The Long View: We should honour the unknown UK economist who quietly changed the world September 5, 2013 BRITAIN has lost a giant. Ronald Coase, the brilliant economist who shone new light on how and why companies form, died this week at the age of 102. It was too soon: his most influential paper was published half a century ago, but Coase remained sharp to the end, fighting for his countercultural approach. He [...]
Syrian parliament invokes strange Shakespearean allegory in letter to UK MPs September 4, 2013 (Salanio and Salarino encounter Shylock) The Syrian parliament appears to have dropped a reference to Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” in a letter to UK MPs. In the second paragraph of a document obtained by Sky News, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham, speaker of the people’s assembly of Syria, writes: We write to you as fathers and [...]
Vodafone isn’t avoiding UK tax on the sale of its stake in Verizon Wireless September 3, 2013 THE screams of rage, as the statists realise they’re not going to get any money from the sale of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, have become deafening. We’ve even seen UKUncut insist quite seriously that £84bn of tax is being avoided (£84bn is the total transaction size, not the profit or the tax). But the [...]
Syrian parliament invokes strange Shakespearean allegory in letter to UK MPs August 29, 2013 (Salanio and Salarino encounter Shylock) The Syrian parliament appears to have dropped a reference to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" in a letter to UK MPs. In the second paragraph of a document obtained by Sky News, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham, speaker of the people's assembly of Syria, writes: We write to you as fathers and [...]
Don’t blame immigration policy for the problems in our labour market August 12, 2013 TWO years ago, as the recovery stalled, a number of commentators suggested that the main problem with the UK economy was too much “red tape” preventing employers creating jobs. In response, the government commissioned a report from Adrian Beecroft on labour market regulation. It was deservedly mocked for ignoring the evidence – and, in particular, [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 31 July 2013 July 30, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Biotech gives Wall St shot in the arm Biotechnology firms are raising money at the fastest rate since the dotcom boom, underscoring the renewed appetite for one of Wall Street’s riskiest bets. So far this year 22 companies have raised $1.7bn from initial public offerings, according to Dealogic. Law firms hire rogue private eyes [...]
It’s Davos, but not as you know it February 3, 2013 DESPITE being a 30-something supposed grown-up, I must confess to still suffering from the occasional nightmare. While on duty as a night editor of this newspaper, for example, my sleep can be disturbed by a recurring dream in which I’m culpable for printing over 130,000 front page headlines of “UK ECOMONY DIPS AGAIN” (yes, reread [...]
What the other papers say this morning January 17, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Senators seek energy drinks data US senators stepped up their investigation into energy drinks on Thursday, demanding that companies making products such as Monster, AMP, Red Bull and Rockstar hand over internal documents that prove they are safe. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Richard Durbin and Representative Ed Markey asked 14 energy drink companies [...]
Do you think Eric Schmidt is right to be proud of Google’s UK tax plans? December 13, 2012 IMRAN KAHN BANK OF ENGLAND If they feel it’s within the borders of good ethics, I guess they can. But I think they should follow the lead of Starbucks in order to preserve integrity in the eyes of the consumer. SARAH ROBERTS INDEMNITY RISK SOLUTIONS I don’t blame Google for avoiding tax, that’s the way [...]
Britain is a country of extremes: We either love or we hate November 25, 2012 A FEW years ago, Britain was ridiculously complacent, blind to everything that was going wrong in the economy, determined not to notice the irrational exuberance, the monetary pump-priming, the fiscal profligacy, the epidemic of stupid decisions and the deliberate malfeasance. We were a nation in the grip of an insane bubble yet anaesthetised by cheap [...]