Oconnellomics

To see the scale of the problem take a good look at the Euromyths website. There it all is, neatly arranged in alphabetical order. Some of the references are comical, others are somewhat sinister. Of the 647 entries listed, 538 are attributed to UK newspapers. Of those 538 the top ten most frequently cited newspapers…

There’s a lot of talk about new ideas coming from the left, a rethink precipitated by the Great Crisis of 2008. This single event put paid to the idea of free market capitalism as somehow perfected and inevitable, the only conceivable economic system that could underpin a prosperous future. As a financialised world economy was…

Formally stated, the law amounts to something like this: At any given time, the ineptitude of our political leaders will leave us wishing they could be replaced by previous political leaders, who, at the time, we felt to be as inept as any political leader could be. Of course, the term ‘ineptitude’ doesn’t quite capture…

One of the recurring themes of Brexit since 2016 has been bewilderment and incredulity on the part of Remainers as to the obdurate resistance of the Leave camp to any arguments pointing out how much worse off Britain will be as a result of leaving the EU. The ‘divided nation’ description has become commonplace as…

In a recent book, The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime and Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary Policy, distinguished economist Kenneth Rogoff argues, exactly as the book’s title says, that large-denomination paper money, cash, has a corrosive social impact, and that such forms of cash should be eliminated. My first response to this…

The mission statements of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) are as follows: OBR: The Office for Budget Responsibility was created in 2010 to provide independent and authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances. IFS: Our goal at the Institute for Fiscal Studies is to promote effective economic…

With some frequency I come across instances of economic illiteracy, usually from politicians and commentators, but, alarmingly, sometimes from economists themselves. Here are some examples: “It’s unfair to saddle* the next generation with debt” This one became popular in certain quarters when it was pointed out that the best way to restore government debt to…

We take it for granted now. Any major project in the UK’s public sector will either overrun or overspend, or, more usually, both. It is part of our way of life, a culturally embedded failing that we greet with a shrug – ‘it was ever thus’. We resemble goldfish in a bowl, swimming in circles…

I don’t normally seek wisdom in ancient texts, but this from Ecclesiastes 9:10 seems peculiarly appropriate to the ongoing Brexit debate: ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’ Which is to say, that it…

I’ve always been enamoured of a particular Mike Tyson quotation: ‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.’ It seems to apply to Brexit in all sorts of ways: Leave told us we would get loads more money to spend on the NHS; the EU wanted £40b before they would even discuss…