BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Why Gary Stevenson’s Crusade is Economically Illiterate In the crowded marketplace of economic punditry, Gary Stevenson has carved out a profitable niche. With the zeal of a convert, he stalks the media studios, wielding his LSE and Oxford credentials like a cudgel, proclaiming himself a ‘proper economist’ while peddling a simplistic, morally grandiose solution to a problem he has defined entirely in … Continue reading The Inequality Con
BY STEWART SLATER Of all the things I have been called which can be reprinted in a family website, the one which tickled me the most was when a headhunter leaned across the table and said, “Well, of course, Stewart. You’re an old Asia hand.” If part of me bristled slightly at the usage of the word “old”, a much greater portion was immediately transported … Continue reading Someone Has to Pay
BY ANDREW GIBSON As football pundits are given to the use of clichés, Gary Neville might be tickled to discover that he is on the horns of a tax dilemma. We will come to his tax affairs soon. First, let’s unpick the Left’s many misperceptions about tax cuts, in a week in which the British Left has clamoured to have a larger proportion of their … Continue reading The Neville Tax Dilemma
BY STEWART SLATER Why is it so hard to get a cab in the rain? Increasing demand surely – despite there being no recorded example of any human less than 100% waterproof, most of us prefer not to get wet. But if you are a classical economist, supply should increase to match demand. The more people want a cab, the more of them should appear … Continue reading Cabbies, Cyclists and the Cost of Living
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Charles Mackay, in his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds wrote, “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” 1 History is in great part the history of the crowd. What the crowd thinks is what counts. Crowds tend … Continue reading Reverse Economic Imperialism (REI)
