By excessively relying on the economic statistics, media pundits and political leaders tend to give a biased image of where we really stand in Western democracies. Doomsday predictions are actually based on irrelevant figures. True enough, predicting the worse and regretting the good old days are part of Western culture: one cannot prevent politicians struggling […]
Whether it’s Ed Miliband waging war against business, or the in-out EU debate which has industry leaders on both sides of the argument championing their cause, British business is once again a headline story. And it is booming: there has been a record 6.7% increase in the number of businesses since 2013, and 51% since […]
International Women’s Day is one of the more successful annual commemorations. This week the great and the good will be queuing up to quote shocking statistics about the marginalisation of women around the world – no doubt including Westminster politicians who might look rather sheepishly around at the lack of women on their own Commons […]
Detecting infectious diseases isn’t an easy task. Blood samples have to be collected and taken to labs. Once there, scientists perform various tests, ranging from looking at blood cells with optical microscopy to analysis with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. But a new kit, created by engineers at Columbia University, promises to make it all easier. The […]
Last year, in preparation for International Women’s Day, the Washington Post published a map of where female participation in the workforce is highest, colour-coding countries from red (lowest) to blue (highest). The results were mostly predictable: the UK, the US, Canada and Australia are all safely blue, with over 55% of working-age women in the […]
Poor chap. Never mind his perfect rationality, his perfect information, his perfect foresight, his perfectly immediate reactions to market signals, his perfectly enlightened self-interest – the Homo Economicus, once a much solicited model, has fallen into disrepute. He now carries the heavy load of popular anti-capitalist resentment on his shoulders. Psychologists frown at his wretched […]
A cornucopia, or horn of plenty, is commonly depicted as a large horn-shaped container overflowing with fruits, flowers or coins. 3D-printing has often been compared to the ancient symbol of abundance and wealth. Will it provide a spectacular new opportunity for production, or open a Pandora’s Box of piracy? The technology provides an opportunity to […]
At the moment, all conversations about licencing and regulating occupations seem to revolve around Uber. While governments across the world fret about safety concerns and the ‘unfairness’ towards conventional taxis, consumers are taking full advantage of the lower prices and increased competition Uber has injected into the market. Much as taxi drivers protest (and they […]
Scarcely a day passes by without one hearing of a new techno-bogeyman lurking in the wings, waiting to tear apart the fragile fabric of society. From anti-tech doomsayers like Evgeny Morozov to the less nuanced, more rapacious talking heads on nightly news, it appears as though techno-pessimism grips every facet of our lives. We are […]
Oxfam has recently spurred an ongoing debate about global wealth concentration, based on data from the Global Wealth Databook. To put it simply: a large share of global assets are in the hands of a small group. Many households even in rich countries have relatively little, or even negative, net wealth. One key reason is […]
Why immigration is a boon, not a bane, for Britain If you’re among the more than 700 million people who use WhatsApp, the smartphone-messaging service, you have Jan Koum to thank – and the United States, for allowing him to move there from his native Ukraine aged sixteen. Facebook thinks what Koum has created is […]
That’s all well and good, my Leftie friends often tell me, but what about morality? Let’s accept, they say, that markets are efficient, that they raise living standards, that they encourage people to invent and exchange things. Let’s even allow, for the sake of argument, that they alleviate poverty. Surely – this line is always […]
Healthcare innovation is not all about new miracle drugs that will be able to cure every cancer or eliminate the risk of heart disease. Although pharmaceutical advancements are certainly crucial, they are the solution to just one small part of the challenges facing the global healthcare industry today: aging populations in developed nations, high population […]
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” So famously observed […]
Another day, another survey showing just how low trust in business has fallen. This has been a consistent theme for commentators and policy wonks since the crash of 2008. For some people, it was an important area even before the Great Recession. The problem, however, is that businesses (and pro-business advocates) have accepted this as […]
Progressive journalists around the world were united in their approval. Last month’s OECD report, in the words of Britain’s Guardian, “dismissed the concept of trickle-down economics”. “The OECD report reveals the immensity of the trickle-down scam,” agreed Linda McQuaig on Canada’s Left-wing website, Rabble. Any suggestion that we ought to be appreciative when the rich […]
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