Felix Salmon recalls the impact the appearance of wealth, and Buenos Aires’ status as a quasi-European city, had on Argentina’s finances; part of the reason the banks thought it could pay back the money they lent it was that it looked OK, or rather the steaks were superb, the wine better, the company classy (and…
Read More A short break in social democracyI thought it was Felix Salmon who made a very good argument for a carbon dioxide tax rather than a cap-and-trade system, referring to British Columbia’s decision to introduce a progressively increasing levy on fossil fuels and make a matching cut in general taxation. But it wasn’t; anyway here goes. If you read this blog…
Read More The Gobbles Have ItThis DeLong vs Krugman post, and the comment from James Galbraith, raise an interesting issue regarding redistribution of income, free trade, and globalisation. Namely, as trade creates both winners and losers, but with a positive sum, it is both just and politically necessary that the winners compensate the losers. You could consider it a side-payment…
Read More Who needs remote control?It’s quite well-known that I don’t think very much of Niall Ferguson’s intellectual credibility. But this is special, in the sense of “I’m not different…I’m special.” I’m not going to take issue with his bizarre contention that saying sorry for the slave trade is why the Iranians grabbed the boarding party from Cornwall. I am,…
Read More Here Comes the Equestrian StatueI recall a fellow student at RHUL, an American, who argued constantly that this-or-that detail of Chinese economic growth meant that democracy in China was imminent and George Bush was right. So thought Thomas Friedman, whose The Lexus and the Olive Tree was at the time a set text on our course (MSc International Relations!).…
Read More Caffeine Bomb!Tories? Tories? Did someone say Tories? Yes, they surely did..Teh Grauniad covers a speech by Alan Duncan, the shadow DTI Secretary, to the Centre for Policy Studies, on the topic of youth. Verbatim: We need to empower teachers so that they can exert the control too many parents are unwilling or unable to exert,” Mr…
Read More All you need to know about the ToriesWent to the David Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday. Worth it, for one – a lot of stuff that doesn’t get out too often. Some points. Hockney’s always struck me as one of few painters who are funny. Not comical, but humour is part of the language. Looking at his Rake’s…
Read More Freeman of BradfordAh, those fine Blairite institutions. South Maidstone is apparently to be blessed with a school where some rich person gets 51 per cent of the votes for 20 per cent of the money, but something has gone terribly wrong. Specifically, the Tory-run Kent county council is trying to do something unfashionable. According to our sources,…
Read More AcademiesYgelsias suggests that the US Army is historically hopeless at counter-insurgency because of the strong Southern influence in the officer corps. His reasoning runs as follows: the Confederates chose to fight an all-out war with the Union, and when it went to ratshit they decided against fighting on as guerrillas and gave up in a…
Read More A Southern strategy?All those folk looking for dirt on John Prescott. It’s nice and quiet again now. Still, I’ve been away, far from the nearest wireless LAN, so far away I didn’t hear about the new war(s) until getting back to town, and now I’m back.
Read More Have they all gone yet?