Graduated benefits
While writing a blog piece on the Establishment, I wanted to include statistics for the number of MPs, civil servants etc. who graduated from Oxbridge, Russell Group or any university, and how the subjects they studied compared with the…
Stepping back
Lots of comments about how exchange rates and equity-price movements show that the UK is (a) doomed or (b) well-placed post-Brexit. Movements and values over a few days tell us nothing except the climate of hope or fear in those few days…
The worst form of government
An anti-democratic mini-meme developed amongst some of my liberal friends in the build-up to the EU referendum. For some people, democracy is a virtue and governance structures that provide more direct democratic accountability are…
Letter to my employees about the Brexit referendum
All, The CBI think that bosses should inform employees about Brexit. http://news.sky.com/story/1697273/bosses-told-to-warn-workers-of-brexit-risks This patronising suggestion is typical of the Confederation of Big Business, and of a Remain…
Talking Balls
Is Ed Balls a knave or a fool? On Newsnight, he just compared eliminating the deficit in four years to paying down a mortgage in short order. Let's consider the form that analogy should take if it were to reflect reality. Having engaged in…
Promote industry. Bag a banker.
Boris Johnson is quoted in MoneyWeek as having said to Management Today: "To the banker bashers I say, what's your economic model? We can't ignore and hate the bankers. What would that achieve? Show me how reducing financial services boosts…
Wet or dry
I'm feeling a little damp. Or at least, feeling like I look a little damp to others. I've found myself on what many would perceive as the more moderate, centrist side of the argument several times recently. I think I'm a “fractional…
Plus ça change
Maybe they really were the good times. The last few years didn't feel like it, but at least the Government was subtle enough in its winner-picking that I would have to explain how its targeted measures were really supporting losers. Now…
Rich people's benefits
Can we nail a fallacy that is becoming received wisdom, regarding the uncompensated withdrawal of child benefit payments to higher earners, as proposed under the UK government's Comprehensive Spending Review? The rhetoric claims that it is…
Foreign posting
I have a post on the subject of student loans for higher education on the IEA blog, under the heading Academic interest: the free-market case against subsidised student loans.
Borrowing and spending our way out of debt
One feature that distinguishes the current financial crisis from earlier ones is how widely the problem is spread. We have had bigger public debt than today, but never with so much private sector debt. We have had leverage-fuelled bubbles…
Cant and DECC
I was contacted recently by someone who was studying the renewable heat sector. They asked: We read your blog on Picking Losers and I guess the question is, given that DUKES Table 7.6 gives the existing renewable heat total for 2009 as 96…