The Martin Hutchinson Place
There has been a cry among the college-educated left this week to “defund the police.” For normal citizens, especially those living in big cities, that is a terrible idea – the crime rates of the 1970s and 1980s are not something they want to return to. However, it is clear that much of the unhappiness […]
We have heard a great deal about excessive inequality in the United States, which has among other things been used to justify the recent rioting. Historical comparisons however show that inequality is not especially high by the standards of the past, though it has certainly risen over the last thirty years. Yet the solution to […]
Governments and central banks worldwide have responded to the Covid-19 epidemic by massive doses of monetary and fiscal stimulus. Little of the money thrown at the problem has done any good. However, the further economic distortions governments have caused will have one long-term effect: they will delay and enfeeble recovery. Ever since 1929, government actions […]
The Business Roundtable last year made a stir by claiming that business should no longer maximize shareholder value, but instead respond to ESG (environmental, social and governance) concerns. Skeptics, including this column, pointed out that capitalism was not designed to run on that basis, and would fail if it was adopted. However, the coronavirus response […]
The Covid-19 crisis has brought an outbreak of despair from the world’s commentators. They forecast a huge economic downturn (hoping it will rid them of President Donald Trump) and moan about the limitations the disease has brought. But the same commentators celebrated the obviously flawed globalist economy, as it dragged us into ever more loathsome […]
The U.S. is currently projected to run a budget deficit of $3.8 trillion, about 19% of GDP, in the year to September 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Meanwhile interest rates are held flat at zero, and the Fed is beginning to purchase junk bonds to provide “stimulus.” We are in uncharted waters – […]
2019 may have marked the all-time peak in real U.S. and global GDP per capita, although statisticians will doubtless fudge the figures to disguise the fact. We can be sure that 2020’s pandemic will cause a sharp GDP downturn and that the bigger government inefficiencies introduced this year will add to previous such burdens on […]
The Geddes Axe, imposed in 1921-22 was a relatively successful attempt by Sir Eric Geddes to cut British public spending – it reduced military spending by 20%, for example. Shortly after World War I, the public’s urge to government economy was still strong enough to inspire an “Anti-Waste Campaign” to which Sir Eric’s efforts were […]
This column has been predicting de-globalization for almost a decade – the June 2010 piece “Back to the Kaiser’s World” was its first example of this theme. Now that the coronavirus has caused everybody else to leap onto this bandwagon, it is worth examining what the new de-globalized world might look like. While it has […]
Britain got the Industrial Revolution largely because of good policy (deo volente, there is a book in my future about this.) Now those good policies have been reversed. Savings are discouraged, the short-term and financial juggling are benefited over the long-term, industrial enterprise is hampered while sloth is subsidized and surplus capital is seized randomly […]