Economic Perspectives 9 – Regulatory extortion and legitimising corruption
News media gloat over the eye-watering levels of retribution (in the form of fines and penalties) finally being meted out to aberrant banks found guilty of having violated securities laws leading up to...
View ArticleLegitimising corrupt practices
February 2017 “ACCOUNTANCY” Legitimising corrupt practices In last month’s column I commented on the huge fines levied on financial institutions guilty of violating securities laws, noting that natural...
View ArticleBoardroom mega bucks – ludicrous pay deals
Explaining boardroom mega-bucks The basic pay of most employees is governed by industrial and professional norms, and is relatively stable over time when so-called “inflation” adjustments are factored...
View ArticleUseless Sanctions against Banks
‘ACCOUNTANCY’ – JANUARY 2017 MONETARY SANCTIONS? USELESS ON THEIR OWN Unfortunately for our profession, the ‘Big 4’ label may equally be taken to refer to HSBC, RBS, Lloyds and Barclays, which between...
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Tax correspondence with Pat Barron
Dear Emile and Godfrey, I think the reason that Mises did not address taxes in either Liberalism or Human Action is that both are about production and not about spending. We Austrians know that...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives 15 –“Demand stimulus unmasked”
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being “contrarian” when dispelling a myth – especially one which conventional wisdom believes to be true. On 30th March 1981, for example, 364 academic...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives 19: Does Labour respect sanctity of private property?
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 19 Does Labour respect sanctity of private property? Lessons to be discerned from the tragic Grenfell Towers fire transcend the immediate questions on cladding, stairwells,...
View ArticleGovernment knows what it is doing? Dream on
SEPTEMBER 2012 King Canute was neither vain nor foolish. He ordered the tide to recede only to demonstrate to his court that even his awesome powers had limits. Vain and foolish politicians, however,...
View ArticleEconomic perspectives 14 – unilateral free trade is natural
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 The natural condition of international commerce is unilateral free trade [I acknowledge the inspirational work of, respectively, Professors Don Boudreaux and Patrick Barron in...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives 20 –“Buffers for Duffers!’
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 20 – August 2017 BUFFERS FOR DUFFERS! Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, tells us that “this time it’s different” because the capital “buffers” (amounts that lending...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives 14 (April 2017) – Meaning of Free Trade
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 14 The natural condition of international commerce is unilateral free trade [I acknowledge the inspirational work of, respectively, Professors Don Boudreaux and Patrick Barron...
View ArticleClarity or obfuscation?
Cashing in on complexity: the ultimate conflict Last month I deplored the unfathomable regulatory maze into which accounting rules have descended, noting its utter irrelevance to stakeholders’ needs. I...
View ArticleInstitutionally Gullible – loan-loss provisions
“ACCOUNTANCY” – JUNE 2017 Banks, criminality and accounting: end of the road? All those banks and other financial institutions that have gone bust, or been bailed out, over the past 20 years...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives 22
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – 22 Currency fables – the devaluation myth The notion persists that a particular country’s economic hardship may be alleviated by an official devaluation of its currency on the...
View ArticleEconomic Perspectives – 24 “PROTECTIONISM IS SIMPLY “PATRONAGE” IN A MODERN...
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – 24 [Early-November 2017] PROTECTIONISM IS SIMPLY “PATRONAGE” IN A MODERN GUISE Protectionist policies are by no means confined to trade deals. Yet, in every one of their guises...
View ArticleEmile’s review of Godfrey Bloom’s book “The Magic of Banking”
Customer Review 5.0 out of 5 stars A salutary insight into the fallibility of economic thinking at every level. By Emile Woolf on 4 September 2017 Format: Paperback Godfrey Bloom delivers an...
View ArticleRECENT TAX HYSTERIA [Economic Perspectives – 25]
Economic Perspectives – 25 REFLECTIONS ON RECENT TAX HYSTERIA [Early December 2017] Where we are now on the subject of taxation – clueless and lost! Widespread “tax-dodging” is the surest sign that our...
View ArticleCreating Jobs – what a fallacy!
ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – 26: “CREATING JOBS’ – WHAT A FALLACY! My colleague Steven Spencer has reminded me of an anecdote relayed by the owner of a brand new Corvette sports car. A bystander...
View ArticleLetter to Friend on Taxing “Added Value”
Dear Ronald Many thanks for spending the time it must have taken you to formulate and write all that! (My own priority when writing at such length is to focus on the subject matter of my Economics...
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