A bishop takes on the global
market
The
Financial Times 23/12/99
In the end the bishop does
unearth my remarks about the harm and suffering inflicted by those
who have tried to impose their own values on their fellow men. I am
castigated for saying that I am more afraid of the Grand Inquisitor
than I am of the failures and imperfections of real world markets.
He thinks that what one is more afraid of should not be a basis for
policy. Here we probably have to agree to differ....more
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The case for paying stealth taxes
The Financial
Times 25/11/99
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the famous chief
minister of Louis XIV, espoused protection in external economic
policy and detailed regulation at home. He therefore enjoys a
terrible press among most Anglo-American economists. Indeed the
entry on him in The New Palgrave dictionary is a sustained polemic,
almost as if he were leading the French delegation at the Seattle
trade talks....more
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The privilege of the Whitehall
harlot
On John
Major, The Autobiography and In Office, Norman Lamont
September 16, 1992 is not a date recalled in every pub in the
country. But it is still etched into the brains of Britain's
economic policy-making and talking classes. For it was the date at
which the country was ignominiously forced out of the European
Exchange Rate Mechanism - Black Wednesday or White Wednesday
according to taste. Yet the Government tried to pretend that nothing
much had happened - except the exposure of mythical "structural
faults" in the ERM ....more
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Beware Anglo-American
euphoria
The
Financial Times 11/11/99
Just as the virtues of the
Anglo-US model are being oversold during a non-sustainable bubble,
they are likely to suffer an unwarranted backlash in public opinion
when the bubble bursts. The safest ground on which to advocate a
more liberalised and decentralised economy is the extension this
gives to personal choice rather than one based on dubious league
tables or ephemeral stock market bubbles.....more
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Making one size fit
all
The
Financial Times 28/10/99
Under the Maastricht criteria,
inflation could not be more than 1.5 percentage points higher in any
aspiring member of economic and monetary union than in the average
of the three best performing countries. By hook or by crook all 11
founder members managed to come within this band in 1997, the last
full year for which data were available when the initial membership
was decided....more
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Low inflation
is not good enough
The Financial Times
14/10/99
My own conclusion would be not to split hairs
arguing whether inflation targets should be 1, 2 or 2.5 per cent. I
once nearly made a permanent enemy of Stanley Fischer, before he
became Deputy Manager of the IMF, by suggesting a long term aim of
price stability instead of a never-ending series of inflation
targets. The idea was that people could make plans for their
grandchildren on the assumption that prices would be equally likely
to move in either direction ....more
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Uncertain
pound
The
Financial Times 30/9/99
A Wall Street crash does not
sound a very happy way of reducing sterling to a level corresponding
with its relative purchasing power. But there is a slight silver
lining even here. For a worldwide plunge in equity values would
reduce people's wealth by so much that spending would be depressed
and the MPC would not have to raise interest rates to offset the
fall in the pound....more
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Financial
Anatomy
The
Financial Times 16/09/99
The popular view is that the
rich have become so rich that there really would be substantial
gains for the rest of us in squeezing them quite hard. We badly need
a revived Diamond Commission on the Distribution of Income and
Wealth to give this question the subtle and long-term analysis it
needs...more
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Voices in the
air
The
Financial Times 2/9/99
During the 1970s and 1980s there
developed a counter-revolution against, not necessarily the core
doctrines of Keynes, but against the "Keynesianism" which governed
official policy in so many countries, especially in the US and UK.
It could better be described as a reaction against overambitious
economic management. The counter-revolutionary ideas were partially
put into effect by the Reagan and Thatcher governments - which for
some people was enough to condemn them...more
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End of
money
The
Financial Times 19/8/99
The vogue for any particular type
of institution has limited life. The vogue for indicative planning
reached its peak in the early 1960s. That for fiscal policy probably
did so in the 1970s. And that for central banks is also almost
certain to diminish eventually. This is not only a matter of
fashion. It is also likely to result from deep-seated trends in
financial evolution...more
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A bogus
problem
The
Financial Times 5/8/99
There is a famous American saying:
"If it ain¹t broke, don¹t fix it". The 5 per cent base rate now
prevailing in the UK is about right. The rise to 6 per cent at the
end of this year and 7 per cent at the end of next, foreseen by the
sterling futures market is not necessarily appropriate. There is
still no reason to encourage speculation either on further
reductions or on forthcoming increases...more
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The Euro's Fiscal
Trap
The
International Economy Sept/Oct 1999
It is normal for
official agencies - like the rest of us - to shift the blame onto
others when things go wrong. Even if there is no immediate crisis,
there is such a thing as shifting the blame in anticipation. This
applies particularly to central bankers...more
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Few "Lessons from
History"
To be
published by the Institute of Economic
Affairs
According to the philosopher Hegel, the only
lesson of history is that men never learn anything from history.
Such generalisations aside, Michael Bordo and Lars Jonung give us a
very specific reason why the history of so-called monetary unions is
of only limited guide to the prospects for EMU...more
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Attitude to Independent Central
Bank
Memorandum
published in 8th Report of House of Commons Treasury Committee
20/7/99
I had been in favour of an independent central bank
long before the Chancellor¹s announcement in 1997. I trust Members
will believe me without my having to search through past writings to
prove this...more
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Bubbles do
burst
The
Financial Times 22/7/99
The immediate picture is one of a
seriously overheating US economy, the first signs of a growth
takeoff in the euro group, and to a lesser extent in Asia, and
quickening recovery in the UK...more
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Corporate
signposts
The
Financial Times 8/7/99
Judging by the number of studies
crossing my desk, the longest-running public policy battle is that
for the soul of the corporation. The issue is between the supporters
of the traditional view of the corporation as an agent for the
shareholders and the fashionable alternative of a stakeholder
corporation taking into account wider interests...more
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Not by trust
alone
Review of
The Great Disruption by Francis Fukuyama
The Spectator June 1999
The
author falls for the common fallacy of identifying "individualism"
with the law of the jungle. Abstract words like individualism can
mean whatever we want them to mean. But those who write as the
author does are in grave danger of throwing away the liberation of
the human spirit which was the great achievement of the Renaissance
and the Enlightenment and insinuating that virtue consists in the
subordinating one's own personality and interests to those of the
group - the fallacy of Third Way rhetoric....more
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High Tory
fads
The
Financial Times 24/6/99
In the actual political world,
after making a brave start in a liberal direction, William Hague
soon moved over to a more traditional Toryism. If we are forced to
choose between between different versions of communitarianism, I
would prefer that of New Labour to nostalgic Tory paternalism...more
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Benefits of low
euro
The
Financial Times 10/6/99
The debate on the so-called weak
euro has produced many contenders for the prize for economic
nonsense. The common fallacy is the assumption that a low value of
the euro on the foreign exchange market means that it is a bad
currency and that a high value would mean that it is a good
currency...more
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Price harmony
The Financial Times
27/5/99
Joining Emu may be a long way off, but the UK
could show it is serious by adopting the European Central Bank's
inflation index....more
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Nonsense on
stilts
The
Financial Times 13/5/99
The "new paradigm" has three
elements...The first assertion - that the US can now be run with a
tighter labour market than previously supposed without inflation
taking off - is probably justified. The second - about a higher
underlying growth rate - is more dubious. The third - about Wall
Street's ability to reach the stratosphere - is nonsense on
stilts....more
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