Tag: Politics
Prosperity requires more than rule of law
When the Chinese ask how to establish the institutions to support a stable, prosperous economy, it is not enough to mumble: “Property rights and rule of law – go to Denmark and see.”
Bungled bailout heralds shift in attitudes
The belief that the right response to the failures of Basel I and II is a more elaborate version of the same global regime is a triumph of hope over experience.
On the brink of a shadow drink industry
Restriction of business on moral grounds is not always unsuccessful but measures have to be applied with great care.
Politicians bow to pressures to bend data
For a time, the coalition government seemed willing to let figures tell their own story rather than one written by their political advisers; but that time seems to have passed.
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.
Given a choice voters opt for safety
Confronted with the specifics, rather than the principle, of constitutional change, many voters revert to the status quo.
London’s rise from sewer to spectacle
The salient fact is that London could never have become a great business and financial capital if its residents felt an urge to vomit every time they went outdoors.
Leveson failed to learn from credit crisis
There are many similarities between this response to the press crisis of 2011 and the reactions to the financial crisis of 2008. In both cases the demand for better processes and new rules largely missed the point.
Only fools claim to know the future
Good players don’t forecast the future, but adapt to it.
The allies who moulded the welfare state
Social policy would, in the long run, owe far more to Eleanor Roosevelt’s claim that “everyone has the right to a standard of living” than to Beveridge’s assertion that “management of one’s income is an essential element of a citizen’s freedom”.