Spending money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about

I’ve wondered for some time now, why a mainstream political party doesn’t use an alternative measure to GDP as a major plank of its political platform (e.g. Genuine Progress Indicator, or Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare). The use of GDP growth as a barometer of societal well-being is entirely inappropriate, a view supported by none [...]

The hazards of bailing out Car 1.0

Image source: greenerist.com There is a brilliant piece by Thomas Friedman in the IHT today on the US auto bail-out and what Joseph Schumpeter once referred to as the process of creative destruction. He writes about the Better Place electric car charging system and how this is set to replace the petroleum-based model. The best [...]

The poverty of economic history

Image source: recessionhistory.info The biggest problem with governments is that they are run by politicians whose first concern is the electoral cycle. The second biggest problem is that these politicians tend to have advisors with economics degrees from top universities where the economic history courses have limited appeal alongside the finance-oriented courses that are viewed [...]