Not a hockey player (on ice or field).
Associate Professor, Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University in a place that is way too cold.
Oct 19, 2021 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
I see academic talks and the criteria for deciding who to invite are in the news. And the usual suspects are insisting all invites should be strictly on scientific merit of the speaker.
Interesting.
So you invite say 20 speakers a year. You get the 20 top people each time? No.
That would be silly - the same 20 people every year, with a little turnover, would be boring. You need fresh ideas too. In fact, you probably have a quasi-explicit rule that you don't invite the same people back again frequently, partly because you want new ideas ..
Sep 2, 2021 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
There’s been some controversy over this unfortunately phrased tweet from Jagmeet Singh the other day.
I'll generally give a bit of a pass to pollies for some dramatic framing (“Trudeau is profiting off of student debt”) as a predictable if annoying part of their business …
… though, if someone asks, I’ll point out that even outside econ jargon, revenue and profit are rather different things. There are reasons that private lenders aren’t lining up to offer student loans on the same terms the CSLP does.
I don't like commenting on politically important things outside my lane and countries of citizenship. And going about my business is a way of coping when personal stuff (which I don't like sharing) gets too much to handle.
Police killings of black and indigenous people in the US - and Canada and Australia - are wrong. Yes any killing blah blah, but all three have obvious big issues with race, the law, and policing. And those are tied up with who has power, including economic power.
I live in Canada's 10th largest city. Some comments on getting from here to Canada's capital (roughly 500km away) follow.
First I could drive. Takes about 5.5 hours taking the back roads today.
Or I could fly. 1.5 hours drive to YYZ (assuming the 401 is not too bad which it isn't today), wait for an hour or so, fly 45min (?), get bus to somewhere central. About 4 hours?
Oct 30, 2018 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
OK, so yesterday I noted some incoherent comments re demographics and future demand for PSE in Ontario. I was a little flippant re baby boom, bust and echo in that tweet, as @AlexUsherHESA pointed out.
I could not leave it there.
Did I not take a course called "Econ & Demographics", with David Foot, Mr Boom Bust and Echo himself? I did.
Did we use his book throughout? We did. (Can I find it now? I cannot - v irritating.)
Do I recall the maxim "Every year we get a year older"? Oh my word, do I ever.
Oct 9, 2018 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
I am currently fuming about other way bigger stuff,.so let's take this silliness on instead. Point by point.
1. Don't ask prof if you have to buy req book coz duh required! BS. It is helpful. Study is easier. But borrowing is fine. Check library.
Sep 16, 2018 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Once upon a time I was a young lefty uni student studying economics in a place and time that was dominated by right wing politics.
I wrote essays denouncing the int'l fin instituitions, arguing assumptions of economics meant it was "worse than useless", ...
Jul 28, 2018 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
My reading project this 'summer': tax history!!
Book1: EA Heaman Tax Order&Good Govt. Will post to thread occasionally.
#SeriousSummerReads
TOGG requires more effort than most books for me: not surprising as a Canadian (or really any) history neophyte.
Jul 16, 2018 • 32 tweets • 8 min read
Huh, I'm an economist & by some definitions a humanist. But this def'n of humanist seems odd. I think: let's have a read; may learn stuff!
