Tag: Economy

The political consequences of international trade are different from the political consequences of international investment. Yet the willingness of business to transcend political divisions in pursuit of commercial advantage is basically a force for peace.

Scottish banknotes are not legal tender in England – or in Scotland. What matters is not what is legal tender, but what others will accept.

Asset prices are a measure less of our wealth than of our propensity for self-congratulation. The net effect is only a transfer between the existing owners and the prospective owners.

European companies are increasingly imitating US ones in the cult and remuneration of chief executives. Political organisation may evolve similarly as party membership declines and ideology fades.

The capacity of politics to get in the way of economic growth has dominated most of the economic history of most of the world.

The balance between present and future will be determined not by moral philosophy or economic models but by the decisions of ordinary savers, investors and voters.

Your country of residence is where you buy your clothes, eat your meals, draw up your accounts and write your board minutes. But the volume and value of all these domestic operations depends on the role the country’s producers play in the global economy.

The search for “sharp prediction” – the mantra of the modern scientific economist who seeks to replicate the successes of physics for social science – is doomed to failure.

The notion that private companies can extract indiscriminate, industry- wide support from the public for the benefit of their investors by threatening that their weaker members will collapse is intolerable in any sector.

The public interest does not require taxpayer support of financial institutions: indeed it requires that some of them make substantial losses in this crisis. Only then will credit risk begin to be priced appropriately and lenders do their diligence.