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Chris Neill 🐧

@chrisneill.bsky.social

Associate Professor, Economics (education, labour, public econ, policy) at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, 🇨🇦. Originally from 🇦🇺, I tend to prefer rivers that I can swim away in, rather than skate away on.

2613 Posts1798 Follower779 Folgt
Adam Rawnsley@arawnsley.bsky.social · yesterday

Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.

Judith Freedman@judithfreedman.bsky.social · yesterday

Emma Chamberlain, tax barrister, visiting professor of tax at the LSE and Oxford University, co-author of the Wealth Tax Report, has a guest post with Comment is Freed -‘The right way to tax wealth’. Clear, practical thinking from someone who understands and has thought deeply about all angles.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · yesterday

New post out: There's going to be a lot of talk about wealth taxes in the run up to the budget. So we asked one of the country's leading experts to give us a ten year plan for doing it right. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

My IRL friends call me Chris@christyceeck.bsky.social · 2d ago

"When it comes to social, economic, and environmental policy, [the Carney government] is following through on its promise to “nation-build” with a sweeping program of austerity, deregulation and cuts," writes @lukewsavage.bsky.social. #GiftLink 🎁 #CdnPoli www.thestar.com/gift-redeem?...

But we should also consider the possibility that Carney’s apparent promise of a new and more independent global posture was never really genuine in the first place. When the prime minister gave his big speech in Davos earlier this year, what many heard was a stirring call for a new progressive internationalism in the age of Donald Trump. But, as I argued at the time, what he was really saying was that middle powers like Canada can no longer afford to ground their actions in the pursuit of idealistic notions like human rights. This, not incidentally, is more or less how the government has sought to justify its own right-leaning domestic agenda as well: its abandonment of climate targets and gutting of environmental regulations; its tax cuts for the wealthy; its slash and burn attitude toward the public sector; and its overzealous embrace of AI. Both at home and abroad, the Trump threat serves as a pretext for a form of would-be pragmatism that is really just conservatism by any other name. Within its own borders, Canada is increasingly being run less like a country and more like a business. On the world stage, it is barely even pretending to care about concepts like international law and human rights. This also helps explain the very stark difference between the prime minister’s campaign rhetoric and his incessant pursuit of cosy relations with Washington.
James 🇨🇦@jemotluk.bsky.social · 3d ago

"In 2025 millions of Canadians rallied behind what they took to be a promise of renewed economic sovereignty and progressive nation-building. Over the past year, the government they elected has effectively delivered the exact opposite." #cdnpoli

Michael Clemens@mclem.org · 2d ago

US tariffs are taxes on Americans. The pass-through rate of the President's tariff spike in 2025 was 92%. Ninety two percent of the tariffs are paid by American consumers as higher prices. By Conservative and Liberal consumers—who have been lied to about that harm. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality

(Summer 2026) - In 2025, statutory tariff rates on US imports rose to levels not seen in over one hundred years. What were the implications for prices? On the one hand, shipping lags, exemptions, and ...

aeaweb.org

Robson Fletcher@robsonfletcher.com · 3d ago

Seeing lots of COVID minimizing / memory-holing in the U.S. lately. A reminder of what it was like at its worst here in Alberta: "The deadliest week came right around Christmas [2020]. From Dec. 21 to 27, the novel coronavirus was claiming 24 lives per day across the province. One death per hour."

What it’s like to die from COVID — and how it feels for those left behind

Marlene Ducommun realized she was going to die and was angry for about 15 minutes. She’s one of nearly 2,000 Albertans who lost their lives to the disease in the past year.

newsinteractives.cbc.ca

Lauren Dobson-Hughes@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 2d ago

Instead of pushing kids into career certainty at a younger age, we should allow them (and particularly boys) more time and space to figure out what they want. Then we push employers to create shallow on-ramps into employment This is what middle-class kids get to do

Seth Masket@smotus.bsky.social · 3d ago

It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough

Chris Neill 🐧@chrisneill.bsky.social · 2d ago

"violent crime increases by 7% in the 12 months following the law's adoption, with increases beginning shortly after passage ... . I find no evidence of offsetting deterrence in property crime. The rise in violence is driven by a 12% increase in aggravated assaults involving firearms"

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management@jpam-dc.bsky.social · 2d ago

Recently published in JPAM: "Jumping the Gun: The Effects of Permitless Concealed Carry Laws on Crime" by Susan Parker. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Robert Cruickshank@robertcruickshank.com · 3d ago

Detroit auto executives, as well as Michigan voters, have decided to kill off the U.S. automobile industry. If everyone agrees EVs are the future (and are increasingly the present) and if Detroit continues to insist on not building EVs...well you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.

The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry With It?

The largest U.S. automakers have backed away from electric vehicles, even as global sales are booming. The decision may make them obsolete.

nytimes.com

Chris Neill 🐧@chrisneill.bsky.social · 3d ago

"while hype is nice, it's only nice in small bursts for practitioners. We have a few key things that a grifter does not have, such as job stability, genuine friendships, and souls. What we do not have is the ability to trivially switch fields the moment the gold rush is over, ..."

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 4d ago

Suresh has a good track record of writing trenchant, frank criticism of AI. You may know him from his 2024 essay, "I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again": ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-... 11/

ABC News Bot (unofficial)@abcnewsbot.bsky.social · 4d ago

The Diamonds will miss the Commonwealth Games gold medal match for the first time after a shock semifinal loss to Jamaica in front of a Hydro crowd baying for Australia's downfall.

This is how close the Diamonds came to saving themselves from disaster

The Diamonds will miss the Commonwealth Games gold medal match for the first time after a shock semifinal loss to Jamaica in front of a Hydro crowd baying for Australia's downfall.

abc.net.au