This proverb spells out the link between waste and impoverishment. Economic Perspectives 112 highlighted the inevitability of massive waste of public money when government expenditure is not susceptible to economic calculation. ”Would I sanction this [more…]
In 1798 Thomas Malthus postulated his gloomy theory that the growth in population must always outstrip the means of subsistence needed to support it: “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only [more…]
Shortly before the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, BBC2’s “Newsnight” featured Kirsty Wark interviewing two economic experts, one Conservative, one Labour. She asked each of them to describe the measures they would recommend to the Chancellor, Rishi [more…]
Last month I wrote about the massive waste implicit in government-sponsored bureaucracy – at local and central levels. The craving for a sense of importance leads small-minded apparatchiks to seize power over others by controlling [more…]
In Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass” Humpty Dumpty tells Alice: “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Humpty’s subjective approach to verbal meanings is of [more…]
Any catalogue of economic legends would of course include the 2008 visit of Queen Elizabeth to the London School of Economics, when the country was experiencing an unprecedented housing market bubble based on the irrational [more…]
I have written on the subject of currency debasement many times, but it is now reaching crunch-time – even for the pound, dollar, yen and euro. Most respected economists persist in defining inflation as a [more…]
Why do I persist in writing these essays on economic issues? Certainly not to influence government policy – that would indeed be a forlorn hope, despite the strength of support coming from most of my [more…]
Veteran observers of economic folly have the advantage of experience. They are already familiar with the failed policies being enacted, yet again, by unprincipled politicians whose sole motivation is re-election. In the meanwhile these pillars [more…]
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