Without economic freedom, there is no freedom.

Click your mouse on that map. Only New Zealand and Switzerland are shaded bluish indicating they have greatest degree of economic freedom according to the Fraser Institute in 2008.
The map is part of a List of Freedom Indices that someone created for Wikipedia, and it is a wonderful resource for anyone on the planet to compare their country on issues of political, civil and economic freedoms.
The Freedom Indices are mentioned in a great column in today's Financial Post written by Karen Selick the litigation director for the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Ms. Selick's column "Pursuit of one's trade," argues that without economic freedom all other freedoms are jeopardized.
Of course the reality is, liberty cannot be rationed into press freedoms, civil liberties, and economic liberties. True freedom requires all of them, not two out of three. Just as life requires air, water, and food, the rationing of any one impinges on life, period.

Bonus addition:

     

Bubble Bubble toil and trouble....

My apologies to William Shakespeare, but is the Canadian housing market in a bubble? There is some concern that the events in the United States that led to the Great Recession, namely their artificially low interest rates over the past decade could be happening here. The Federal government is concerned as well, earlier this year the "rules" for getting a government backed mortgage were tightened. Thats right the government has rules for getting a mortgage, why that should be a function of government is beyond me. You would think that our vaunted bankers would be clever enough to make their own rules about mortgagees and mortgagors.

An excellent column in the Financial Post by Lawrence Solomon this week, outlines how the government may be stoking the fires of a mortgage crisis not unlike the mess created by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac that led to the 2008 housing collapse in the States. The effects of that collapse are still being felt in America and around the world. Solomon points to CMHC as one of the chief culprits, but more than that he outlines some of the myriad other housing enticements that encourage demand and inflate the housing market. He thinks it's not too late to "fix" the problem.

My friends at Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada had a more in depth examination of the Canadian housing market last week in this posting: The Canadian Moral Hazard Corporation (CMHC) and the author suggests it is already too late. 

Blue is the new Red?

Is this clever marketing or should you protect your children from a blue scourge during the Saturday morning cartoons?

A French writer and sociologist, Antoine Bueno claims in "The Little Blue Book," that the Smurfs are, "the embodiment of a totalitarian utopia, steeped in Stalinism and Nazism".


You could say that explains the Socialist NDP surge in Quebec and elsewhere during the most recent Canadian federal election. All those voters were subliminally affected by the Smurfs in their childhood, now they are just a practicing what was preached to them. Its all a giant plot designed to turn the world into a Statist Utopia (see oxymoron). Who knew?
Or, this could be clever capitalist marketing in advance of the Smurfs' new movie where they resurrect the career of Jonathan Winters, 85, - yes, he's still alive and he is the voice of Papa Smurf in the new movie The Smurfs in 3D opening July 29, 2011. 
Yes, the Statist Smurfs arrive in New York City the Capitalist capital, and proclaim "where the smurf are we?" Statist Europe is already deeply involved, with blue villages popping up all over.
Here is Antoine in his own words, after the promo:   

The Price System

Why are prices important? Prof. Daniel J. Smith of Troy University describes the role that prices play in generating, gathering, and transmitting information throughout the economy.