When I wrote two years ago that the Eurozone resembled the Hindenburg approaching the docking mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey, Euroskeptics cheered and only those committed to the worst features of Europhilia suggested that I had underestimated Europe’s capacity for recovery. Through gritted teeth, I am now forced to admit that the Europhiles were right, […]

This column is being written before final Indian election results are available, let alone a government being selected. However if exit polls are confirmed and Narenda Modi has won a majority that allows him to govern for five years, then he has potentially the most important job in the world. Let me explain why, and […]

Nobel Prize winning (1992) economist Gary Becker, who died last weekend, extended economic theory into areas such as racism, crime, and family formation in which it hadn’t been thought relevant. Critics, whether of religious or other persuasions, complained that Becker’s analysis dehumanized us by leaving out many other factors that were of equal or greater […]

It is becoming increasingly clear that size, in government and business, was a fetish of the early and middle 20th century, caused by the peculiar technological capabilities of that period. Humanity had gained access to enormous power sources, so production could be aggregated into enormous units, but we did not yet have the informational capabilities […]