Don’t Panic – The Truth About Population. Professor Hans Rosling telling us how it actually is. Entertaining and inspiring. Please share this far and wide.
Useless Politicians: Frustrated And Angry At Brian Taylor’s Big Debate
I wasted a couple of hours today at the live broadcast of Brian Taylor’s Big Debate from Portree on the Isle of Skye. The man himself is a class act – warm, welcoming, and witty – putting both audience and panel at ease. On the panel were three MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) who…
Russell Brand Ate My Hamster!
A couple of weeks ago, prompted by lots of activity on facebook, I published this article about Russell Brand’s recent interview with Jeremy Paxman. A few days later I published this one about how our insane system of money-as-debt is slowly driving our economy off a cliff. The Russell Brand article has been viewed by…
A Girl Called Jack v. Richard Littlejohn: Who’s The Biggest Scrounger?
In this article in the Daily Mail Richard Littlejohn picks on a single mother in an unpleasant attempt to reinforce the prejudice of his readers against people who claim welfare benefits. In this case he “got the wrang soo by the lug”, as my granny used to say, because his victim turns out to be…
Money As Debt: Our Insane Banking System Is Driving Us Off A Cliff
This interview with economist Steve Keen might be hard to follow in places because he talks so quickly but his central message is clear. The growth in private debt (mortgages, loans, credit cards, etc.) over the last 40 years has been more or less exponential, and conventional economic policies have no effective way of stopping…
Benefits Rage: Getting Things Into Proportion
The UK government has been very successful at promoting the idea that our system of welfare benefits is at the mercy of legions of scroungers who are cheating the taxpayer out of vast sums of money and thereby contributing significantly to the annual deficit. The resulting “benefits rage” provides a very effective smokescreen, helping to…
The Gold Fetish: Why Shiny Metal Is No Better Than Any Other Money
There’s a great deal of confusion about the nature of money: what it actually is and how it works. I often hear people wax lyrical about the days of the gold standard, when the value of currency was tied to an agreed value of gold, in the belief that gold somehow keeps money honest. They…
Who Cares If The Rich Get Richer?
This article by Tim Harford in the Financial Times tells us that the gap between rich and poor has grown significantly over the last few decades, and suggests that the trend is self-perpetuating: the bigger the gap the easier it is for the rich few to become richer and fewer. Tim reckons that the free…
Scottish Independence: An Emotional Appeal
In a previous article about Scottish independence I pointed out that the only definite outcome from a “yes” vote in next year’s referendum will be a negotiation to disentangle the political and bureaucratic ties between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Beyond that no-one knows what an independent Scotland will actually look like or…
Abolish Savings? Are These Economists Bonkers?
Over the last couple of years I have come to the conclusion that economics, as it is taught and practised by most academics, is a load of nonsense. This article by Canadian professor Nick Rowe, in which he argues that “saving” should be abolished, is a classic example of taking an interesting idea and strangling…
Views From The Boatshed 