are much lower. Of course that percentage doesn’t include private sector workers whose employers use significant assets owned by, or subsidized by the Canadian Government. Things like our major ports, … Read more
The late Milton Friedman is arguably the high priest of ‘libertarian economics’ – which is also called ‘neo-liberal economics’ – or more commonly ‘neoclassical economics’. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Friedman’s influence has been massive and it continues today. My own library of audiobooks contains 2 of his titles: First, Capitalism and … Read more
According to Oxford University’s OUR WORLD IN DATA, there’s significantly greater income inequality in the US than in all the other G7 countries. They have much more in common with countries under authoritarian rule. Russia and India (which is arguably democratic) exceed all countries in the European Union – as does China – in terms … Read more
Introduction to AI Does Not Pose an Existential Risk to Humanity This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. You can use/share it anyway you want, provided you attribute it to me (Blair Fix) and link to Economics from the Top Down. ABOUT THIS ARTICLE – Editor I was first introduced to … Read more
Canadians log more hours than other countries but the workforce is less productive. What gives? CLAUDE LAVOIE PUBLISHED DECEMBER 12, 2023 Claude Lavoie was director-general of economic studies and policy analysis at the Department of Finance from 2008 to 2023. He has represented Canada at OECD meetings and has received many honours, including the Queen’s … Read more
While our American neighbors to the South would like to paint themselves as free traders, in fact, they are the probably world’s most successful protectionists. After two rounds of free trade deals in the last 30 years or so, we’ve lost a huge amount of manufacturing and processing jobs – most notably in softwood lumber … Read more
This company was featured in a recent article in the GLOBE AND MAIL – Canada’s National Business NewspaperThe headline was: Canadian companies face unexpected tax burdens after going public on stock exchanges “Canada has been the worst-performing advanced economy in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development since 1976. Governments of all partisan stripes have … Read more
Canada’s Falling Productivity (and what’s behind it) THE PRODUCTIVITY-EDUCATION LINK The conventional wisdom is that the more highly-educated the workforce, the greater the productivity should be. Most policy analysts and think tanks seem to reach the same conclusion. In September of 2019, Gwilym Croucher[1] wrote in OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHIES: “Universities and colleges now demand a greater … Read more