Dr. David Robinson

New ideas about old problems For 115 years the Royal Economic Society has been trying to figure out why some countries are rich and some are poor. The most recent issue of their journal presents two new theories that apply in Northern Ontario.

You drive halfway across Ontario to enter the sustainable energy sweepstakes. You arrive at the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the parking lot is completely jammed with BMWs.

Toronto’s gurus have spoken. Richard Florida, and Roger Martin have produced a two-million-dollar, thirty-five page document entitled “Ontario in the Creative Age." It calls on Premier McGuinty to “Make the mega-region as strong as it can be.

The financial system is like a pipeline. It delivers money instead of oil. The big difference is that when an oil pipeline springs a leak everyone tries to get someone else to patch it.

Any time an economist opens his mouth nowadays, someone puts a microphone in front of it. Economists seem to be everywhere.

Beer ads try to connect with your lizard brain. They sneak signals past the prefrontal cortex to the places that deal with food, fear and sex. It's sneaky, but it works.

J im Watson became the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on October 30, 2007.

A group of reformed alcoholics were asked if they would rather have $200 today or $500 in six months. That is a payment of 150 per cent for waiting six months. The question comes from a study about what economists call "time-preference.

I Northerners have it backwards, as usual. We have been saying the North is different from the south. Many of us think the only way to get a sensible government is to have separate governments.

If you are a Northerner with Liberal friends, you have the opportunity of a lifetime. You can influence national policy with a few well-placed words. Over the next few weeks the Liberal party will decide if it is going to commit to a carbon tax.