Alex Singleton

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on the French presidential elections. The country goes to the polls on 6 May, amid growing concerns about France’s economic stagnation. Whereas Germany has pursued some free-market reforms and been rewarded by an economic recovery, France’s economy suffers from slow growth combined with high unemployment. The WSJ reports:
Economists, […]

European Commission President Barroso has a lot of good things to say on the importance of making the European Union more competitive. He leans towards the free market (he’s hated by France’s Jaques Chirac who regards Barroso as an “ultra-liberal”). He recognises the importance of climbing the economic ladder rather than sticking to the less […]

“Environmental activists don’t use logic or reason” - Stan in South Park episode 505, fleeing the Earth Day Brainwashing Festival

Sheryl Crow has been on a tour around the USA to raise awareness of the environment. Alas, she is very much part of the negative environmentalism school, wanting us to descend into a simpler, more basic existence, with an emphasis on banning things. According to BBC News:
Singer Sheryl Crow has said a ban on using […]

Here’s a very good video clip (just under four minutes long) on how liberalisation saved India from economic collapse, from the TV series Commanding Heights. The end of the Soviet Union reverberated, it says, and took away India’s role model. Manmohan Singh, India’s finance minister who introduced the market reforms, says in the video that […]

The Wall Street Journal reports that the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid - the EU’s answer to Britain’s Hilary Benn - isn’t doing his job:
The European commissioner for development cooperation, Louis Michel, is currently on unpaid leave because he is taking part in the Belgian federal elections on June 10. Instead of visiting […]

The success of VHS over Betamax is often used as an example of market failure. The conventional wisdom is basically this: Betamax, the better format, failed in the marketplace, and the inferior VHS system became the standard, because of marketing. But as the Guardian says: “It’s an urban myth.”
When consumers chose VHS over Betamax, they […]

David Willetts, a Conservative politician, is setting up a study group to look at the problems facing children in the UK. One of the subjects his group is looking at is to “look at how children can be better protected from commercialisation”.
Part of the impetus for this study is a deeply flawed UNICEF report that […]

One of the biggest urban myths in economics is that of the everlasting light bulb. The claim is that a lightbulb, costing no more than conventional light bulbs, has been invented but which lasts forever. However, we don’t get to buy such bulbs because the bulb manufacturers bought the invention and have suppressed it, believing […]

“The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, antiblack laws on the statute books.” - Milton […]