I’ve had a few people suggest that I should write a blog on the economics of Higher Education, and the impact of University expansion. I am guessing that this reflects the age of my readership – our children are filling in UCAS forms, and buying IKEA starter sets of crockery in preparation of moving out … Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote about the way that the 1930s has become a ubiquitous metaphor for people who want to make a point about modern politics. Not just any 1930s but the Hitler/Mussolini version. Simon Sharma, who knows better, referred to Trump as a “Yankee Duce” in this weekends FT. Tonight we’re going … Read more
I love America. It’s one of my favourite places in the world. I have lost count of the number of times I have visited, and I still love it just as much. Admittedly I only really go to the East and West Coast, and hardly ever to the bits in the middle, but I am … Read more
Over the last few years I have had a few arguments with people on social media. You might have spotted this. I might even have politely explained to you why I am right, and you are foolish. Over and over again I have had the same, odd experience. Someone has angrily told me that they … Read more
This blog was inspired by a tweet from Jack Monroe, written in the context of the rise of hate speech on twitter, particularly anti-semitism. This is really a neat restatement of Marx’s great opening to the 18th Brumaire: Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot … Read more
Firstly – an apology, I had this drafted for the 70th anniversary of the NHS a few weeks back, but didn’t get a chance to finish it. Part of the delay was because I distracted by things like holidays, but also because it turned out to be a bigger task than I thought. Much bigger. … Read more
No. “Productivity isn’t everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.” Paul Krugman This is why I think that Paul Krugman is wrong, despite his Nobel prize. People value human contact … Read more
Bloody immigrants eh? Coming over here, driving down wages, destroying terms and conditions of employment. Over the last few days British politicians have debated Brexit in the House of Commons, while their parties respective spin Doctors have filled the airwaves and provided content to partisan websites with endless drivel. The arguments about Brexit are tangled … Read more
I hope that people aren’t getting too bored with discussions of inequality, because this is another blog which touches on 2 familiar themes; how income is distributed; and how governments produce the statistics that we use to inform political and economic debates. There is a common assumption that over last few decades the economic performance … Read more
I have written previously about why the current system for measuring unemployment might not giving us an accurate picture: Unemployments rising in the Chigley End of Town People will have read in the media that UK unemployment is at it’s lowest since the 1970s. This from the BBC is typical: I thought that … Read more