Unintended consequences and perverse incentives from political choices
Latest Blog Entries
Graduated benefits
While writing a blog piece on the Establishment, I wanted to include statistics for the number of MPs, civil servants etc. who graduated from Oxbridge, Russell Group or any university, and how the subjects they studied compared with the…
07 Apr 2020
Stepping back
Lots of comments about how exchange rates and equity-price movements show that the UK is (a) doomed or (b) well-placed post-Brexit. Movements and values over a few days tell us nothing except the climate of hope or fear in those few days…
11 Jul 2016
The worst form of government
An anti-democratic mini-meme developed amongst some of my liberal friends in the build-up to the EU referendum. For some people, democracy is a virtue and governance structures that provide more direct democratic accountability are…
09 Jul 2016
Letter to my employees about the Brexit referendum
All, The CBI think that bosses should inform employees about Brexit. http://news.sky.com/story/1697273/bosses-told-to-warn-workers-of-brexit-risks This patronising suggestion is typical of the Confederation of Big Business, and of a Remain…
20 May 2016
Talking Balls
Is Ed Balls a knave or a fool? On Newsnight, he just compared eliminating the deficit in four years to paying down a mortgage in short order. Let's consider the form that analogy should take if it were to reflect reality. Having engaged in…
16 Mar 2011
Promote industry. Bag a banker.
Boris Johnson is quoted in MoneyWeek as having said to Management Today: "To the banker bashers I say, what's your economic model? We can't ignore and hate the bankers. What would that achieve? Show me how reducing financial services boosts…
17 Jan 2011
Quotes
It would not substantially impair the power of the bureaucrats, if they were under the necessity of approaching Parliament for legislating on all these matters. Parliament would be flooded by a multitude of bills the contents of which would extend beyond the range of its competence. The Members of Parliament would lack both the time and the information to examine seriously the proposals elaborated by the staffs of the various agencies
Bureaucracy (1945), p.16
People are unfair in indicting the individual bureaucrat for the vices of the system. The fault is not with the men and women who fill the offices and bureaux. They are no less the victims of the new way of life than anybody else. The system is bad, not its subordinate bureaux
Bureaucracy (1945)
Society cannot contribute anything to the breeding and growing of ingenious men. A creative genius cannot be trained. There are no schools for creativeness. A genius is precisely a man who defies all schools and rules, who deviates from the traditional roads of routine and opens up new paths through land inaccessible before. A genius is always a teacher, never a pupil; he is always self-made. He does not owe anything to the favour of those in power. But, on the other hand, the government can bring about conditions which paralyse the efforts of a creative spirit and prevent him from rendering useful services to the community
Bureaucracy (1945), p.21