It’s time for tech firms to end their insane global patent wars November 14, 2013 IT is welcome news that a US federal court ruled last night that Google can continue to build a digital library by scanning more than 20m books. Intellectual property rules need updating for the 21st century: authors’ and owners’ property rights must be respected but what consists “fair use” needs to be reworked to account [...]
The short-term outlook for the British economy is very bullish November 13, 2013 IT’S official: even the Bank of England now agrees that the economy is recovering. It has hiked its growth forecast for this year and next (to 1.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent) and has been forced to concede that unemployment is falling far more quickly than it had been expecting. In a drastic dilution [...]
Maybe, just maybe, we have learnt some lessons from the crisis November 12, 2013 IT IS usually a pretty good rule of thumb that nobody really learns anything from booms and busts. The bubble was caused by loose monetary policies, buoyant credit and state subsidies to home-buyers – and we are seeing all of the same again, albeit in supposedly more responsible guise. Just like in the 2000s, falling [...]
A more competitive UK won’t come from government targets November 12, 2013 GOVERNMENTS shouldn’t try to centrally plan economies. It is absurd for the coalition to have decreed that it wants UK exports to reach £1 trillion a year by 2020, for example. Of course, UK firms need to produce more; and of course in doing so they will need to sell more overseas. But plucking impressive-sounding [...]
Good jobs: On that key measure, London is the world’s top city November 11, 2013 LONDON is a global city, and together with a handful of other ultra-successful urban centres worldwide, the closest we have today to the ancient Phoenician and Greek city-states. Successful, open-minded, commercial cities have always attracted the best and brightest, something that was just as true in the Mediterranean in 600BC as it was in early [...]
The UK’s hawks are right – but so are the Eurozone’s doves November 7, 2013 BELIEVE it or not the European Central Bank did the right thing yesterday by cutting interest rates. In Britain, Bank base rates should be going up by now; in the US, quantitative easing needs to be tapered; in the Eurozone, however, monetary policy should be loosened. The three economies couldn’t be more different. Hawks are [...]
London must learn from New York’s woes and build more homes November 6, 2013 ONE of the perennial myths about this country is that we are somehow uniquely keen on home-ownership and are culturally averse to renting. That’s nonsense: 70.7 per cent of those who live across the EU’s 27 member states are owner-occupiers, against just 64 per cent (and falling fast) in England and Wales. Having risen from just [...]
The UK is bouncing back – now is the time for the first rate hike November 5, 2013 IN the long run we are all dead – that was John Maynard Keynes’ excuse when justifying short-termist policies to boost the economy. In the same vein, one of the reasons why the UK is doing so well today is a series of demand-bolstering initiatives that will leave the economy with a massive hangover in [...]
There is sadly mass support for nationalisation and price controls November 4, 2013 SLOWLY but surely, the public is turning its back on the free market economy and reembracing an atavistic version of socialism which, if implemented, would end in tears. On some economic issues, the public is far more left-wing than the Tories realise or that Labour can believe. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the findings [...]
Help the low-paid by slashing their tax and boosting education November 4, 2013 IT is clear that the working poor desperately need help. With the cost of living rocketing, they are being hammered. The situation in many cases is heart-breaking; the cost to taxpayers in terms of in-work and other benefits is large; but the solutions are hard to get right. One option would be to hike the [...]