This is in my opinion an excellent column on the risk of not taking a risk on shale gas development. And not to be glib but this guy is not a physiotherapist from Moncton. Steve McCutcheon is a professional geoscientist…
Continue ReadingEncouraging work later in life
I received an email this morning suggesting I shouldn’t be telling people when they should and shouldn’t retire. This is in reference to my column in the TJ this morning. For some reason the Web version is quite a bit…
Continue ReadingAre we witnessing a shift in self-employment?
One of the frustrating things about the Labour Force Survey is that while we can be comfortable with the data (the survey methodology is strong) we can only speculate as to why a trend may be occurring. Take the issue of…
Continue ReadingWall Street, Beijing?
I am intrigued by these mass protest movements – whether it is the Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street movements. They are an inevitable consequence of a free and open democracy. For advocates of a pure free market system…
Continue ReadingWhat happens when we lose faith in our experts?
I am not one of those people who automatically believe what the experts say. In fact, I recently wrote a blog criticizing the ‘experts’ for their wildly inaccurate predictive ability. But at the same time, I get really nervous…
Continue ReadingWhich country has a colder winter: Brazil or Canada?
This was cute. I had a bunch of Brazilians over for dinner last night and a couple of them were describing how ‘cold’ it got during a Brazilian winter. They talked about how it would get down to 2 or…
Continue ReadingGazelles and giving up equity
I have been thinking a lot lately about the lack of ‘breakout’ SMEs in New Brunswick – firms that build something interesting here – a product or service – and then take it into wider markets and move from smallish…
Continue ReadingThe cult of linearity
I am amazed at how many of us fall into the trap of linear thinking. Almost nothing in life follows a linear pattern – and yet we continue to act as if everything will. I left the cult of…
Continue ReadingNB labour market: Green shoots but also emerging weeds
New Brunswick added jobs in September for the second straight month but to put things in perspective you will see in the chart below (prepared by Service Canada) that year over year employment is still down. To put this…
Continue ReadingMcGuinty’s under-discussed legacy
I didn’t follow the Ontario election particularly close but I did review the party platforms, read articles and listened to TVO podcasts on it and I never once heard any of the Liberals trumpeting one of their signature accomplishments. Under…
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