Regularly scheduled Bank of Canada interest rate decision announcements are always made at 9 am. The press releases from the big banks, announcing their intention to pass the change onto their customers through the prime rate, usually follow fairly quickly thereafter. Until recently. Below, the time stamp of press releases from TD Bank Financial (usuallycontinue reading
‘Keepin’ Warm with Corn ™’
Why put it in your gas tank when you can put it in your furnace? More than ten years ago Frank Robison, like many other people, burned wood to heat his home. Despite the drawbacks of burning wood, the lure of inexpensive heat was his motivation. At a local fair, in his native Michigan, Frankcontinue reading
The Official Story
The federal Conservatives have become accustomed to spreading their talking points* through anonymous “officials”. For some reason media outlets have, for the most part, gone along with this, and the question about how much credibility to give unsubstantiated theories touted by anonymous sources seems to have gone forgotten. Saturday, Conservative officials contacted selected reporters tocontinue reading
A sign of things to come?
From the Grauniad: The European commission is backing away from its insistence on imposing a compulsory 10% quota of biofuels in all petrol and diesel by 2020, a central plank of its programme to lead the world in combating climate change.Amid a worsening global food crisis exacerbated, say experts and critics, by the race tocontinue reading
The boom goes boom
– Urban is often a euphemism for “black”, “inner-city” or “low-income”. Unless, of course, you’re the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods, the FUN part of the Coalition After Property Tax Reform, in which case urban means… South Rosedale. – Have you heard? The housing boom is “officially over.” That’s according to Doug Porter of BMO Economics,continue reading
Bisphenol A Poster Boy revealed
I think Gigantic Hound may look forward to a profitable second career as a product model. Story here.
Profiling the pool protesters
Sometimes, the messager is just as important as the message. And given this, the pool protesters might want to re-examine who’s speaking for them as they continue their war of publicity against the closing of some (not all) of the Toronto District School Board’s 84 pools. Exhibit A: This morning’s guest on CBC’s Metro Morning.continue reading
The law’s delay
Summary: Two lawyers hear a murder confession from a client, and out of respect for client confidentiality let another man sit in prison doing time for the killing (which happened in 1982) for twenty-six years. They try to work out the point when they could ethically reveal this, and decide that they might be ablecontinue reading
Oh, well if he says so
No global recession: Flaherty I’m assuming there were some hearty laughs around the Star newsroom this afternoon.
From the too-good-to-be-true dept.
Icelandic economist Frosti Olafsson comments on the faltering krona: “In some senses, Iceland is like an economic experiment,” Olafsson said. “In 20 years or 50 years, economics professors will look at Iceland and say it’s possible for a country of that size to have its own currency or not.”