Romney’s wife goes on a charm offensive to woo female voters for Mitt August 29, 2012 JUST hours after New Jersey’s 50 delegates officially made her husband the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Ann Romney took to the stage in Tampa to give a stoic defence of her husband’s business career, his values, and most of all, his credentials to be the next President. Her remarks were, initially at least, so well [...]
Catalonia’s bailout tests Madrid’s rule over Spain’s regions August 29, 2012 CATALONIA’S decision to seek a bailout from the Spanish government was just a matter of time. With over €5.7bn (£4.5bn) of debt maturing before the end of the year, Spain’s wealthiest – but also most heavily indebted – region had very little chance of paying its bills without some form of external assistance. The request [...]
Should UK business leaders be awarded honours for simply “doing the day job”? August 29, 2012 YES Philip Salter No one could defend the stifling corporatism that has penetrated our political system. As such, Bernard Jenkin and the rest of the public administration select committee are right to be calling for the secretive honours system to be opened up to scrutiny. However, the committee is wrong to suggest that business people [...]
Rapid Responses August 29, 2012 Swede dreams [RE: Sweden turns the page and Scandinavian noir explains why, Tuesday] It is worth adding that Sweden is also successful because of eight decades of close cooperation between the state, business and unions. Moody’s recently reaffirmed Sweden’s AAA rating and cited not merely its comparatively modest supply-side reforms but also its equal society. Alexander [...]
Why a flair for storytelling is vital if you want others to follow you August 28, 2012 EVERYONE tells stories. It’s one of the ways we connect with our friends and families. It’s how we impress people when we apply for jobs, or sell business products to potential customers. Telling stories is also what we do on Facebook and Twitter, and is even part of how we go about finding a partner. [...]
Exam targets shouldn’t be prioritised at the expense of a decent education August 28, 2012 THE highly emotional debate still raging about GCSE grades is not very enlightening. But what has happened tells us a lot about how incentives matter, and how they affect outcomes. At the same time, it shows us that unless a proper set of social norms is in place, incentives can have unanticipated, perverse effects. In [...]
This government should not try to hinder Heathrow August 28, 2012 AIRPORTS are an umbilical cord for the economy – tourism, inward investment and export opportunities all flow into Britain through them. Any constriction, or lack in capacity, has a harmful effect, limiting our potential for growth. Particularly when we are in the midst of double dip recession, we should be looking to the parts of [...]
Is America’s Republican Party right to be considering a return to the gold standard? August 28, 2012 YES Detlev Schlichter There is simply no alternative to going back to hard and apolitical money. It is the only form of money that is compatible with capitalism. Our present fiat money system is a creation not of markets, but of politics, designed to allow the constant injection of unlimited new money into banks for [...]
Rapid Responses August 28, 2012 Vaguely taxing [RE: Taxation shouldn’t be determined by subjective opinions of fairness, Tuesday] It is interesting that recent developments in political circles have redefined the basis upon which tax policy is to be developed. A poorly thought-out policy will cause more harm than good. In the case of the mansion tax, it is a double [...]
Taxation shouldn’t be determined by subjective opinions of fairness August 27, 2012 THE Treasury’s latest consultation – Ensuring the Fair Taxation of UK Residential Property Transactions – has just closed. We responded to it, and disagreed not only with the substance of the policies, but also the way in which the consultation was framed around the vaguest of concepts: “fairness”. The main proposal is for a graduated [...]