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Labour’s new tax policy is an old mistake

You can lower the marginal rate of tax on an individual without changing their average rate – and vice versa. Every politician who wants to help the low paid by reducing their income tax rate should write that sentence out 50 times.

Only fools claim to know the future

Physicists studying sport have established that many fieldsmen are very good at catching balls, but bad at answering the question: “Where in the park will the ball land?” Good players don’t forecast the future, but adapt to it.

To understand Christmas, go to the pub

Anyone who thinks the quest for scale economies is the primary explanation of the human desire for family life is strangely deficient in observational capacity, as well as common sense.

Fetish for making things ignores real work

Manufacturing fetishism – the idea that manufacturing is the central economic activity and everything else is somehow subordinate – is deeply ingrained in human thinking.

Scotland’s debate lacks seriousness

What would an independent Scotland actually be like? The only sensible answer is that no one really knows.

How do skirts differ from computers?

The average historic return on the volatile equity market is central to calculations of the cost of capital and provision for future pension liabilities. But the figure has been debated for decades.

The welfare state’s a worthy Ponzi scheme

The only bread fit to eat is bread baked today: but why should today’s bakers feed the retired bakers of yesteryear?

The other multiplier effect, or Keynes’s view of probability

The only reasonable response to the question “what will interest rates be in 20 years’ time?” is “we simply do not know”.

When storytelling leads to unhappy endings

We deal with that world by constructing simplifying narratives. We do this not because we are stupid, or irrational, or have forgotten probability 101, but because storytelling is the best means of making sense of complexity.

Media frenzies are no basis for sound laws

In a world full of information and short of our attention, the events that affect behaviour are those that are salient.