Economics
The October Budget was Reeves’s original sin
With hindsight, Rachel Reeves’s first Budget in October last year looks even worse than it did at the time. It…
Progress is destroying the planet: the rants of a self-hating American
Poverty is increasing and freedom contracting, says Samuel Miller McDonald – and exploitative white Americans, from Abraham Lincoln onwards, are largely to blame
The rich are fleeing – what next?
Keir Starmer is worried about who’s coming into the country. This week, he launched a white paper with the aim…
Impeccable history of the free market – and from the BBC too
The launch of Radio 4’s Invisible Hands series has been both blessed and cursed by timing. It tells the story…
Reversing our economic decline is not easy, but it is simple
We are becoming poorer because we keep choosing to increase spending, taxes and debt, rather than incurring any short-term discomfort, argues Jon Moynihan
The North American fruit tree that provides a model for economics
Bound in a web of connectivity, the serviceberry produces sufficient food for humans and other animals, and is an outstanding example of wealth consisting in ‘having enough to share’
The Mad Men theory of drunk decision-making
In electing this government, we seem to have picked the worst of both worlds: higher taxation combined with austerity in…
Is now the most exciting point in human history?
Since today’s computers can process information beyond human capabilities, we are on a precipice never faced before, says Yuval Noah Harari, in another sweeping narrative
Why China’s nostalgia industry is booming
Nostalgia is a thriving industry in China. I first noticed this while walking around Nanjing last summer. There were shops…
Does bitcoin fit the definition of good money?
Three philosophers readily acknowledge the cryptocurrency’s shortcomings, but emphasise its one important function – as a means of challenging autocratic regimes
The costly legacy of Margaret Thatcher’s monetarism
As Thatcher’s economic private secretary in the first years of her government, Tim Lankester is well qualified to analyse the controversial policy and its effects
Why is UK retail doing badly?
This morning’s retail sales figures are not what Rishi Sunak will have hoped for as he pitches his case for…
Be more tiger mum!
‘What’s it to do with me if your boyfriend wants to break up with you? Or if you cried, or…
Milton Friedman – economic visionary or scourge of the world?
Monetarism, with which his name is associated, has long defined economic policy. But what would Friedman have made of the banking collapse, so soon after his death in 2006?
The bubble bursts
It was a born of a specific macroclimate of low interest rates following the global financial crisis – but all that is melting away and, in the case of crypto, not before time
The lesson of Looney: every board should prepare for scandal
Bernard Looney, the fallen BP chief, always had a certain swagger about him. I’ve no idea whether he was unsafe…
Will Brits feel richer if inflation halves?
The government’s objective to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year seems to be back on track – for…
Who deserves a free lunch?
It is a tenet of neo-liberal economics that there is no such thing as a free lunch. This is obvious…
Worthless pieces of paper
The first banknotes were greeted with deep suspicion in 1769 – but it was nothing to the distrust that Soviet and post-Soviet issues aroused
Liz Truss: my part in her downfall
Her former economic adviser on what went wrong
