David Henderson, of the Hoover Institution has a history lesson for us. It concerns the Second World War and its aftermath, so appropriately he begins by lining up a target in his sights: "We often hear that big cuts in government spending over a short period of time are a bad idea. The argument against […]
Have you heard of the ‘sheeple’? It’s a made-up word used to express the thought that people are sheep, easily led astray by wicked politicians. But what if it isn’t just the general public who get fleeced? What if it also applies to the markets and in particular the bond markets through which governments finance their […]
There are three basic responses to the banking crisis. The first is ‘regulate more!’ – encompassing a range of positions from the restoration of sensible safeguards to wholesale nationalisation. The second, and opposing, response is ‘don’t over-regulate!’, with positions ranging from appropriate scepticism over the ability of government to regulate effectively to the abject cynicism […]
Conservatives are supposed to be comfortable with the idea of inequality. After all, we’re not all equally talented and if we don’t allow people to make the most of their talents, then the economy as a whole will suffer. In other words, enforcing equality makes us all poorer. But might there be circumstances in which […]
A great think piece from Daniel Knowles, the enfant sensible of the Daily Telegraph. His basic argument is that thanks to the internet “all sorts of things we used to pay large sums of money for are now nearly or completely free.” New and exciting online businesses may be replacing old offline businesses, but the […]
The left accuses the Coalition of cutting ‘too far, too fast’. However, the Government's critics on the right say that there haven't actually been any cuts. The latter case was made last week in a report from Tullet Prebon – which notes that Government spending has not fallen and that public debt is still rising. So is this […]
Robert Reich served with distinction in the Ford, Carter and Clinton administrations. Writing for the Huffington Post, he sets out his prescription for the economic ills of the present day. First of all, the diagnosis: "The world's productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is […]
The Credit Crunch is old hat. The Eurozone debacle is still current, but dragging on a bit. So, how about a new and exciting financial crisis? No? Well, too bad, because as Izabella Kaminska explains on the FT’s Alphaville blog, those ever-inventive chaps in red braces may have come up with a fresh and original […]
In an interview with the Browser, Niall Ferguson describes the borrow-and-spend policies of the left as “vulgar Keynesianism” – because “Keynes would be rather appalled at the way his name is used these days to justify policies that are reckless.” Ferguson would, no doubt, approve of the conclusions – and historical sweep – of Raghuram […]
If you’ve been losing sleep over the Eurozone, then the last person you probably want to turn to is a leftwing Greek economist. Nevertheless, Yanis Varoufakis’s article for Eurointelligence is worthy of attention. He begins with a pretty clearsighted view of the situation: “Europe’s strategy for dealing with the Euro Crisis has been to ringfence, […]
Sweden enjoys the benefit of having its own currency. It also enjoys the benefit of Anders Borg, named by the Financial Times as the best finance minister in Europe. Unsurprisingly, Borg’s successful tax cutting policies earned him a respectful hearing in his recent interview with the Spectator. Just as interesting, however, is Fraser Nelson’s supplementary post on […]
Christopher Caldwell’s article contains an interesting aside about George Osborne and his German opposite number: “An aide who was present at Schäuble's meetings with George Osborne in London last October was struck by the similarities in the two ministers' economic philosophies. Both have absorbed the lessons laid out in Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's history […]
Since the great recession, America’s economic recovery has been significantly stronger than our own. The British left hypocritically overlooks the fact that the benefits of US growth are grotesquely skewed towards the rich, but the question remains – why is UK growth noticeably weaker? Adam Posen, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy […]
The ancient Babylonians knew a thing or two about nudging. Or, at any rate, Hammurabi’s code – the first legal code in history – had a firm grasp of behavioural incentives: “If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapses and […]
This week, British politics has mostly been about pasties. Fortunately, we have the likes of Charles Moore to divert us with such trivial matters as the future of capitalism. Interviewed in the European, Moore politely introduces his fellow conservatives to the elephant in the room: “Marxists have always said that the idea of the free […]