How executive pay regulations can increase inequality – not reduce it May 7, 2014 IN JUST two months, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has taken the world by storm. In it, he argues that substantial increases in inequality can only be reversed through government intervention. Piketty’s own suggestion is a 2 per cent annual wealth tax, and income tax rates of up to 80 per cent. In [...]
Beware the protectionist iceberg: The damage is below the surface May 7, 2014 THE PFIZER bid for AstraZeneca raises, yet again, the spectre of economic nationalism in Britain, albeit in a subtler form. Crude protectionism has been replaced by calls for a new public interest test to govern such takeovers. But to oppose such calls is not slavish, blind adherence to market dogma. It is merely recognition that [...]
Closing the deficit isn’t enough: UK debt is a risk to financial stability May 7, 2014 ELECTION 2015 is now under a year away. The battle lines are forming, but will any party set out credible plans for tackling government debt? While the deficit is falling, the nation’s debts are growing – with a far-reaching effect on government and public services. In the coming months, each political party will be preparing [...]
Letters to the Editor – 07/05 – Political failure, Pfizer-AstraZeneca, Best of Twitter May 6, 2014 Political failure [Re: We are stuck in a disastrous spiral of misplaced interventionism, Friday] I couldn’t agree more with this diagnosis of political failure. But I think rising rent is largely a London problem. When I was younger, the idea was you bought a small two bed terrace and moved your way up the ladder. [...]
The truth behind China’s numbers May 6, 2014 FEW can doubt the importance of China to the world today. But as research by the World Bank’s International Comparison Program has highlighted – the country may be close to becoming as large an economy as the US on a purchasing power parity basis – China’s actual size and the speed of its growth are [...]
Why globalisation calls for a fresh perspective on the value of exports May 6, 2014 IMAGINE that, for some reason, you were forced to choose between having to read a long, turgid novel like Westward Ho or Middlemarch, or a book on the methodology of the national economic accounts. Most people, however reluctantly, would plump for the former. But the latter can at times be very exciting. A recent paper, [...]
Labour’s rent control plans would be a nightmare for tenants May 6, 2014 AS PART of its campaign against the “cost of living crisis”, Labour has stepped up with an offer to help struggling renters. Sadly, at best its proposals are a non-solution, and at worst a nightmare for tenants. The rent regulation that Ed Miliband plans to introduce would see three-year rental contracts become the norm, during [...]
Blame Europe’s 70 year holiday from history for the West’s terrible decline May 5, 2014 THE US public has had it with being the world’s policeman. An April 2014 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 19 per cent wanted America to engage in a more activist foreign policy. Fully 47 per cent wished the US to conduct a less activist policy, a camp that has quadrupled in size over [...]
We will not apologise for defending British worldbeaters like AstraZeneca May 5, 2014 Amid the speculation surrounding the potential takeover of UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca by Pfizer, some facts are now known. Pfizer made an approach to take over AstraZeneca on 5 January 2014. The deal valued the company at around £60bn, which AstraZeneca rejected. On 26 April, Pfizer made a second approach, which AstraZeneca also rebuffed. A [...]
Why Piketty’s socialist manifesto doesn’t stack up May 5, 2014 THOMAS Piketty makes some bold claims about the future of capitalism. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, he observes that, in capitalist economies, the rate of return on capital (r) tends to be higher than the growth rate of the economy (g). Provided capital owners save a high proportion of capital income, the power of [...]