I read a letter to the editor in the Telegraph-Journal that I wanted to share with you. I’ll just pull some quotes and leave off the name. The title of the letter is “Continued growth has drawbacks”: Once again I…
Continue ReadingExistentialism
I had a great lunch yesterday where we delved into the question of why urban areas or communities exist at all and the role of public policy and economic development. A hundred years ago we had hundreds of thriving small communities…
Continue ReadingEconomic development focus
For those of you Joe Q. Publicians you may find the following a little too inside baseball but I had some interesting conversations today that are interesting to the practioners of economic development at the local level. A guy was…
Continue ReadingBC ramps up incentives
BC is doubling down on the film and digital media sector. They are beefing up their incentives to this industry. Subject to approval by the legislature, the planned tax measures include: New BC Interactive Digital Media tax credit for video…
Continue ReadingInteresting NB Power stats
I was in the Census database today for a client and found some interesting stuff relevant to the NB Power discussion. The table shows the average wage for a full time/full year worker in the electricity biz in New Brunswick…
Continue ReadingMusing on the Olympics
I see that New Brunswick is not sending a single athelete to the Vancouver Olympics. I think there are parallels here to my thinking on economic development strategies – small provinces need to focus. We can be mediocre at a wide…
Continue ReadingAnimal Spirits or Boosting Aggregate Demand? Rap Version
If you like economics – particularly economic theory – check out this new rap video. It is a very accurate rap version of the debate between Keynes and the Austrians. It’s fun.
Continue ReadingDid Bruce Springsteen set my career path?
I don’t know if I ever mentioned this before (likely as I have been writing this blog for going on six years now) but after graduating with an MBA I came back to New Brunswick and tried for months to…
Continue ReadingAn innovation agenda
A regular reader of this blog asked me to comment on the new Conference Board report assessing Canada’s innovation track record. The Board gives Canada a D and ranks us 14th out of 17 countries. The Conference Board used 12…
Continue ReadingLearning from Boulder, CO
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with the owner of a small but growing computer animation/games development firm located in the province. We were talking about his industry in New Brunswick and opportunities for growth. We talked about the example…
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