tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-185821322011-11-12T16:26:55.938-07:00Welcome to my blog. It is my place to rant about various topics -- most of my rants approach the topic from an economics perspective (yup, almost everything in the world can be analyzed using economics). Many of my comments in this blog are written as a supplement to the Economics courses I teach the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus in Camrose, Alberta. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and in no way should they be attributed to the University of Alberta.Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.comBlogger111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-50072967676556525282011-11-12T16:26:00.001-07:002011-11-12T16:26:55.993-07:00

I have to admit that I have not been very diligent about keeping this blog up to date. Part of the problem is finding time to actually write and post stuff. The other problem is that I’ve not found a really good blogging editor. I’ve been using emacs and org-mode along with googlecl and that works reasonably well. However, inserting images and such is a bit of a nuisance. I’ve also been using

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-50648787854984036242010-09-11T23:51:00.002-06:002010-09-11T23:53:23.181-06:00

Well, I've been mucking around with org-google-weather and have everything working on my computer now. It seems that Julien wrote his extensions with Linux in mind so I had to do a couple of minor tweaks to get it to work on my Mac. Most notably, the standard Emacs installation seems to not possess image.el. This is needed to display graphics for the weather forecasts. I did a google search and

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-19355813135676433982010-09-11T22:38:00.002-06:002010-09-11T22:42:41.207-06:00

I have found even more cool things for org-mode. I came across Julien Danjou's really cool weather extension for Emacs and org-mode. It gives a weather forecast along with each day's todo list. Kind of nifty.

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-42783525979075530732010-09-11T21:45:00.001-06:002010-09-11T21:45:14.058-06:00

For quite a while now I have been using org-mode and Emacs for just about everything. Tonight I came across a new org-mode tool for posting directly to blogspot blogs (like mine). I decided to give it a try and I think it is pretty cool. It certainly makes it easier to write blog entries. Maybe I will be more diligent about keeping this blog up to date.

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-13139938643667857602010-01-09T08:01:00.001-07:002011-08-28T12:07:10.531-06:00

A while back a former student suggested that I comment on the notion of a world currency. Given the turmoil that we have seen in the world economy over the past couple years, this is probably a good topic to write on. At first blush, the notion of a single world currency may have some appeal in times of currency volatility. However, there are a number of problems with such a system. First,

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-8689837028060977912008-11-09T07:53:00.001-07:002008-11-09T07:53:11.956-07:00

I keep coming across really neat and useful apps for Mac. I thought I would list them here with a brief description.  You might find them useful. If you know of an app that you think is really useful but don't see it here, email me YojimboThis is one neat little application. When I used Windoze I found OneNote to be a remarkably useful program, although a bit bloated.  The things that I missed

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-36562151570706790552007-11-28T12:24:00.001-07:002007-11-28T12:24:12.766-07:00

Today the Competition Bureau - Canada's watchdog agency for things involving market structure and competition - announced that it has begun an investigation into allegations of price-fixing among chocolate bar makers in Canada. You can read about the story at CTV's website. While the story itself is rather interesting, what prompted me to write this blog entry are some of the talk-back comments

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-70736463417959414082007-11-05T15:55:00.001-07:002007-11-05T15:55:38.794-07:00

Well, it has been a long while since I posted to my blog. I just installed OS X Leopard on my MacBook Pro. Wow!!!! Up until a week ago I had been mostly just Windoze and Linux. I have an old G4 PowerMac that is pretty slow. I finally got sick of Vista and went out and got a new MacBook. I liked Tiger -- it was certainly an improvement over Vista. But Leopard is terrific. The upgrade was pretty

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-1159227483423794892006-09-25T17:22:00.000-06:002006-09-26T07:54:54.970-06:00

Recently the Medical Society of P.E.I called for a junk food tax -- an excise tax placed on "junk food" similar to tobacco and alcohol taxes. (Read the story on CBC's website here.) There is actually a good basis in economic theory for such a tax. Unfortunately, effectively implementing such a tax would be no easy task. The rationale for such a tax is based on the belief that junk food, however

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-1146745427802801402006-05-04T06:17:00.000-06:002006-09-25T17:20:17.250-06:00

We've heard lots lately about the rising price of gasoline and as usual conspiracy theories abound about collusion by oil companies. Don't get me wrong - I'm not defending the oil companies I'm just trying to point out the role that drivers play in this little saga. Before we start we need a quick refresher of the basics of supply and demand. Supply curves slope up and demand curves slope down

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18582132.post-1136216334168513922006-01-02T08:09:00.000-07:002006-03-06T09:22:40.160-07:00

As one would expect during an election campaign, the party leaders are busy promising us all kinds of goodies that we, the taxpaying public, will ultimately pay for. Recently the Conservative Party, led by Stephen Harper, promised us that he would reduce the GST (Goods and Services Tax) by 2% - lowering it from 7% to 5%. Unfortunately, this won't really mean much of anything to the average person

Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301947894335957994noreply@blogger.com0