Other articles

1. Removing statues and cancel culture

   Thomas Picton

   

   Thomas Picton is a controversial figure. He fought bravely for his country, for which he’s remembered in a statue in Cardiff. He was also involved in slavery and, at least by modern standards, inhumane behaviour during the time he was governor of Trinidad. A campaign has been …

   read more

   There are comments.

2. Growing old with dignity

   State and family

   We voluntarily give up a lot of our income to the state. Public spending is now 55% of GDP, which means that, on average, more than half of the income of the population is spent by the state, and therefore not available for discretionary spending. As we …

   read more

   There are comments.

3. A crack in the edifice of the scientific publishing business model

   Is Alexandra Elbakyan the Dell Glover of the science publishing industry?

   Science’s pirate queen, Alexandra Elbakyan is threatening to be the Napster of science publishing. As others have observed, it’s bizarre that the World Wide Web, which was invented to share scientific journal articles freely and easily isn …

   read more

   There are comments.

4. google cloud shell

   Google Cloud Computing

   I like to drop into a shell from time to time. Like the old hacker I am, for minor edits I find nothing more convenient that vi (pax Stallman). I don’t necessarily want to log a PC around with me wherever I go, so I wondered …

   read more

   There are comments.

5. The forgotten man

   August 19th

   Sorry for the truncated content today. I got a bug that laid me low.

   The man who is never thought of

   I read this in the blog of the amazing Rudy Havenstein today. It is reminiscent of Hazlitt or Bastiat. You can read it and a number of …

   read more

   There are comments.

6. Comments on Gove’s Ditchley Lecture, 29th June 2020

   FDR:

   There was a rather dull lecture by Gove over the weekend, the Ditchley Lecture. I read it, so you don’t have to. It’s long and a bit rambling. Bemoans hollowing out of the middle, and the resulting disaffection of those who used to support the left, the …

   read more

   There are comments.

7. Martin Gurri on the Revolt of the Public

   I love long-form interviews, especially when driving or otherwise unable to read. I listened to The Econtalk Episode in which Russ Roberts talks to Martin Gurri about his 2014 book, “The Revolt of the Public”. You can read the highlights here.

   The basic thesis is that Poltical Taylorism has had …

   read more

   There are comments.

8. But who will pay all these wages?

   Who will pay?

   We seem to be returning to the 30s. But this time populist governments are desperate to keep voters on board. So they have no option but to cushion unemployment. The big debate of the 30s was whether this would put off the evil day when the economy …

   read more

   There are comments.

9. Books I’m reading and have read or would like to read

   My Day

   Books I’m reading

   I try to write a few paragraphs about every book I’ve read in Goodreads. My review can all be found here.
   You can see all the books I’ve added here. In nearly every case, I have a copy of the book, either …

   read more

   There are comments.