Video of the week

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Funny and convincing (almost).

Blog Review 962

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This is indeed the problem with anti-trust. Even lower prices are regarded as anti-competitive.

GM isn't just being hit by the current troubles. There's decades of bad management there too.

Taking note of the detail behind the stimulus plans: for example, it's taking an age to actually spend the money by which time we won't need to spend it, will we?

Sadly, troughing public sector employees is not a problem limited to the Westminster Parliament.

Sainsbury's profits rose, did they? That's Darling's VAT cut for you.

What we ought to be looking for in an economic theory.

And finally, unfair perhaps, but how some see the BBC.

The Daily Mash hits the nail firmly on the head

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MP becomes first ever person to forget he had paid off his mortgage.

Blog Review 961

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A very seriously good thing to do about aid. Instead of what works, why not start publicising what we know does not work?

If entrepreneurship is indeed genetically determined then we've all got some thinking to do. Maybe Greg Clark was right?

Star Trek may be just a movie franchise, but which other such gives you proper economics?

Why is it that lefties know so little economics? Because those predisposed to be lefties get turned off by all that talk of self interest perhaps?

For example, what is actually wrong with the Equal Opportunities Bill?

A measure of how silly the ethanol programme is. Better to burn the corn than make the alcohol to burn.

And finally, how to really educate a child.

Blog Review 960

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Might it be that the Speaker is covering up yet more troughing?

No, really, he might be.

And how much should an MP get? Rather less than they think they should perhaps?

And John Locke thought they should get nothing. Just think of what would happen if people pursued power for the sake of the money!

We might hope at least now that politicians understand the idea of producer capture.

It's not as if they've ever managed to create a good regulation now, is it?

And finally, what one who complains about the trough gets from the trough.

Young Writer on Liberty: Incentives matter

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As the Telegraph picks over the bones of MPs already stained reputations, perhaps only one thing can be learned: financial incentives matter. As such, in order to ensure we get the very best entrants to the Young Writer on Liberty competition we have decided to increase the prize money. As such, as well as the winner getting £500, the second and third prize entrants will receive £250 and £100 respectively.

Remember, this is not one of those prizes that go to your school; instead the money will be given to you in brown envelope to spend on whatever you want, whether that be bathplugs, moats and tennis courts etc.

For more information click here

All entries should be sent to: andrew@old.adamsmith.org

Competittion closes: 15th June 2009

Datapoints

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Here is an invaluable source of statistics from the AEI.

Blog Review 959

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The reason that capitalist do so much better than politicians do in matters economic is that capitalists have long term incentives and politicians short. Incentives do matter, after all.

Explaining Joanna Lumley's attatchment to the Gurkhas.

If we just get the prices right then we don't have to worry about doing the near impossible, proper life cycle analyses.

No, prohibition really doesn't work.

However, freeing schools from the dead hands of the unions and the State really does seem to work.

It's been a recession with a nasty banking crash thrown in, not a prelude to a second Depression.

And finally, a book recommendation.

Blog Review 958

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One of the oddities of those oh so socially democratic Nordic countries is that in many ways they're not what would be called social democratic in UK terms. School vouchers, no inheritance tax, postcode lotteries for medical care....

Speaking of school vouchers, Obama's children don't attend the public school system but they're shutting down the voucher scheme that would enable others to make that same choice. Obama signed off on that restriction of other peoples' choices too.

Paul Krugman is indeed Paul Krugman, but he's still right on trade.

The libel law just got a whole lot more difficult for journalists and bloggers.

The ID cards mess just had yet another twist of spin added to it.

Why the American banking system won't go the way of the Japanese one.

And finally, physicists prove that vampires cannot exist.

Obituary: Professor Norman Gash

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We are sad to report the death of Professor Norman Gash, former Professor of Modern History in the University of St.Andrews, at the age of 97.

Norman Gash was known to the world as a fine historian of the Nineteenth Century, and in particular the leading expert on the life and times of Sir Robert Peel – on whom he wrote a definitive two-volume biography. His thoroughly researched books on Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Liverpool, and the politics of their age continue to command respect within the academic community.

Gash was also a leading Conservative intellectual, and at St.Andrews did much to encourage the thriving group of student activists whose members would go on to become MPs – such as Michael Fallon, Michael Forsyth, Robert B Jones – or active in the world of policy formation – such as Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation.