This article by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp at Business For Scotland annoys me on so many levels. Firstly, he buries the only substantial fact in a short paragraph in the middle of the piece. According to GERS (Government Expenditure & Revenue in Scotland) in 2012 Scotland contributed 9.9% of UK tax revenue but received only 9.3% of…
Here’s an excellent article by Frances Coppola on a late 18th century version of basic income in the parish of Speen in Berkshire, and more general history of poor relief in English parishes at the time. Sadly the perverted “morality” of the wealthy demanding work-for-welfare from the poor is still alive and well today. Consider…
Our politicians, the economists who advise them, and the journalists who report their words and deeds tell us over and over again that our country is “living beyond its means” and the government will “run out of money” unless it “balances the books”. We’re told that government spending is restricted to the amount of money…
Another economist catching onto the idea of a a universal basic income. John Aziz, writing for The Week, argues that minimum wage is a flawed concept that should be replaced by a universal basic income, which solves the problem of low wages as well as getting rid of welfare benefits and the huge unproductive government…
I don’t know what Boris Johnson’s IQ is but his speech at the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture suggests that he is a spectacularly stupid little man. At the core of his speech was a celebration of Margaret Thatcher’s success in transforming Britain into “a buccaneering environment where there was no shame – quite the reverse –…
I have just ploughed my way through the first four chapters of Scotland’s Future, the Scottish Government’s white paper which argues the case for voting “yes” in next year’s referendum on Scottish independence, and outlines the Scottish National Party’s “priorities for action” should they be voted back into government after Scotland becomes independent. I confess…
Yesterday was spent attending the Radical Independence Conference 2013 in Glasgow, organised by the Radical Independence Campaign which employs the slogan “Another Scotland Is Possible”. We were a thousand strong, packed into a big room in the Marriott Hotel where we were addressed by a series of very able and persuasive speakers all of whom…
There’s a debate going on in some nerdy corners of the internet about negative interest rates, which sounds like a desperately dull thing to be wasting time on, but it could be the spark that lights the lamp that leads us out of the economic gloom into a bright and prosperous future. A negative interest…
I have just watched this interview in which Ross Ashcroft of the Renegade Economist talks to author and film-maker David Malone about democracy, economics and more. There’s a lot of good stuff in it but one idea struck me as something really special. David Malone argues that the idea of individual rights – human, constitutional, whatever…
David Cameron published an article yesterday on his LinkedIn page telling us how wonderful his Help To Buy scheme is. What he doesn’t tell you is that Help To Buy is merely an extension of the asset inflation farce that was responsible for the recession, and it can only lead to more misery further down…
Views From The Boatshed 