Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

Stephen Leacock on the benefits of economic stimulus

It has come to the attention of the federal Liberals that ridings who are represented by Conservatives are receiving a disproportionate share of the monies spent under the aegis of the fiscal stimulus:

Ontario was allocated about $1.1 billion in Infrastructure Stimulus Fund money, translating to about $90 for each Ontarian (according to the 2006 census). Mississauga was assigned $46 million (to be matched by the province of Ontario and the city of Mississauga). According to the 2006 census, it means that Mississauga only received $69 per person. The city of Mississauga received 23% less than the provincial average.

It gets worse.  Looking at some cities that are represented by Conservative MPs, the numbers are even more disturbing.  For example, Barrie received $129 per person, Niagara Falls received $200 per person, Cambridge received $170 per person, and Oakville received $279 per person.

There are two possible reactions to this story. One is resigned cynicisism. Another is amused cynicism. And who better than Stephen Leacock to express it?

You could tell from the way John Henry Bagshaw closed the door before he sat down that he was in a pretty serious frame of mind.

"Gentlemen," he said, "the election is a certainty. We're going to have a big fight on our hands and we've got to get ready for it."

"Is it going to be on the tariff?" asked Tompkins. "Yes, gentlemen, I'm afraid it is. The whole thing is going to turn on the tariff question. I wish it were otherwise. I think it madness, but they're bent on it, and we got to fight it on that line. Why they can't fight it merely on the question of graft," continued the old war horse, rising from his seat and walking up and down, "Heaven only knows. I warned them. I appealed to them. I said, fight the thing on graft and we can win easy. Take this constituency,--why not have fought the thing out on whether I spent too much money on the town wharf or the post-office? What better issues could a man want? Let them claim that I am crooked and let me claim that I'm not. Surely that was good enough without dragging in the tariff. But now, gentlemen, tell me about things in the constituency. Is there any talk yet of who is to run?"

Mallory Tompkins lighted up the second of his Prime Minister's cigars and then answered for the group: "Everybody says that Edward Drone is going to run." "Ah!" said the old war horse, and there was joy upon his face, "is he? At last! That's good, that's good--now what platform will he run on?"

"Independent." "Excellent," said Mr. Bagshaw. "Independent, that's fine. On a programme of what?"

"Just simple honesty and public morality."

"Come now," said the member, "that's splendid: that will help enormously. Honesty and public morality! The very thing! If Drone runs and makes a good showing, we win for a certainty. Tompkins, you must lose no time over this. Can't you manage to get some articles in the other papers hinting that at the last election we bribed all the voters in the county, and that we gave out enough contracts to simply pervert the whole constituency. Imply that we poured the public money into this county in bucketsful and that we are bound to do it again."

From Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

How to kill an afternoon

Do a google street map walking tour of Old Québec.

You could do worse than start at the building where my wife works:

View Larger Map

It's been said before, and I'll say it again: Quebec City is spectacular.

Possibly the most extravagant compliment that I've ever been paid

The National Post's Full Comment section occasionally links to us. (No, we don't get paid for this; they follow the usual blog convention of copying a couple of paragraphs and sending readers here for the full article. Everyone is free to do so.) My post Economic policy advice for the NDP, Part III: The GST ran there awhile ago, and it elicited this comment:

This guy is smart and evil, i.e. the most dangerous. He is full of ideas for the NDP on how to increase taxes in a way that the parasites in government milk the most of the tax paying citizens.

Finally, someone understands.

On the upper bound of utility functions

It has been estimated that Queen Elizabeth the Second has made a pertinent comment on the weather on 245,015 separate occasion to perfect strangers, all of whom remembered the exact comment all their lives ... if a random and arguably inaccurate estimate if the impending climate by one overpaid human being in a flower hat can bring a large part of remembered joy to one underpaid human being in a flower hat, well, the sources of happiness on this planet are almost inexhaustible, aren't they?

Paul Cox' Man of Flowers (1983), as quoted by the late, lamented and incomparable Jay Scott in Midnight Matinees.

Panic as fiscal stimulus

I guess this is what happens when people start building survival shelters and stocking up on canned goods:

Retail sales edge higher in February: Canadian retail sales rose unexpectedly in February, led by home supplies, and food and beverage stores.

US road trip!

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I'm off on a US road trip!

My last big US road trip was Summer 1976. Berkeley to New York, by a very circuitous route. This one will be shorter, down the Atlantic coast, across to the Gulf of Mexico and back up along the Mississippi (unless we change our minds). I am really curious to see how the country has changed in 33 years.

The timing is good: gas is relatively cheap; motels relatively empty (according to Calculated Risk, though he didn't have stats for campsites); and the loonie is at 80 cents (it was at par 33 years ago). And I'm on sabbatical :-).

A valuable tip for new econobloggers

Brendon of Shock Minus Control provides my favourite comment on WCI:

I may have to write a post about gold to get my traffic up. Its like a loss leader - come for the hysterical discussion of long refuted exchange rate regimes, stay for the delicious forecast models.

Markets in everything: Eternal salvation edition

Heaven updates its price list.

We will not be undersold! Budget advice available here at the low, low cost of 99 cents a year!

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has announced the formation of a committee of outside experts, who will be paid $1/year (plus expenses) for their views. We here at WCI are prepared to use whatever means necessary to defend our market share: if our competitors want a price war, then that's what they'll get.

Another reason to approve of Krugman's Nobel prize

He knows the joke behind the title of this blog.

When I realised the magnitude of the utter hopelessness of finding an interesting title for a blog on economics, written by a Canadian academic, I decided to go with irony.

Update: Here's yet another. Paul Krugman points us to an autobiographical piece:

Admittedly, there were those science fiction novels. Indeed, they may have been what made me go into economics. Those who read the stuff may be aware of the classic Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It is one of the few science fiction series that deals with social scientists -- the "psychohistorians", who use their understanding of the mathematics of society to save civilization as the Galactic Empire collapses. I loved Foundation, and in my early teens my secret fantasy was to become a psychohistorian. Unfortunately, there's no such thing (yet). I was and am fascinated by history, but the craft of history is far better at the what and the when than the why, and I eventually wanted more. As for social sciences other than economics, I am interested in their subjects but cannot get excited about their methods -- the power of economic models to show how plausible assumptions yield surprising conclusions, to distill clear insights from seemingly murky issues, has no counterpart yet in political science or sociology. Someday there will exist a unified social science of the kind that Asimov imagined, but for the time being economics is as close to psychohistory as you can get.

The first time I read this, I nearly jumped out of my skin; this is also the story of how I drifted from another field - political science in my case - to economics.