The free movement of people is the EU’s “most incendiary issue”. This “sacred principle” to which the Brussels ideologues remain devoted isn’t just a sticking point in Brexit negotiations, it’s a source of tension across the Union: currently, France violates its spirit by patrolling the Italian border to stop migrants slipping through. More than …
Continue reading ‘Free movement within the EU may not survive.’ »
To The Guardian Fifty years ago, only the top 2%* of the population went to university, and about 10% of them got firsts, so that’s 0.2% of the population. Now, 30% go to university , and 25% of them get firsts, making 7.5% of the population. The universities say there is no grade inflation, so …
It’s official. Yet again, the US federal government has shut down, since the bill needed to fund the government has failed to clear the 60 votes required to overcome the filibuster in the Senate. It feels like we’ve been here before, with Republicans and Democrats blaming each other for the shutdown, both sides accusing the …
Continue reading ‘Why Republicans and Democrats need to compromise on immigration.’ »
“Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I’ll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit.” Thus tweeted Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs, on 19th October. It was the first time a major American financial services firm had signalled a shift of its European operations away from London …
They used to say there are but three ways to ruin the class of petit-bourgeois savers who form the backbone of all successful democracies: a banking collapse (as in the 1929 crash); hyperinflation (as in banana republics); or straightforward state expropriation (as in oppressive taxation). Now we’ve invented a fourth. The introduction of zero to …
Continue reading ‘The crippling cost of zero interest rates’ »
