Alex Singleton

The Wall Street Journal reports that Hollywood is increasingly looking to “direct-to-DVD” as a distribution channel for films. Warner Bros, in particular, is making a “new push”, the paper says. “Even though DVD growth is slowing, low-budget and well-marketed made-for-DVD films targeted at specific audiences are enjoying pockets of success.” The “specific audiences” audiences bit […]

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own […]

Bloomberg quotes me on Paul Wolfowitz:
“There were a lot of people who were out to get Wolfowitz because of his role in the Iraq War,” Alex Singleton, president of the London-based Globalisation Institute, said in a telephone interview. “Whenever anyone from the World Bank gets up and puts the case for free markets, it […]

The very worst idea in international development circles is the One Laptop Per Child scheme being fronted by academic Nicholas Negroponte. The idea is that developing country budgets and development aid will be spent buying computers for up to two billion children in the developing world. The organisers want these computers to cost $100 […]

Adam Smith is the father of modern economics, and made significant contributions in the field of philosophy, so his books make a worthy addition to any intellectual’s bookcase. But with a huge arrange of editions available to buy, which is the best? Does it matter?
It comes down to personal choice, really. But the Glasgow Editions […]

“It is a widespread fallacy that skillful advertising can talk the consumers into buying everything that the advertiser wants them to buy. The consumer is, according to this legend, simply defenseless against high-pressure advertising. If this were true, success or failure in business would depend on the mode of advertising only.” - Ludwig von Mises, […]

The centre-left Progressive Policy Institute sends a weekly email called “Trade Fact of the Week”. This week’s edition says that tariffs are the United States’ most regressive tax, getting most of their revenues on life’s essentials and cheap consumer goods. Tariffs therefore hurt poor families more than anyone else. Tariffs only generate £25bn in revenue, […]

“What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a […]

One of the criticisms of capitalism is that it has mostly destroyed small, local bookshops that stocked eclectic ranges of books backed up by knowledgeable staff. We are left with Asda Wal-Mart’s pile-em-high, sell-em-cheap selection of best-sellers, or with big chain bookshops like Waterstones which all sell pretty much the same selection of books.
I can’t […]

Various US government-funded researchers, spearheaded by the National Science Foundation, are exploring the idea that today’s internet should be scrapped and replaced by a properly-designed alternative. According to MSNBC:
The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that […]