The year 2019 saw the continuation of “the world’s most bizarre financial experiment ever”, said Merryn Somerset Webb on MoneyWeek.com – “negative interest rates”. The European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank were among those charging investors for the privilege of holding their bonds. There are now $16trn-worth of negative-yielding government bonds in the …
To The Economist: “So, three-and-a-half years after the Brexit referendum, Britain is leaving the European Union on 31 January. For millions of people, particularly in eastern Europe, the country we tend to call “Anglia” has been a benchmark of nobility, of spirit and excellence. Britain is deeply embedded in our cultural make-up. During the War, …
Continue reading ‘As the U.K. shuffles out of the EU, a revealing letter’ »
In late December 2018, when James “Mad Dog” Mattis resigned as secretary of defense after President Trump announced that he was going to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, it was a big story . The former general was pundited to heaven and back as the last “adult in the room”, praised in Congress and …
“Like a giant company which fails to draw any lessons from the loss of a major customer, the EU has learnt nothing from the fact that one of its largest members has voted to leave it. Trapped in the sterility of the status quo, its leaders are like members of the Ancien Régime, oblivious to …
History shows that violence generally climbs in election years, and given the media-fueled polarization of Americans just now, 2020 bodes to be especially combustible in the United States (it has been such in the UK). Unlike 2001, when hate crimes peaked in the aftermath of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 assaults, this time the threat of violence is …
Dictatorships are un-Epicurean. Period. Thus, standing up to China, which already by some measures is economically ahead to the US (dear, oh, dear) is to be applauded. While I agree that politics should not be discussed on this forum, resisting dictators and would-be dictators intent on world domination seems to be a no-brainer. It appears …
The six big US tech firms. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft are accused of avoiding tax by shifting revenue and profits through tax havens or low-tax countries, like Ireland. They are also accused of deliberately delaying payment of what tax they do end up paying. Fair Tax Mark accuses Amazon of being the …
To The Sunday Times In 1960s Oxford I would see Cecil Rhodes’s statue, think how wrong he was and walk on. That is life in an open, tolerant country: bits of our history are sticking up everywhere, and we are free to admire, condemn or laugh at them. I prefer that to a country in …
Rights campaigners in Britain have described as “utterly chilling” a secret database compiled by counter-terrorism police containing personal information about thousands of people referred to the government’s controversial anti-radicalisation Prevent programme. The Prevent Case Management (PCM) database is accessible to all police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Home Office is …
People add their genetic data to genealogy DNA databanks in the hope of tracing long-lost relatives, biological parents and so on. They don’t expect their genomes to be accessed by the police. Yet officials in the US have used “investigative genetic genealogy” in more than 100 cases. One genetic testing company, Family Tree DNA, has …
To The Sunday Times In 1960s Oxford I would see Cecil Rhodes’s statue, think how wrong he was and walk on. That is life in an open, tolerant country: bits of our history are sticking up everywhere, and we are free to admire, condemn or laugh at them. I prefer that to a country in …
Heartlessness is now official US policy The Trump administration is deporting thousands of legal immigrants to countries “they barely know”. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement authority (ICE) can find any refugee “deportable” if they’ve a crime on their record – even selling marijuana – and that covers about 120,000 immigrants who came here as refugees. …
“It is better for you to be free of fear and lying on a bed of straw than to own a couch of gold and a lavish table, and yet have no peace of mind”. (Quote from “The Essential Epicurus”, by Eugene O’Connor, Great Books in Philosophy series) The wide gulf between what companies pay their …
According to a new study, a huge amount of atmospheric warming is caused by the cloud-like vapor trails – or “contrails” – that planes leave in their wake when flying at high altitude. These are created when vaporised water condenses or freezes around sooty exhaust particles to create cirrus-type clouds. These can persist for hours, …
Back in September the US government announced new detention rules that would radically scale back the protections for child migrants in America. Under the existing Flores agreement, undocumented children must be held in the “least restrictive settings” and released as soon as possible, ideally within 20 days. The agreement also entitles lawyers to monitor their …
