UBI is a political cancer, and will kill us if it is not extirpated
My topic today is Universal Basic Income, a.k.a. UBI, which I regard as nothing less than a cancer of the mind, and which I fear may soon become a cancer on society. The origin of this metastatic...
View ArticleThe Starhopper has landed
Last night, SpaceX completed a 150m hop test of the Starhopper test article for the upcoming Starship spacecraft. (Recall that Starhopper is basically a water tower with a rocket engine at the bottom.)...
View ArticleAnn and the Giant Credit Card
“The beauty of a Green New Deal is that it would pay for itself”, writes Ann Pettifor. To raise the money for a green deal, governments would have to draw on their equivalent of a giant credit card,...
View ArticleIt is past time for a Hayek statue
I agree with this, from Matt Kilcoyne of the Adam Smith Institute. It is past time that Nobel Prize-winning economist and great social thinker, F A Hayek, had a statue in London. Hayek is one of the...
View ArticleThe lost chord, correction, TUC booklet
Seated one day at the organ I was weary and ill at ease And my fingers wandered idly Over the noisy keys I know not what I was playing Or what I was dreaming then; But I struck one chord of music Like...
View ArticleSir Charles Trevelyan, the Irish Potato Famine and the inversion of reality....
This post is written by Paul Marks and is posted on his behalf as he is not in a position to post. Part of the story of Sir Charles Trevelyan is fairly well known and accurately told. Charles Trevelyan...
View ArticleThe gamekeeper is on her rounds
“I implore people to stop using private healthcare: it’s killing the NHS”, writes Jessica Arnold, who is described as “associate director of primary care for NHS Bromley clinical commissioning group”....
View ArticleYou keep using that word “economy”. I do not think it means what you think it...
“UK green economy has shrunk since 2014”, laments the Guardian. The number of people employed in the “low carbon and renewable energy economy” declined by more than 11,000 to 235,900 between 2014 and...
View ArticleCould you live in this socialist country?
Is the challenge from YT Vlogger ‘bald and bankrupt‘, in this video, filmed recently in Cuba. ‘bald’ as he is referred to, appears to be a chap from Brighton (if you watch his oeuvre) who walks around...
View ArticleWhy Jack Powell and 1828 are not wasting their time trying to influence the...
Tomorrow evening, I am hosting a talk at my home which will be given by Jack Powell. Here’s the short biographical note that Powell sent me, to send out to my email list of potential attenders: Jack...
View ArticleMore thoughts on what the virus might bring about
Dr Stephen Davies of the Institute of Economic Affairs likes to make various political/economic predictions, such as on Facebook, and he claims much of our political landscape has changed in ways that...
View ArticleYes, we have no Eurobonds, we have no Eurobonds today
There’s a fruit store on our street It’s run by a Greek. And he keeps good things to eat But you should hear him speak! When you ask him anything, he never answers “no”. He just “yes”es you to death,...
View ArticleWhat are the best arguments for libertarianism?
Coronavirus is dominating all our lives just now, but I have little to say about it other than that I, like almost everyone else, wish it all to stop, both the virus itself and the measures now...
View ArticleSamizdata half-forgotten sorta-quote of the day
If there is a disaster, would you like people for hundreds of miles around to drop everything and make herculean efforts to get those worst affected exactly the sort of help they need most – even when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A new book by Anton Howes about the Royal Society of Arts is coming out soon
Yes, I learn from a tweet by Anton Howes, a young academic whom I greatly admire, that his first book, entitled Arts & Minds: How The Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation will be out on May 12th....
View ArticleNow, that’s what I call optimism!
“Council borrowed £1bn from taxpayers to bet on British sunshine”, report Gareth Davies and Charles Boutaud of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Among Thurrock’s rundown council estates and...
View ArticleSolving the problem of dogs stuck to the ceiling
A concerned citizen writes, Little know fact: sometimes dogs float to the ceiling and get stuck there. It’s a serious problem and we should really start to talk about it more to find a solution. I urge...
View ArticleIf Corbyn had won we’d have had free broadband by 2030
As in we would have had it. 15 November 2019: General election 2019: Labour pledges free broadband for all Labour has promised to give every home and business in the UK free full-fibre broadband by...
View ArticleThe revolting revolting rich
Ed West provided the quote about younger sons of Norman lords which became the SQotD for June 4th. He has now written a follow up piece, “Why the rich are revolting” Today’s unrest involves two...
View ArticleA change of tune
“Brussels moves to preserve access to London clearing houses”, reports the Financial Times. Brussels is to adopt emergency measures to preserve Europe’s access to crucial UK financial market...
View Article