Author Archive
Economic frailty not just a Greek concern
In: Uncategorized
15 Feb 2010This is my comment from this week’s Fund Strategy. The most amusing event of last week had to be Gordon Brown’s brief appearance on the BBC Newsnight programme. In the space of 30 seconds he found seven different ways of saying that helping to tackle the Greek crisis was not Britain’s responsibility. Given that Brown […]
- Tags: economics, Europe, finance, Fund Strategy
Disdain for the fat in fiction
In: Uncategorized
14 Feb 2010I have argued for several years that one reason for the popular obsession with obesity is its symbolic value (see my 2005 essay on “Why people hate fat Americans” on the left hand bar). Human fat is the most visible manifestation of a society which the growth sceptics see as plagued by over-consumption. That in […]
- Tags: America, consumption, health, obesity
Green police
In: Uncategorized
11 Feb 2010This television commercial is meant to promote an Audi car but somehow ends up being a brilliant satire on the authoritarian consequences of environmentalism.
- Tags: environment, ethics, television
Obsession with China masks West’s inertia
In: Uncategorized
8 Feb 2010This is my comment from this week’s Fund Strategy. It is easy to become so focused on someone else’s problems that you fail to grapple with your own. That is a lesson that the West’s leaders, fixated with China, would do well to learn. No doubt China has its faults. It is arguably keeping its […]
- Tags: America, china, economics, Fund Strategy, trade
Global success in information technology
In: Uncategorized
6 Feb 2010The global statistics on information and communication technology give some of the clearest indications of the benefits of economic growth for the mass of humanity. According to a flyer on The World in 2009 (PDF) from the International Telecommunications Union some 4.6 billion people, two-thirds of the world’s population, had a mobile phone by the […]
- Tags: consumption, development, technology
For sprawling cities
In: Uncategorized
3 Feb 2010James Heartfield has an article on the newgeography website celebrating what he calls dispersed settlements and others deride as urban sprawl. He concludes that: “Far from being necessarily de-humanising, dispersed settlements are an opportunity for an enlargement of the human spirit. To imagine that there is anything in physical proximity that is essential to community […]
- Tags: cities, development, footprint, television
Cultural aversion to wealth stifles growth
In: Uncategorized
1 Feb 2010My news analysis from this week’s Fund Strategy attempts to grapple with the debate on economic policy in the run-up to Britain’s general election. It is rare for so much fuss to be made over anything so small. Yet the announcement of a 0.1% rise in Britain’s GDP in the final quarter of 2009 got […]
- Tags: debt, economics, finance, Fund Strategy, growth
Rules will not quell economic troubles
In: Uncategorized
1 Feb 2010This is my comment from this week’s Fund Strategy. A lesson that should have been learned from the economic crisis is that there are severe limits to the efficacy of rules and regulations. Although rules have their place they cannot quell problems if the underlying troubles are sufficiently bad. Indeed over-regulation can make matters worse. […]
- Tags: America, economics, Europe, finance, Fund Strategy
The anxious elite
In: Uncategorized
31 Jan 2010Anyone who still believes the global elite consists of fire-breathing market fundamentalists should look at the programme for this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. One of the main themes of this year’s event at the exclusive Swiss ski resort was sustainability with other sessions on business ethics, the economics of happiness, rethinking values and […]
- Tags: development, ethics, happiness, sustainability
The new intolerance
In: Uncategorized
30 Jan 2010Janice Turner, a Times (London) columnist, does a good job of showing how British society has become less tolerant towards obesity at the same time as it has become more tolerant towards gays. The welcome news that homosexuality is more widely accepted was contained in the annual British Social Attitudes survey. But, as Turner astutely […]
- Tags: consumption, inequality
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