Fortunately you don't have to live in Ontario to see this. It's available over the internet (or soon will be).
I'm setting our PVR to record it (5pm today and again 5pm Sunday, Ontario time). Here's the pre-broadcast blurb:
According to Tyler Cowan, our speaker this weekend, much of the problem with modern democratic societies is that voters know what they would like but have very little understanding of economics.
What most would like is for our economies to perform the way they used to for about 30 years after WWII. And even though they have not done so in many years, the memory of that golden era is still presented by politicians as the standard by which the performance of their political opponents ought to be judged.
The issue we are contending with is that we have a political culture premised on 3-4 % growth with an economy that can only perform at 1-2 %.
Tyler Cowan has been called America’s Hottest Economist by BusinessWeek Magazine and he teaches economics at George Mason University. His blog Marginal Revolution carries a telling subtitle, Small steps towards a much better world. His ideas on the slowing of economic growth are contained in a 2011 e-book The Great Stagnation; How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better.
Tyler Cowan will be joined on stage by National Post columnist Andrew Coyne.
And if all of this will make you want to take a course in economics, look no further. Tyler Cowan has just started to offer an on-line course in what’s been called “the dismal science”.
If your interest in all matters economic has not yet been satiated, then take a listen to an audio podcast of a recent lecture delivered at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto by John Hancock, a Canadian trade specialist at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. It’s title: Our Capitalist Revolution.