KPMG has just published its government funded Competitive Alternatives Report. The study is an expansion and update of previous KPMG publications, and measures the combined impact of 27 significant business cost components that are most likely to vary by location.…
Continue ReadingVisiting Grandchildren – An Update
Edith Robb’s column today is on Donald Savoie’s new book Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes which is pegged as a manifesto of sorts for the future economic development of the region. I will be going out at lunch…
Continue ReadingLearning from Belarus
The CBC had a student on this evening talking about the Belarus election where President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected with about 82% of the vote. She spoke passionately about the need for Lukashenko to be defeated to bring democracy and…
Continue ReadingKIA and Georgia
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer has published a time line of activities associated with the decision of KIA to establish a 1,2001,500 person auto manufacturing plant in Georgia. A few neat observations for you hard core economic development fans out there: 1.…
Continue ReadingPEI study says lack of jobs drives immigrants away
Hey, read this blog a little more, could’ve saved ya a few research bucks. The main reason immigrants don’t come to or stay in Atlantic Canada is that there is limited economic opportunity for them. It’s not the lack of…
Continue ReadingThe old dipsy doodle
My father used to say that Guy Lafleur was a great dipsy doodler (he also talked about the Savard ‘spinorama’ to describe Serge Savard’s legendary fake a slapshot, spin around and shoot again). In those days, I understood dipsy doodling…
Continue ReadingI can’t help it. I just can’t.
I can’t help it. I know a lot of you are growing weary of my negativism but I just can’t help it. Here are a few quotes from a recent Telegraph-Journal article on New Brunswick’s export performance in 2005: Naive…
Continue ReadingCluster-boys get another kick in the pants
For everyone of you cheese-eating, just-in-time inventory, integrated logistics, cluster-loving negative, uncreative economic developers out there, this one’s for you. I would be a millionaire today if I got a dollar for every time an economic developer, politician or Joe…
Continue ReadingThis is not about economic development, but I think a worthy blog topic. Here’s the top headline from the Globe & Mail today: Passport saved Canadian hostageHeld hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared…
Continue ReadingOn Harry Truman, Billionaires and Economic Development
I am reading the Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Harry Truman these days. I like to read the bios of transformational political leaders – either for good or bad – because I still think that transformational leadership is what we…
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