The death of Kim Jong-il, dictator of North Korea since 1994, has been met with near universal condemnation both of his human rights record and his approach to economics. Yet juche, the philosophy of self-reliance underpinning the North Korean economy since his father Kim Il-sung devised it, is far from dead. Instead, as hapless populist […]

The 1957 Treaty of Rome bound the members of the EU’s forerunner to an “ever closer” union. Last week’s political developments and the previous disturbances in the market for Eurozone government bonds suggest that this aim may be a mirage, ever receding and never to be attained. Apart from considering Britain’s own position, it’s worth […]

Two successive articles in the Financial Times last week gave warning of a new problem approaching: they spoke of expected 25% declines in financing volume for both commodities finance and aircraft purchases. In addition, the tottering euro-zone provides another route by which a credit crunch may be unleashed on the world. In today’s distorted world […]

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong each killed tens of millions of people, and John Maynard Keynes was a pacifist who never fired a shot in anger. However economically, when the billions come to be totted up, it may well be the case that Keynes was the most destructive of the four. He cannot […]

If time travelers from 1912, well-read in Edwardian science fiction, arrived in the early part of next year, they would find our era unexpectedly familiar in a number of ways. Since by 1912 automobiles and aviation were already in existence (my house has a perfectly serviceable 1911 garage) our lifestyle would show far less change […]

The eurozone crisis, which could have been defused initially by allowing Greece to depart the euro, has now taken on a much more serious aspect. If as seems possible Italy, Spain and even France lose the confidence of the international debt markets and are forced to write down debt, then government debt of prime countries […]

There has been considerable discussion as to whether the potential Greek default makes it this cycle’s Lehman Brothers, but that is surely wrong. Greece is much too small to destroy large areas of the world economy, as did the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. It is also being bailed out on exceptionally favorable, not to say […]

As is well known to readers of this column, it is my considered opinion that economic policy and management reached a global all-time apogee (so far – one can always hope) under the British prime ministership of Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool (prime minister, 1812-27.) However Liverpool is generally thought to have had one enormous […]

I have written in the past that while Keynesian stimulus spending made no sense whatever for western countries whose budgets were substantially in deficit before the 2008-09 recession began, it was more justifiable in China, with a substantial budget surplus at the start of the recession. However it now appears I was wrong. Far from […]

On October 31, the world’s seven billionth inhabitant will be born. This should be a matter for deep mourning. Not only does inexorably increasing population pollute the planet, and lessen the likelihood that the majority rather than a minority of the world’s inhabitants can achieve a Western living standard, it also hugely raises the probability […]