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'Green shoots' debate misleads policymakers
The Financial Times 26/06/09
Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has said that output is now falling "at a decreasing rate". It is highly likely that we will have before long a quarter or two of stable output - probably first in the US and last in the eurozone, with the UK in between. The interesting question is where we go from there...more |
It is time to put Europe on hold
The Financial Times 12/06/09
The best practical proposal would be to call a halt to further institutional deepening and concentrate on making the existing EU work better. This is what Eurocrats say will happen after each new expansion of EU powers. It never does, of course...more |
Inflation can act as a safety valve
The Financial Times 29/05/09
The real snag about indexation remains the problem of wages. As Keynes, Prof Shiller himself and many others have observed, workers accept more readily a real wage cut arising from a rise in the general level of prices than an actual reduction in what they are paid. Prof Shiller tries hard to find a unit in which workers could accept with good grace a reduction in real pay; but I do not think he succeeds. In some circumstances a little bit of old-fashioned inflation is the best safety valve available...more |
 Against The Flow: Samuel Brittan's book
Atlantic Books - Now in paperback
"Samuel Brittan has been one of the Financial Times' leading columnists for nearly thirty years. He has also advised numerous Chancellors of the Exchequer on economic policy. Against the Flow collects the most important of his writings from the last three decades. Taken together the pieces in Against the Flow amount to a robust defence of classic liberalism"...more |
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