Economics
What Samsung’s new TVs owe to Jeremy Bentham
Watching brief Samsung warned users of its voice-activated televisions that what they said in front of the TV could be…
The low sculduggery of high Victorian finance
The whole idea of capitalism, according to Enlightenment philosophers, was that it created a positive spiral of moral behaviour. ‘Concern…
Don't believe the gloom-mongers: deflation will be good for Britain
Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down…
Why I’m glad there’s no British Las Vegas
I didn’t realise that the Rialto Bridge has a moving walkway and muzak, that the gondolas beneath it float on…
The subversive wonders of Kilkenomics – where economics meets stand-up
‘What is a Minsky moment, anyway?’ asks Gerry Stembridge, an Irish satirist. ‘I’ve been reading about them in the papers…
S&M&B&Q: Why aren’t there sex-and-shopping novels for men?
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
What are the Chinese up to in Africa?
Few subjects generate as much angst, or puzzlement, among Western policymakers in Africa as China’s presence on the continent. In…
Adam Smith is the father of more than one sort of economics
Gandhi would test his resolve by sleeping between two naked virgins, an avenue not really open to me, as my…
The opéra bouffe that was the Bretton Woods conference
There ought to be a comic opera about the Bretton Woods conference — Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, about Margaret,…
A Labour MP defends the Empire – and only quotes Lenin twice
In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is — you might…
You can buy happiness. Here’s how…
If you are reading this article online, perhaps you could go to the comments section and let us know what…
Is full employment just another of George Osborne’s political stunts?
‘Full employment’ usually means the lowest achievable rate of unemployment — somewhere south of 5 per cent compared with 7.2 per…
The engagement-ring theory of property bubbles
Google ‘the bread market’ and you get 135,000 hits, mostly from specialist food industry websites. Google ‘the property market’, however,…
Niall Ferguson’s diary: Brazil is overtaking us – but it no longer feels like that
São Paolo It was back in 2001 that my good friend Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘Bric’,…
Is there a way to live without economic growth?
During Japan’s lost decade in the 1990s I found myself handing out rice balls to Tokyo’s homeless on the banks…
The man who made it OK to talk about immigration
How Professor Paul Collier has bypassed the liberal taboo on discussing immigration
Why Britain’s economy will overtake Germany’s
Why the UK economy will one day overtake Germany
Can you trade love for wealth? The economics of Breaking Bad
The acclaimed television series Breaking Bad has ended. Steffen Huck on what it can teach us about economics
My mansion tax solution: hit rich foreigners. But no one else
I am surprised no more attention has been given to Martin Vander Weyer’s suggestion in The Spectator two weeks ago…
The Downfall of Money, by Frederick Taylor - review
In Germany in 1923 money was losing its value so fast that the state printing works could not keep up.…
Never seen the need for a class system? Take a long-haul flight
Usually it is annoying when you have to board an aeroplane via a shuttle bus rather than an airbridge. The…
Don't blame the baby boomers - they had it tough too
Here’s a competition for you: ‘The most irritating discussion on Radio 4 in the past month.’ Answers in not more…
Rory Sutherland: Don't abolish The Knowledge
Now that most taxi drivers use satnavs, should ‘the Knowledge’ be abolished? Shouldn’t we ditch the requirement that all London…
What the Arab world really wants
Middle East protest has its roots not in Islam but in frustrated enterprise
