Andrew Watt has written an especially cogent piece on why the balanced budget rule proposed for the Euro area by Merkel and Sarkozy is a very, very bad idea.

It also makes relevant reading for Canadians.

There's a disturbing trend buried in this morning's report by Statscan on Canada's foreign direct investment (FDI) abroad. Not only is an increasing share of Canadian direct investment abroad going through finance and insurance industries, but a growing share is also being funnelled into tax havens.

Here is a link to the CCPA study we released yesterday, analyzing the determinants of business fixed non-residential capital investment spending in Canada on the basis of quarterly data from 1961 through 2010. It formally tests for the direct significance of corporate tax variables and finds no such evidence (in either univariate or multivariate analysis). There is still an indirect impact of tax rates on investment experienced via incremental corporate cash flow, but that indirect effect is weak and getting weaker.

Perhaps the most compelling villain on Star Trek: The Next Generation was the Borg, which seeks to assimilate other groups into its hive. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute seems to be performing this function on Canada's political right (although corporate-tax cutters also resemble the Ferengi).

Working in partnership with members of the Ontario Social Economy Roundtable and the Ontario Nonprofit Network, Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) is pleased to present our briefing to the Provincial Partnership Project. In this paper, we are inviting the province to clarify and assist in scaling up Community Bonds.

Most of you know that CSI is hard at work promoting our Community Bond offering -- 4% return for a five year -- held inside your RRSP -- but once you buy a CSI bond, wouldn't it be amazing to be able to have your whole portfolio holding local social enterprise investments? Equally tantalizing, wouldn't it be amazing if non-profits and social enterprise could leverage their greatest assets -- their communities -- to build community infrastructure?

Academic experts on investment law, arbitration and regulatory policy, many of them from Canadian universities, issued a statement today that urges states to "review their investment treaties with a view to withdrawing from or renegotiating them... take steps to replace or curtail the use of investment treaty arbitration; and ... strengthen their domestic justice system for the benefit of all citizens and communities, including investors."