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You put in self check out in response to high wage costs, but then you find new problems. High trust systems cannot survive in the presence of low trust people. And this is why, in the second world, you cannot have nice things… And ultimately, the incentives and selectors turn the systems into pastiches of their intent. May 6th, 2025 | 39 comments
 Our diagnosis is that what really worries The Guardian here [about Argentina] is that this will all work. For where would the progressives be if classical liberalism were shown – once again – to work? May 5th, 2025 | 11 comments
“Yes, like any philosophy, neoliberalism has its limits, and as with any philosophy, some of its adherents get overexcited and take things a bit too far. But given where we currently are, and where we are likely to go in the near future, focussing on the risk of “too much neoliberalism” seems bizarre to me. It is as if you were lost in the desert, and your main worry was that if you find an oasis, you might end up drinking too much water, and get overhydrated. Maybe one day, neoliberalism will be so popular that there really will be a non-trivial risk of taking it too far. If so – that will be a good day.” – Kristian Niemietz, Editorial Director, Institute of Economic Affairs. (Part of his commentary is this recent apologia to libertarians from Noah Smith, a US centre-leftist who appears to have some intellectual honesty and grit, which is refreshing, and so it appears, rare.) It might be helpful of critics of neoliberalism bothered to define it clearly. (Tim Worstall has a related takedown of George Monbiot’s recent forays into this territory. Worstall is, as you might expect, unimpressed.) May 4th, 2025 | 19 comments
Before it’s possible to suggest a solution to a problem, it’s necessary to grasp the root cause of the problem itself. A sort of Reverse Chesterton’s Fence exercise. So, what has gone wrong? As we never tire of repeating it’s the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. That is, for the past 78 years we’ve had that coherent national plan. With a long term vision. Run by the Rolls Royce minds of the Men in Whitehall who know best. Which is how we’ve ended up with the output we’ve got, something that would disgrace a Trabant factory. As it is national control of planning – the TCPA really does define who may build what where, is the nationalisation of land use – that is the problem then the solution is to get rid of what caused the problem. Blow up the TCPA, proper blow up – kablooie. May 3rd, 2025 | 27 comments
Renewables don’t risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it’s clear that too little “inertia” due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. Also… here.
April 29th, 2025 | 42 comments
The actual argument being made is that British actors, tax breaks, directors, scriptwriters, lovely Cotswold villages (and in the case of Bridgerton, the street outside my flat) are just such wonderful places to film, film with, that prices are rising. Therefore we’ve got to subsidise all this. The only reason we listen to fuckwits like this is because they’re pretty. Now, honestly, hands up. Who has ever known a pretty bird, handsome man, who can actually think? Even, actually has the base data to be able to think with? No, no, it’s not that the leavening of IQ and looks equals out over genes. Quite the opposite. Dullards in the sense of actual cretins and morons tend not to look good either. But the good looking have never had to think now, have they? So, they don’t. April 28th, 2025 | 8 comments
“My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” – regular BBC contributor Samer Elzaenen. A report in the Telegraph says,
Er, why not? Given that the Telegraph article says that he made more than thirty posts on social media over the last decade that celebrated Palestinians killing Israeli civilians, including one post where he delightedly said that two murdered boys aged six and eight would “soon go to hell”, was it really beyond the power of the Arabic service of one of the biggest media organisations on Earth to do a simple internet search for his name? If the task of excluding self-identified Palestinian Nazis from giving regular commentary under the BBC name is too difficult for BBC Arabic, then BBC Arabic is a waste of public money. I hope that is the case, because the other possibility is that the BBC’s Arabic-speaking staff knew of Mr Elzaenen’s wish to exterminate the Jews but kept inviting him back because they want to do the same themselves. It’s not a universal opinion among Palestinians, but it’s not uncommon either. April 27th, 2025 | 8 comments
“Europe has a serious free speech problem. Instead of taking ever more measures to punish their citizens for what they say, it’s time for countries from Germany to Britain to abolish the deeply illiberal legislation they have, with little attention from the press or the public, introduced over the course of the last decades. To live up to the most basic values of the democracies that are now under threat, the continent needs to reverse course—and restore true freedom of speech.” April 25th, 2025 | 3 comments
Apple is doing the public a service in challenging the government on this important matter of principle. Encryption enables more than just ‘secure’ communication – it ensures freedom from government snooping, too. That’s why privacy and freedom of expression have long been considered mutually reinforcing rights. Encryption protects not only personal data, but also the ability of journalists and human-rights activists to operate without fear of surveillance or reprisals. Compelling companies to pre-emptively weaken those protections risks chilling users’ ability to communicate freely, share sensitive information or challenge the powers-that-be. LOL Remember this? April 24th, 2025 | 9 comments
Democracy tends towards protectionism when those harmed by free trade are numerous enough to count. But democracy also demands cheap goods. No one has yet squared that circle. April 23rd, 2025 | 21 comments
Like most people, I haven’t tuned in to Have I Got News For You for years. But when I heard of a staggering omission in last Friday night’s edition, I just had to see it – or, rather, not see it – with my own eyes. The biggest news story of the week – the momentous ruling by the Supreme Court on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010 – was not covered at all, even obliquely. You’d think that the absurdity of the highest court in the land being called to adjudicate on one of the most basic facts of observable reality – that there are two sexes, and that the words man and woman mean, er, man and woman – would be a rich source of mirth, the kind of glorious nonsense that’s a satirist’s meat and drink. But no. Not a word. Zilch. ‘We begin with the bigger stories of the week,’ said guest host Katherine Parkinson, as is traditional. These turned out to be steel nationalisation and the bin strike in Birmingham. We also heard about the Blue Origin ‘mission’, gambling on the election date, Liz Truss launching her own app. But the thing everybody was actually talking about? No. That just hung in the air like a vicar’s fart, with everybody pretending it hadn’t happened. – Gareth Roberts (£) April 22nd, 2025 | 11 comments
What’s more, the imposition of punitive tariffs on poorer countries like Vietnam will simply impoverish rather than improve the potential importing power of these countries. Disrupting the economic development of poorer countries isn’t going to improve the chances of selling to them. The irony is brutal. Trump’s fixation with trade-deficit “offenders” is punishing the very nations that could one day erase those deficits through development and prosperity. US consumers, businesses, and economic growth will all suffer as a result of the US president’s inability to grasp this elementary logic. There seems to be just one long-term strategy behind all this: unleash populism for immediate electoral returns, blame someone else for the problems that populism inevitably causes, and let someone else deal with the long-term consequences. April 20th, 2025 | 42 comments
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