In the post-pandemic period of Covid, there’s now a concerted effort to comprehend and explain the damage that was caused by our capitulating to the hysterical overreaction and overreach of the ‘experts.’ There’s a long list of policy failures to …
Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance
The Problem with Intellectual Property
The unholy alliance between Big Pharma and the FDA and Federal Government is truly breathtaking to behold. Unfortunately, its nature is so arcane and obscure that only a few notice this, other than those who …
The Meltdown of Commercial Real Estate
In case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.
Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.
The note, by Senior Editor James …
Thomas Piketty’s failed revolution
Think back to the political situation a decade ago, and one may have in mind a calmer, less dysfunctional time. Britain’s economy was growing, just about, and real wages were beginning to rise for the first time since the summer …
Why does the Right worship Javier Milei?
Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, enjoys an almost Christ-like status among heterodox conservatives and MAGA-style Right-wingers, almost on a par with Trump himself. Like lovestruck teenagers, a certain type of conservative drools over Milei’s over-the-top mannerisms and “based” speeches …
Welcome to the stagnation nation
Fifteen years after the great financial crisis blew Britain’s economic settlement apart, we’re still scrabbling around for a replacement. The staggering scale of our problems was revealed yesterday in Jeremy Hunt’s thoroughly depressing budget statement. Despite heavy doses of magical …
In Health Care, We Are Flying Blind
In the movie Paddington, a bear moves in with a London family. The father of the house is an insurance actuary. As the bear is bathing, he places a panicked call to his home insurer to add a provision in …
Sickness Everywhere
A silent disruption of population health and human potential is causing a decline in economic growth and increased poverty worldwide. The number of citizens losing trust in leaders from public-private partnerships that ruled and mandated public health and climate policies …
Does our zombie economy need a recession?
“He’s more concerned about not losing a battle than he is about winning one,” said George C. Scott in his Oscar-winning performance in Patton, expressing the US general’s opinion of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Today, the same thing could be …
The Great Reset Didn’t Work: The Case of EVs
We are living through one of history’s longest and most excruciating versions of “We told you so.” When in March 2020, the world’s government decided to “shut down” the world’s economies and throttle any and all social activity, and deny …
The Bank of England gambled with your money — and lost
As the UK limps into another recession, and with inflation set to rise again today, it’s hard not to conclude that Britain’s economic cognoscenti really don’t know what they’re doing. For years, we’ve been lavished with promises of growth, investment …
EU Farmers Rise Against the Climate Cult
Many major arteries connecting Europe have been obstructed or brought to a standstill in recent days by a wave of protests by farmers against what they claim are overly burdensome environmental targets and unsustainable levels of bureacracy associated with EU …
$2.7 Trillion Buys “Spectacular” GDP
Fresh GDP numbers came in and it was a blowout. The kind of blowout that only a $2.7 trillion government deficit can buy while the private economy crumbles around it.
Another couple blowout GDP reports like this and Americans will …
Four Years Later: Lockdown “Deaths of Despair”
In the second week of March 2020, the Trump administration announced “15-days to flatten the curve” based on the misguided notion that shutting the economy down temporarily would reduce hospital admissions and thus lower the Covid death toll over the …
Can Federalising Central Governments Fix…Federalism?
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. (italics …