Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Shocking report from London. Priced out of housing market, some are forced to rent garden sheds. One family pay to live in a walk-in freezer. Landlords happy to cash in. What does this say about free markets, capitalism, society?
"Recession has delivered the coup de grace to a quarter century of manufacturing decline. Manchester is by no means the worst hit of English cities, but its northern suburbs are Detroit UK." A smarter growth plan is needed
Lovely little piece on complexity of tax. A sandwich in a shop counts as catering (20% tax) if you eat it there and food (zero tax) if you eat it at your desk. Pizza and fish and chips are more complicated
"Just like Britain before 1929, Europe’s Periphery was being secretly buffeted by a slow-burning recession well before 2008. Labouring under an overvalued currency, their industries were being depleted in exchange for phoney growth"
Why has the US recovered from financial crisis faster and stronger than the UK? Shocks to both economies were of a similar scale, and both central banks pursued similar policies. Yet there were crucial diferences (11-page PDF)
Britain gets bolder in using behavioural economics to achieve policy goals. Legislation in October will change the default option for corporate pension plans, so that employees are automatically opted in unless they opt out
How the British Treasury puts the annual Budget together. A bit like a steeplechase. Any viable proposal can be a starter, even a write-in from the public. But it has to clear many fences before it finishes in the speech
"The privatisations are joining up. First gas. Then telecoms, oil, electricity, public housing, water, the railways, the airports. We are being made tenants in our own land, defined by the string of private fees we pay to exist"
Tax reform alone isn't enough. "The institutions that determine compensation are deeply distorted by the visible hand of entrenched and powerful interests. We ought to address this distortion directly through institutional repair"
"In England, confidence in the utility of alchemy was widespread. It was unsurprising that metallic transmutation was pursued as a solution to the stubborn scarcity of money problem that had severely curtailed commerce for decades"
"Given that deficit reduction usually involves highly unpopular spending cuts and/or tax increases, a 'stealthier' financial-repression tax may be a more politically palatable alternative." And one that may last for many years
Britons view homes as extensions of the self. And, now, their repositories of savings and pension plans as well. That's why there's such opposition to proposed "mansion tax". There shouldn't be. Houses are possessions like any other
