“Time-waster”, “gambler” and “amateur” — and those were only the insults the press has felt able to publish before the 9 o’clock watershed. The criticism of Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis at today’s Eurogroup in Riga was so extreme that the lexicon of diplomatic understatement had to be expanded to include “hammered”. One wonders whether […]
Markets have been with us since the dawn of civilisation. The Neolithic Revolution, in 9500 BC when the Natufians settled down in the Levant and started cultivating teosinte, the ancestor of maize, really marks the start of market societies – involving specialisation, trade and technology. Yet the capitalism with which we are familiar – of […]
This Friday the Eurogroup finance ministers are meeting again and some claim that “hopes are high” that it will result in an agreement between Greece and its creditors. It’s perhaps important to clarify that for “some” here you should insert “Greek officials”. Most other sources claim there’s no chance of any agreement at all. Things […]
The horror worsens with every detail that emerges. Migrants are locked below decks, graded by nationality and by the amount they have paid. The people smugglers herd their cargo at gunpoint, as if in some grisly re-enactment of the Atlantic slave trade. One Somali boy even told reporters that some of his friends had been […]
If 400 people had been killed in Rome this week, in a train crash or in a collapsed building, Europe’s airwaves would have been full for days with coverage of the terrible disaster. When those 400 dead people are migrants crossing the Mediterranean, heading for the coast of Italy this week, it gets attention. But […]
Veterans of the latest Greek crisis may recall that when in February the Eurozone agreed to a four month extension of the Greek bailout programme, that depended upon the Greek government’s proposed replacement reforms being accepted by the “Institutions” (IMF, ECB and European Commission). These Institutions said the first draft of these replacement reforms was […]
Thomas Piketty has caused a stir with his predictions about increasing inequality and private and inherited wealth growing at higher rates than incomes. His projections are far less certain than often implied in his book. They do not follow from his “two fundamental laws of capitalism” and historical trends. Increasingly, his empirical work has been […]
What has happened to Iceland? The failed economy which crashed in 2008, taking a chunk of Britain’s tax funds with it, had to be bailed out with an IMF loan of $2.1 billion. That same IMF now ranks the country as 16th in terms of GDP per capita, ahead of Germany, France, and the UK. Iceland beats […]
The Greek crisis has pushed its way back up the news schedules again as Greece’s latest IMF repayment deadlines draws near. Thursday April 9th is the day, and with bank holidays on Friday and Monday for Greek Orthodox Easter, a few of the more excitable commentators have wondered whether this might be a good moment […]
The message to his country is simple: ‘Don’t expect miracles.’ These are wise words from Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s septuagenarian new leader surveys his immense domain. For having won power, the former general presides over a nation – the most populous in Africa – that is beset with problems from Islamic militancy in the north through […]
Right now it looks as though the purported rescue of Greece by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will fall to bits on the socialist shoals of Syriza. Since the last showdown with the EU, Greece has continued to operate as if there were no fiscal tomorrow. Its two latest manoeuvres are straight […]
The twentieth century saw capitalism triumph. Admittedly, and for a while at least, capitalism was something of a dark horse. After a rather shaky start, one in which socialism spread to all four corners of the earth, capitalism won the race. By contrast, the twenty-first century has so far been one of trauma. Like it […]
It easy to lampoon education reforms in Finland that aim to scrap the teaching of traditional subjects in favour of broader topics. The new initiative could see history, geography and languages replaced for periods by interdisciplinary “phenomenon-based” projects on topics such as the European Union. Instead of sitting in rows learning facts about the world, […]
“We don’t change our policy according to elections,” insisted Jyrki Katainen, vice-president of the European Commission for jobs, growth, investment and competitiveness, after the Greek elections in January. Which, however much you may dislike the new radical-left government in Athens, is quite a statement for an unelected EU official. And which begs the question: how […]
Africa is the fastest-growing continental economy in the world today, thanks in large part to the fact that its population is so young. But one consequence of having a lot of young people is that Africa faces a massive practical problem, the problem of how to educate its millions of poor young people in the […]
Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of Singapore, is dead at the age of 91, and across the globe writers, academics and world leaders are reliving his achievements and wondering at the legacy he left behind him. President Obama called him “a true giant of history,” while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was a “legendary figure […]
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