Is financial repression as bad as it sounds? The best answer to that is: no, but only just. Carmen Reinhart, writing for Bloomberg, provides an introduction to the concept. As the co-author of This Time Will Be Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, she's a superbly qualified guide, because no one – with the possible exception of Mr Micawber – has done […]
For the cause of Britain's indebtedness, one need look no further than the previous Government. Obviously, there were other factors involved, but Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had every opportunity to implement the required solutions – instead they chose to become the biggest problem. This alone should be enough to condemn the Labour Party to an extended […]
What happens when two atheists and two agnostics meet for lunch? When the folk in question are, respectively, John Gray, Alain de Botton, Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Bryan Appleyard, the answer is a very interesting conversation. Writing for the New Statesman, Bryan Appleyard provides a flavour: "The talk is genial, friendly and then, suddenly, intense when […]
On a strict definition, the Anglosphere consists of six countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, The Republic of Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Of course, before long there may be a seventh: an independent Scotland. Much attention is paid to people's feelings of Scottishness or Englishness versus those of Britishness. But what about […]
Now for some good news about America. Indeed, not only America, but all the English-speaking nations. Though not quite the same thing as the Anglosphere, these have been tough times for the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism. Combined with longer-term trends such as the rise of China, some commentators regard the Great Recession and its aftermath as the terminal phase of the […]
Why is Greece so dependent on other people’s money? Megan Greene of Roubini Global Economics provides us with a remarkable case study. She begins with a straightforward description of the Greek economic system: “Entire professions such as notaries, lawyers, tax men, architects and inspectors have for years had automatic income in that they have formed the […]
In 1992, Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that the globalisation of liberal democracy may “mark the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form of human government.” He’s been qualifying this claim ever since. A prime example is his recent essay for Foreign […]
Luckily, we in the Anglosphere don’t have to put up with the kind of rampant bureaucracy that strangles freedom in Greece and China, right? David Brooks invites his American audience to think again: “The U.S. does not have a significantly smaller welfare state than the European nations. We’re just better at hiding it. The Europeans provide […]
So, who to blame for the curse of red tape? Politicians and bureaucrats are the obvious targets, but let’s not forget the lobbyists. By and large, corporate interests love regulation – the more complicated the better. Not only is the regulatory thicket shot through with loopholes for those in the know, it also acts as a barrier […]
And now for something completely different (or maybe not): the works of Jane Austen. In a fascinating post on the Philosopher’s Beard blog, Austen is not only praised as a literary genius, but also as an under-appreciated moral philosopher: “Austen celebrates and promotes a solidly middle-class propriety, and this together with her use of narrative… may […]