Gary Stevenson is predictably wrong about wealth taxes Opinion Wealth taxes, as promoted by the likes of Gary Stevenson and Zack Polanski, are a terrible idea. Let’s make Britain rich instead, says Kristian Niemietz Wealth taxes are currently all the rage. Over the past few years, a massive hype has built up around the idea: 75 per cent of the public say they support [...]
Space is the new frontier in economics Opinion Property rights underpin capitalism here on Earth, they must do the same in space – a new book by City AM columnist Rainer Zitelmann argues A little over ten years ago, when smartphones were still sufficiently new to mention, I attended a talk by an economist who argued that it was a mistake to see [...]
Scrap inheritance tax! Opinion Inheritance tax is burdensome, distortionary and barely raises any revenue. Get rid of it now says Kristian Niemietz If you work in Westminster, you treat protest marches as part of the background noise. I have been working in SW1 since the late-stage Gordon Brown era, and I have certainly seen my fair share of those [...]
What’s so bad about a wealth tax? July 7, 2025 That "millionaires don't need all that money" misses the point. Wealth taxes hurt us all, writes Callum Price.
Back to the 80s to fix the housing crisis January 10, 2025 Experts have been warning about the housing crisis for decades – and the solutions have been staring us in the face for just as long, says Kristian Niemietz “[T]he planning system […] has significantly increased land and housing prices […] and distorted the economic structure, all of which have led to the British standard of [...]
How Poland and Vietnam escaped poverty October 17, 2024 In a new book, Rainer Zitelmann examines how Poland and Vietnam escaped the ravages of the Cold War to become some of the world’s fastest growing economies – and argues that poverty isn’t inevitable, it’s a policy choice says Kristian Niemietz Case studies in recent economic history typically deal with unambiguous success stories, or unambiguous [...]
The great greying of the British right September 13, 2024 Why are none of the Conservative leadership candidates talking about the economy? It’s down to a self-fulfilling cycle of pandering to pensioners and alienating younger workers, says Kristian Niemietz The Tory Party’s leadership campaign has so far heavily focused on culture war issues. I don’t mean this in a pejorative way. We are in a [...]
Notes from a future where Britain has solved the housing crisis April 16, 2024 In ten years’ time, high house prices and low supply could be a thing of the past. Kristian Niemietz offers a despatch from that brave new world… The year is 2035 and according to provisional figures released today by the Office for National Statistics it is the tenth year in a row during which house [...]
Attitudes to the NHS are finally catching up with reality March 29, 2024 The NHS has always been mediocre to poor in terms of measurable medical outcomes regardless of funding or public adulation, says Kristian Niemietz Public satisfaction with the NHS has fallen to the lowest levels since records began, according to the latest edition of the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA), which was released this week. 52 per cent [...]
Book review: A vital tome for those fighting for capitalism March 9, 2023 Imagine someone programmed a Twitter bot which, every time somebody describes a problem of some sort, responded with some variation of “I think you will find that the root cause of the problem is capitalism!” That bot would easily get tens of thousands of likes, retweets, and supportive replies every time. Anti-capitalist platitudes, no matter [...]
