PS. Don't Hear Much About Celtic-Baltic-Eastern European Tigers Anymore, Eh?

PS. to yesterday: Are all those who told us we should follow genius of the low-tax tigers going to issue mea culpas, soonish? Given these countries are almost uniformly disasters now, it would be appropriate no? They should spend as much time and space acknowledging foolishness as they did extolling nonsense for years. As I always said, hey, just as soon as the EU is willing to give us hundreds of billions of dollars for decades in "structural adjustment funds", I'm all for lowering tax rates, since services will be paid for by others.

PPS. 25/03/10 5pm: Just read Kirby and realised at least part of my point had been made already. No mea culpas and revision of thinking as yet, from what I see, though. But Kirby does misuse the word "competitive" at one point, when he should have simply said "lower". The incorrect and misleading word choice is revealing: "By 2012, Canada’s corporate tax regime will be more competitive lower than most other developed countries, including the U.S." He means to say lower taxes, relative to others, makes us more competitive. That is a partial and misleading statement, as investment decisions take far more factors into account (ex: Japanese carmakers' affection for better educated, healthier Cdn workforce). But even so, if that's the argument he wants to make, he should divide it in two, if a, then b. But instead he says a=b. Bad writing, a product of bad thinking, laziness or implicit assumptions as a result of unconscious brainwashing? Who's to say? But should be corrected.